Easter 3, 2022

 Gospel: John 21:1-19, 1st Reading: Acts 9:1-20, Psalm 30, 2nd Reading: Revelation 5:11-14

There is something about pet names that conveys a kind of close relationship. Pet names have always been part of my vocabulary. When we were little our mom called us pumpkin or puddin’. When I was pregnant we referred to our fetus as “Peanut.” When I was growing up I was “Aimee Lou,” since my middle name is Louise. That’s Pastor Aimee Lou, to you!

There is something about pet names that conveys a kind of close relationship. Peter knew that. His given name was Simon. But Jesus gave him the name Peter. His new life as a disciple, as someone close to Jesus meant he needed a new name, a pet name to convey that closeness. The other disciples didn’t get new names, but Peter did.

And Paul did, too. On the road to Damascus, Saul, who had been persecuting the Christians, found himself talking to God, blinded, and thrown from his horse. God gives him a new name to distinguish his old life from his new identity and a new closeness to God. Saul got the name Paul.

When Jesus appears to the other disciples in the Gospel for this morning, he doesn’t call Peter by that pet name. He goes back to calling him Simon. I wonder how Peter heard that. He had just denied Jesus three times. Now Jesus calls him Simon three times and asks if he loves him. Is Peter waiting for that scolding? Is he waiting to hear how disappointed Jesus is in him? Does he long to be called that close pet name again? How does he feel when Jesus asks him this question, “Do you love me?” Has Peter lain awake at night reliving those denials and imagining it had gone differently?

Now Jesus is using his more distant name. Did that scare him? Could he ever have imagined that Jesus would put him in charge of seeing that his lambs were cared for and fed after the way he had abandoned his Savior in his time of need? Jesus gives him that assignment three times. Jesus gives him a chance to say how much he loves him three times. And Jesus shows him that he still trusts him by putting him in charge of his vulnerable lambs.

In today’s scripture, we hear Jesus referring to his people as “my lambs.” I think of this as a kind of old-fashioned pet name, and maybe even more old-fashioned than I thought, if Jesus is even using it. Lambs, like pumpkin and puddin’ indicates a softness. Like peanut, it indicates a smallness. Like all these it indicates a sweetness. It also could indicate stubbornness and cluelessness, but maybe we shouldn’t go there.  He calls his people his lambs partly because he is the shepherd. And it is partly because of how vulnerable they are. Lambs are helpless. Without their shepherd they can’t find food or water, they are easy prey for wolves and other predators, they don’t know where to go. So who are Jesus’ lambs? Certainly there are people who have trouble getting their most basic needs met. Babies and children are certainly lambs. In Jesus’ time, widows and lepers would have fallen into this category. It is the ones who fall through the cracks.

But aren’t we all lambs in some way? We are all somewhere on the lamb spectrum. All sin and fall short of the glory of God. All are broken and vulnerable in some way. Even Peter, who is definitely one of the privileged—close to Jesus, able bodied, making his own living as a fisherman, able to swim and be active, even having a chance to walk on water. Yet even Peter found himself shaking and stuttering in Jesus’ presence, unable to catch those fish he had spent his life trying to catch, found naked in the boat and putting on his clothes to jump in the water, getting it all backward. This guy, who was Jesus right hand man, found that he himself is a lamb, needing forgiveness, needing encouragement, needing direction, needing his shepherd, needing some barbecue breakfast on the shore. And each of us find ourselves more or less lambs in life’s journey, Jesus calling us by our pet names to come to his table, his pasture to eat and have new life.

And though we are helpless lambs, Jesus’ little pumpkins, we all have areas of strength, too.  Those of you who grieve find yourselves reaching out to others experiencing fresh grief, with someone solid to lean on.  Over at Zarephath, people can contribute and they do—they bring their own bags.  They let someone go in front of them in line.  They share what they can’t use with others in need.  They share tips for the best food pantries.  Through service projects, little lambs are given opportunities to serve the community and find out just how much of a difference they can make.  Part of the pure beauty of our Christmas Pageant here at Trinity this year was all the different vulnerable people playing all the parts—the shy children, those who are aging, those who aren’t sure where to stand or where to look, those who have been relegated to the back row, now find themselves at the center of the Jesus story and angel messengers, sharing God’s love and good news.  It turns out we are all not just vulnerable, but also capable with something important to do.

Jesus gives Peter the responsibility to feed his sheep, but he isn’t going to just shovel feed at them. Jesus is making sure that this feeding will come out of his love for Jesus. There are times we find ourselves volunteer opportunities, frustrated and grouchy. But usually someone stops and remembers why we’re doing what we do—it is because of our love for Jesus, and it just makes it easier to keep going with a friendly smile and the same generous spirit that Jesus shared with us. That’s when it really becomes life-giving for everyone. And many times it is the smiles and appreciation of those we have supposedly come to serve that make us remember Jesus’ love in the first place and in that way they teach us to receive grace upon grace.

Jesus doesn’t just tell us to feed one another, but he is an example of feeding. There is a barbecue breakfast on the beach that morning. Providing food is one step. But eating together is even more what it is about. That’s part of the reason we reinstated snacks and social time after church.  We find ourselves bound closer together when we share food and conversation with a variety of people.  Eating together builds up the body of Christ, so hopefully we will be able to do more of it.  That’s why we gather, week after week, around the meal of Jesus’ remembrance, reconnecting ourselves to him, reconnecting with each other and with Christians of all times and places, because this is about being fed with food, and even more important, with relationship and connection—communion, union-together. This is an empowering meal. Like other meals it gives our bodies nutrition. But more than that it gives us the power to go out and use our gifts to proclaim, one, two, three times and more that we love Jesus and we love his precious lambs and show our willingness to follow him and to feed his sheep.