Do you Love Me Peter? On being made human in Dialogue with God

Tomorrow's gospel is the pericope where Jesus asks Peter three times if he loves him. It is the first time we hear much about or from Peter since his triple denial of Christ --- his fear-driven affirmations that he did not even know the man and is certainly not a disciple of his. After each question and reply by Peter, Jesus commissions Peter to "feed my lambs, feed my sheep." I have written about this at least three times before.

About two years ago I used this text to reflect on the place of conscience in our lives and a love which transcends law. At another point I spoke about the importance of Jesus' questions and of my own difficulty with Jesus' question to Peter. Then, last year at the end of school I asked the students to imagine what it feels like to have done something for which one feels there is no forgiveness possible and then to hear how an infinitely loving God deals with that. The solution is not, as Dietrich Bonhoeffer would have termed it, "cheap grace" --- a forgiveness without cost or consequences. Neither is it a worthless "luv" which some in the Church mistakenly disparage because they hear (they say) too many homilies about the God of Love and mercy and not enough about the God of "justice". Instead, what Jesus reveals in this lection is a merciful love which overcomes all fear and division and summons us to incredible responsibility and freedom. The center of this reading, in other words, is a love which does justice and sets all things right.

But, especially at this time in the church's life, tomorrow's gospel also takes me to the WAY Jesus loves Peter. He addresses him directly; he asks him questions and allows him to discover an answer which stands in complete contrast to and tension with his earlier denials and the surge of emotions and complex of thoughts that prompted them. As with Peter, Jesus' very presence is a question or series of questions which have the power to call us deeper, beyond our own personal limitations and conflicts, to the core of our being. What Jesus does with Peter is engage him at the level of heart --- a level deeper than fear, deeper than ego, beyond defensiveness, and insecurity. Jesus' presence enables dialogue at this profound level, dialogue with one's true self, with God, and with one's entire community; it is an engagement which brings healing and reveals that the capacity for dialogue is the deepest reflection of our humanity.

It is this deep place in us which is the level for authentically human decision making. When we perceive and act at the level of heart we see and act beyond the level of black and white thinking, beyond either/or judgmentalism. Here we know paradox and hold tensions together in faith and love. Here we act in authentic freedom. Jesus' dialogue with Peter points to all of this and to something more. It reminds us that loving God is not a matter of "feeling" some emotion --- though indeed it may well involve this. Instead it is something we are empowered in dialogue with the Word and Spirit of God to do which transcends even feelings; it is a response realized in deciding to serve, to give, to nourish others in spite of the things happening to us at other levels of our being.

When we reflect on this text involving a paradigmatic dialogue between Peter and Jesus we have a key to understanding the nature of all true ministry, and certainly to life and ministry in the Church. Not least we have a significant model of papacy. Of course it is a model of service, but it is one of service only to the extent it is one of true dialogue, first with God, then with oneself, and finally with all others. It is always and everywhere a matter of being engaged at the level of heart, and so, as already noted, beyond ego, fear, defensiveness, black and white thinking, judgmentalism or closed-mindedness to a place where one is comfortable with paradox. As John Paul II wrote in Ut Unum Sint, "Dialog has not only been undertaken; it is an outright necessity, one of the Church's priorities, " or again, "It is necessary to pass from antagonism and conflict to a situation where each party recognizes the other as a partner. . .any display of mutual opposition must disappear." (UUS, secs 31 and 29)

But what is true for Peter is, again, true for each of us. We must be engaged at the level of heart and act in response to the dialogue that occurs there. Because of the place of the Word of God in this process, lectio divina, the reflective reading of Scripture, must be a part of our regular praxis. So too with prayer, especially quiet prayer whose focus is listening deeply and being comfortable with that often-paradoxical truth that comes to us in silence. Our humanity is meant to be a reflection of this profound dialogue. At every moment we are meant to be a hearing of Jesus' question and the commission to serve which it implies. At every moment then we are to be the response which transcends ego, fear, division, judgmentalism, and so forth. Engagement with the Word of God enables such engagement, engagement from that place of unity with God and others Jesus' questions to Peter allowed him to find and live from. My prayer today is that each of us may commit to be open to this kind of engagement. It makes of us the dialogical reality, the full realization of that New Creation which is truly "not of this world" but instead is of the Kingdom of God.

Peter, Do You Love Me? Part 2

Tomorrow's Gospel portrays the reconciliation between Jesus and Peter occasioned by a dialogue in which Jesus questions Peter, and thereby reminds him of what is deepest and truest in himself. As noted in part 1, through Jesus' questions, Peter gets in touch with his heart of hearts and with the reality of agapeic love that objectively inspires him most profoundly. (What Peter feels subjectively is affirmed in his responses, which are expressed in terms of filial love.) From this experience, this reconciliation with what is deepest in himself comes Jesus' triple commission of Peter to "Feed my Lambs, feed my sheep." And of course, Jesus then reminds him that when Peter was younger he could dress himself and go wherever he wanted, but now that he was older (more mature), someone else would gird him in a new role and lead him where he did not want to go.

The point of course, besides referring immediately to the kind of death Peter would die, is that an Apostle's vocation and commission is a difficult one; it represents a kind of freedom which is far more mature and responsible than the liberty of youth. More, while Love speaks to us in our heart of hearts and is the basis of all Christian morality and ethics (something the Church affirms again and again, not least in her teaching on the primacy of conscience coupled with the idea that conscience is that sacred and inviolable place where God speaks to us), discerning how the imperative of that voice of Love works out in concrete terms is sometimes difficult and will always have significant consequences because the stakes are very high.

In recent days we have been reminded of this latter part of tomorrow's Gospel in a particularly striking way, not only of the difficulty of working out what is most loving and most inspired in concrete situations, but of the fact that sometimes our commitment to communion which is our deepest reality and the Love which grounds it and our vocation will take us places we would really rather not but certainly must go if we are to be true to ourselves and our God.

You may know the story: Sister Margaret McBride, a Sister of Mercy and member of a hospital ethics committee was presented with a really terrible situation. A mother of four children with an 11 week pregnancy had a condition which was exacerbated by the pregnancy. If she continued the pregnancy the prospect of both mother and baby dying was nearly 100%. If the pregnancy was terminated the mother had a chance of living. In either case, the baby would die. Church directives on the matter were clear and unambiguous: direct abortion is never allowed. One may not intend evil in order to do good. The demands of love, however, were not so clear in this particular situation. The abortion was done and Sister Margaret and all who participated in it in any way were automatically excommunicated, meaning the Church hierarchy did not act to excommunicate these people but rather, those involved incurred this ecclesiastical (not Divine!) penalty themselves as a consequence of their very action.

Now the classical position on the teaching of the absolute primacy of conscience foresees such a situation. Aquinas was very clear that one MUST act in good conscience (to do otherwise is to sin) and that if one's actions will take one outside the church, that is, if they will result in excommunication, one must act according to one's conscience judgment and bear the excommunication humbly. Again, to fail to act according to one's conscience judgment is to sin; to act in good conscience is not, no matter what the consequences or the correctness or incorrectness of that judgment. Sometimes we hear people suggest that if one acts in good conscience it can only be with a well-formed and informed conscience (this is true), and further that this must mean that one can only act in accord with Church teaching (this is not true). Of course, if this latter part of the statement were true, Aquinas' analysis with its prominent conflict between law and love would be meaningless; excommunication when acting in good conscience could never occur. Similarly at Vatican II it was proposed by some Bishops/Curia that the Council's teaching on conscience be modified to state explicitly that a well-formed conscience was one which was formed to be in accord with Church teaching in any given situation. The theological commission in charge of such a modification rejected it as too rigid and narrow to reflect the scope and wisdom of Church teaching on primacy of conscience.

What we see is that sometimes there is a disconnect or conflict between law (which deals with universals) and love (which not only is a universal imperative but which deals more adequately with concrete situations than law can ever do). Church teaching and the magisterium honors the fact of this disconnect by refusing to soften the crisis (krisis is the Greek term for a moment of decision) that can occur as a result and by commissioning us each to act as Love itself demands. Only we can bring love to a situation. Law cannot. Only we can act in an inspired and creative way given specific circumstances require. Law cannot. Only we can courageously negotiate the transition from universal legal norms in a way which truly chooses life in the best way possible. We are not prevented from erring, nor assured that every decision we make is correct, but the task and challenge of discipleship is this momentous and compelling nonetheless. The charge in tomorrow's gospel passage is a somewhat stronger version of Augustine's famous dictum: Love and do what you must! Love, and do what only you can do. Feed My Sheep!!

My own prayer as we prepare to celebrate Pentecost is a prayer for the Wisdom, Love, and Courage of the Spirit (and any other gifts) necessary to accept the commission which comes with our acceptance of a mature Christian identity; it is a prayer for the Spirit which grounds, reveals, and allows our affirmation of that communion ---that agapeic reality which is deepest, most true and real within us. I especially pray for Sister Margaret who acted in good conscience (quite a high value and demanding reality), and showed us how the face of God is made manifest in the concrete situation. She did this not by thumbing her nose at law, but by relativizing it in light of the Great Commandment and the Voice of God she heard in her heart of hearts. I also pray that her Bishop will lift the automatic sanction, not because abortion is acceptable, but because sometimes, as Sister Margaret has shown us, there are even worse threats to innocent life in the concrete situation. Difficult as this situation is, we cannot allow people of faith, courage, and exceptional integrity to be automatically excluded from the Body of Christ in a way which suggests that church law trumps rather than imperfectly serves God's own Commandment.

May we, each of us, from the lowliest hermit, religious or lay person, to the highest Bishop or Pope act in ways which effectively bring the face of Christ's love, mercy, and compassion into the concrete situation. Law can assist us in significant ways, but will always fall short here. A heart forgiven by Christ and reconciled with him, a heart which knows its own frailties and failures even while it is inspired by and obedient to his Holy Spirit will not.

Peter, Do you Love Me? Part 1

Spending time with Friday's Gospel (May 21th, John 21:15-19) marked one of those unexpected moments for me when the Holy Spirit empowers one to hear something completely new, and when the text takes on a new sound, a new perspective and lesson. Throughout the Easter season I had at least implicitly heard the question Jesus posed to Peter in this lection again. Partly this was because we read the Gospel of John and the command to love God and one another turns up again and again with this question tacitly embedded within it. Partly it was because of people who modelled such love for me again and again and were central to this year's Easter season -- not least Ann and Don and their family. Partly, I suppose it is the natural question of one who desires to love God and others but continually falls short.

Like most people I have always heard Jesus' questions to Peter merely as a kind of test. Clearly they follow Peter's triple denial of Jesus on the night he was arrested, and Peter's own affirmations serve to counter those. Perhaps Jesus really asked Peter these questions in precisely this way and this is a simple record of that; perhaps the questioning is a literary device constructed by the evangelist in order to mark Peter's renewed commitment to the Risen Christ as adequate to offset his denials and justify his leadership role in the nascent Church; perhaps there were three questions, or perhaps Peter heard this question in his heart dozens of times as he encountered Jesus after the resurrection (or maybe both of these are true!), but however the historical details shake out, I know that like most people I heard these questions as a test posed by Jesus to Peter, or to myself. Until last week that is.

In living with this text for those few days and sensing a climax to what I had been experiencing during Easter, I began to see instead what Jesus was doing with these questions, and testing Peter was not what he was about, at least not in the common sense. Instead he is attempting to move Peter past the denials on the night of his arrest, serious as those were, and put Peter in touch with the deeper truth, the truth which is more foundational for him than his fear, his self-centeredness, his drive for self-preservation and the like. It is a way of rehabilitating Peter and commissioning him for something more as well. It put him in touch with the truth which is life for him, the truth of his bond with Jesus which is deeper even than Peter's denials because God dwells within us, and because "Nothing can separate us from the love of God". At the same time the questions move Peter from his own certainty in himself (and about himself!) and an attitude of (perhaps defensive) self-assertion to a more secure place altogether: the point of humble submission to Jesus' knowledge of who Peter is, Jesus' certainty about Peter's capacities and constitution, Jesus' judgment of the nature, worth, and measure of his life and his plan FOR that life.

The element I was not paying enough (or appropriate) attention to was Jesus's commissioning of Peter and the way this commissioning functions in Peter's life. If I attended to these statements at all it was as a reward for answering correctly, "Yes, Lord, I love you!" In my mind I read the text this way: "Answer the question correctly, Peter, and Jesus will entrust you with great responsibility. Answer incorrectly, and he will not!" Now, there is a seed of truth in this --- Jesus entrusts those who love him with a great deal --- but Jesus's commissioning is not a reward for the right answers. It is instead a way of creating a future, for Peter, for the Church, for Jesus' life here among us. It is the way Jesus forgives, and it is an effective forgiveness which changes who Peter is in less essential ways and also builds on who Peter is most deeply and essentially, and so too then, the way Peter sees himself. It is a challenging forgiveness which empowers Peter to see himself as Jesus does, trust himself as Jesus does, embrace and live up to the vocation Jesus knows him to have and makes him, with God's grace, to be capable of.

These questions put to Peter by Jesus function similarly to Jesus' parables. They create a new future by allowing the one hearing and responding to them to opt for reality as Jesus defines it. Far from simply testing Peter, they are meant to encourage him -- though by challenging him to measure up to what is deepest in himself, what is truest and most real. In monastic life this is what it means to be addressed as one's true self and to heal and transcend his false self. Rather than questioning whether Peter loves him, Jesus uses these questions to remind Peter of the truth of his loving union with Jesus just as they remind him that this is the reality God sees in us beyond the sin, selfishness, fear, cowardice, etc which so often marks our lives.

It is significant then that when Jesus poses his question the first two times he uses the appropriate grammatical form of agape --- that quality of love which transcends all individual expressions of it, that form of love which is the principle of unity and wholeness in all forms or qualities of love (eros, bios, philia, etc), that form which points directly to God and the Spirit which inspires it within us. Only once Jesus has reminded Peter twice of this deep ground of all love and heard Peter's affirmations, does he ask him the third time if he loves him in the more particular form of philia. Peter is reconciled with Jesus. In dialogue with Jesus he comes to certainty about who he really is, and what moves him most deeply. He affirms himself and he affirms who Jesus is for him.

As a result or consequence (NOT as a reward!) Peter is commissioned to "feed my sheep". In accepting this commission he accepts his truest identity; in accepting his truest identity he experiences and accepts this commission. And this Peter will do because above all he has recommitted himself to loving, that is, to acting on what is truest and most real within himself in ways which will naturally affirm what is truest and most real in others.