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.”
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"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
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"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)
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"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)
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"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.
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"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/]
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