John 21 1After these things Jesus showed himself again to the disciples by the Sea of Tiberias; and he showed himself in this way. 12 Jesus said to them, “Come and have breakfast.” Now none of the disciples dared to ask him, “Who are you?” because they knew it was the Lord. 13 Jesus came and took the bread and gave it to them, and did the same with the fish. 14 This was now the third time that Jesus appeared to the disciples after he was raised from the dead.
15 When they had finished breakfast, Jesus said to Simon Peter, “Simon son of John, do you love me more than these?” He said to him, “Yes, Lord; you know that I love you.” Jesus said to him, “Feed my lambs.” 16 A second time he said to him, “Simon son of John, do you love me?” He said to him, “Yes, Lord; you know that I love you.” Jesus said to him, “Tend my sheep.” 17 He said to him the third time, “Simon son of John, do you love me?” Peter felt hurt because he said to him the third time, “Do you love me?” And he said to him, “Lord, you know everything; you know that I love you.” Jesus said to him, “Feed my sheep. 18 Very truly, I tell you, when you were younger, you used to fasten your own belt and to go wherever you wished. But when you grow old, you will stretch out your hands, and someone else will fasten a belt around you and take you where you do not wish to go.” 19 (He said this to indicate the kind of death by which he would glorify God.) After this he said to him, “Follow me.”
Peter’s back here again, back on the water beneath the rocky hills, immersed in a landscape full of memory. He’s been away from home for awhile but his flesh remembers the smell of the lake, the slick netting in his hands, the sway of the boat under his feet. His body sinks into the movement of old habits, habits he thought he’d left behind, and the very familiarity of this place makes him feel alien to himself.
One of the other disciples keeps calling the place where they are the "Sea of Tiberias,” the name of the emperor under whose power Jesus was crucified, which irritates Peter because when he was a child they called it the Sea of Galilee. He’s back, but not really.
Maybe he wonders if there’s something wrong with him? None of that should matter. He’s supposed to be happy. Jesus is risen! Another world is possible, he knows it. And yet Peter’s right back here, reaching into the past hoping to pull up some future, but coming up empty.
This is where Peter was first radicalized, this is where Jesus called him and invited him to join the revolution of God’s kingdom. The last time they were there, on the shores of those waters, Jesus was helping them feed thousands, showing himself as the true king. They sat on that very shore and listened to him saying that he is the bread of life, his flesh will sustain them all as they become agents of new creation. They’d go from there to see demons cast out, the sick healed, the dead raised, the crowds welcoming him into Jerusalem as their true ruler.
And Peter was alongside him for all of it. He saw Jesus’ power and grace and he knew that this was the Lord, and Jesus promised him on the rock of that truth he would build his church and the very armies of hell wouldn’t be able to stand against them. Another world is possible and Peter will help build it. In the great swell of those days Peter was ready to lose himself, to throw himself into the fray, he knew he’d go with Jesus to the death if it came to that. It was really happening, they could overthrow the Empire and make a more just society where the grace and love of God are all in all. Jesus warned him that it might not be so simple, that when the cock crowed and first light shone on his deeds, Peter might see himself and this world very differently, but he couldn’t imagine how that could be the case…
…until it all went wrong. Jesus was betrayed by one of their own, one of their own who fell into the same old temptation of wealth and proximity to power, and they took him. And in the fury of the night someone said to Peter, “Aren’t you one of his friends?” And the pang of terror gripped Peter’s throat and he said “No.” And someone else heard him speak and said, “You’re from the Galilee like him,” and again Peter denied him, and finally a third time someone in the mob recognized Peter and Peter, feeling the whole world closing in around him, flails to free himself, crying out, “I swear I never knew him,” and at that moment the cock crowed and Peter wept. And in so many ways, ever since, the church founded on Peter’s proclamation has continued to deny our Lord, sometimes through the way of Judas, obsessed with Capital and Nationalism; sometimes through the way of Peter, complicit by cowardice, letting the powers of this world have their way without putting up a fight.
Now Jesus is risen, but Peter still denied him. Death has been defeated but not Peter’s own past, and here he is, back where it started, where Jesus first invited Peter to follow him, kicking himself for what he could’ve done differently, how he could’ve done more, he could’ve been better, maybe wondering if it’s too late for him.
Jesus is risen, but after everything Peter’s been through, he can’t get up again. Objectively another world is possible, and maybe he even still wants to believe that, but the cross has still pressed itself on his psyche. In our parlance, he might be something like traumatized. And trauma is not just a bad memory of an event. I’ve learned quite a bit about this over the last couple years through my own treatment for PTSD. Despite what you might have heard, your brain is not like a computer and your memory is not the hard drive on the computer, so that to remember something is just to pull up the file objectively documenting an experience. Our memories are stored in webs of relationship so that to remember something is to pull together pieces of sensory data from different parts of our brains into a whole that we reconstruct every time we bring a memory to mind. And those networks don’t exist in isolation, but are always woven together with other memories, other sense data, so that as you have more experiences, you reconstruct all of your memories a little bit differently every time. Your memories are not simply the past, but the story you tell about yourself and our world now. As William Faulkner said, “The past isn’t dead, it’s not even past.”
And so a trauma is not simply a bad thing that happens, but a whole complex or web of perception looping together foundational memories with painful experiences as a filter for new experiences so that anything in the present which resonates with those prior connections doesn’t just remind you of something from the past, but makes you relive it as something ongoing in the present. Trauma is not just a past event, but a story of who I am and how the world works now, a story that says “I am not safe,” “I am not good,” “I deserve whatever bad things happen to me,” and then going forward any good thing is illusory and any bad thing is confirmation reinforcing those loops.
And this doesn’t only function on an individual, psychological level. Our memories are embodied, even if we’re remembering ideas, we’re remembering them through sounds that reverberated in our ears or symbols that bounced around our optic nerves. Our memories are inevitably tied to the physical places through which we move, the landscapes and the architecture. This is why invading armies sack and shell cities, to destroy the communal memory of those people. This is why southern towns put up statues of confederate generals during Jim Crow, to change the landscape and through the landscape the story the community tells about itself even on an implicit level. This is why we recoil when we see a giant Confederate flag along the highway. This is why the Romans renamed the Sea of Galilee after the emperor. The Powers name and shape the landscapes around us so that their power will be imprinted in our souls.
It’s incredibly useful for the powers of this world to have as many people as possible telling themselves the story that fundamentally “I am not safe,” “I am not good,” “I deserve whatever happens to me.” That story puts us in competition with each other (who are we not safe from if not other people?), and then obviously we need someone strong to keep us safe. That story also disqualifies us from doing anything about our lives before we’ve even tried because if I’m not good, then I can only mess things up. Better just not to be disruptive, to put your head down and do your work, not get in anyone’s way, and hope the powers will reward you or at least kill you a little more softly. If you’re feeling very brave you can repost an edgy instagram story or ironically refer to your own position with disdain, as if dissatisfaction with yourself is some kind of substitute for justice, but we’re never supposed to forget who shapes the world.
But, my friends, Jesus tells a different story that creates new webs of memory. After the disciples recognize him, he feeds them. He feeds them bread in the place where they once fed bread to thousands. Jesus feeds them. And what better way to activate memory than through food, which we experience with all five of our senses, which is at the heart of so many of the most powerful experiences we have. And he looks right at Peter, and says, “Do you love me?” Peter says yes and Jesus says, “Feed my lambs.” And Jesus asks him again, “Do you love me?” And Peter says yes and Jesus says “Tend my sheep.” And Jesus asks him a third time, “Do you love me?” And Peter’s feelings are hurt. Jesus is asking Peter the very question Peter must have asked himself so many times since he denied him. Didn’t I love him? And the very pain of his own failure only accentuates the truth of it, “Yes Lord you know everything, you know that I love you,” and Jesus says to him a third time, “Feed my sheep,” which is both a calling for the future and a memory of what Peter has already done in that very place with Jesus.
Notice, Jesus doesn’t say, “Hey don’t worry about it, only positive thoughts from here on out. Find the silver lining. God is always in control, don’t worry about it.” Jesus goes with Peter back into his most painful memories and fears, not just the crucifixion but the way the crucifixion is attached to Peter’s own denial of him, and instead of avoiding the memory or effacing the memory into something it’s not, Jesus meets Peter around a meal to reconstruct the memory with him, so that now whenever Peter remembers his own failure, Jesus’ affirmation is spliced into that network as well. It’s not that Peter didn’t fail, it’s not that the crucifixion didn’t happen, it’s not that the church hasn’t been caught up in empire, and Christian nationalism, and liberal appeasement of those powers; but his failure and the cross and the church’s failure across the centuries and right now, don’t have to be the story he tells about his life or that we tell about our lives. His failure doesn’t disqualify him from struggling for Jesus’ kingdom. His failure doesn’t mean Jesus is done with him yet. Peter’s called to rise, too, and in this moment we are called to rise and assert all over again by our love for each other and our neighbors that a different world is possible.
Jesus feeds Peter and invites him to feed others, to rework the feeding of the 5,000 and remake the landscape around the Sea of Tiberias. He welcomes Peter to the table, and this is what we are called to do also as we welcome each other to this table. This is why we take communion together. Because in remembering what Jesus has done, Jesus is really present with us, and is calling us to remember who we really are, too. Where your memories and your newsfeeds tell you “you are not safe,” Jesus welcomes us to the table to say, “No, Here you are beloved.” When your bosses or your teachers or your parents or your youth pastor or your former partner or your landlord have told you “You are bad,” Jesus welcomes you to the table to say, “No, You are so very good.” Where the gods of this age and the voices in your head will tell you that we deserve whatever happens to us, Jesus welcomes us to the table to say, “No, here there is only grace.” Where the repetitions of history reinforce our fears that everything is terrible, that the evil and small-minded will always win, Jesus invites us to the table over and over again to repeat over and over again that a different world is possible, and we will feed it to each other one bite and one sip at a time.
Jesus invites us to the table to find in his flesh another kind of place, a place where we remember him and in remembering reconstruct the stories we tell about ourselves and our world. My friends, where you feel scared, where you feel despair, where you feel not good enough for the work of God, may the Word of God and the Bread of Life teach you another story, a story that shames the Powers and sets you free. May you taste and see that you are good, no matter what you’ve been through, and may we live that story by feeding it to all who cross our path, remembering the grace of God together until another world is here, because at this table, it already is. Amen.
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