Acts 9:1-20 Ps. 30
Rev. 5:11-14 John 21:1-19
While the Gospels might be called discipleship manuals for the early Christian associations, I would like to understand them as manual for the transformation of disciples into good shepherds.
The Gospels are not very favorable in their presentations of the disciples. Sometimes they presented like the proverbial Sleepy and Dopey Dwarfs following in clueless ways Jesus of Nazareth. Peter, is presented as one who is brash and confident and sure of his knowledge of the Messiah. He is certain of his bravery and is confident that he will stand by Jesus forever. But he is rebuked as being with Satan regarding his knowledge of the truth of the Messiah, namely the suffering Messiah. For Peter, he wanted to be strong and brave with the conquering Messiah, not with a suffering and crucified Messiah.
The disciples are presented as power hungry naive literalists who really do not understand the mission of Jesus of Nazareth. However, the aftermath of their discipleship training is presented in their post-resurrection of Christ transformations. Some of their feats which have made them heroes of the church are presented in the Acts of the Apostles. The Acts of the Apostles are exploits of the disciples after their Risen Christ encounters.
I hope that we can appreciate the teaching function of how the educated writers who wrote the Gospels many years and many miles away from the Palestine of Jesus in the first thirty years of the first century.
Today's Gospel story about the post-resurrection encounter of Peter with Jesus encapsulates the Gospel process for those who were called to be in these new associations of the followers of Christ.
The goal of the Gospel teaching process is to move from being a neophyte and immature student to becoming a good shepherd, after the witness of the Good Shepherd himself, Jesus Christ.
The writer of John's Gospel presented a story to encapsulate how this happened in the example of one disciple, namely Simon Peter.
Peter was the proud, brash, and ignorant follower of Jesus who had to be crushed by his own experience of self-disillusionment. Peter is presented as one who was operating from the false understanding of what kind of Messiah Jesus was. If Jesus was like a Davidic conquering Messiah, then Peter was certain that he would be onboard, because he was happy to be a general or prime minister or satrap in the kingdom of such a Messiah. One can appreciate Peter's logic: If Jesus is going to be a conquering king, then surely I will never deny such a conquering hero; it would be unwise to do so.
Oh,oh. Jesus the Messiah turns out to be the suffering servant figure of Isaiah who died upon the cross. And Peter lost his nerve and his bravery. So much so that he even swore that he did not know Jesus or that he had been associated with him. And as the story goes, he denied him vehemently three times.
Today's appointed Gospel is about the restoration of Peter by the Risen Christ. The experience of the Risen Christ for Peter meant that he could recover from the self-disillusionment caused by his own thinking that he was braver and stronger and smarter than he could actually perform.
The Risen Christ asked Peter three times if Peter loved him. And Peter confessed his love and affinity three times, as it were to counter and repair the three times that he had denied him during the pre-crucifixion trial.
And each question and answer is followed with a commissioning command: Feed my sheep, feed my lambs, feed my sheep. The Risen Christ converted Peter from the self-disillusioned bumbling disciple into a post-resurrection good shepherd who as the writer of John indicated would be himself carried to a death not of his own choosing.
The Gospel of John, is a teaching Gospel presenting Jesus as the exemplar Good Shepherd. And the goal of the teaching Gospel is to bring selfish disciples through a process of learning from Jesus, the sacrificial service of becoming a good shepherd on behalf of members of the Johannine associations of followers of Christ who had vulnerable people looking for belonging in unfavorable situations for religious groups which did not comply with the accepted religious standards of the Roman Empire.
The Christian associations needed shepherds for their flocks; and the Gospel of John presented them with a manual of how to be transformed from a disciple to a shepherd.
Let us today not grovel in our self-disillusionment of falsely thinking more than we actually are; let us discover the Risen Christ within us strength to be those who learn to care for others, in a world where the world empires allow many to fall through the cracks in adequate care and dignity situations.
Let us move from being disciples to shepherds of care, following Jesus Christ as the exemplar Good Shepherd. Amen.
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