“Call to Adventure”

JOHN 21: 15-18

15 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." He said to him, "Feed my lambs." 16 He said to him a second time, "Simon, son of John, do you love me?" He said to him, "Yes, Lord; you know that I love you." He said to him, "Tend my sheep." 17 He said to him the third time, "Simon, son of John, do you love me?" Peter was grieved 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. 18 Truly, truly, I say to you, when you were young, you used to dress yourself and walk wherever you wanted, but when you are old, you will stretch out your hands, and another will dress you and carry you where you do not want to go." †

The Dangers of Hygge

Do you know the word hygge? I’m not even sure I’m pronouncing it correctly—it’s Scandanavian, whose languages seem to have way too many marks above the vowels—but even the Danes and Swedes go back and forth over its meaning. It means something like coziness, creature  comforts, and community all wrapped up in one.

It’s your over-stuffed easy chair with a cup of cocoa, a lap blanket, and a good book on rainy evening. It’s a simple meal with good friends taken by candle-light. It is a warm, enveloping eiderdown, softened by night of sweet dreams, on a holiday morning. Together, they are the kind of places you’d like to stop, stick, and never leave. I suspect it is our collected experiences of hygge that lead us to feel home as home. I’m here to say that hygge can be the very enemy of faithfulness.

In the stories of C. S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien (among others), the call to adventure is always resisted because of its threat to hygge. It is even expressed as a kind of sin to avoid or forego the great adventure in favor of one’s creature comforts.

The prophets all balked and resisted God’s calling. “Call someone else, I’m a stutterer!” said Moses. “I think you have the wrong number,” said Samuel. “I’m not ready,” said Jeremiah. “NO!” said Jonah. The calling is necessarily disruptive—an inevitable threat to our habits, patterns, comfort zones—to our homes.

In our text, Peter, after three times pledging his love for Jesus, is told that he too will be removed from his hygge, bound and led someplace he does not want to go. As we look at this, we will find that this is finally the dream and deepest desire of every pious heart—something every one of us desires above all else.

Loving Jesus

Three times Jesus asks Peter “Do you love me?”, three times Peter says yes, and three times Jesus tells Peter to care for Jesus’ sheep.

Why three? In part, this is Peter’s therapy for having denied Christ three times. It is a kind of atonement preparing Peter for greater commitment than he can imagine.

Also, there are two, different words for love used in this text. We’ve talked many times about agapé, which is the selfless, sacrificial kind of love modeled by Christ toward which every Christian aspires. Agapé seeks the good of the other, and takes interest in the happiness of others rather than the self. Phileo is the other word—it is a lesser love—and means something like brotherly affection. Phileo is the love of teammate, fellow citizen, countryman, tribe, or family—from which we get the word Philadelphia, city of brotherly love.

Now consider the dialogue. Jesus says to Peter, “Simon, son of John” which is the most serious and authoritative address, like when your mother is outraged with your behavior and addresses you by first,  middle, and last names: “NOEL KRISTAN ANDERSON! Did you eat an entire half-gallon carton of butter brickle ice cream?” “Simon, Son of John, do you love me with selfless, sacrificial love?”

I imagine Peter feeling sheepish and extremely willing to please after his moral meltdown. He says, “Yeah, of course, Jesus! You know I love[phileo] you! [Heh, heh, can we please change the subject?].

“Feed my lambs.”

Again Jesus asks, “Simon, son of John, do you love me with most excellent, self-giving love?” This time, Peter is feeling the hot spotlight of interrogation. Every eye is on him, watching for his response. I expect he was even more sheepish in responding, “Yes, Lord! You know I love [phileo] you.[Dude, come on, lighten up already!]”

“Tend my sheep.”

Third time: “Simon, son of John [Peter’s heart is recoiled, cringing in the corner with holy terror], do you even like [phileo] me?” The text says Peter was “greatly distressed” because Jesus had asked him do you phileo me the third time. I expect Peter was as close to tears as a tough man can be. Whatever tough shell Peter had—whatever had once emboldened him to publicly deny he even knew Jesus—here was finally shattered.

“Lord,” says Peter, “You know all things, including the depths of my heart. You know that I love [phileo] you with the best love that a sinner like me can possibly muster. I may not be able to love as you love, but I give you what I do have; make of me what you will!”

“Feed my sheep.”

Is Jesus giving Peter a way of proving his love? Feed the lambs, tend the sheep, feed the sheep—but who are the sheep? An extremely generous view would say that the sheep are humanity in general, but I think this is impossible to get out of the text itself. It is a fair—if broad—application of the principle, but when Jesus speaks of his lambs and sheep, he is talking about his followers in particular. Peter is charged three times with giving himself to the care of Jesus’ disciples. That same calling goes out to all of us in the church today.

Question: Why doesn’t Jesus tell Peter to make new lambs? Shouldn’t Peter have been charged with adding to the flock? Isn’t that the evangelical task? No, we are not to make lambs. We can’t. We don’t. God makes the lambs and calls them.

I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. —John 10:11

My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me.
—John 10:27

We need to take care of our evangelical focus. We do not determine who are or are not the sheep of Jesus’ flock, but we do make disciples out of all whom God calls, draws, and otherwise leads into our community. Our calling is the same as that to Peter. If we truly love Jesus, we will feed his lambs, making sure they have excellent children’s ministry and staff, tending them through their teen years, feeding them God’s Word and Sacrament throughout their days as they grow into Christ and make him known.

Dressing

The calling to Peter—the invitation out of himself and onto the road of true discipleship—continues with clear implications. Verse 18:

18 Truly, truly, I say to you, when you were immature in faith, you used to dress yourself and walk wherever you wanted, but when you are mature in faith, you will stretch out your hands, and another will dress you and carry you where you do not want to go."

Dressing ourselves as we like, going wherever we want—these are basic expressions of personal preference and individual liberty foundational to the American way of life. We are free to dress ourselves as we like, but this is not about clothes, but identity.

Identity politics has come to dominate  the American landscape of special interests. Who am I? Who are you?

“I am whoever I SAY I am!”

I hereby self-identify as fully-haired, thank you, and I will have you think of me as having a full head of beautiful, flowing locks. Furthermore, I self-indentify as being 7 feet tall, so when you speak with me, you shall make eye contact six inches above my eye-line, focused roughly on my beautiful hairdo.

You know what we’re talking about here, and it is the patent immaturity of our culture which puts demands upon the whole public to satisfy one’s personal desires to “dress oneself” in an identity of one’s own choosing. As with many things, this may be the way of our world, but it is not the way of Christians.

Christians ought not to participate in any self-identity movement because we have already had our identities—our dress—secured by Christ.

Baptism is the death of self-dressing. In baptism, we no longer claim any special identity for ourselves other than that of Christian. We have put off the old garment of self and selfhood in order to take on the garment of Christ. We are no longer defined by our family, our fortunes, our race, our sex or sexuality—we are defined by Christ. To be defined by Christ means we renounce and abandon any self-designated definitions as secondary, if not irrelevant entirely.

Furthermore, we can have no subdivisions of our identity in Christ. There can be no further modifications of our Christianity.

There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.
—Galatians 3:28

There is to be no Greek Christianity or Jewish Christianity, no nationalized Church or specification of economic class, and no division of the sexes, for we are one—identity-undifferentiated—in Christ.

We are one in Christ. It is even a source of shame and grief that we have denominationalized the oneness Christ desires for his followers to have as a Church. There can be no such thing as “Christian Pride” let alone Presbyterian pride; in fact, all Christians should be ashamed of our current divisions—all of which will be finally dissolved in God’s time.

We do not dress ourselves, nor should we seek to do so, for we have been dressed in Christ, which is all we need.

Paul referred to himself constantly as servant or slave of Christ, which means he—and we—should make no further identity claims than this.

“Not I, but Christ.” —Galatians 2:20

“He must become more; I must become less.” —John 3:30

Within the Body of Christ, we have no talk of privilege or equality, for we are all called to servanthood and abject humility—the bottom rung—from there to love and to serve all.

Going Wherever

Furthermore, we likewise renounce our freedom to go wherever we want.

18 Truly, truly, I say to you, when you were immature in faith, you used to dress yourself and walk wherever you wanted, but when you are mature in faith, you will stretch out your hands, and another will dress you and carry you where you do not want to go."

As Americans, we love our liberties and freedoms. We even push the envelope on liberty when we can, but Christians have a different angle on freedom. For us, freedom is found only in being bound to Christ.

As Peter was to be led where he did not want to go, as Jesus was led where he did not wish to go, the authentic disciple—the cross-carrier—is one who allows him or herself to be God-led regardless of personal wants or preferences.

The lambs of God, the precious sheep of the Good Shepherd, are those who die to themselves in order to be risen with Christ. Like slaves, we claim nothing for ourselves, no identity other than Christ, and we do so putting absolutely no conditions or terms on God in the relationship. Rather, we abandon all claims, all self-styled identities, all cultural classifications, all the world…in order to gain Christ.

Yes, there are plenty of churches out there willing to cater to your self-styled identities, your  preferred personal liberties, and your desires to go wherever you like, but, by God, First Presbyterian Church of Upland should not—shall not—be one of them.

Called to Follow

We have been called to follow. If you are here in this church today, it is because you have already responded—or are yet responding—to the voice of the Good Shepherd. You are here because you have heard his voice; he is calling you.

Working together as a congregation, we want you to be fed and tended. We want your children—Jesus’ lambs—to be grown into true faith after the image and character of Jesus. We will not proffer half-truths, nor shall we soften-up the gospel to make it palatable to contemporary tastes. We will not make any promises other than those made by Christ himself.

We are being called out—called out of our self-styled hygge—to a fabulous journey, a marvelous adventure. The open road lies ahead, begging us to follow. It is full of unknowns—obstacles, challenges, and blessings. It’s a wonderful thing to be called at all, and we have the Spirit’s comfort to unite us, guide us, and to fuel our fellowship with great joy along the way.

Isn’t it high time we hit the road?

Come, brothers and sisters, let’s gather at the table of The Lord where our true hygge is found. Let us come and be fed and tended by the Good Shepherd who calls us. Listen—do you hear his voice? †