Fear, Discipleship, and the Muslim Debate

John 21:15-19

When they had finished eating, Jesus said to Simon Peter, "Simon, some of John, do you love me more that these?"

"Yes Lord," he said, "You know that I love."

Jesus said "Feed my lambs."

Again, Jesus said, "Simon, son of John, do you love me?"

He answered, "Yes, Lord, you know that I love you."

Jesus said "Take care of my sheep."

The third time Jesus said to him.

"Simon son of John, do you love me?"

Peter was hurt because Jesus asked him a third time "do you love me?" He said, "Lord, you know all things; you know that I love you."

Jesus said "Feed my sheep.

Very truly I tell you, you dressed yourself and went where you wanted; but when you are old you will stretch out your hands, and someone else will take you where you do not want to go."

Jesus said this to indicate the kind of death by which Peter would glorify God.  Then he said to him, "Follow me!"

This passage has been on my heart pretty consistently for about a year now.  There are several things to take away from this passage, all of them effect my life greatly in it’s current state, but I think most of it is relevant in all walks of a Christian life.

First I want to address the order in which Jesus gives his replies.  This, I believe, shows something about the process by which he calls us to be disciples of His. 

Throughout the passages of the gospels one thing becomes abundantly clear when Jesus speaks: he is not afraid to scare people.  Prominent among Christians today are mindsets along the lines of prosperity gospel, or the phrase “God helps those that help themselves.”  These are easy mindsets to adapt, I myself was a staunch believer of the latter for most of my life.  Unfortunately it’s just not true.  Take a look at Luke 9:60 where Jesus tells followers to “let the dead bury their own dead.”  If that doesn’t do it, try Mark 10:25 where we are told that is “easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than to get to the kingdom of heaven.”  Those two passage need context I don’t have time to get into here today, but one thing is clear from them that doesn’t need context: Jesus is not teaching us to pursue our own interests.

The greater point I’m making above is that Jesus is not afraid to speak in a brazen, controversial way that makes people uncomfortable.  Jesus teaches absolute right and absolute wrong, and will not mince words and will make which is which abundantly clear.  If you want vagaries and easy teaching, read Buddha.  Jesus will challenge you every time.  Every. Single. Time.

In the above passage we see both made clear.  First, the statements about how Peter’s death will glorify God is certainly meeting the uncomfortable guidelines, but that is context that is added by our author, it is not the words Jesus spoke.  The words He speaks however are still a challenge. 

Love is a word that is thrown around really whimsically in our culture.  Today I said I loved pizza, yesterday I said that I loved weekends, tomorrow I will say that I love Peyton Manning (Go Broncos!), but none of these are the love that Jesus is inquiring about.  Jesus is getting to the heart of how Peter feels.  Peter is a visibly emotional person throughout the New Testament.  He acts rashly, makes mistakes, and speaks words that are sometimes better left unsaid.  Jesus is aware that probing three times with the questions “do you love me” is not something that will leave Peter happy.  He is testing the heart of that emotional, mistake-making, oft loose tongued individual.  If Peter doesn’t really love Jesus in a way that surpasses the way that I love pizza, Jesus will see an emotional response that will show the shallowness of this love.  We see from the repetition of the answer that Peter truly loves Jesus, as a result, Peter is given different tasks.

The first response given is that He commands Peter to “feed my lambs.”  This is a contrast of the second command to “take care of my sheep.”  We see that in the first command, lambs, not the adult sheep are where the duty is assigned.  Lambs require caring in a different way than sheep, a sheep is more mature, and may need guidance, protection, and advise on how to move forward in their life as a disciple of Christ.  Feeding lambs in contrast could be merely charitable works.  Literally, the feeding of these people could be an interpretation here.  For example, charities that send food to people in underdeveloped nations or run a soup kitchen are everywhere in our country.  Someone who volunteers at these places can serve the Lord still, but may not be qualified to take care of sheep.  That takes wisdom and maturity beyond feeding lambs.

In the final command, Jesus tells Peter to “feed my sheep.”  We are now transitioning from feeding lambs, to taking care of sheep, to feeding the sheep.  The sheep are mature now, but still need to be cared for in ways beyond the care they provide themselves.  These sheep being fed are likely taking care of other sheep, per the second command, but still need to be fed.  This could be emotional support or a variety of other ways.  I interpret this as the command to live in ministry.  Jesus tested the heart of Peter, he passed.  His reward is that Jesus is calling him into a life serving Jesus as a voice that preaches the gospel to gentiles, but also teaches the mature Christian how to better themselves and be encouraged in Christ.  Only those with the deepest, most genuine love for Christ should be taking these steps, thus the need for three probes of that question.

I have long felt that ministry is my long term career path, but do I pass the above litmus test for love of Christ?  The honest answer is not yet, no.  I love Christ, I love the things He has done in my life, and the impact on the world.  Can I yet say that I love Christ so fully that I would lay down my life in service to Him, without acknowledgement or exaltation for others for this service?  No, I don’t think I can yet.  I don’t think I could be dressed by others and led where I do not want to go to die a glorifying death in God’s name.  I plan on getting there, but my heart hasn’t been softened to that point yet. 

The above is probably can be a bit hard to accept, that we are called to a level of self sacrifice to simply disciple effectively in some ways.  That may be a challenge, but we haven’t even talked about that dying part yet, I think most of you will really hate that part.

These are all things we learn from the exchange, but now let’s talk about the context that John provides in that statement about how Peter’s death will glorify God.  It’s important that we recognize that while this is the context provided, and not the actual words spoken by Jesus, that these are not unrelated discussions.  The context provided is the intended meaning behind Jesus’ words, the next step after feeding the sheep is sacrifice. 

There will in all likelihood be moments in which you will love your ministry for Christ.  Feeding sheep can be overwhelmingly rewarding, so can taking care of them, and feeding the lambs can be so easy, it’s almost hard to see where sacrifice plays a part.  Again, let’s keep in mind that the above is all Christ showing us an overview of duties of discipleship, specifically being disciples of His.  A disciple is not just a student, it is one who is striving to be like the one that is leading them.  To be a disciple of Christ is to be one that is seeking to be as much like Him as possible.  Are you starting to see where sacrifice comes in?  If not, I have a joke that will clear it up for you.

Knock, knock.

Who’s there?

Crucifixion.

Crucifixion who?

Nope, no punch line, the answer is crucifixion.

You cannot be a disciple of Christ without sacrifice, because Jesus can’t actually be the Christ without that sacrifice.  Actually, without it, he’s not only not the Christ, he’s a heretic and a deceiver.  Point established?  Great, let’s proceed.

Sacrifice is hard.  Sacrifice is scary.  Sacrifice is uncomfortable, unnatural, undesirable, and so, so, so many other words that start with “un” and carry negative connotations to virtually everyone.  Sacrifice is also an undeniably present piece in feeding the sheep.  It may be letting a near stranger sleep on your couch while they get back on their feet.  It may be giving money to someone for food when you’re already living off of ramen noodles.  It may be walking to work while a friend borrows a car.  It may simply be having an uncomfortable, awkward conversation with someone that needs to hear some uncomfortable, awkward things.  It may be turning down a bigger paycheck to spend more time on your ministry efforts.  It might be losing your job for speaking openly about your faith. 

For some it will be having your fingers cut off one by one, raped, and then set on fire for refusing to disavow Christ.

All of these things have been sacrifices made by disciples of Christ.  They range from uncomfortable to “no, no way, I can’t, won’t, refuse, never, ever, ever, ever, other things that add on to the run on sentence that proclaim 'I’m not bold/brave/faithful enough to do that!'”  That is not a statement of condemnation, I can’t honestly say that I’m certain I’d face all of them either, it’s just a matter of how sheep-feed ready we might be.  Regardless of where you are on the sheep-feeding readiness scale, one thing is clear.  If we are to achieve the heights of discipleship and are ready to sacrifice to whatever extent God has called us, we must be fearless.

Fearless is hard.  Fearless is rarely encountered.  Fear exists for everyone, unfortunately most often fear doesn’t just show itself in reservations, it shows itself as hate. 

I will be getting on a pulpit for a bit now (no, I don’t consider the things I’ve written thus far to have been up-on-a-pulpity). 

I have been devastated over the past few years to see how people who love Jesus have allowed fear to be more important than willingness to sacrifice.  Particularly, I have seen that so many Americans have decided that it is not their job to be willing to put safety or comfort at risk to help a Muslim.  That is not Biblical, and frankly, it’s embarrassing to me that we are claiming to witness to the world about the same God while we broadcast this. 

Hear this and hear it well, God loves Muslims too, and He expects nothing less from you.  It is again important to put the word love in context.  Love does not mean that He accepts them exactly as they are, flawless, and finding a different path to salvation.  That is absolutely not true.  Love means that His heart breaks over their transgressions, that He values them as a person and wants them in His eternal kingdom, it means that Christ was put on a cross with the hope that they embrace the gift of salvation as well.  When we refuse to share God’s love with Muslims because we are too busy condemning the actions of the radicals, we are losing our place in discipleship.  Christ’s commands were never to help Him judge and condemn, but to love, and spread the good news to every corner of the earth.  When we take the step to judge instead, we are sinning too.  We’re telling God that His cause is not worth casting aside fear for, or worse, we’re letting God know that they aren’t worth it.  That’s not our call to make. 

Maybe your calling is not to go overseas.  Maybe God doesn’t want you to be a covert missionary in Iran or Saudi Arabia.  That does not mean you don’t have a role to play here.  As followers of Christ we are all responsible for spreading His word unto the world.  If we look at the background of feeding lambs, one very interesting thing to note is that the lambs are spiritually immature.  For those of us who have studied a discipleship circle model previously (can’t break all of that down here unfortunately), it’s important to note that everyone is at a level of spiritual maturity, believer or not.  For those that do not believe in Christ or any God at all, they live in a realm known as spiritually dead.  This is an area that can be left behind, it’s the bottom of the spiritual maturity scale.  In other words, they are lambs, and we need to feed them too.

This is not a call to say that everyone needs to work or give financially for world mission organizations, but it is a call to say you’d better not be spreading fear and dissent that intends to prevent others from feeding them.  This is incredibly relevant at a time where I am saddened to see an outpouring of people saying to just leave the refugees from Syria displaced.  Leave them in Europe, leave them in a state of homeless flight from a corrupt government, just don’t bring them here.  Some might be terrorists after all. 

Wait, what?

Leave them to starve, some might terrorists?

Christ was murdered on a cross for you. He had nails driven through His hands and feet, was hung in the hot sun, was left in a state of prolonged suffocation for hours waiting on death, with a crown of thorns on His head, and a sea of unbelievers cheering it on as they shouted scorn and insults at Him while he died. 

Okay, but that’s Christ.  We are not God in human form, we are just humans in human form, surely the call is different right?  Let’s look at the early church, those who experienced Christ in the flesh first hand, or were taught by His personal disciples.  Have you heard of the Roman coliseums?  Does being eaten by lions in front of thousands of cheering spectators sound much easier?  That is the result of their fearlessness.  They could have fled, they could have denied Christ, they could fought their persecutors, but instead they filled Mufasa’s stomach. 

Now most relevant of all, let’s examine how Peter, the apostle who in this passage is said to be destined to glorify God with his death.  Did he die in combat? For a political stance? 

No, he was crucified.  Not just crucified, but upside down, he was crucified.  This was by request because he considered himself unworthy to die the same death as his Savior.  He was willing to die a horrifying death, he was not willing to be seen as an equal to Christ.  So to clear up any confusion, glorifying God can include finding death in a way that is a humbling of a standard crucifixion.

And yes, some might be terrorists.

A guarantee is that some won’t be.  These are starving lambs, people who without sanctuary, may never be anything but lambs.  We have a call to feed them.  That may not include housing them personally, but it certainly includes refusing to spread fear that attempts to keep them from being fed at all.  You see, the fact is that we are supposed to feed the terrorists if they come over too, not just the safe ones.  We are called to live without fear, to witness without fear.  A risk of death does not excuse you from welcoming them and feeding that lamb. 

So please, I urge you, that even if you are not ready to be fearless and handle this ministry yourself, that you don’t pick up the pitchfork or light the torch.  Don’t join the angry mob that marches for the cause of keeping the refugee Muslims out.  The lambs need feeding, and that feeding may result in some deaths along the way.  That is in God’s hands, not ours, but even more so important is that death is not an acceptable cause by which to refuse the task at hand.  I could go on and on and on further here, but I’m going to leave it for now and simply remind you that there are radicals that kill for countless causes all over the world, and shunning any people group for any reason will never make you safe.  We live in a broken world, murder happens, death happens, terrorism happens.  Are you going to live in fear of it?

When you ponder this or other subjects where fear is playing a factor in your decisions, I would simply urge you to ask the following question.  Am I willing to let someone else experience eternal death for my physical well being?  Put the eternal cause first and try to always get to a point where you are fearlessly feeding sheep.

God bless.