Bible Reading: John 21:1-19
I can’t believe it was all that enjoyable for the disciples to receive fishing advice from a by-stander after a fruitless night of effort. Maybe we should back up a bit and set the scene. Sometime after the events of the Sundays of and just following Jesus’ resurrection, Peter and the disciples decide to go fishing. Actually, Peter decides, and the others follow. They fish all night but apparently don’t catch anything. Keep in mind, these are experienced fisherman. No doubt this was not the first night in their careers that they’d fished all night with little to show for it. And then someone on the beach calls out to them with the sage counsel to throw their net on the right side of the boat.
Again, keep in mind, these are experienced fishermen. So, I have a feeling that they had not fished exclusively on the left side of the boat all night. Hence my guess that the advice shouted to them from the shore was less than welcome. But whatever their reaction to the advice of this on-looker, they indeed throw the net on the right side and immediately bring in a haul so full their nets threaten to break. If this scene feels familiar, it’s probably because each of the other Gospels has a similar encounter between Jesus and some disciples while fishing, and in Luke’s version there is also an abundant catch of fish after a night of fruitless toil (Lk. 5:1-7). But whereas the other evangelists place this scene near the beginning of their accounts and connect it with the calling of Jesus’ first disciples, John places this scene at the very end.
But while coming at a different part of the story, this scene is also, as we’ll see, something of a “call story,” one that applies to Jesus’ disciples then…and now.
There are any number of commentators who, over the years, have drawn attention to the two different Greek words that John uses for “love” in this passage. The first two times Jesus asks Peter, “Do you love me?” Jesus uses the Greek word agapao, which signifies the self-sacrificial love of a parent, while Peter uses the somewhat less intense word phileo, which is more about collegial, filial love. The third time, Jesus also uses the phileo, perhaps signifying that Jesus has accepted what Peter can offer. So twice he invites Peter to a stauncher commitment and the third time meets him where he is.
It’s a moving interpretation, and perhaps this is just what John intends. But John uses those two words for love so interchangeably throughout his story about Jesus that I’m not completely convinced. I think Jesus asks Peter three times for another reason altogether. Just earlier in this scene, Jesus invites the disciples to share breakfast with him around a charcoal fire. There is only one other scene in John where there is a charcoal fire, and it also involves three pronouncements from Peter about Jesus. Except that this time, it’s Peter denying that he even knows Jesus after he had followed Jesus to the high priest’s house after his arrest. At that point in the story, Peter was asked three times about his allegiance, or love, for Jesus and he failed…miserably. Here, Jesus gives him three opportunities to profess fidelity and he does, wiping away, I think, the three denials.
And then, in response to those three professions of love and faith, Jesus neither congratulates him nor offers forgiveness. Rather, he gives him good work to do. The work of being a leader, of looking out for the followers of Jesus. Jesus, in short, restores Peter to the discipleship community and calls him to a life of purposeful service, witness, and eventually (as the closing verse signifies) sacrifice.