Convergence

This occurred on 20 August 2015, though I'm only writing about it now. I’m not sure when during the day it happened (I think after I did chores while worship music was playing in the background) but the words “feed my sheep” kept echoing through my brain. It felt like an invitation; so in the afternoon I went looking up the passage in John 21 which contains these words.

The whole passage spoke to me. In order of its writing:
In verse 3 Peter says, “I’m going fishing” and six other disciples come along. (This shows the gift of leadership Peter carried, I think.) After the despair and the joy of the past months, Peter went back to doing what he knew how to do. They’d experienced Jesus as the risen Lord, but Jesus now came and went randomly. It wasn’t at all like following him physically in a more or less orderly fashion, as they had done the past 3 years leading up to his death: Jesus goes somewhere, we tag along, he lets us see and do his stuff. Later he sends us ahead of him to do his stuff, but it’s at his initiative. No, now everything is far more uncertain than it was before the Cross.
What to do?
I can imagine that Peter, after denying Jesus as he had, couldn’t feel secure in his own heart that he was still an apostle-- hence, back to doing what he’d been doing all his life before this crazy invitation to follow Jesus came along: fish. But it didn’t work. They fished all night (and these men knew their trade) but caught nothing. At dawn, tired and disappointed, they vaguely see someone on the beach who calls out to them, asking if they had a catch (v4-5). They didn’t, and the stranger advises letting down their nets again (v6), after the best time to fish is well past and as they are coming in to shore, so probably in shallower water than fish were normally to be caught. The guy clearly isn’t a fisherman...
As they, for some reason (perhaps there were faint stirrings of an earlier memory?), obey these strange instructions, the catch is unexpectedly huge (v6). John the Beloved ‘gets it’ first: “It’s the Lord!” he says. And impulsive Peter does something I had never noticed before: he puts back on his outer garment, his robe, which he’d removed in order to work, before jumping into the water to get to shore quickly (v7).
I said right out loud, “He put his robe back on!” Some weeks beforehand we’d dealt in prayer with a robe hemmed with rocks A had been wearing, which had been weighing him down. Within the same time frame, I’d come to the realization that I was no longer habitually wearing the robe Jesus gave me in vision many years ago. At some point in the de-construction of my former life, I'd laid it aside. But recently, at the Spirit’s urging, I symbolically put it back on. I didn’t feel any different in that moment, really, but I knew I was supposed to do that. As I look back, though, I can see that our inward journey rather sped up from that point onward.

Jesus asks for some of their catch (v10), which I also found significant. He’s already got fish on the fire (v9), but he wants what they can bring to the table, too. (There's more in this thought to milk another time.) Peter evidently couldn’t swim faster than the men could bring in the boat; or perhaps he was somewhat hesitant to approach Jesus alone. In either case, the disciples unloaded the net (which did not break, and John considers that important enough to mention) together (v11).
“Now come and have some breakfast,” Jesus says (v12), which is more than an invitation to a Men’s Breakfast On The Beach event. In that culture, sharing of a meal meant sharing of life, and Jesus was symbolically inviting them back into the kind of fellowship they had enjoyed with him before his death and resurrection. How many times had they shared fish and bread with him? I imagine that was enough for the rest of the men to feel secure again. Yes, they’d let Jesus down; they’d run away and hidden, but they had not specifically denied even knowing him, as Peter had. And Jesus hadn’t publicly prophesied this over them, either.
Peter, though, needed more personal reassurance that Jesus still desired close fellowship with him; and more than that, to know that Jesus still wanted Peter to work in the family business. And Jesus gave it to him ..at a price.

I looked at several versions, including German, and read some commentaries too. An interesting aspect is how the translators title this section. Some call this “Jesus Challenges Peter”; some, “Jesus Restores Peter”; but the NIV, which I was reading first in English, titled this section “Jesus Reinstates Peter”, and I felt spoken to by that.
Verses 15-17 tell how Jesus challenges, restores and reinstates Peter. The words I have bracketed help the English to better reflect the nuances of the Greek meanings. First he asks him, “Peter, do you love me (unconditionally), more than you love these others?” And Peter, perhaps only now realizing that his love was not as unconditional as he’d thought, responds “Yes, Lord, you know I love you (as a brother).” This happens twice, and then Jesus asks one more time, bringing it down to Peter’s level of ability: “Peter, do you love me (like a brother)?” and Peter is hurt that Jesus needs to ask again.
Three questions, which correspond to Peter’s three betrayal statements: twice “I’m not one of them!” and once “I don’t know the man” (Lk 22:57). Could there be a connection?
At any rate, Peter responds with a confession of familial love to each question, and each time, Jesus gives him a task. “Feed my lambs.” “Take care of my sheep.” “Feed my sheep.” Some commentators see a progression here from lambs, to grown but immature sheep, to mature sheep, each of which have different needs. Jesus is commissioning Peter as a shepherd, after already having established himself as The Good Shepherd. What higher honour than to not only be reinstated in friendship and fellowship, but to be invited into Jesus' own footsteps?

I identify with this; because though my longing is to help provide any age sheep with what they need to thrive, I think I’m especially called to leaders. I’m an equipper, I’m a pastor and pastor of pastors, I’m an apostle, I’m a mother. That all has to do with nurture, with enabling an atmosphere where people come into their own callings and are released to be all that God has in mind for them to be.
Shepherds create pastureland for their sheep (think “pastor”). They may or may not fence it in for safety, but they lead the flock beside quiet waters and into verdant land, so the sheep can develop and grow well. Overshepherds (apostles) train and nurture shepherds and provide the same kind of thing for them, to the point where they can take their own flocks to pastureland they’ve marked out and prepared. I’ve known for many years, and it’s been prophetically confirmed countless times, that I’m no longer primarily called to pastor “a” church, but The Church.

The last thing that spoke to me about this chapter was that Jesus, after prophesying a rather unpleasant end for Peter, just as he’d prophesied the denials, repeated his original call to Peter: “Follow me” (v19). When Peter sees John (who is apparently eavesdropping!) and asks about his fate, Jesus emphasizes that’s none of Peter’s business and finishes with repeating “YOU follow ME” (v21-22). In other words: it doesn't matter what I've called anyone else to do, Peter; will you do what I've called you to do?
In following Jesus into this new territory, I’m aware that what we want to do will be misunderstood, and/or even seen as rebellion by some. It’s not a matter of “better” or “right” but about “different pastureland”. Different people will be called to develop differing pasturelands for different breeds of sheep. What is currently available allows only a few trusted rams to thrive --at the expense of other sheep.
My husband A is a theologian, a teacher and a consultant. I am what I mentioned above. We each have life histories preparing us for this next phase, I think, and have spent the past 2+ years getting frustrated enough with “the quiet life” and with pew-sitting that God can now lead us more deliberately again.

Like Peter went back to fishing, I went back to my hobby (cooking/catering) and tried to make that my vocation, because I couldn’t see a way to reconcile what I had been, and what God was still calling me, with the new context in which I found myself. (But just as fishing was no longer a viable option for the original disciples, that didn't work.) All the labels with which I'd previously identified were, in my mind, attached to a form of church I can no longer believe in and have no current voice in.
But lately God has been separating the two in my mind and heart. I do not just DO these things, I AM these things, no matter what it is I do. No wonder I’ll never be satisfied doing anything else, and people will not get the kind of help they need from me when I’m preoccupied with fluffy stuff.

This church and this whole area is full of dimly burning wicks which should be burning brightly. I’m put in mind of Isaiah 42:3: “A bruised reed He will not break, and a dimly burning wick He will not quench”, and I know it is not God dampening their fires! I so long to hold the match to them and watch them burn for what they’re made for.
All my life, I’ve always wanted to invest in the next thing God is doing, not the previous thing. My spirit is coming alive again at the thought of being pro-active in releasing people with the calling of leadership into what they were made to do. I don’t have to be personally deeply involved in their “thing”, whatever it is, but like a mother with grown children, I can stand by them, encourage them, be proud of them and glad for them.
This feels like convergence: all of what has made up my life so far, including my own historical failures, denials and faithlessness, finally starting to make sense and be useful -- all in the face of God’s ridiculous overriding grace and mercy.