3rd Sunday in Easter

In today’s gospel we see Peter going back to doing what he knows best, being a fisher of fish. Peter backslides into his old way of life, the way of life he had before he met Jesus. For a brief moment in his life, while he was a Jesus’ side, he thought that his life might be on a totally different path. But he messed up, he failed himself and he failed Jesus. And so he undoes the transformation that Jesus had brought in his life and decides to go back to his old way of life which he thought that he had left behind him. So he jumps in a boat with the other disciples and they fish the whole night but catch nothing. Nothing seems to be going right for Peter. Not only has he failed to be a fisher of men and women, it would seem that he has failed to do even that which he thought he was good at – fishing fish. Into the darkness of this despair, Jesus steals in with the first light of dawn and brings a fruitfulness to their seemingly wasted labours.

Jesus reminds Peter of the multiplier effect that his grace brings to Peter’s human efforts. Just as he did when he first called him on the shores of lake Galilee, Jesus wants Peter to see how he can fruitful he can be if he will just entrust not only his nets to Jesus but also his heart. Jesus’ question to Peter, “Peter do you love me more than these others?” can be interpreted in several ways. The Greek that is translated by the words “these others” is ambiguous and could be translated to mean “more than these other things” with Jesus pointing to the fishing boats and nets that Peter has returned to in a moment of depression and hopelessness. Jesus had already asked Peter to leave all of these things behind and to become a fisher of men and women. Now Jesus is calling Peter a second time to do the same. He is checking with Peter if now, in light of everything he now knows about his own weakness and the challenges of the mission to which he is being called he still wishes to say yes. We might want to ask, well if this is what Jesus actually meant, why didn’t he phrase it in this way? Why didn’t he just come right out and say to Peter, “do you still want to follow me?” But Jesus does not focus on Peter’s shortcomings that have caused him to falter and have put in doubt his enduring desire to follow the one who has called him. Jesus prefers instead to focus on the present and doesn’t dig up the past, except in a very round-about way by giving Peter a threefold chance to make up for his threefold infidelity.

When there has been an experience of infidelity in a marriage, it is frequent for the offended partner to ask their spouse “do you still love me?” In extreme cases the question becomes “did you ever love me?” The experience of infidelity now causes them question whether the love they thought they experienced was ever real. When there has been such an experience of betrayal, the tendency of the betrayed partner can be to begin to obsess over what happened and to demand all the gory details of the betrayal, and thereby get stuck in the past, unable to move forward. Jesus does nothing of the sort. He wants to redirect Peter’s attention to the present, and this is why he places his question in the present tense and without any barbs. If we were to take the alternative translation where others refers to “other things,” Jesus is simply reminding Peter of the sacrifice that he already made years ago to leave everything behind and follow him, and is inviting him once again to renew this sacrifice. Jesus indicates to Peter that there will come a time when someone else will “put a belt around you and lead you were you do not want to go.” By using this idiom that designated crucifixion, Jesus indicates to Peter that following him will entail even more of a sacrifice than simply leaving his trade of being a fisherman. He will be called to make the ultimate sacrifice of his very life in the service of Jesus.

If, however, we stick to the traditional translation of “others” as designating the disciples, then we might want to ask why Jesus is ostensibly throwing in an element of competition into Peter’s discipleship by challenging him to outdo all the other disciples in loving him. Surely such an element of competition would be completely foreign to Jesus’ invitation to “love one another as I have loved you.” So what can Jesus mean by this question? The answer may lie in recalling Peter’s passionate declaration at the last supper that “even if all these all these others fall away, I will never abandon you” (Jn 13: 37-38). Perhaps Jesus is trying to make Peter realize his hubris in having made this declaration and is inviting him to a more humble non-competitive love. It is very telling that Peter declines to take up Jesus’ challenge and he does not respond by saying “You know I love you more than these others do” and instead defers to Jesus’ knowledge of his love “Lord you know that I love you.” If he is to be a leader, Jesus wants Peter to realize that he cannot fall into the trap of comparing his service of the Lord with the other disciples. As disciples we each have our part to play, each equally important and dignified in the Body of Christ. Peter’s part will be to shepherd the flock of Jesus and like the Good Shepherd to lay down his life for these sheep.

I think that all of us have been in the same place as Peter, at one time of our lives or another. We have all, I’m sure, experienced a moment of hope, where the horizon has broadened out before us, where we have had so much hope and possibility of what we could accomplish in the service of God and others. We have had so much hope in ourselves to be creative and to transform our lives and the world around us. And then we mess up and it all comes crashing down around us and we realize that we are in fact still the same old sinner that we were before, and that our sinfulness and weakness is not going to allow us to achieve what we thought we might. It is important at these times to ask Jesus to call us again. I remember a fellow Jesuit sharing with me how he once fell deeply in love with a woman and in throes of deciding how to respond to this experience of falling in love, he went to the Lord and told him, “Lord if you want me to follow you as a priest, you are going to have to call me again!” Which is precisely what the Lord did and through this experience of the Lord’s love he was able to remain faithful to his Jesuit and priestly vocation. It is helpful at these times to allow Jesus to remind of the sacrifices we have already made in order to follow him, and to allow him to invite us to recommit to him again. This will call out of us an even deeper response of love, since our yes will not now be the immature naïve “yes” that we first gave Jesus when he first called us. Instead it will be a seasoned “yes” that knows the full import of the sacrifice that we are committing ourselves to and knows that it will be worth it because life without Jesus is simply unliveable.

Questions for reflection

1. Have I recently experienced moments of doubt about my vocation, a sense of boredom or listlessness that have tempted me to return to former ways of life? What has helped me get over such a feeling?
2. Have I ever had to ask Jesus to call me once again?
3. Where and how might Jesus be calling me to become a fisher of men and women, and what sacrifices will this demand of me?