Easter 3 (C) + Loved, we follow + 4.10.16

(pixabay.com)

M. Campbell-Langdell

All Saints, Oxnard

(Acts 9:1–6, (7–20); Ps. 30; Revelation 5:11–14; John 21:1–19)

Some of you may have seen an article in the paper a couple of weeks ago, about a child who was taken from her California foster family and placed with relatives in Utah, an act that in itself is not too surprising. But that what was difficult in this situation was that due to the long court process, the fault of whom I am not sure, the foster family was very convinced that this child was theirs and the pictures of their loss were hard to see. You felt for them, even as you also imagined the joy, at least one hopes, in the girl’s distant relatives as they received her.

But I remembered a quote from the article. Leslie Starr Heimov of the Children’s Law Center of California stated that we ask Foster parents to do the nigh impossible:  “We ask [foster parents] to love a child as if it's their own and then to let that child go, and that's an extremely difficult thing to do.”[1]

This really caught my eye as, as many of you know, Pr. Alene and I are in the foster-adopt process. This process is very similar in that initially we would be foster parents, but it comes with the possibility that we could potentially adopt whatever child or children are placed in our home. When I told a friend recently that this was not a “for sure” that we would be able to adopt, even after this lengthy process of application and learning about the children available for adoption, she put her head in her hands and said, “Oh, Melissa!” And I knew what she meant. What do you mean, you are going to take a child in, fall in love with him or her, and then possibly let him or her go?

But, looking at today’s scripture from the Gospel of John, I cannot help but think that we humans feel this desire to love and care for others precisely because this is how God loves us.

Take Jesus and Peter. They are sitting by this charcoal fire by the beach, and while at the last fire where we saw Peter, he denied Jesus three times, here Jesus asks him three times if he loves him. Now, in the English translation both words here are translated as “love,” but in the Greek they would be “agapao” and “phileo.” The first two times Jesus asks Peter if he loves him, he is using that word “agapao” which means the all-encompassing, intimate love that God has for us. But Peter responds with “phileo,” a word used for brotherly love. In a way, it is almost like they are in one of those late night male bonding conversations that is a little awkward, and Jesus is like “do you love me man, I mean, really love me?” and Peter is like, “be cool, dude, you know I love you… like a brother!” It is like Peter definitely loves Jesus but is having a little trouble quite expressing the all-encompassing love that Jesus has for him back. It makes him uncomfortable. And there is good reason for this.

Because imagine what you would feel like if you were Peter here. Probably pretty mortified. Let’s just lay it out there. In recent days he has expressed his complete devotion to Jesus, even to the death, and then when it got bad for Jesus, what did he do? Did he stand up for his man? No. He denied he ever knew the guy. He was probably feeling pretty ashamed in this moment. And here comes Jesus, talking about if he loves him? And I don’t know if you have experienced shame, I mean, bad shame, but the odd thing about it is that it can paralyze you. Even if you love someone, you might feel so bad that you cannot quite express your feelings. So it comes out like “yes, I really care for you a lot” when you want to say “I love you, man.”
And this made me think of how Peter, and we, are all like foster kids in a way. We want to love God. We do love God. But sometimes we feel ashamed, and we don’t really know how to do it. How to express ourselves. And we shy away from trusting that God will love us back. Alene and I have no guarantee that even if children are placed in our home that they will love us back. And God takes that risk with each of us. God created us with the option to love God back, or not. Sometimes that amazes me. But then when I think of the alternative, I think that is the only way that God knows we truly love God back. Because we make that choice.

But there is something beautiful here in the interaction between Jesus and Peter. The third time Jesus asks Peter if he loves him, he uses Peter’s word for love. “So man, you love me like a brother?” And Peter gets sad. Maybe he is ashamed that Jesus had to use a less powerful word than is true for how he really feels. Perhaps. But I imagine that Peter was more moved than sad here. Because after all he had done and gone through, Jesus loved him enough to meet him where he was. To connect in the way Peter was able to connect. He accepted him and loved him and accepted his love, poor as it was. And he does the same for us. Even when we are ashamed or don’t know how to love God well.

Because we are fellow heirs of God with Christ through adoption. And Christ loves us not just like any brother, but with the all-encompassing love of God.

And love is a gift to be shared. So that means that we must feed the sheep. Sometimes literally. I love when we have simple foodstuffs to give away from the office, even when the pantry is closed, because I never know when a homeless person will just show up and I will get an opportunity to literally feed the sheep. We have folks that come here on off-hours who cannot be around others due to a mental health or abuse background but trust us to feed them something if we have it. But sometimes feeding God’s sheep is not so literal. Sometimes it is sharing a bit of love by offering a listening ear even if you may never get that love or attention back from that individual.

This is risky. At the end of the passage Peter is told that not only is he taking back his denial, he will in fact have an opportunity to make good his statement about giving his life. Jesus says he will be led to where he does not want to go. Sometimes we will also make sacrifices.
But we go forward anyway, even if sometimes we feel as blind as Paul on the road to Damascus, because that is the Christian life, to listen and to follow.
But knowing that we do it because God first loved us.
So come, let us love one another, feed the sheep, and follow.

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[1] Hailey Branson-Potts, “Santa Clarita foster parents appeal to state Supreme Court in tribal custody battle,” March 23, 2016, http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-native-american-santa-clarita-foster-20160321-story.html.