Grace and Peace to you from God, our Creator and Sustainer, our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, and the Holy Spirit that abides in each of us.  Amen.

Don’t you just love Peter?  If there is one thing we can say about Peter, it is that he was consistent.  He consistently bumbled around as he tried to figure out what Jesus expected of him and what God was calling him to do.  We first heard about Peter in John’s Gospel in the first chapter.  We were told his name was Simon, and that he was the brother of Andrew.  Andrew had decided to follow Jesus, and after Andrew met Jesus he ran and found his brother, Simon, and told him to come and see the messiah.  When Simon came into the presence of Jesus, Jesus told him that he would be called Peter (1:42).  From that moment on, according to this Gospel writer, Peter followed Jesus.

As Peter followed Jesus, he witnessed who Jesus really was.  He witnessed Jesus turn water into wine (2:1-11).  He was present when Jesus feed 5000 people with five barley loves and two fish (6:1-14).  Peter witnessed Jesus stand up to the religious and political authorities of his day (7:1-52).  He was a witness to Jesus healing the blind (9:1-41), and he even witnessed Jesus raise Lazarus from the dead (11:1-57).  And in the midst of all of this, Peter was there as Jesus taught and prepared the disciples for the work he would call them to do later.  One time while talking with the disciples about this work, they began to complain that it was too hard; his expectations for them were too much.  This is when Jesus asked them, “Do you wish to go away?” (6:67)  In other words, I know it is hard; you can leave if you like.  But Peter responded, "Lord, to whom can we go? You have the words of eternal life.”  Peter got it!  He knew Jesus was the Messiah.

As the story continued, we are told that Peter was present when Jesus foretold of his persecution, death and Resurrection.  And then, of course, Peter was the one who denied Jesus three times just as Jesus told him he would do.  Peter, the one who professed Jesus to be the One who offered us the words of eternal life, was in that fear-filled, locked room when Jesus showed up and offered him and all the disciples “peace” and showed them him his wounds.  Peter was there when Jesus gifted him and all the disciples with the Holy Spirit and gave them their mission, “As the father sent me, so I now send you!” (John 20:22).

And so, after all of this, with Jesus now out of sight, Peter says to the other disciples, “I’m going home.  I am going back to my work.  I am going fishing.”  Peter, the unwilling, bumbling leader seemed to forget life with Jesus and called everyone back to work, work without Jesus.  What?  After everything he had been through with Jesus, after experiencing the Resurrected Jesus twice, the intense spiritual experience faded quickly and he chose to return to the same old thing he had always done, he went back to fishing for fish.  The question is why.  Why did Peter go back on his old job?  What was he doing on that boat? 

Did Jesus become human, suffer, die, and overcome death so that when it was all over Peter and all who followed Jesus could go back to the same old thing?  How many people came here or to other worship services around the world Easter morning only to go back to their old fishing boats the next day?  Was it really only about beautiful music, Easter eggs and chocolate?

The answer to this questions lies in that simple question that Jesus asked Peter three times on the beach, “Simon, son of John, do you love me more than these?”  Three times Jesus asked Peter the same question.  It must have been annoying for Peter, but as I have shared with you before, one of my New Testament professors used to always say, “If something is repeated, it must be important.”  This is an important question, not only for Peter but for all of us who proclaim that great Easter proclamation, “Christ is Risen! He is Risen Indeed, Alleluia!”  If we believe this, then the question is do we really love Jesus more than these?  What are the “these”?  I would argue that Jesus is asking Peter, and us, if we love him and his mission more than our careers, more than the wealth we can attain through our jobs, more than the things we value in this life.  Now, before you quickly answer, “Of course,” as Peter did, remember that Jesus asked Peter three times.  Why?  I think he wanted Peter to realize what it meant to say yes to Jesus.  To say “I love Jesus” means that we accept the role of the shepherd.  It means we will tend the flock.  It means we will feed the sheep.  To say we believe in Jesus and we love him is not a gift given for our own sake.; it is a gift that is meant to enable us not only to love Jesus but to love and care for those who are still wandering and seeking peace.  Loving Jesus means caring for and serving all his sheep.  In our first lesson, God called upon Ananias to go to Saul and bless him.  But Saul was an enemy of the people of “The Way.”  Ananias did not want to go, but God said to; therefore, because Ananias loved God, he served Saul. 

After we have confessed before the resurrected Jesus, as we heard Thomas do last week,  “My Lord and my God,” it is expected that we will be good shepherds.  It is expected that we will be good stewards and that, in doing so, we will witness the Risen Lord to all the world.  We will be his witnesses by tending his flock and feeding his sheep.

Peter and the disciples decided to go back to what they knew best, fishing, but they forgot to ask the Risen Lord where to go fishing.  They fished all night and caught nothing, but when they cast their nets where Jesus told them to they caught 153 fish.  Apparently that was more than the net should have held.  The net should have torn, but it didn’t.  How many of us go to work every day thinking that it has nothing to do with God?  How many of us believe that what we have, our wealth, our gifts, our talents are ours and that we can do with them whatever we want?  After all, we earned the wealth, we worked for it, and we worked to develop our skills.  How many of us believe how we spend our time and how we share our talents and our wealth is our own business because we earned it?  Jesus thinks differently.  Jesus calls us to remember that all we have and all we are is from God.

Jesus is asking us today, “Child of God, do you love me more than these?”  If we are like Peter, and our response will be, “Yes, Lord…”  Then I believe Jesus is saying to us, "Follow me."  As Peter came to understand that morning on the beach, to say, “Yes, I love you, Lord” involves the commitment of our entire life.  So on this Third Sunday of Easter, the question is placed before us, “Salem Lutheran Church in Lenexa, Kansas, do you love me more than these?”  Amen.