Like many of you, several of the significant spiritual experiences in my life happened at a Christian summer camp.  In this case it was a place called “The Firs” located in Bellingham, Washington, on the shores of a 12 mile long lake, Lake Whatcom.  From the 8^th grade through college I spent many summers there either as a camper or a counselor.

 

I was reminded of some of those experiences again this summer when I was invited back to be part of an anniversary reunion.  I couldn’t make it but it caused me to reflect again on those times and how they influenced my Christian life.  While for the most part I am very grateful, there are some influences that I have long since rejected.

 

One of those was the belief that in order to be right with God one needed to have a dramatic conversion experience.  A regular part of the camp ritual on the last night was to gather around a campfire where songs were sung and the campers were invited to share their conversion stories.  If you were to be accepted as one of the crowd, you needed to have a story -- and a good one!  So every year at every camp I regularly got saved not only to be one of the crowd but also to satisfy my own longing to make sure that I was doing everything I could to be right with God.

 

Perhaps that is why I share such an affinity for Peter in this story.  How many times does it take?  How many times do you need to profess your love and loyalty to God and Jesus?  How many times does it take before you convince not only God but yourself that you have a relationship that cannot be broken?

 

And this is an especially important focus on this Sunday that we call Loyalty Sunday.  How many times does it take, and some of you are asking, how much does it take?  How is it that we express our loyalty to God and the church in a way that is right and satisfying?  Well, listen carefully because this Biblical story may be helpful.

 

In order to provide some context for what is happening here we need to know that this is part of a much larger picture.  Many scholars feel that this three-fold question of Peter’s corresponds to his three-fold denial at the cross.  There is a kind of poetic congruence where Peter is trying to put that period of brokenness and failure and alienation behind him so that he can resume his place as one of Jesus’ most faithful disciples.

 

Some have gotten themselves lost in the forest of rhetorical twists and turns as they tried to interpret this passage.  But we won’t make that mistake because there is no need to make a distinction between the kinds of love Jesus is asking for nor do we need to find great hidden meaning in the differing commands of feed my lambs, tend my sheep, feed my sheep.  Rather we are looking very simply at the question of what does it take to be considered a loyal follower of Jesus Christ?

 

In doing that there is no reason not to follow the simple outline given to us by the writer because Jesus does seem to be looking for something as he asks the question three times.

 

I.                 Do You Love Me?

 

Do you love me?  It is the deepest and most profound question one person can ask of another.  Do you love me?  And if you are in a certain kind of committed relationship, this can even be viewed as a hostile question.  That’s the way Golda took it in “Fiddler on the Roof” when Tevye asked her.  How can that even be a question when you have slept in the same bed for years and raised children and endured the struggles of making ends meet?  Golda took it as a hostile question when Tevye was really asking, “Well, you’ve seemed pre-occupied and distant lately.  You’re not as attentive as you used to be.  Do you love me?”

 

“Do you love me?” Jesus asked Peter.  “Lord, you know that I do.”  Of course, there were those moments of denial but that was a long time ago (if not in time at least in memory).  Since then Peter returned to the inner circle.  He assumed his place of leadership.  But now in this post-resurrection appearance Jesus returned one more time to be with those whom he taught and trained in order to inspire them with the reality of his on-going presence.  For now in his physical absence they will become his hands of compassion and care.

 

“Do you love me?  Lord you know that I do!”  It is just pretty hard to prove your love and loyalty to someone -- either you know it or you don’t.  Well, the church is very good at setting up standards to prove love and loyalty and one of those is called the tithe.  My friend and colleague, Jeffrey Weenink, tells this story to make the point:

 

A minister was walking along the beach one day and stumbled upon a lamp.  Picking it up and wiping it off caused the lamp to shake and smoke and a genie came out.  The genie thanked the minister for this new-found freedom after years of captivity and offered him one wish.

 

The minister immediately said, “I’ve always wanted to visit the Holy Land but I’m afraid of flying.  I just can’t bring myself to fly.  And I get seasick whenever I think about boats.  So my wish would be for you to build a highway across the ocean so that I could drive to the Holy Land.”

 

The genie looked at him in surprise and shock and replied, “You must be kidding.  Don’t you realize the engineering challenges that would have to be overcome to achieve such a feat?  Even I have limitations.  Can’t you think of anything else to wish for?”

 

The minister thought for a few minutes and then said, “Okay, I know what I want.  I wish for all the members of my congregation to become tithers.”  To which the genie replied, “Do you want that to be a two-lane or four-lane highway?”

 

Now you knew that I was going to get that little dig in, didn’t you?  I mean it always comes up on a Sunday like this.  The minister pushes and pushes until he manages to get everybody’s back up.  “Get real, preacher!  We’re not a bunch of saints -- just ordinary folk who are trying to make ends meet.  By the way, are you talking gross or net?  If you are going to try to embarrass us, you might be reminded that in the theocracy of Israel that ten percent was not only a gift to God but also a tax to the state.”

 

Time out!  Point made!  We are all part of the fellowship of the incomplete.  Our love for Christ and his church is not always expressed as deeply as we would desire.  But we do love him even if we don’t always measure up to those goals we have set for ourselves.

 

II.       Do You Love Me More Than These?

 

Of course, having professed his love and loyalty, Peter thinks that the conversation should be over.  But Jesus, like someone putting salt in the wound, presses the point, “Do you love me more than these?”  None of us like to be embarrassed but when we are embarrassed by our own words and actions -- such is the height of humiliation.

 

Peter thought that he was ready to move forward.  The past was past.  Now all he had to do was to restate his love and loyalty, all would be forgiven and he could move on.  Sometimes it is not quite as simple as that.  When Jesus asked do you love me more than these, meaning these other disciples, he was referring back to Peter’s confident boasting that even though all should fail him, he never would.

 

It was a poignant moment, offered not for the purpose of embarrassment but for reconciliation.  Jesus is trying to get inside of Peter’s head because sometimes in order to go forward you have to go backward.  Remember Peter, remember that day when I called you, and then you responded, rose up at once, left everything, and followed me.  But you have wandered back into your old ways again.  Are you going to abandon me?  Are you pulling out of the adventure?  Having put your hand to the plow, are you now looking back?  Do the old ties tug at your heart?  Are they drawing you away from me?  Or do you still love me more than these?  Only you can decide.

 

If it was a continual struggle for Peter, so it is for us -- this continual struggle to get it right.  Yes, we love Christ.  Yes, we love the church, but our enthusiasm waxes and wanes.  But that is the nature of mature love, isn’t it?  Mature love does not always feel the romantic tingle but it moves through the years because it is under girded by habit and commitment and that spells loyalty.  Loyalty keeps us faithful to that conscious decision about what our priorities in life really are.

 

Do you love me more than these?  Peter wanted to say “yes” but he had to think about it because the reality was that he had failed and faltered and deserted Christ too often for it to be a glib answer.

 

III.         Do You Love Me Enough to Follow Me?

 

No doubt Jesus saw the indecision in the eyes of Peter, and so he asked once more.  This time his question did not have to do with intent or priority but simply desire.  The dialog in our scripture lesson conveys a sense of frustration on the part of Peter.  How long would this go on?  How many times would he have to reaffirm his love and loyalty to Christ before his words would be taken at face value!

 

My experience over many years tells me that is exactly what frustrates many of you on occasions like this.  All the church ever does is ask for money is the common complaint.  How many times?  How many times do I have to go through this exercise?  That, of course, is like asking how many times does it take to prove your love -- at the wedding altar, a yearly anniversary, every special occasion you can think of or invent.

 

The answer, of course, is all of the above -- and it is still not enough.  As the saying goes, “In the morning of life we are acquaintances; at noon, lovers; and in the evening, friends.”  It is the long haul that tests our capacity for love.

 

That’s why we don’t believe in a “once for all” conversion.  We are constantly getting converted; we are constantly recommitting ourselves; we are constantly deepening our love for Christ and growing in faithful discipleship.

 

Jesus put one more question to Peter, and I suspect that it wasn’t the last but it is the last we have recorded in this passage.  This time Peter’s response conveys a note of resignation that this will not end the questioning.  And he’s right because the implied answer is “follow me”!  “Do you love me enough to follow me?” is the real question, and to make the kind of sacrifices necessary to make good on that commitment.

 

My friends, what is happening this morning is a matter of love and loyalty.  Unfortunately, some of us would reduce it to a matter of limits and scarcity.  “Do you love me enough to follow me?” Jesus asked Peter.  And we ask how much is enough?  Peter Gomes suggests that it is not a matter of a bank balance but of character:  “I am ashamed for those who fail to respond as they should.  They know they haven’t responded, and I know it.  I know that it is due to a lack of courage and imagination, not primarily to a lack of means or generosity.”

 

How much is enough?  That answer has to be between you and God.  How many times will it take?  The only answer is a lifetime of following Christ and loving him through his church.

 

Amen.