Do You Love Me? Feed My Sheep!
Thursday, February 25, 2010 at 02:31PM A Week of Compassion Reflection on John 21:15-19
How do we love well? To love well speaks to the quality of our love, not the quantity. I don’t believe Jesus was asking Peter how much he loved him, but simply, how did he love him. How do we, then, as followers of Jesus the Christ, love well?
“Simon, son of John, do you love me more than these?” What is Jesus really asking Peter here? Peter, caught a bit off guard, says, “Of course, Lord, you know that I love you.” Jesus responds by saying, “Ok then, feed my lambs.”
A second time Jesus says to Peter, “Simon, son of John, do you love me?” Peter responds again, perhaps a bit more frustrated, “Yes, Lord, you know that I do!” This time Jesus says, “Then tend my sheep.” Tend my sheep. We’re not only feeding now, but tending, caring for the whole animal, not little lambs any longer, but full-grown sheep.
Tend my sheep, Jesus said. Take care of one another; accompany your sisters and brothers on the journey to healing. Commit to them for the long haul.
But Jesus asks Peter yet a third time, “Simon, son of John, do you love me?” This time Peter gets totally exasperated. “Lord, you know everything; you know that I love you!” to which Jesus says, “Ok then, feed my sheep. For very truly I tell you, when you were younger, you used to fasten your own belt and go wherever you wished. But when you grow up, you will stretch out your hands and someone else will fasten a belt around you and lead you to where you do not want to go.” After this he finished his inquisition of Peter by saying, “Follow me.”
Follow me. Yet we find it challenging just to follow the news! Feed my sheep, Jesus said. To love me is to follow me. To follow me is to care deeply, effectively and appropriately for others, and this means standing up for those the world has forgotten and speaking out for those who are in misery and poverty. To love me is to follow me; this also means doing the unpopular and the misunderstood. It can even mean risking our very lives.
Do you love me? What Jesus is actually asking Simon Peter is, “Do you agape me?” Agapan, in New Testament Greek, is a verb meaning sacrificial, redemptive love, often understood as the highest form of love. “Do you love me in this way, Peter?” And he responds, “Yes Lord, you know that I am your friend; I have such affection for you,” using the Greek verb philein. But this kind of love between friends or even family is not necessarily agape love. Jesus asks again, “But do you love me? You’re not hearing me! What is the quality of your love, Peter?” After all that time being a disciple of Jesus, after all that work and commitment, Jesus asks him only then to follow him. Follow me, he says to Peter. If you love me, follow me. Give all that you have right back to God. This is what it means to love me well.
It is often a long, painstaking, arduous journey to learn to follow Christ. It takes courageous compassion. It takes a commitment. It takes sacrificial giving so that others may not suffer but have enough. That’s loving well. On your own journey of discipleship, what is the quality of your love? Do you love Christ the way Christ loves you?, with a love so powerful that it rises out of the rubble? a love so pure that even in the darkness and total chaos, surrounded by post-earthquake debris, it sings songs of praise to God all night long? a love so profound it leads you to the cross?
Do you love him? Do you love him? Do you love him?
Love well. Feed Christ’s sheep. Please give sacrificially to this year’s Week of Compassion Special Offering so that we are able to meet the needs of God’s people each and every day.
Where in the World Has WoC Been This Week?
DEVELOPMENT AND LONG-TERM RECOVERY & REHABILITATION
DR Congo, educational support
DR Congo, rural community support
Egypt, interfaith dialgue & conflict resolution
Reader Comments (1)
The account of compassionate intervention by church-related NGOs is encouraging and inspiring. Nonetheless, there seems to be an 800 pound gorilla in the room: i.e., questions raised about indigenous governance in Haiti and Haiti's political future, as it is inevitably affected by the problematic history of U.S. foreign policy, including military intervention in the 19th Century and occupation in the 20th. I have raised questions in the Church in Society Committee of the Pacific Southwest Region about a number of phenomena that were evident early in the accounts of the recent earthquake devastation: the main stream media's repeated breathless anticipation of widespread civil unrest, based upon the assumption that the citizens of such a "failed state" could only be expected to run amok (when, in fact, for several days in the early phases of response, the evidence was more of Haitians focusing on using their bare hands to dig into the soil to rescue their compatriots); the sense of unease, and sometimes outrage, that was undisguised in the press over the detention of the U.S. Baptists who sought to hasten the departure of Haitian children to "adoptive parents" in the U.S., when questions arose about whether, in fact, the children were orphans; and the subsequent silence of the press (even the so-called progressive radio and TV journalists) in conducting any sort of in-depth, intellectually critical analysis of the motivations of Haitian parents who did, in fact, offer their children for adoption by U.S. citizens, as though the only story to be told was about impoverished black Caribbeans making a logical decision to divest themselves of their progeny, in favor of a better future in North America. (I cynically thought of promoting such a project in the U.S., encouraging inner city black and Latino parents to offer their children to suburban, middle class Anglos, since too many of our inner core metropolitan areas are essentially "failed states", as well. But, alas, it was a fleeting thought.)
The earthquake may have been an "act of God" (a divine visitation we in California know only too well), but the contrast between the outcome of the Chilean disaster and that in Haiti had more to do with human failings than supernatural behavior -- the Haitian elites continually propped up by U.S. political and business interests, failing to address the needs of their poorer brothers and sisters. Although I can't immediately cite the occasion, I heard recently of a speech delivered by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., in which he commented on the need not solely to mimic the compassion of the Good Samaritan, but to clean up the despicable conditions on the Jericho Road. THis seems to me to be the warrant for the U.S. posture vis a vis Haitian governance.
I've volunteered to write an article for Church in Society raising questions about the underlying causes of economic and social problems in Haiti. But, before I launch that effort, I'd really like to know whether:
1) Disciples/UCC Joint Global Ministries is moving beyond compassionate response to the symptoms of Haitian social problems to, at least, lobby elected officials in Washington, D.C. regarding the relevant causative factors; and
2) Haitian immigrant Disciples, principally in the Northeast Region, perceive a need for the church to address those causes, or, to the contrary, they prefer that the church essentially stop at the political "water's edge", focus solely on compassionate relief and affirm such individualized approaches as child adoptions and maintaining the conventional escape routes to the U.S. --- essentially the laborious immigration path that contrasts so demonstrably with the expeditious and advantageous way Cuban immigrants (always referred to as political refugees) are processed. Haitian immigrant Disciples are an important voice to heed, even if they may view the broader politico-economic context differently, refracted through a more conservative cultural lens. [Even The Economist commented that, though the efforts of the Dominican Republic were admirable, there was an element of realpolitik in that government's response: i.e., a desire to fend off the possibility of a wave of Haitian refugees crossing the border. The Haitian-American novelist Edwidge Danticat has written probingly on the topic of 20th Century Haitian-Dominican relations.]
I was encouraged when I retrieved the most recent Christian Century magazine from my mailbox and discovered Michael Kinnamon's call for Wall Street to devote some of its largesse (the year-end bonus bonanza) to strengthening Haitian economic viability. Hopefully, Disciples will publicly salute and celebrate Michael's declaration.