“Love’s Lead”
rd
3 Sunday of Easter
John 21:1-19
April 14, 2013
Here we go again. This time it’s Peter who continues his bumbling around. It seems to take Peter a long
time before he figures out what he is suppose to do. His first act in response to two resurrection
appearances consists of convincing the others to go fishing. His actions follow a typical human pattern
– an intense spiritual experience soon fades, and one returns to the same things that has always be
done (i.e. Peter goes fishing).
What Peter doesn’t know is that his life is about to be radically transformed. His fishing expedition
becomes a new experience of abundance, mirroring the wedding at Cana when water was turned into
wine and also when twelve baskets of food left over after feeding 5,000 people from a few loaves of
bread and two fish. In our story the nets that had been empty when used under the disciples’ power
are filled almost to bursting with a word from the risen Christ. Jesus then fed them breakfast. This “last
breakfast” once again transforms a moment of deprivation and insufficiency into a feast with
unexpected blessing made available for all.
Attention turns to Peter, whose three-fold denial at the trial of Jesus, coupled with his rapid return to
his old occupation are redeemed and redirected in conversation with his Lord. The terminology of this
conversation – with its repeated questions, “Peter, do you love me?” along with Peter’s response,
“yes, Lord, you know I love you” – requires study, starting with the words used for “love” (eros, philos,
and agape).
These three Greek words are often considered to be in something of a ranked order. Eros is placed at
the bottom as a self-centered, selfish love that cares little for the wellbeing of its object. Philos is
described as better than eros, but still second-rate, merely consisting of the love between friends,
which can be deep, meaningful, and other-directed, but which cannot compare with agape. Agape
stands in this ordering as the highest form of love, like God’s love for the world, a pure, selfless love
that could only have a divine source.
In this reckoning, one might expect Christ to lead Peter from a lower form of love (eros or philos) to its
highest form, agape; but this is not what happens. The first two questions from Jesus use the word
agape (divine, pure love), but Peter responds with philos (brotherly love). However, in his third
question, Jesus changes the word from agape to philos when he finally time asks Peter, “Peter, do you
love me?” Peter answers, “Yes, Lord, you know everything, you know that I love you.” Here and
elsewhere in John, the understanding of agape and philos do not fit the expected scheme. This
suggests that the long-standing interpretation is misguided, and it has implications for our own
understanding of how God calls us to love.
Pastor Greg Uthus
73 N. Hill Avenue ● Pasadena, CA 91106 ● 626 792-4169 ● www.hillavenuegrace.org
It is true in the Gospel John that God’s love of Christ’s, the word for love is often expressed as agape,
and numerous times the word carries that highest meaning. At the same time, agape and philos can be
used synonymously, as in earlier in John’s gospel twice John says “The Father loves the Son” (referring
to God the Father and Jesus), once with the word agape and the other time using philos. Furthermore,
when describing how judgment takes place – “and this judgment, that the light has come into the
world and people have loved darkness more than light” (3:19), the word “love” used here is agape.
So John is saying that people love darkness with an intensity that matches the saint’s love for God.
In addition, at the end of the ministry of Jesus, when John explains why some authorities believed in
Jesus but did not confess him publicly, it says, “for they loved (agape) human glory rather than the
glory that comes from God” (12:42-43). This agape is deep and heartfelt. It involves them to the core
of their being, and it is entirely misdirected, the “right” love for the wrong things. As the Eagles’ song
says, “These things that are pleasin' you can hurt you somehow.” Just as agape can be a love that
comes from God and leads to life, it can also become desperately distorted, directed toward things
that turn us away from God.
When Jesus himself clarifies the highest form of love, agape, he does so in terms of brotherly love
(philos). Love for friends is no second-class love here. “No one has greater love (agape) than this, to
lay down one’s life for one’s friends” (philos). 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). Jesus calls Peter not just to love. Jesus calls Peter to love others and love them to the end.
Peter’s restoration to renewed relationship is also a restoration to a new kind of leadership. Fisherman
no longer, now he is called to feed Christ’s sheep and because of that feeding, eventually to die: “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 … someone else will fasten a belt around you and take you where
you do not wish to go”: After indicating to Peter “the kind of death by which he would glorify God,”
Christ says to him again, “Follow me.”
This kind of love, whether it is called philos or agape, involves an inherent expectation of “doing.” Love
is as love does. This is love as courage, love as risk, and love as not wavering regardless of what we are
called to do. Christ calls Peter and us, as individuals and as communities of faith, to follow him even
where we would not otherwise go, even where we may not want to go. The times in which we live are
no time for “we have never done it that way before,” not time for returning to what we are used to, no
time for doing this my way. These times, more than ever, are times that call for the best love of God,
friends, neighbors, and even enemies that we can muster. Or better yet, these times cry out for the
love to which God calls us and that God will bring to life within us for the sake of others.
What kind of love leads your life? Do you feel like going back to the same old thing as Peter did?
Perhaps Jesus is asking you today, “Do you love me? Maybe he is asking us to follow him? Maybe, just
maybe, he is asking us, “Feed his sheep”?
AMEN
Pastor Greg Uthus
73 N. Hill Avenue ● Pasadena, CA 91106 ● 626 792-4169 ● www.hillavenuegrace.org