I’ve picked scripture readings today that are different from the standard lectionary for this Sunday. I wanted to have the chance to reflect on a bible passage that is one I come back to time and again and that I think sums up our journey as Christians in this world. It’s found at the end of John’s Gospel. As we know, Jesus appeared several times after His resurrection. In our Gospel, we read of His last, strange encounter with Peter. Here Jesus explains by both miracle and parable, the role of the church - that’s us - in completing God's Kingdom on earth. The passage first describes the huge catch of fish, so huge that it qualifies as a miracle. This huge expansive catch of fish showed that the church is intended for every one on earth, no longer only the Jewish People, no longer one family or tribe, or nation, or culture, but ALL. Then Jesus goes on to teach Peter how the church will nurture and grow not just in size and number, but in the spiritual growth of each individual. The growth from ignorance to maturity. And finally the Transformation from maturity into divinity as full citizens of the kingdom.
The story starts: “After breakfast Jesus said to Simon Peter, ‘Simon son of John, do you love me more than these others?’ ‘Yes, Lord,’ he answered, ‘you know that I love you.’ ‘Then feed my lambs,’ he said. A second time he asked, ‘Simon son of John, do you love me?’ ‘Yes, Lord, you know I love you.’ ‘Then tend my sheep.’ A third time he said, ‘Simon son of John, do you love me?’ Peter was hurt that he asked him a third time, ‘Do you love me?’ ‘Lord,’ he said, ‘you know everything; you know I love you.’ Jesus said, ‘Then feed my sheep.’” Jesus starts with love, then tells Peter how to act on his love for Jesus. First teach the children and those who are new to faith, the lambs, to Know What God Wants. Feed my lambs.
Next, guide and support the adult believers, the mature Sheep, to Do What God wants: Tend my sheep. Finally, teach and coach the mature adults, those who are ready for this, how to Want What Gods Wants. Feed my sheep. Three steps and stages all leading us closer to God. Feed the newbies, Pastor the adults, then Guide the transformation of the mature.
The writers of the Old Testament knew what God wants and they laid it out in scripture. They also worked hard - strove - to do what God wants. But here Jesus adds a third stretch goal: to want what God wants. To be transformed into a human being whose heart and mind and soul is so infused with the divine Spirit that he or she naturally wants what God wants. This is what transformed the disciples into Christians. It’s also what can transform us. I say can transform us to be fully Christian because I don’t think all of us who call ourselves Christian fully want what God wants. Too often we want what we want.
There’s a reason the Jewish Old Testament is still in the Christian Bible. Genesis and Exodus are where we learn what God wants. We learn what God expects of us - let’s start with those Big Ten Commandments. We’re also taught whom to thank - God - for our very existence. And we’re taught how we are to act with other people, both people in our family and people not in our family, the rest of humanity. This is feed my lambs. We all get good teaching about what God wants.
God also stresses the importance of us behaving as if we understand God’s divine dimensions and divine Love. God knows that will be a struggle. Between our own human nature, and the oh-so-human failings of those around us, it’s going to be hard. God knows that Opposition will make it an uphill task to DO what God wants, to behave according to these rules. Life and growth requires struggle. It’s hard to do what God wants. So, in case we needed extra motivation, the rest of the Old Testament, Prophets, Writings and the other books of Torah lay out what happens when we do NOT DO what God wants. Spoiler alert: it’s not good.
God certainly knows our human nature: We need and want physical survival for self and family, we need social belonging and status, and we need independence, freedom from control by others. We recognize these common needs in our modern psychology. Each of these needs brings pleasure or pain, satisfaction or dissatisfaction. But humans also have a unique and more complex need, a specifically human need. That is the freedom to imagine and express our imagination creatively, of our own will. We go beyond natural instinct, to free will. Choosing to satisfy these peculiarly human needs, especially satisfying our needs to excess, can lead us to damage ourselves and harm others. This is sin. This is opposed to What God Wants. So God, through the Holy Spirit spoke to a few specific individuals. Some did not believe this articulate voice in their heads, but a few listened and believed. Those who listened, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph and later Moses listened to God’s voice and learned What God Wants. They passed this information on to those closest to them. Tend my sheep.
Their families tried to Do What God Wants as best they could. Some did. Most did not. While most Knew what God wanted, and many tried to Do what God wanted, it was a constant struggle to obey. We messy humans needed something more. So God himself stepped into the world as a human to teach us directly.
In the fullness of time, Jesus simplified the rules and commandments down to their essence. Jesus showed and taught that as we strive to honor and love God and to love our neighbor as ourself, we move toward a profound change of our own mind and our own heart. This begins a transformation into men and women whose hearts and minds Want What God Wants.
Jesus did not do this job all by himself. He prepared us by not only teaching, but by his act of love, his infinite sacrifice on all our behalf. He enabled those who accepted his words to directly receive God the teacher, God the coach, God the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit who delivers both information and strength to those who ask for the gifts of the Spirit. More and more we become infused with the Spirit, we start to anticipate the Spirit, we start to see and hear with God’s eyes and ears more than our own. The forces of opposition make us confront our human instincts and the turn to the Spirit for strength to make the better choice.
So for most of us, we’ve had the church education and teaching - we have at least an introductory understanding of what God wants. And for most of us, we’re trying to do what God wants. And the Spirit is there throughout to support us. But what can we do to begin the transformation of our own thoughts and desires, our own being, to Want what God wants?
Spending time with Scripture may be part of the answer; studying scripture certainly, but sitting with it until the divine, the Holy Spirit sinks inside you. We know the Bible is more than a history book. The magi and rabbis of the Old Testament taught we need to study scripture as if it were a five-layer cake. The top layer is the Literal level, a recording of the actual events. What happened. But, the sages said, “Woe to the man who reads Scripture only at the Literal level.”
The second layer is Exegesis or the Moral level. What is the modern lesson in this story? Like the morals of Aesop’s fables. Then there’s a third layer, the Allegoric level, an understanding of the connection to other events or lessons in scripture or the life of the church. An example: the miraculous catch of fish in the Gospel, the catch of fish signaling the reach of God’s love to all humanity and creation, a church stretched to hold all these without breaking.
The fourth layer of scripture is the Mystical level. We look for hints and glimpses that help interpret the past or reveal hidden truths. Prophets, Psalms, and Kabbalah speak to these mysteries, stretching our minds. This sounds pretty new age, but it's very traditional. The deepest layer is the Mystery level. The Mystery level contains meanings unknowable to our human conscious minds. Old Hebrew Sages called it the "Yod” level; pure and unknowable, the mystery our mind’s light can never penetrate consciously. However, at an unconscious level our souls are nourished by this mysterious food in ways we cannot understand.
So spending time with scripture can start planting God’s ways inside your mind. The church has other ways of nurturing the transformation of our hearts and minds, such as meditative or contemplative prayer. Prayer where you turn off the noise of your own needs and worries and “simply” open yourself to sitting in God’s love and presence. Making room, Letting the Spirit in and welcoming the divine love and mercy and grace.
Most of all, we are transformed when we take the time to consciously look around our world as God would see it: at the evidence of God’s wonder and generosity all around us whether the beauties of nature, the awe of stars or weather, the breathtaking wonder of a new child. When we consciously open our eyes to see God’s love for us and our neighbors and when we become the channel of that love. That’s the powerful and most accessible path to Wanting what God wants.
You have to ask whether many modern Christians have somehow forgotten the transformation power of Jesus’ teaching. Maybe begun to see Christianity the way many Old Testament Jews saw the Law. A set of rules and tasks. Do missions, community work. Pledge contributions, do charity, do rituals. Obedient but duty.
Jesus’ teaching was complete immersion. Beyond obedience to Transformation. How do you know if your transformation is happening? Do you feel the flashes of Joy no matter what’s happening to you and around you? Do you feel bathed in God’s comforting love even as opposition threatens? Do you feel God’s comforting arms around you even now?
Share God’s love. Do God’s love. See all people with God’s eyes. Identify yourself with others and lose yourself in the other. Love the others as yourself because we are all cells and organs of the one mystical body of Christ. Lose yourself. Want What God Wants.
Shalom-Shalom