Xavier and I went to Rome the first year of our marriage. I had never been to Italy, I guess it was the romantic thing to do but also I had an agenda: I wanted to see all the churches and the Vatican, the museums and the Sistine Chapel. So we got up early on that day we decided to visit the Vatican because we knew it was so crowded, people waiting in line to get in…Yet as we found ourselves on the street, we were very surprised to find the city so quiet. It was early, but still Rome is a very busy city with tourists everywhere. And that morning, the stores were closed, the restaurants were closed. We were getting more and more puzzled as we walked towards the museums. When we got there, I got pretty excited though because nobody was waiting in line, but of course, as you can imagine, it was only because the museums were closed as well. So we decided to visit St Peter’s basilica and when we got there, well we understood that’s where everybody was. It was crowded. We managed to make our way inside, and there was actually a service going on with this “little man in white” celebrating. That was even more surprising because it was the middle of the week… So we asked another tourist what was going on, and that’s when we learned that it was the feast of St Peter and St Paul! Suddenly, everything made sense again. St Peter and St Paul is of course a big holiday in Rome. So we stayed there for the service, although we couldn’t understand a word, and I remember having plenty of time to take it all in. And I remember also that it was a strange feeling: The giant paintings, the heavy statues, the marble surfaces, the golden ornaments, the rich vestments, all speaking about the weight of the tradition, the grandeur of the church, there was (paradoxically enough) something a little soul crushing about it, like religion had lost its human face, like we didn’t really belong in a place like this with our backpacks and our dirty shoes. And I remember thinking: What does it have to do with Simon the fisherman of Galilee, or even with Peter the martyr on the cross: Would he, also, recognize himself in a place like this, is it really what he intended for the church and for the followers of Jesus?
Well, I don’t know about that but I know I really love this passage of the Gospel we have for this feast of St Peter and St Paul because it really brings us back to square one, way before the marbles, the statutes and the vestments. Jesus makes tabula rasa and brings us back to what’s essential for the church by asking Peter this fundamental, simple and burning question: Do you love me?
Do you love me?This is what it’s all about, isn’t it. Certainly we love our churches and we want them to be well kept and beautiful, but if we don’t love Christ and share Christ’s love first then we may be the nicest museum in the county, but there would nothing that makes us a church. I remember that I asked my bishop if we could read this passage of the Gospel for my ordination (it is not listed as one of the official ones) and I wanted to hear it because I wanted to remember that the most important part of my job, not only as a priest but simply as a Christian, is to be with Christ and to love Christ and to share Christ’s love.
So let’s have a closer look at the text.
Well, I don’t know what you think but I find it kind of sad the way we generally read this story. It is one of the most beautiful passages of Scriptures, and we generally interpret it thinking it all comes down to Peter having to “make up” for betraying Jesus. Indeed, the scene takes place after the Resurrection, after Peter has denied three times knowing Jesus when he was arrested, and now Jesus is resurrected and he appears to Peter and asks him, three times, if he loves him. So, of course, there is some of that: Peter has to “make up” for his betrayal, reaffirm Christ three times for each one of his denials, but personally I prefer to understand this dialogue as Jesus bringing forth words of healing. Jesus is bringing forth words of healing. It’s quite humbling, isn’t it, on Jesus’s behalf, to ask Peter if he loved him. I don’t know if you ever asked someone if they loved you, but it can make you feel quite vulnerable. In this case though, I think Jesus knows very well, and Peter tells him: You know everything, you know that I love you. So you see, I don’t think Jesus asks for himself, because he doubts Peter’s love, rather Jesus asks for Peter’s sake, to remind Peter that, in spite of the betrayal and all the awful things that have taken place, Peter loves Jesus. After the crucifixion, I can only imagine how Peter must have been disappointed with himself, maybe he thought that he didn’t love Jesus after all given the way he let him down and ran away. John’s Gospel tells us that actually, when all was said and done, Peter went back fishing. He went back to what he knew, to whom he used to be before it all started on the shore of the sea of Galilee, where Jesus found him in the first place. But now Jesus finds Peter again, and Jesus reminds him that he cannot go back to who he was, and it’s like Jesus is mending him back with this thread of questions, knitting him back in the relationships, re-rooting him in the love that’s still there, in spite of everything. Jesus is drawing Peter back in his love because that’s the fundamental call on his life and there is nothing he will be able to accomplish without this love. Jesus asks Peter to feed his lamb but what will he have to offer, to feed them if he is not rooted in love? Even if Peter looked like he changed his mind about Jesus, Jesus did not change his mind about Peter. Jesus is ready to start all over again with him like on the first day: He calls him Simon. Asks him again to pick him.
Jesus does not change his mind about us my friends, even when we are very weary, when we feel useless, or disappointed with ourselves and tell me if I am wrong but I think it’s a frequent feeling when we try to live up to our vocation as Christian, or at least when try to live up to our own expectations about ourselves. This passage is for us as well, to remind us that the trust he has is us is not lost. God is bigger than our own hearts indeed and all Christ asks of us, which is both very little and everything, is that we continue to choose him and that we never stop loving him. And it’s not so difficult to imagine because that’s the reason we are here in the first place, coming to church, but like in other relationships, routine, everyday demands as well as urgent tasks may rob us of our first love. But Jesus is always calling us back into relationships. God can turn stones into children for Abraham, it is said at some point in the Gospel, but for some strange reason I cannot explain, Jesus decided he wanted us, more than anything we could do for him, to love him and to share his love. Three times, Jesus asks Peter if he loves him. It’s difficult to translate but the two first times Jesus asks Peter if he has deep love for him and twice Peter responds he has affection. The last time Jesus asks him if he has affection, and Peter says Yes, you know I do. Jesus takes us where we are. It’s hard for Peter to pretend he has this great love when he can only acknowledge the way he has let Jesus down, but yes, he has this affection for Jesus: he wants to love him. And it’s good enough for Jesus, Jesus will take him, and Jesus will take us, wherever we are, with the little we have to offer and he will lead us to greater love, to perfect love even.
At least that’s the way I like to understand the end of the passage. We have a tendency to think it is kind of dreadful, and maybe it is: Jesus predicts to Peter his own death, his own martyr. It’s quite terrible but in the perspective of the whole story, maybe it means something different. Peter is so disappointed with himself, he couldn’t do what he had promised to do for Jesus, to never let him down, to follow him wherever Jesus would go, especially in the mist of danger, only to realize that he couldn’t hold up to his word when faced to the first servant girl in the court of the high priest. Peter left Jesus there because he was so afraid to be put to death with him. But now Jesus promises Peter that he would be able to do this very thing, this thing that was so hard, so unthinkable, he’ll be capable of doing for the love of him, and we know how bravely Peter faced his death, asking to be crucified upside down, as a sign of humility.
Maybe for us the question isn’t if we would die for him, in our context probably not, but will we continue to live for him, will we trust that it is not so much about what we can do or should be doing, rather trusting it’s about how faithful we are to the relationships, trusting we can overcome what seemed impossible for us to accomplish relying not on our own strength but on his, relying on where his love can lead us, believing that his love can overcome everything – and bearing this hope to the world, this is, to me, what it means to be a church.