Step beyond the Familiar

Sermon by Jamie Howison on Acts 9:1-20 and John 21:1-19

Here on this third Sunday in Eastertide, we have two relatively long stories—familiar stories—each dealing with figures who are extraordinarily important in the birthing of the Christian church, Peter and Paul. Paul, who is at this point identified with his Hebrew name of Saul, but who in time will begin to be addressed more commonly with the Latin name of Paul. That alone makes for an interesting sidebar, because while the name Saul was connected with royalty—the first king of Israel being, of course, Saul, which means “asked for” or “prayed for”—the Latin name Paul means “little” or “small”. This is evidently how Paul came to place himself in his work amongst those Gentile communities spread across the Mediterranean; as the one who would be “small” in order to show Jesus as the great gift to the people.

But as this story opens, he is still most definitely Saul, “breathing threats and murder against the disciples of the Lord.” He is fierce in his desire to see the Jesus movement reduced to nothing. Saul is a deeply committed Pharisee, for whom the beliefs of the early Jesus movement was deeply problematic and ultimately heretical. And he is vigilant, willing to seek out the approval of the high priest granting him permission to travel to Damascus to arrest any Jesus-followers he might find there. Now that’s a distance of some 350 kilometers, so we’re talking about a highly committed defender of the one true faith.

Or the one true faith as he had understood it up to this critical moment. This story is generally referred to as the “conversion of St Paul,” but it might better be called the radical reorientation of Saul the Pharisee. You see, as a Pharisee he would have been deeply schooled in the Hebrew scriptures, knowing them more closely than you or I ever will. He would also have been immersed in a discipline of prayer, which at the time often drew upon the imagery of the book of Ezekiel, with imagery of a great chariot with whirling wheels and a light like fire representing what Ezekiel calls “the appearance of the likeness of the glory of God.” To glimpse in meditative prayer something of that appearance of glory was considered the highest form of prayer amongst the Pharisees, and N.T. Wright imagines Paul on that Damascus road, immersing himself in this discipline of prayer. He writes,

Imagine Saul’s excitement as, in the depth of devout meditation, he saw with the eyes of his heart, so real that it seemed as though he was seeing it with his ordinary physical eyes, and the so real that he realized he was seeing it with his physical eyes, the form, the fire, the blazing light, and – the face!

And the face was the face of Jesus of Nazareth. (Wright, Acts for Everyone)

“Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?” This was, of course, the moment of radical disruption for Saul. Persecute you? That makes no sense, and so with a trembling heart he can only ask, “Who are you, Lord?” The answer, of course, is that it is Jesus, and Jesus is about to completely reorient the path of Saul’s life.

The ardent Pharisaic foe and persecutor will become the great apostle to the Gentile world, which is about as upside down and unexpected as anything you can imagine.

Now turn with me to the story from the Gospel according to John, which has at its heart the figure of Simon Peter. Peter doesn’t need to be reoriented in order to proclaim that Jesus is Lord, but he is still limping and in need of restoration. The disciples are now up at the Sea of Tiberias—also known as the Sea of Galilee—which is some 120 kilometres from Jerusalem. They’re back in their home territory of Galilee, in other words, which is a place of comfort and familiarity. The sea is particularly familiar, which is why Peter is so ready to haul a boat out onto the water to fish. “(B)ut that night they caught nothing,” or they didn’t until this figure on the beach tells them to try casting their nets on the other side of the boat, and of course as we’ve come to expect, “now they were not able to haul in the net because there were so many fish.” Ahhh… it is Jesus! To the shore they rush, dear old Peter leaping into the water to swim to the beach, while the others rather more calmly just row the boat to shore.

A breakfast of grilled fish and bread awaits them, and then Jesus takes Peter aside and asks him, “‘Simon son of John, do you love me?” Three times the question is asked, and three times Simon Peter answers yes, yes, yes, each time getting a little more hurt and frustrated, finally saying “Lord, you know everything; you know that I love you.”

Now there are two things to reflect on here, one being that this threefold questioning parallels Peter’s threefold denial of Jesus on the night of his arrest. In that sense, three times Peter denied knowing Jesus, so now Jesus will ask him for to affirm his love three times in the resurrection light. That’s simple, right? Makes sense.

But then there’s the question of which form of the word “love” the two of them use here. Twice Jesus asks, “Peter, do you agapē me, and both times Peter replies with “yes, Lord, I philos you.” As you may know, conventionally philo is the term used for friendship, while agapē tends to be used for selfless and even godly love. The third time Jesus asks, he too uses the word philo, which is fascinating. Is Jesus backing down from asking for Peter’s agape, perhaps thinking that Peter can’t rise above friendship love to something higher? Or is something else happening here?

Here I turn to the scholar Frank Crouch, who says,

When Jesus himself clarifies the highest form of agapē, he does so in terms of philos. Love for friends is no second class love here. “No one has greater love (agapē) than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends (philos)” (15:13). In fact, Jesus goes on to define his relationship with his disciples in terms of friendship – “I do not call you servants any longer … but I have called you friends (philos)” (15:15). Jesus calls Peter not just to love but to love others and to love them to the end (see 13:1).

The love that Jesus is calling out from Peter is not abstract in any way, but rather must be incarnated in the day to day, loving others in real terms, even to the very end. “Peter’s restoration,” Crouch adds. “Peter’s restoration to renewed relationship is also a restoration to a new kind of leadership.” And that leadership is all about a deep befriending of one another, even to the point of being prepared to die for the sake of the other, which is precisely what will happen to Peter when he is executed for his faith as a Christian.

On the beach that day, Peter is reconciled and set on a new path. “Feed my lambs,” Peter. “Tend my sheep, feed my sheep.” This is your new call, Peter. You can leave the boat on the shore of the lake, because your new path is as a good shepherd to those who will dare to follow my way. You do love me, Peter. Take that love down every path you walk, deeply befriending those who join you on my Way. That’s your call, and your identity.

So we have Paul and Peter, both called to embrace new identities as friends of Jesus; Paul with his life completely disrupted yet somehow not disconnected from the path he had tried to walk as a faithful follower of God, and Peter released from his guilt, dusted off, and put on the path of deep friendship.

And there is one more character in these stories who is also called to a radical newness, namely Ananias. He’s the Christ follower who is called to welcome Saul—Saul, the zealous persecutor of the Jesus way. He is rightly hesitant, of course, yet he goes. “(He) entered the house (and) laid his hands on Saul and said, ‘Brother Saul, the Lord Jesus, who appeared to you on your way here, has sent me so that you may regain your sight and be filled with the Holy Spirit.” “Brother Saul,” he says, which is an address both bold and beautiful, and surely for Saul the beginning of his whole new path. Ananias, too, is called to step beyond the familiar constraints, and to risk everything for the sake of a truth that is beyond anything he’d formerly been able to ask or imagine.

That which can cause us to limp—whether the blindness of Saul, the guilt of Peter, or the fear of Ananias—will not have the final word. As was true with the three of them, that which seems impossible to overcome is but dross when it comes to the claim that Jesus places upon us.

Alleluia! Christ is risen!