Feed my lambs.

A Sermon for St Peter and St Paul

June 29, 2025 at Holy Communion

“Feed my lambs” (John 21:15). In the Name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. ☩ Amen.

When I graduated seminary, the Formation Director adapted today’s Gospel reading for a ceremony commending us to our new ministries. Asking us to assemble in a line, he addressed us all: “Do you love Christ?” We responded, “You know that we love Christ.” “Feed his sheep,” he said. We did this three times. As in today’s Gospel, the point was clear: love for Christ will be proved by love for Christ’s beloved flock.

This morning we can put a few puzzle-pieces together that we have been gathering up over the Easter season.

About two months ago now, on the Second Sunday of Easter, we heard that Jesus is the good shepherd. He lays down his life for his sheep, placing himself between them and the wolves of this world who would devour them, because they cannot direct or protect themselves.

On the Fifth Sunday of Easter, he discussed prayer. To pray truly and deeply is not to ask for this or that thing that we want or even feel that we need, but to join your will to the will of Christ, desiring what he desires. By his death and resurrection, Jesus joined himself to you in your mortality; now you rise with him, sharing with him the role of participating in his Father’s will.

And that led right into Ascension Day, when we heard that the same Christ who is exalted in heaven is also still present here below. We, the body of Christ animated by the Spirit of Christ, carry out his work of healing the world.

And that gives us everything we need to know to interpret today’s Gospel deeply. The superficial reading of Jesus’ dialogue with Peter would be something like this: “We prove our love for Jesus by serving him. Jesus has rational sheep which need feeding, so we can show him love by the doing him the favour of caring for them on his behalf.” The problem with that is the same problem we discovered when we were talking about prayer. That’s the way that a servant of God thinks; that’s not the way that a child of God thinks. That’s doing favours for someone, not sharing a common mind and spirit with someone.

But there is a deeper reading. Peter will show his love for Jesus by feeding his sheep, because, uniting his own will to the will of Jesus, he will love what Jesus loves—that is, the holy people of God, the flock for whom he gave his life. When Peter feeds the sheep, he will not be fulfilling his own desires, even his desire to feel the satisfaction of serving his beloved Lord, but fulfilling the desires of the one to whom he has been joined in heart and mind. Like Jesus himself, he does not his own will, but the will of him to sent him (John 6:38).

Jesus makes this more abundantly clear to Peter by telling him, immediately after the dialogue about the sheep, that “when you were young, you used to dress yourself and walk wherever you wanted, but when you are old, you will stretch out your hands, and another will dress you and carry you where you do not want to go” (v 18). And in case the reader didn’t get it, St John narrates, “This he said to show by what kind of death he was to glorify God” (v 19).

About thirty years later on June 29, St Peter would follow the Master’s example and be crucified, laying down his life for the sheep. He was no longer doing a service for the Master whom he loved, but truly and finally loving as the Master himself had loved. His will and Christ’s were finally one—and one at the moment of giving up his life, the moment which had made a younger Peter go running for the hills.

In the end, there is only one shepherd of the Christian flock: Jesus himself gives the Spirit which moves every person who serves God’s people. And this lesson, in fact, was not proclaimed for the first time in the life of Jesus. We heard it in our Lesson from the Prophet Ezekiel as well— “Thus says the Lord God: Behold, I, I myself will search for my sheep and will seek them out” (Ezekiel 34:11). God himself is the shepherd. Every other shepherd is either an bearer of the Spirit of the shepherd of Israel, or he is a hireling and a thief (John 10).

There is a clear application of all this for our congregation in our particular moment. As you know, I will be moving on from this parish very soon. And in fact, you will get a little practice without me for the next few weeks as I take vacation before I am back for another few weeks, and then gone.

During the time that you are between pastors, it will be especially clear that you must serve one another. Many of you are already preparing to serve: our Lay Ministers will lead worship, our Wardens will keep the ship afloat administratively, our Parish Council will work together on governance and whatever events you want to see take place. They—you—will do it out of love for Christ, I’m sure. You are people of prayer and people of service.

So my point is that for everyone—not just those in formal leadership roles, but everyone—the key is to remember that you do it out of love for one another. Of course you love God, but (as we heard from St John last week) remember that “he who does not love his brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen” (1 John 4:20). The key is not whether you have love toward God, but whether you have God’s love towards your brothers and sisters. What you will do to keep this community flourishing in my absence, you will do for their sake. Lay aside all your servility and take up charity. Christ does not ask that you lay down your life for him, but that you, with him, lay down your life for your friends; there is no greater love (John 15:13).