Real Talk – Br. Lain Wilson
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“How’re you doing?”
How do you usually answer this question? “I’m fine,” perhaps, or “I’m okay.” In our daily interactions we get asked seemingly polite questions like this over and over, and we are conditioned to respond politely.
They don’t want to know your whole life story.
Unless they do. But we can’t know their intention—unless they persist, unless they make known their intention.
“How’re you doing?” “No, really, how’re you doing?”
How do you feel knowing that someone else truly cares to know something true about you?
“Peter felt hurt because [Jesus] said to him the third time, ‘Do you love me?’” (Jn 21:17).
The passage is clear here that Jesus’s repeated asking is the cause of Peter’s hurt. But I think there’s something else going on beneath the surface. It’s not just that Peter is hurt because he is being doubted, but rather that there may be some basis for this doubt.
I think Peter’s hurt at the questioning reveals something true about him: that he has been hurting, that he has been grieving, grieving this whole time—grieving his failure, his cowardice in denying Jesus. Perhaps, that he has been questioning his own love of Jesus—or, rather, his own worthiness for that love.
But this repeated questioning is, I think, Jesus saying, “No, really.” Jesus invites Peter to be real, and it is important that these three repeated questions yield the same answers: “Yes, you know I do.”
“You know I do.”
Peter is raw, pleading, and unequivocal—“Lord, you know everything; you know that I love you” (Jn 21:17).
The questions—and the answers—aren’t for Jesus. Jesus already knows. They’re for Peter, who may need that repeated invitation to be real, to bring to the surface his own grief, to know assuredly not only that he loves but that he is loved. And to hear—also, repeated three times—the way that this love will be lived out in the world: “Feed my sheep.”
And these questions are for us, our own invitation to dig deeper, to be real, to be assured in our own claim. To be able to answer the question “Do you love me?” with our own “Yes, Lord; you know I do.” And to live that love out in the world.
Amen.
Thank you, Br. Lain! “No, How are you really?” led me to a deeper understanding of this very familiar passage, not only about Peter, but about my own need to answer these questions from Jesus.
I’m so grateful to be able to hear your voice as well as read your homily. Thanks to those behind the scenes who make this happen. It is an important ministry!
Blessings to you and all at SSJE!
Ann Hoffman
I have been taught that the word for love used here was different. First two times Jesus used the more powerful word but Peter responded with filia, brothrerly love, and that Jesus changed from Adonai the third time to filia. That changed subtly the answer. Yes, Peter, you do love me as a brother. But Peter is called to a higher deeper love.
Yes, I think this is true. And also, Jesus wanted Peter to hear repeatedly that he was still trusted, still commissioned to work for Jesus and to take leadership in the fledgling church. He may also have doubted his ability to do that or his worthiness, and Jesus makes it clear: slipping up, failing, does not mean you’re fired!
Thank you.
Your message led me to ponder and dig deeper.
Yes, I love Jesus, but what does that require of me?
Love is not a one-way street. I know Jesus loves me, but how do I reciprocate that love?
I must put aside my ego, make Jesus the center of my life, and follow his teachings. In doing so, I must remember Bonhoeffer’s dictum, which is that following is my invitation to die—a death that is not necessarily physical but one that requires me to follow Jesus rather than all the voices that beckon from the media and my own ego.
Hi John – in one respect it is a total one way street – I can’t remember if it was Philip Yancy or Chuck Swindoll who said that if you are preaching grace right it almost seems like heresy – but it was while we were / are sinners Christ loves us – we are deeply sinful but wow does he reach through – and wow does he love us
You’re right that God loves us just as we are and before we follow Jesus. But, perhaps because God loves us, God calls us to follow Jesus. We don’t in any way earn God’s love, but we are invited to respond to it. And it’s when we say yes to that, again and again, that we grow in Christ and really become Christians.
What I love about this story and the story of Thomas, is that they’re still there. They mess up, they doubt, but they don’t leave and they’re not kicked out. And Jesus comes to each of them in the gathering of the church, and makes it clear that they still belong to him, they’re still God’s beloved children. And they still have a job.