Whom Do We Serve?

Preached at First Presbyterian Church of Rolla on May 1, 2022. Based on Acts 9:1-20 and John 21:1-19.

---

I’d like to start back in the Old Testament, in the early days of Israel as a nation. They had been slaves in Egypt whom God freed. After Moses died, Joshua led them in their conquest of the Promised Land. As Joshua approached death, he gathered the people together to exhort them. He said, in chapter 24 verses 14-15:

“Now therefore revere the LORD, and serve him in sincerity and in faithfulness; put away the gods that your ancestors served beyond the River and in Egypt, and serve the LORD. Now if you are unwilling to serve the LORD, choose this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your ancestors served in the region beyond the River or the gods of the Amorites in whose land you are living; but as for me and my household, we will serve the LORD.”

The people all said, Of course we will serve the LORD! Joshua warns them that it’s hard, and that if they turn their back on God, they will suffer. They say again, We will serve the LORD!

At that time, they understood religion in terms of the legal code—the Ten Commandments plus the extensive rules in Leviticus—plus the sacrificial system. They could serve the LORD by bringing burnt offerings and fellowship offerings and sin offerings and guilt offerings to the priests who ministered before the LORD, particularly where the Ark of the Covenant was kept. There were clear rules.

I listen to audiobooks a lot when I run, and one I listened to recently was by Brené Brown. One guideline she gives leaders is this: Clear is kind. Unclear is unkind. Well, the Law of Moses and the Temple sacrificial system was clear. If you want to serve the LORD, do this thing. The problem was that it was inflexible.

The Gospel of John was written late in the first century, maybe in the year 90 CE. In March of 70 CE, the Roman army destroyed the Temple in response to a Jewish revolt. Suddenly, these clear rules were no help. It was impossible for the Jewish people to continue serving the LORD as they had for five centuries. They were lost and trying to find their path. Out of this turmoil, two religions emerged: rabbinic Judaism, which was the heritage of the Pharisees, and Christianity. Both religions had to answer the question: what does it mean to serve the LORD?

So that brings us to this morning’s scene by the lakeshore. Remember that Peter was kind of the chief disciple. Jesus never set one disciple over another, but he did say that Simon would be known as the rock upon which his church would be built. In Aramaic, he was given the name of Kepha or Cephas; in Greek, Petros, which we translate as Peter. I prefer to think of him as Rocky. Anyway, Peter, or Rocky, was usually the one we hear asking stupid questions or saying ridiculous things, but he was also the one who answered Jesus correctly when he asked, “Who do you say I am?” Peter said, “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.”

In the upper room on the night when Jesus was arrested, Peter promised to follow Jesus even unto death. Jesus knew Peter better than he knew himself, though, and correctly predicted what would happen just a few hours later. Peter accompanied Jesus to the garden and witnessed his arrest. He continued to follow Jesus, as he promised, but he denied being a follower. Three times, he was given the chance to say, Yes, I am one of Jesus’s disciples, I have promised to follow him unto death. Three times, he said, No, I don’t know him! When he realized what he had done, poor Peter was ashamed.

Fortunately, the story doesn’t end there. In his shame, and in his grief, he returns to his former occupation. Peter says to his closest friends, I’m going fishing. They didn’t catch anything, but you know, when you’re dealing with grief, fishing isn’t about catching fish. It’s about being on the water, experiencing God’s creation, and staying busy. They fished all night unsuccessfully, and then some random guy says, Try the other side.

Suddenly, everything changes. They catch a ton of fish, and “the disciple who Jesus loved,” which presumably is John, the author of the Gospel, recognizes their friend, their leader, their risen Lord. John sees Jesus and knows his identity, but it is Peter who acts on it. It’s Peter who is so overjoyed that he can’t even wait for the boat to get to shore. Like Forrest Gump, he jumps in the water and swims to shore to see his old friend.

Peter doesn’t recognize Jesus at first, but as soon as he does, he is overjoyed to see him. Yes, he abandoned Jesus once, but now he knows that death and sin have been vanquished. He knows that Jesus truly is the Messiah, the Son of the living God, and he is strengthened and empowered to follow Jesus even unto death. Years later, Peter will be martyred, as Jesus warns, but on this day, all that matters is fellowship with his friend, his brother, his Lord.

Now, Peter could and probably should have been ashamed. He had abandoned his friend when the going got tough. It doesn’t matter, though. His love for Jesus was stronger than that shame. Jesus responds in kind. He doesn’t punish Peter. He isn’t some vengeful, tyrannical leader who responds to betrayal with ostracism or harsh words. He offers Peter the opportunity to prove his love and devotion, simply by saying, Yes, Lord, I adore you. The word that Peter uses means a personal kind of love, the love you might have for your closest friend, someone you think of as a sibling because they mean so much to you.

Peter was tested, and failed. He was challenged, and responded by denying that he was one of Jesus’s followers. Still, Jesus knew that the test itself—even the failed test—had changed Peter. No longer was he just the bumbling idiot we sometimes read about in the Gospels. He was indeed the rock upon which Jesus would build his church. He knew the shame of denying Jesus, and recommitted himself to following Christ. So Jesus commissioned him.

Clear is kind. Jesus gives Peter explicit instructions: If you love me, feed my sheep. In the same way, Saul is tested and commissioned. Today’s reading from Acts describes Saul’s encounter on the road to Damascus. He was blinded by his encounter with Jesus. He could have responded by thinking that he was right about Jesus being an agent of Satan. I mean, surely an agent of God wouldn’t do something so terrible to him. But instead, Saul realized that this wasn’t a punishment, but a test. He recognizes that the path he had been on led not just to Damascus, but to a spiritual death. He was getting further and further from God by persecuting the people that God loved.

Saul, also called Paul, needed something dramatic to wake him up. A simple meal of bread and fish wouldn’t be enough for him. He hadn’t been one of the disciples and never knew Jesus before his crucifixion, so he couldn’t just be reminded of the things he had been taught like Peter. He needed to witness the inbreaking of God’s reign in order to learn that Jesus is indeed God.

Let’s imagine being poor Saul. He was some distance from Damascus and blinded. Fortunately, he had traveling companions who helped him get to safety. Still, he was blind for three days. He may have thought that this was just his life now. No wonder he didn’t eat—he was mourning the loss of his sight. At the same time, he was processing the words he had heard and realized that he had been very, very wrong. He had thought that followers of the Way were from Satan and were leading the Jewish people astray. Now he knew that Christ’s Way is indeed the path that leads to eternal life. So perhaps he was also in mourning because of shame and regret over all the evil he had done, erroneously thinking he was serving God.

But that wasn’t the end. Saul was healed, and commissioned for service. Jesus told Peter to “feed my lambs.” Jesus tells Saul instead to spread his message of love and reconciliation “to Gentiles and kings and … the people of Israel.”

Jesus calls everyone to serve him. In Matthew 25, he tells the crowd that whatever they do to “the least of these,” they do to him. In Acts 9, he tells Saul that whatever he has done to followers of the Way, he has done to Jesus. Jesus is in all of us, everyone, the people you love, the people you hate, the people you don’t even know. He is in the powerful; he is in the poor. He is in the strong; he is in the weak. How we treat people is how we treat Jesus.

All of the disciples were given a commandment to love one another. All of the disciples were given a commission to go to all the nations and baptize in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. But there on the beach, over a simple meal of bread and fish, Peter was specifically commissioned to feed Jesus’s lambs and tend his sheep. There in Damascus, Saul was specifically commissioned to take Jesus’s message to the Gentiles.

So the question to us, each of us individually and all of us as a congregation, is, Whom do we serve? I was talking with my friend Sharon recently about that question, and she said, “It’s God, right? Always remember that.” Well, sure. We all are called to serve God, and like Joshua, we should promise that we will. But what does that mean?

I suppose we could try to find the lost Ark of the Covenant, build a temple, and recruit a kohen to resume the sacrificial system. I don’t think that will happen, and anyway, as Paul wrote, all of those sacrifices and the whole sacrificial system were only temporary. Then Jesus gave himself in sacrifice once for all, so sacrifices are no longer necessary. What can we do instead?

Well, who are Jesus’s lambs and sheep? Everyone. There is no one that you will meet who God does not love. We are called to see Jesus in the faces of each person we meet. Sometimes that’s easy, sometimes it’s hard. Jesus never said it would be easy; in fact, he warned both Peter and Saul that they would suffer on account of him. He was pretty explicit that Peter would be martyred, but then said, “Follow me.” Being a Christian isn’t supposed to be easy, but it is rewarding. Peter and Saul and the rest of the early church leaders wouldn’t have carried on if they hadn’t been strengthened by the Holy Spirit. In serving God’s people, we draw closer to God and encounter God and are empowered by God.

So the question again is, Whom do we serve? In theory, we should heal all of the brokenness of this world. We should comfort everyone who is grieving. We should feed everyone who is hungry, free every prisoner, help everyone suffering from addiction, heal every human relationship. We should build a new society where each person is valued because they reflect the glory of God. We should tear down systems of oppression, in our community, across the nation, and around the world. We should put an end to violence and war. Wow. That’s a big ask. I can’t be everywhere, and I have certainly been confronted by problems that I cannot solve. Well, as the saying goes, there is a Messiah, and it’s not me.

Only God can ultimately heal all of creation. But for whatever reason, God chose to dwell among us in the person of Jesus, and after his death and resurrection, commissioned us all to carry on the work. God chose to work in the world through us. No longer does manna fall like frost or dew—if there are hungry people, we are expected to feed them. No longer is Jesus here to cast out demons or to heal blindness—that’s our job. Even in those early years, Jesus was working through his followers. After Saul was blinded, it was up to his friends to get him to Damascus and Ananias to heal his blindness.

We are finite. We cannot be all things to all people. Consider our worship style versus, say, Greentree. People who like one won’t like the other. Consider our sanctuary. The things that we all find comforting and holy are instead intimidating and disquieting to some people in the community. All we can do is follow Jesus and be who we are, only a little bit better than we were yesterday, a little more Christlike. A little more transformed by our love of God, which flows through us to love others. That means serving someone, finding out where God is at work and is leading you to help.

I know who I serve, as an individual. I know who we have been serving as a congregation. The question before us is, who will we serve? Where have we been fishing and coming up empty, and where is the “other side of the boat” where Jesus is calling us to fish? The kingdom of heaven is abundant. Jesus fed thousands of people with just a few loaves of bread and a few fish. He changed 150 gallons of water into wine. He casually told his friends where to throw their net and they caught 153 fish. Abundance, not scarcity. The world is filled with God’s people, people who are suffering, who need to feel God’s love, who need to be connected to Christ’s body. Let us all pray for guidance, that we can see where God is at work and is asking us to join in. Let us all pray that we will see Jesus in each person we meet. And let us all pray that we will know, individually and as a congregation, who we will serve. Amen.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download