Feed my Sheep!

 Jesus keeps popping up in the most unlikely places in Easter resurrection stories.  The locked room, the road to Emmaus, the empty tomb, the gathering a week later with our good friend, Doubting Thomas.  Every time, it is unexpected, and it is life changing. 

“Feed my sheep”, Jesus asked Peter, again and again.  Poor Peter felt nagged and pestered.  And no wonder.  He just wanted to spend time with this illusive, here one moment and gone the next Jesus who popped up when Peter least expected him, then would disappear for days and weeks.  Who knew where he would show up next?  Or when or why or how?

And my goodness, he was disruptive when he showed up.  Jesus didn’t let the disciples slip back into the old patterns of behaviors.  Peter and the Zebedee brothers were fishermen before they met Jesus, and went back to their familiar ways.  They went back to what they knew best.  They went back to the life that they had been only too excited to leave.  It can’t have been much of a job and they couldn’t have had much of a passion for it if they were so quick to abandon it the first time.  Jesus didn’t let them stay stuck though, oh no.  Jesus had better things in mind for them all.

I think it’s very natural to go back to comfortable habits when we are stressed.  Teachers and parents often talk about regression of children when they experience challenges.  When a three-year-old gets a baby brother or sister, they will often forget what they have learned and might start sucking their thumbs more or have more temper tantrums.  Older children may cling more to their parents.  At a wedding I did last summer, teachers were telling me that the children were two to three years behind in their maturity levels and social skills because of trauma.  It happens.  During Covid, I found myself turning into a computer game zombie when I wasn’t at work.  I slipped into old habits again, bad ones.  I had to reclaim the positive habits and become very intentional about substituting the good habits for the bad.  It takes a lot of effort and time to get out of our ruts.

Sometimes going back is the only way to go forward.  I remember when my children were going into junior high school, and we needed me to be working.  The idea of going back to work gave me panic attacks because I thought that the only job I would get was flipping burgers at MacDonald's.  It scared me to think about brushing off my old resume.  My stomach was in knots and I didn’t know what to do.  I went to Naramata Centre that summer and took all my fear into it’s labyrinth.  As I walked that big twisty path, I found my shoulders loosened, my thoughts slowed down and I relaxed for the first time in months.  As I reached the centre of the labyrinth, I had a sudden picture in my mind of being in a rollercoaster, at the very top of a tall hill, ready to go down in a steep dive.  And a voice saying, “buckle up, you’re in for a wild ride!”  Not actually a comfortable message as I hate rollercoasters with a passion!  8 months later I was working at City Hall, 2 years after that I was working in a religious bookstore, a year later, I was studying in Halifax to become a minister, and that led me to Athabasca where I still am today.  It has indeed been a wild ride.  Would I have gotten that same sense of calm without walking a labyrinth?  Probably, but labyrinths have been my fishing boat, my ‘go to’ when I’m stuck.

It's like the scene in a favorite movie of mine, the Princess Bride.  Inigo Montoya, the Spanish swordfighter, is separated from Fezzik, the giant strong man, and remembers that if they got separated, they were to go back to where they started.  Inigo returns to the village, is reunited with Fezzik, and they lived happily ever after.

What is your beginning?  What is your labyrinth or fishing boat?  Where did you first have a sense of something greater than yourself, where you found peace or hope?  What sorts of things help you look beyond the addictions we use to fix the stresses of our lives?

In the end, the only question that really matters is the one Jesus asked Peter.  In the Good Friday stories, Peter lied three times.  Jesus questioned him on the shore three times “Do you love me?” and this time Peter told the truth.

Do we love Jesus?  Do we love the healing we have found, the courage we have felt along the path of faith, do we love those moments where the stories of Jesus help us get unstuck?  Do we love working and playing together in this community that is striving to follow Jesus’ footsteps?  Do we hear the call to feed the hungry sheep of our world who are looking for help to break out of their own ruts?  Do we remember making a difference through socks for the homeless, prayer shawls for the heartbroken, coins to heal places like Ukraine, meals to feed the hungry in this town, and building safe spaces where all will feel welcome?  Are we willing to love Jesus and experiment with living out his teachings?  And will we feed his sheep as he has fed us with wine and bread and hope and love?  We can do all this, when we remember that together, we can do and be more than we can as individuals.  When we seek Jesus, when we dare to dream and hope and throw our nets in new directions, we will find Jesus at the lakeshore and be fed by his love and compassion.  May it be so for us all!