From the Lectionary for 25 May 2025 (Easter 6C)

John 14:23-29 (NRSV Updated Edition)

Jesus answered him, “Those who love me will keep my word, and my Father will love them, and we will come to them and make our home with them. Whoever does not love me does not keep my words, and the word that you hear is not mine but is from the Father who sent me.

“I have said these things to you while I am still with you. But the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you everything and remind you of all that I have said to you. Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled, and do not let them be afraid. You heard me say to you, ‘I am going away, and I am coming to you.’ If you loved me, you would rejoice that I am going to the Father, because the Father is greater than I. And now I have told you this before it occurs, so that when it does occur you may believe.

~

"Our passage doesn't give us a key element that makes it comprehensible, I'm afraid, which is that the immediately before our passage the verse before our passage has one of Jesus's disciples, Judas, but not Judas Iscariot, saying to him: “Lord, how is it that you will reveal yourself to us and not to the world?” And it's that question that Jesus is answering when he says: “Those who love me will keep my word, and my Father will love them, and we will come to them and make our home with them.” That's rather odd because the question is, 'how is that you will reveal yourself to us and not to the world.' And the Greek is *to* us, but Jesus's answer is not, “I will reveal myself *to* you,” but “I will reveal myself *in* you.” Effectively, you will have become me, you'll know it and you will be living my life, it will be within you.

"“Those who love me will keep my word and my Father will love them, and we will come to them and make our home with them.” This can be read in a moralistic way as if you're saying: if you love me then you will do this, and then my Father will come, but I really don't think that's the meaning. [...] I think that it's in [a] demonstrative sense that Jesus is saying, “This is what's going to happen: in the process of loving me, you will find yourself keeping my word, that's what loving me looks like - keeping my word, and at the same time you'll find that my Father will love you, and we will come to you and make our home with you.” In other words, Jesus will be revealing himself in us as we go through the process of hearing his word, allowing ourselves to be inhabited, indwelt by the relationship between him and the Father. He's, of course, preparing us for the giving of the Holy Spirit. And that I think is a very important point: he's talking about a process of indwelling.

"One of the things that has been going on in John's Gospel as in all the others is our being taken out of top-down God, being-outside God, and into sideways-and-within God. And here this is explaining: yup, you will become a dwelling, the Father and I will dwell in you. It's as your relationship is changed with others around you, you will be loving me, you will be becoming like me in terms of self-giving towards others, and your relationship with others has changed. And that's the sign that my Father and I are dwelling within you. Instead of there being a 'they' who is outside you, who is a wicked and frightening they, who's trying to control you, and an I who is a cowering individualist I who is frightened and constantly in a tug of war; on the contrary: the Father who is pure generosity and love will be turning your I, who is Jesus, into a receiver of grace and one capable of giving themselves away. That's what this is going to look like, and this is a process. And in that Jesus will be revealing himself in us.

"So he's answering Judas not-the-Iscariot's question in a really quite particular way, which is hugely important for any of us to understand. This is the shape of what it's going to look like to know Jesus, to be known by Jesus, to find ourselves becoming Christ."

- James Alison, from "Homily for Sixth Sunday in Easter 2022 C" (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VSbKzMnQ7Rg)

~

"[I]t is not Jesus and the Father all by themselves who are bringing about the possibility of the fruition of creation, as were by some sort of extrinsic divine fiat. What Jesus is creatively bringing into being is the human possibility of humans themselves becoming sharers in the bringing to fruition of creation. Thus, when Jesus says, “Truly, truly, I say to you, ho who believes in me will also do the works that I do; and greater works than these will he do, because I go to the Father” (John 14:12), he is indicating that his going to the Father (ie. his self-giving up to death) is creative of the possibility of those believing in him (and thus believing through him in the nondefinitive nature of death, and in the deathless nature of God) themselves becoming creative participants in creation.

[...]

"By the disciples' loving imitation of Jesus' self-giving, they will creatively make present Jesus' sonship, and thus the diving paternity, in the world which does not know it. Here John engages in an extraordinary repetition of the word 'monē', dwelling [or home], which had appeared before in verse 2, in a way which is completely in line with the “de-sacralization” of this passage and its interpretation as opening up human creation of filiation, and thus of paternity, in the world. Where in 14:2 Jesus had announced that in his Father's house there are many 'monai', mansions, here we are told that it is by a person's loving imitation of Jesus' self-giving that the Father will turn this person into a 'monē', where it is the Father and Jesus who dwell in the person who is creating divine paternity and filiation, and not alone the man who moves to a diving dwelling. So the Father's house now appears to consist in the creation of many dwellings among human beings.

"This brings out the sense in which the Parakletos [Advocate] who will come will be sent in Jesus’ name (Jn 14:7). That is, he will bring into creative presence the person of Jesus through the loving imitation of his disciples. It is not that the Holy Spirit is simply a substitute presence, acting instead of Jesus, but rather it is by Jesus going to his death (and, by giving up his Spirit bringing to completion his creative work - “It is accomplished,” tetelestai - 19:30) that all Jesus’ creative activity will be made alive in the creative activity of his disciples.

"The memory of Jesus here [(he will “remind you of all that I have said to you”)] is thus not in the first place the cure for the absence of the teacher, but the bringing to mind, and thus to the possibility of creative practice, in dependence on Jesus, of Jesus’ creative activity. This is the sense of the peace which Jesus leaves with his disciples: not the peace which is the result of the suppression of conflict, or the resolution of conflict, such as is practiced by the mechanism of expulsion of the world, but the creative peace that brings into being the primordial peace of the Creator from the beginning."

- James Alison, The Joy of Being Wrong, pp. 188-190

~

"In a telling inversion of the resurrection-exaltation sequence we find in the synoptic gospels, John presents Easter as the self-revelation of the *already* exalted Christ to his disciples. Jesus has already returned to the Father in glory upon his death. Now he returns in a risen body to his disciples in order to make possible for them participation in divine life. [...] There are thus two distinct, but related, moments in the paschal event according to John. The first is Jesus' glorification on the cross and his being “lifted up” to the Father. The second is the exalted Jesus' return to his disciples and the formation of a community that embodies the risen Christ in the world.

"If this interpretation is correct, [...] the resurrection narratives should not be thought of as tenuously related to a self-contained movement of descent and ascent that completes its cycle at the moment of Jesus' death. If Jesus' death does in fact coincide with his “going to the Father” (14:28; 16:10, 16), the resurrection remains absolutely central in John because it is that which allows *us* to participate in divine life.

"The resurrection of Jesus is his return to us as the possibility of our union with God, for our participation in the very life of God here and now. The Easter event opens up for us eternal life, a reality that is not just in our future but one that qualitatively transforms the life we are presently living."

- Brian Robinette, Grammars of Resurrection, pg. 327

[For further discussion and reflection on this week's lectionary texts: https://girardianlectionary.net/reflections/year-c/easter6c/]

From the Lectionary for 18 May 2025 (Easter 5C)

Revelation 21:1-5a (NRSV Updated Edition)

Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. And I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying,

“See, the home of God is among mortals.
He will dwell with them;
they will be his peoples,
and God himself will be with them and be their God;
he will wipe every tear from their eyes.
Death will be no more;
mourning and crying and pain will be no more,
for the first things have passed away.”

And the one who was seated on the throne said, “See, I am making all things new.”

John 13:31-35 (NRSV Updated Edition)

When he had gone out, Jesus said, “Now the Son of Man has been glorified, and God has been glorified in him. If God has been glorified in him, God will also glorify him in himself and will glorify him at once. Little children, I am with you only a little longer. You will look for me, and as I said to the Jews so now I say to you, ‘Where I am going, you cannot come.’ I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”

~

What is the link between the two passages above? Could it be the word “new”, that the new commandment to love one another, to love in the way Jesus has shown us, which was previously unknown to us, is identical with God making all things new?

~

"[O]ur two texts tell us that the divine love always precedes human love, and that only the divine love is able to remake the world..."

- Robert Hamerton-Kelly, from sermon delivered on May 9, 2004 (source no longer available online)

~

"I think it important to acknowledge that we start out not knowing what love is. Only that way can we adopt the attitude of humility before God, which is essential for learning love. Too many of us assume that the ability to love is a natural endowment that we all have and need not learn, but in fact love is not natural but supernatural and needs consciously to be accepted and learned from God, if we are truly to show it to our fellow human beings [...]

"Jesus says two things about the new commandment: that it is new, and that it is like his love for us. “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another even as I have loved you.” Therefore, our love is to be both something new and an imitation. Is this a contradiction? To be new means to be original - there has never been anything like it before. To be an imitation is to be unoriginal - there is by definition something prior to imitate. How do we understand this? Clearly it means that since the love we are to practice is like the love that Jesus shows, it is as new and unprecedented as Jesus the incarnate God is new and unprecedented, and that our imitation of it makes us new too, new in such a way that people can see that we are his disciples, that we are imitating him [...]

"Let me propose a description of love as the [New Testament] intends it: love is the life of God in the lives of men and women. It takes the form of an imitation because all identity and all culture comes by imitation [...] Love is the life of God in us by means of imitation, that is, we love when we imitate the life of God revealed in Jesus Christ. The dynamics of this imitation is called the Holy Spirit, and he is precisely the Spirit of Love."

- Robert Hamerton-Kelly, from sermon delivered on May 6, 2007 (source no longer available online)

~

"We are familiar with Jesus boiling all the commandments down to love. In the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke, he is asked about the Greatest Commandment. His answer combines the two most important Jewish commandments: Love God with all your heart and soul, and love your neighbor as yourself.

"Today in John’s Gospel, it’s all about love, too, but Jesus calls it not the Greatest Commandment but a new commandment. It’s not a combo version of traditional commandments about love. It’s a new one. Do we realize just how new it is? Do we realize how much everything changes when Jesus commands us to love like he loves us? Do we realize that that means he is basically asking us to love like God loves? Is that even possible? What does that mean?

[...]

"“Love one another just as I have loved you.” [...] It asks us to go beyond the safe boundaries of our ordinary human love. It represents a love that goes beyond what we usually think of as love of God, family, and nation. It goes beyond loving our neighbor as ourselves. It invites us to love like God loves with a love that crosses safe boundaries, a love that reaches out to the Other, a love that even reaches out to enemies.

"Why? Why would we take such a risk? Why love with a love that, in a still dangerous world, is dangerous? [...] But this dangerous love is also a victorious love. We might be moved to risk such a love because it is the only thing that ultimately will make this world safe. And because it’s God’s powerful love that has already paved the way for us. It never has to be about depending on our human love alone. God’s love in Jesus Christ has already come into the world and begun to turn things upside-down. It came into the world crossing all our safe boundaries to the point of being killed on a cross, and on Easter morning came as the promise of victory.

"It is this love, God’s powerful and victorious love, which created us in the first place. It is this victorious love that conquered death on Easter morning with the promise of conquering death for us and for the whole creation. It is this victorious love which is even now reconciling all the world into a New Creation, into a place where there will one day be no danger because there will be no enemies, no being over-against someone else. That victorious love is working in this world even now to change it for the better."

- Paul J. Nuechterlein, from sermon delivered in 2016 (https://girardianlectionary.net/reflections/year-c/easter-5c-sermon-2016/)

~

"[H]e says, “I give you a new  commandment,” not that you love God above all things but that you love one another. “Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another.” In other words, the definition for the new commandment is to notice something that has been done for you: just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. In the degree to which you become aware of what I am doing for you, so you will be able to love one another. And this is really very striking, because it's not a moralistic commandment at all.  It's much more like an illustrative commandment: here I am opening up the way for you; now that it is open, you will be able to run along it. And please notice that the first example of this is him giving himself away [in the verse immediately preceding today's text] as a sop [of bread] to Judas, to the one who betrayed him. He's talking about loving even Judas: “Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another.”

"And then he says, “By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.” In other words, it's not if you obey certain  commandments or if you keep certain regulations, it's because you will obviously be giving yourself away in the midst of rough, turbulent humans as I did. In as far as you do that, you will have peace amongst yourselves, and people will recognise that you are following me, because that's what I've done. “By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”

"Again, just stressing the fact that it's someone doing something for us. And as we allow ourselves to be formed by the reception of what is being done for us, so we will be able to love, and so we will be recognised as being like him. But it's that way round, this is the absolutely key part of how the resurrection life comes upon us: not as a series of commands or a series of moralizations, but as a taking us into an awareness of being loved, of what he has done for us, so that we can begin to relax into being loved and to love each other without envy or fear or ambition or rivalry. Because we know that he gave himself away, so we can give ourselves away. And that it's as we do that that we will no longer be obstacles, blocks to each other, and we will find ourselves on the inside of the resurrection life, which is what our celebration today is all about."

- James Alison, from video "Homily for Fifth Sunday in Easter 2022 C" (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q_FBbi_K3gs)

[Source of link to Paul J. Nuechterlein sermon, and for further discussion and reflection on this week's lectionary texts: https://girardianlectionary.net/reflections/year-c/easter5c/]

From the Lectionary for 11 May 2025 (Easter 4C)

John 10:22-30 (NRSV Updated Edition)

At that time the Festival of the Dedication took place in Jerusalem. It was winter, and Jesus was walking in the temple, in the portico of Solomon. So the Jews gathered around him and said to him, “How long will you keep us in suspense? If you are the Messiah, tell us plainly.” Jesus answered, “I have told you, and you do not believe. The works that I do in my Father's name testify to me, but you do not believe because you do not belong to my sheep. My sheep hear my voice. I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they will never perish. No one will snatch them out of my hand. My Father, in regard to what he has given me, is greater than all, and no one can snatch them out of the Father's hand. The Father and I are one.”

~

"The testimony to Jesus is that the works he does are works that only the Father can do. He does not in any sense claim these as his own works, meaning that he gives testimony to himself. His own uninterrupted participation in the bringing into being of the fulfillment of creation, something only the Father can do of himself, is testimony that the Father is at work...

"If this were not proof enough, then its inverse is shown: Jesus' interlocutors are unable to believe because they receive glory from one another and do not seek the glory that comes from God. That is to say, because they are locked into the rivalistic [imitative] bringing into being of their identities, they are unable to have their identities formed by peaceful [imitation] of and from God. This is the equivalent of not having life and being stuck in the realm of death: they cannot “believe,” that is, be drawn into the peaceful imitation of Jesus by which they would come to find themselves drawn into having their identities creatively given by God and thus accede to life.

"In John 10 we have the same understanding at work: because of Jesus' perfect imitation of the Father, he is able to make present on earth as a real human practice the way in which the Father is the shepherd of Israel. He does this precisely by the creative going to his death which brings about one flock and one shepherd. What he is doing is bringing about the Father's shepherdliness by inaugurating a real human practice of shepherding a real human gathering into one."

- James Alison, The Joy of Being Wrong" pp. 198-9

~

"[T]he process of following, hearing the words and discovering yourself known, and therefore trusting the one who is leading you on, is a process of growing in safety. That's the sense of safety and security, that's what the language of shepherding is about, it's about being safe. Salvation is, after all, about being safe.

"So, “my sheep hear my voice I know them and they follow me. I give them eternal life and they will never perish.” In other words, following him, [they] don't need to be frightened of death. He has shown that he's not manipulating people into dying for him, he is dying for them. But he shows that he lays down his life and he takes it up. [...] The one who gives his life away, that one is someone who you can follow without fear. There's no manipulation, they're not using you for some project of their own and then running away and hiding when the going get's tough.

"“I give them eternal life and they will never perish.” In other words, you follow through this, and this whole process of you're following me, you're hearing me is the process of my giving you abundant life. As you follow me, as you allow my life to take hold of you, so you will find yourselves being held in safety.

[...]

"[W]hat his Father has given [Jesus] is the capacity to take people into life. His father has given him the ability to be becoming inside us and turning us into him as part of a mutual interpenetration. It can't be snatched away. It's greater than anything else. Why?  Because it's the creator who's at work. Snatchers-away can only snatch away at things that are, if you like, loose elements. But someone who is actually part of the dynamic of creation and is being brought into being by the creator can't be snatched away. It can be hated, can be mistreated, all of those things, but [they know] that they are, in fact, safe on the inside of the project of being brought into being.

[...]

"What [Jesus is] saying quite clearly here is that he is the fulfillment of the promised Davidic shepherd from the prophet Ezekiel where it says: “I myself will come and pasture my sheep,” that will be part of the Davidic line. Jesus here is answering what a few verses before... the Jews, the regime and its addicts have been saying to him: how long will you keep us in suspense? If you're the Messiah, tell us plainly. And Jesus answered, “I have told you, and you do not believe. The works that I do in my Father's name testify to you.” And he's not only talking about the miraculous signs. He's talking about this process of leading people into life. It's actually this long process of leading people into life without obstacles, without stumbling blocks. That is the sign that he is the Davidic shepherd who has come to shepherd the sheep.

"But that's not something you say. If you say it, if you like, the didactic definition, it leads to transactional relations. But the hearing of the voice and following is the inductive relation into the interpenetration. The inductive relationship in interpenetration is how God does these things. If the Messiah is of God, that is how the Messiah is doing these things. That Jesus is doing these things is because he and the Father are one.

"And he said earlier: you won't get it because you're not of my sheep. In other words, you haven't been prepared to enter into this following  and discovering yourself on the inside of me, such that your voice, my voice are in complete harmony. You can pick up who I am, who is speaking to you, you could discover that you are known through my eyes, and that you grow as you are known. But you don't engage in this interpenetrative following, so you're never going to get it. So when then he says, “The Father and I are one,” all they hear is a blasphemy. And so they took up stones again to stone him. And after a brief discussion, he leaves the Temple for the last time, since this is the last time in John's Gospel that he appears in the Temple.

"What I wanted to bring out here is how what we're being asked to enter into is the dynamic of how the risen Lord comes into our life through producing in us a following that teaches us to recognize his voice. And as that happens, we discover ourselves known."

- James Alison, from video "Homily for Fourth Sunday in Easter 2022 C" (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oXKx9zrrHhE)

[For further discussion and reflection on this week's lectionary texts: https://girardianlectionary.net/reflections/year-c/easter4c/]

From the Lectionary for 4 May 2025 (Easter 3C)

John 21:1-19 (NRSV)

After these things Jesus showed himself again to the disciples by the Sea of Tiberias; and he showed himself in this way. Gathered there together were Simon Peter, Thomas called the Twin, Nathanael of Cana in Galilee, the sons of Zebedee, and two others of his disciples. Simon Peter said to them, “I am going fishing.” They said to him, “We will go with you.” They went out and got into the boat, but that night they caught nothing.

Just after daybreak, Jesus stood on the beach; but the disciples did not know that it was Jesus. Jesus said to them, “Children, you have no fish, have you?” They answered him, “No.” He said to them, “Cast the net to the right side of the boat, and you will find some.” So they cast it, and now they were not able to haul it in because there were so many fish. That disciple whom Jesus loved said to Peter, “It is the Lord!” When Simon Peter heard that it was the Lord, he put on some clothes, for he was naked, and jumped into the sea. But the other disciples came in the boat, dragging the net full of fish, for they were not far from the land, only about a hundred yards off.

When they had gone ashore, they saw a charcoal fire there, with fish on it, and bread. Jesus said to them, “Bring some of the fish that you have just caught.” So Simon Peter went aboard and hauled the net ashore, full of large fish, a hundred fifty-three of them; and though there were so many, the net was not torn. Jesus said to them, “Come and have breakfast.” Now none of the disciples dared to ask him, “Who are you?” because they knew it was the Lord. Jesus came and took the bread and gave it to them, and did the same with the fish. This was now the third time that Jesus appeared to the disciples after he was raised from the dead.

When they had finished breakfast, Jesus said to Simon Peter, “Simon son of John, do you love me more than these?” He said to him, “Yes, Lord; you know that I love you.” Jesus said to him, “Feed my lambs.” A second time he said to him, “Simon son of John, do you love me?” He said to him, “Yes, Lord; you know that I love you.” Jesus said to him, “Tend my sheep.” He said to him the third time, “Simon son of John, do you love me?” Peter felt hurt because he said to him the third time, “Do you love me?” And he said to him, “Lord, you know everything; you know that I love you.” Jesus said to him, “Feed my sheep. Very truly, I tell you, when you were younger, you used to fasten your own belt and to go wherever you wished. But when you grow old, you will stretch out your hands, and someone else will fasten a belt around you and take you where you do not wish to go.” (He said this to indicate the kind of death by which he would glorify God.) After this he said to him, “Follow me.”

~

"The disciples are fishing on the Sea of Tiberius at night, and they catch nothing. It’s dark, they are without Jesus, and their work is fruitless. Verse 4: “Just after daybreak, Jesus stood on the beach; but the disciples did not know that it was Jesus.” Same story. Jesus is unrecognizable. Read vs. 5-11, then verse 12: “Jesus said to them, ‘Come and have breakfast.’ Now none of the disciples dared to ask him, ‘Who are you?’ because they knew it was the Lord.” If they knew quite well that it was the Lord, then why is “Who are you?” on the tips of their tongues? How well did they know it was the Lord? This is quite a revealing sentence about the meaning of the resurrection. We’ve said [about John 20:19-31] that the resurrection is about having the experience of Jesus living in us, of feeling compelled to do what he did. What did he do? Forgive. The next part of the resurrection experience is to see Christ in the Other - not just good folks, but all others - perhaps even more so in the least expected person. Here, the disciples know it’s the Lord, but it’s still a reach for them to see him in the Crucified One.

"The only thing left is the rehearsal of forgiveness - which is the next part of the story. After breakfast there is this exchange between Jesus and Peter: “Jesus said to Simon Peter, ‘Simon son of John, do you love me more than these?’ He said to him, ‘Yes, Lord; you know that I love you.’ Jesus said to him, ‘Feed my lambs.'” Repeated twice. Peter had denied Jesus three times. Jesus allows this to be undone. Peter is forgiven.

"The forgiveness is even deeper when we see the Greek behind the text. The first two times Jesus asks if Peter loves him using agape, and Peter answers using philio. Peter will finally get it right the third time, right? Instead, Jesus changes to Peter’s word! expresses it in Peter’s terms of philio. Unbelievable! Forgiveness is also accepting the person where he or she is at. Jesus awakens his love at the level he is ready for.

"A reference to Peter’s death. Verse 18: “Very truly, I tell you, when you were younger, you used to fasten your own belt and to go wherever you wished. But when you grow old, you will stretch out your hands, and someone else will fasten a belt around you and take you where you do not wish to go.” It’s also a story about Christian conversion: you discover that Christ is living in you and in others, and that your life is really not your own, and it becomes an exciting life."

- from notes by Paul Nuechterlein on Gil Bailie's “The Gospel of John” audio tape series, tape #12

~

"Peter has been taken back through the whole of his living with Jesus and being brought to the place where he's now going to be able to become a follower of Jesus rather than an impetuous would-be leader of others who follow Jesus.

[...]

"So this wonderful, very very delicate psychological account of Peter being taken through the various times that he'd impetuously spoken up too soon, that he'd wanted to be a leader, that he thought he was loving when he wasn't, that he got himself into trouble.

"And what does the risen life do? In addition to pushing us out into taking the new creation further, it also heals us, if you like, brings us to penitence and heals us of the ways in which we think of ourselves as exceptional, needing to be outside, needing to be one up on others, and are reminded that it's feeding the little ones, getting behind the big ones, but being within and feeding them in the only way they can be fed, which is by following the shepherd who gave himself as a sheep."

- James Alison, from video "Homily for Third Sunday in Easter 2022 C" (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nms860IuaA4)

~

"So hear my interpretation: Firstly, it is a relief beyond belief that I who have betrayed my Jesus many more times than three, hear him asking, again and again, “Do you love me?” The premise of that question stops my mouth with amazement and chokes me with gratitude: “He still loves me! He still loves me! How can that be after all the betrayals?” Our story tells us first and foremost that God saves (our face) and God reconciles with us, because God loves, incessantly and indefeasibly, not just Peter but all of us, you and even me.

"Secondly then, Peter stands for every Christian. He is our representative and that means that the church is not a hierarchy of historical privilege but a community of common sinners in the process of being loved into being and truth by the living God. Put yourself in the place of Peter in this story. Don’t stand aside observing one man named Peter being endowed with a special privilege, but see yourself as Peter and hear God ask for your love, and accept from him the gift of the great confidence he has in you. Yes, a great confidence, because he entrusts to you and me the feeding of his lambs, which is the very sum and substance of his church.

"The church is the community where the love of Jesus for each of us feeds all of us. Not only does Jesus reconcile with his betrayer, with me, but he also shows again complete confidence in me and entrusts to me the feeding of his lambs."

- Robert Hamerton-Kelly, from sermon delivered on April 18, 2010 (online source no longer available)

~

"The object on which the fish was cooking was, in Greek, exactly the same thing as that before which Peter had denied Jesus: 'anthrakian' - a charcoal fire. Imagine Peter's psychology: summoned to recognize Jesus at the same object before which he had betrayed him. Jesus says nothing, but calls them to eat. After they have eaten he unties Peter from the memory of his betrayal by asking him three times if he loves him and then confirms him in his new identity of the one who will feed his sheep.

[...]

"That is to say, the story of how Simon became Peter, the rock, the principal witness to the good news, is the story of someone whose personality had to disintegrate completely, in a process which I imagine to have been extremely painful, so that he might forge and create the story of someone who apparently was not he.

"So [the conversion stories of Saul/Paul (Acts 9, another reading from today's lectionary) and Simon/Peter] offer us something of the rules of grammar by which we come to be that which we are not: there is no beginning to create this new story, this new identity, except starting from how I was brought to the end of myself, sifted like wheat, and had my heart, formed by the deceits and violences of this world, broken open. There is no story empowered by the eschatological imagination that is not a story of this sort: of how I left Egypt. And this is not owing to some punishing, finger-pointing god, a sort of celestial headmistress, but rather the weight of glory is too great to be carried in earthen vessels. There is no story of how “I” was turned into a vessel capable of bearing glory that is not also the story of the coming to an end of the previous vessel (cf. 2 Cor. 4:7, 17).

"I hope that thus we have gone some way toward “de-moralizing” the discourse about conversion which surrounds us and which has an extraordinary tendency to get fixated on the symptoms of weakness and miss out on the re-creation of the whole “I” by our becoming empowered to create a different story, which, after all, what it's all about."

- James Alison, Raising Abel, pp. 93-94

[Source of notes by Paul Nuechterlein on Gil Bailie's audio tape series and (now defunct) link to the Robert Hamerton-Kelly sermon, and for further discussion and reflection on this week's lectionary texts: https://girardianlectionary.net/reflections/year-c/easter3c/]