Easter 3 Year C 2025: John 21:1-19

In your senior year at Virginia Seminary, every Master in Divinity student has the opportunity to preach at Chapel. It’s a rite of passage to give your “senior sermon”. And it’s fun to see all your classmates preach. It’s really the only opportunity to do so, since Sunday mornings everyone is spread out in their various parishes across the DC Metro. After my senior sermon, my friend Stephen gave me perhaps the best compliment he could’ve given: that I had done a Greek word study and it did not make him want to end our friendship; I had made it interesting.

Perhaps I took the compliment too much to heart, because I quite possibly have used it as an excuse to talk about translation a bit too much. My husband has said that if there was a Claire Sermon Bingo, it would certainly include a square labeled “if you look at the Greek…” But I haven’t spent all of that time declining nouns and conjugating verbs and comparing Greek commentaries as an exercise in enjoying my own cleverness. It is one of the ways in which I live my ordination vows. If I truly believe the Holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments to be the Word of God and to contain all things necessary to salvation - as I solemnly declared I believe at my ordination - then I am certainly called to do my best to figure out what they meant.

I am, of course, not against English translations of the Bible. However, it sometimes gets us into trouble because we assume that, because it is in a language that we speak, that we should be able to understand the text simply by reading it in its translated state. And, without some Greek, this story from John is almost silly. Why does Jesus say “do you love me?” so many times? Why is Peter hurt the third time? There are several different words in biblical Greek that translate to love. Particularly pertinent to this story are “agape” and “philios”. “Agape”, the selfless, sacrificial, unconditional love that is most of the time the word Jesus uses himself and is used to describe Jesus’ love and God’s love. To contrast, “philios” is used to express a type of love characterized by friendship, affection, and fondness. It denotes a warm, tender, and personal love, often associated with close relationships and emotional bonds. So unlike "agape," which is used to describe unconditional, sacrificial love, "philios" emphasizes mutual respect and shared experiences.

Why does this matter? Find verse 15 in the Gospel text in your bulletin. I am going to read Jesus and Peter’s exchange, but substitute the more precise Greek word every time we see “love”:

When they had finished breakfast, Jesus said to Simon Peter, "Simon son of John, do you agape me more than these?" He said to him, "Yes, Lord; you know that I philios you." Jesus said to him, "Feed my lambs." A second time he said to him, "Simon son of John, do you agape me?" He said to him, "Yes, Lord; you know that I philios you." Jesus said to him, "Tend my sheep." He said to him the third time, "Simon son of John, do you philios me?" Peter felt hurt because he said to him the third time, "Do you philios me?" And he said to him, "Lord, you know everything; you know that I philios you." Jesus said to him, "Feed my sheep.”

I’ve heard an interpretation of this text as “Jesus meets us where we are.” But I don’t think that’s giving Jesus, or us, enough credit. Jesus began by calling Peter to more. Although Peter isn’t ready for it, Jesus starts by calling him - twice - to sacrificial love. And the third time, when it seems like Jesus kind of gives in and settles for friendship love, Peter is hurt because Jesus changed his call.

When I was in college, I was really involved with club Taekwondo. During training, we would often be paired with another student and take turns holding a kicking pad for each other. We would hold them up high, but reasonably so. But every so often, our instructor, Master Pak, would cut in and take a turn holding the pad. And he would hold that pad high. So high it felt unreasonable. And if you didn’t at least brush the pad with the ball of your foot, he would repeat the number. Seven. Seven. Seven. And if you missed too many times he would go backwards, and now the whole class is back at Six. But he never lowered the pad. And we always made it to Ten. Master Pak was a good and experienced teacher that knew what his students were capable of and wasn’t going to settle for less, even if it was difficult or more than we thought we could do. I wonder if Jesus switching his question from agape to philios felt like lowering the pad to Simon Peter.

But in my excitement about why Peter is really hurt - not by the threefold question, but by the third question being different - maybe I’m missing the point. One of the bibles I used this week called this story “Jesus Reinstates Peter”. What I like about that framing is that it focuses on what Simon Peter was called to do by Jesus. Regardless of whether Peter philios-es or agape-s Jesus, he is to “feed my lambs”, “tend my sheep”, and “feed my sheep”. In whatever way we feel accurately articulates our feelings towards Jesus, we are called to the same service. Jesus didn’t say “wait until you can say ‘I agape you’ and then we’ll talk”, he entrusts his flock to the man who denied him three times at the crucifixion by means of three expressions of devotion.

While Jesus recognizes where we are, he recognizes what we can be and that we are never so far lost that we can’t go from “I don’t know him” to “Lord, you know that I love you”. Simon Peter put on clothes, jumped into the sea, and ran with his water-logged clothing to Jesus because he couldn’t wait for the boat to be brought in from a close distance. Part of what makes Simon Peter so lovable as a character is how recognizable he is. It is so easy to see ourselves in Peter. One of the things many people, myself included, are most fearful of being is a coward. And Simon Peter, in his denials of Jesus, was a coward. But his story didn’t end there. Whatever we have been, whatever mistakes we have made, we are made right by and through our Risen Lord. Amen.