John 21:15-19
The Rev. Dr. Robert S. Langworthy, preaching
May 11, 2025
We who follow Jesus are to become for a watching world evidence that God is alive and active on earth. We are to make God visible to others.
We do that by loving God completely, loving ourselves correctly and loving others compassionately.
Loving God by loving our neighbor is the essence of following Jesus. If we don’t love others, we don’t belong to Him. Love, of course, is fundamentally not a feeling or an intention, but an enacted commitment to help others.
After His post-Easter miracle breakfast along the shore of the Sea of Tiberias, Jesus pulled Peter aside for some private conversation. In a back-and-forth dialogue whose pattern varied in a significant way only once, Jesus probed Peter three times in a row about his commitment to love Him and His sheep.
The threefold questioning of Peter matched Peter’s threefold denial of Jesus the night of His arrest and provided Peter a threefold opportunity to re-establish His commitment to love God and others for God.
Jesus added to the end of His first question a phrase He didn’t use with the other two. Jesus asked Simon Peter, “Simon, son of John, do you love me more than these?” More than these what? Or more than whom?
At the Last Supper, right before His arrest, Jesus announced that all His disciples would desert Him. In protest, Peter boasted of having “more than” the other disciples a steadfastness in his loyalty to Jesus. Peter claimed, “Even though all become deserters, I will never desert you…even if I must die with you, I will not deny you.”
Alone with Jesus, Peter knew there was nothing he could say to excuse his foolishness and failure. So when Jesus asked him about his commitment to love Him, all Peter could speak of was the intention of his heart that he hoped he could now fulfill. With his delusional pride knocked out of him, and with dependence on Jesus’ grace, he simply said, “Lord, you know that I love you.” Jesus simply replied with a charge that Peter become a shepherd like Jesus and love Him by lovingly taking care of His sheep.
This back-and-forth exchange was repeated two more rounds. When Jesus asked Peter about his love the third time, it “hurt” Peter (the Bible says). Jesus did not then comfort Peter and alleviate his pain; but instead proceeded to tell him that even greater pain awaited him in the future. Banking on Peter’s remembering His teaching that the “good shepherd lays down his life for his sheep”, Jesus told the soon-to-be-shepherding Peter that, in fulfilling that commission, he’d lose the freedom of his youth, have his hands bound like a criminal, be taken where he did not wish to go, and have his hands “stretched out”. Most Bible interpreters take this to mean “stretched out” like a man nailed to a cross in a crucifixion – especially since the Gospel writer John right away remarked, “[Jesus] said this to indicate the kind of death by which [Peter] would glorify God.”
Jesus concluded their conversation by inviting Peter once more to do what Jesus had invited Peter and the other disciples to do many times before: “Follow me.” In Peter’s case that meant following the Good Shepherd who laid down His life for His sheep all the way to his own literal crucifixion. At the Last Supper Jesus had told Peter that he was not yet able to follow Him in martyrdom, but that later he would be able. Now, by the gift of Easter, that moment of divine enablement had arrived. Extra-biblical histories tell us that under-shepherd Peter was in fact martyred by being crucified.
Not every follower of Jesus is called, as Peter was, to lay down their life in martyrdom, but every follower is called to give their life in loving God by lovingly serving those God has entrusted to their care.
None of us can serve everyone, and none of us can meet every need of anyone; but all of us are expected to embrace some folks within our circle of care and concern and to embody for them the love of Jesus.
It is unprecedented how many today want for a supportive community around them. Two years ago, former U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy wrote about the present epidemic of loneliness and its dire consequences. According to recent studies, 79% of those aged 18 to 24 and 41% of those 66 and older say they often feel lonely. Their lacking meaningful, helpful relationships leads to increased physical health problems, increased emotional health problems, and a reduced likelihood of attaining a satisfying life.
This latter assertion is confirmed by Harvard’s multi-generational study, now in its 87th year, that’s tracked about 2,000 people from their teen years to their grave. It has found that the crucial factor in attaining a satisfying life is not exercise, a healthy diet, career achievement or even making a difference for good. While these things matter greatly, one factor trumps them all: having relationships with people who care about them and who help them as much as they can.
My mother used to say, “People need so very little; they just need it so very much.” Sometimes we can establish a connection with someone and lift their spirits without much effort – by, say, giving them a warm smile, wishing them a good day, offering them food or thanking them for something they did.
Other times it takes a little more effort, but often not much – say, when in a grocery line we let someone with just one or two items go ahead of us, when we ask someone how they’re doing and then really listen, or when we run an errand for an overstressed, overwhelmed person.
And many impactful acts of kindness take less time than we suppose. For example, Harvard Medical School Professor Robert Waldinger asserts that an eight-minute phone call is long enough to be a meaningful and supportive conversation that inspires someone to realize a better life.
The Good Shepherd died and rose again, not just to make us His sheep, but to make us little shepherds who tend and feed His other sheep for Him.
I love how Christian counselor Roger Thompson talks about developing into a little shepherd for Jesus. He says it’s like learning to jog. At first you go slow and easy. Your initial goal is just to keep moving on a regular basis, as you build momentum by stages. So, you don’t at the start run all out as hard as you can – lest you pull a muscle or throw up, and swear you’ll never try running again. Since your output can only match your input, you’ve got to be patient and persevere in gradually expanding your capacity to use oxygen to fuel your running. In the same way, you learn to be a little shepherd for Jesus by starting slow and persistently expanding your capacity to use the truth of God’s word and the power of God’s Spirit to fuel your serving. You carry out initially modest but increasingly more generous acts of helpfulness. If you keep on keeping on in this way, you’ll soon find yourself huffing and puffing less in serving others – and relishing the prospect of running still longer and better to love God by bringing His love to others!
Shall we all give it a try?
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