We Need Some TLC - Third Sunday of Easter

We Need Some TLC - Third Sunday of Easter

Author: Pastor Carolyn Hetrick
May 04, 2025

Christ is Risen! He is Risen Indeed! Alleluia! Alleluia! Alleluia!

This may sound like an interesting question after the week many of us have had- Have you ever felt like you’re just in survival mode? Today’s gospel is for you. Remember that Risen Jesus has appeared to Mary Magdalene and to Peter and the disciples twice, speaking peace and breathing upon them the Holy Spirit. And yet… after all that, Peter announces, “I’m going back to fishing.” And others said, “me too.” 

I don’t think Peter renounced everything he ever experienced. I think the echoes of denial and failings are still living on in his head and he’s grappling with grief which sure can take hold of us. I think he’s doing the one thing he is sure he knows how to do. Can’t mess it up. Turns out Peter can’t even catch fish that day, none of them can. And Jesus shows up. 
The gospel ends with Jesus asking Peter three times if he loves him. We’ll get there. But first, Jesus shows what love means. When they’re floundering, he offers encouragement and wisdom and he offers hungry people actual food. He cares for them before he gets to the heart and soul work.

Focusing upon the flashy part of the gospel is easy and instaneous- look at all those fish! I’ve heard a lot of sermons about “If we just trust Jesus we will make the big catch, we will prosper. We will take the big step, we will fill the pews with the people we catch for Jesus!” 
But the second deeper part of the gospel is Jesus talking to Peter about faith with the searing question of “Do you love me more than these?” Jesus asked three times, as a way of undoing the three times Peter spoke words to deny Jesus before his death. Three “yes’s” in place of three “no’s.” People debate whether Jesus means, “Do you love me more than this fishing life? Do you love me more than these other disciples? Do you love me more than anything?” All good questions. 

But Jesus’ answers to Peter are where I want us to focus. The first time Peter swears he loves Jesus, Jesus tells him to “feed my lambs.” Jesus who used a lot of Shepherd imagery, here focusing upon those young in faith (lambs) who need to be fed increasingly more substance to grow in their knowledge. The third time Jesus says, “Feed my sheep.” Keep feeding the more mature in faith (the sheep) so they can continue to thrive. 

But sandwiched between feeding lambs and feeding sheep is what Jesus says the second time- “Do you love me ? Tend my sheep.”

Before he asks Peter to feed sheep, he tells him to tend them. 

Feeding often seems tangible and even instantaneous. In church it is the feeding in communion, creating teaching materials, performing music, sharing in fellowship meals. These are all important manifestations of being a faith community and while they take work, they are defined events.

Tending is not as demonstrative as feeding. Tending is slower, persistent, not so flashy but oh so important. And this is where I want us to dwell today. Because in our frayed and frazzled world, I believe tending one another as an expression of God’s love gives the transformation we here and in the world so desperately need. If we have love for one another, everyone will know we are Jesus’ disciples. 
To grow and be fed in this way, we need to be tended. If you’ve ever had a pet or other animal that became wounded, you know that it’s very hard to get them to eat when they’re hurting. We have to tend to their wounds first so they can do more than survive, they can thrive. And while we are tending a wounded one, they might snap at us or howl. 

In the gospel, Peter is wounded and his wounds at some level feel self-inflicted. Peter needs to be tended. If you feel that way too, Jesus is here.

Scripture tells us that tending looks like lots of things. Tending is “paying attention.” It’s cultivating and encouraging, and taking care of. It can be fostering growth or preserving. Guarding, guiding, leading to safety, to water, to shelter. Wiping away tears, bandaging wounds, acknowledging pain.” Jesus shows these things not merely as a duty, but willingly. All of them take a great deal of work, and ask us to set aside other things to be present. 

Jesus had already modeled feeding lambs, tending sheep and feeding sheep by the time he asks Peter the three questions. Across his ministry and up until the Last Supper, he had been feeding them in his teaching when they were in the “lamb” stage. 

On Maundy Thursday he loved them to the end of his earthly ministry, telling them ahead of his death, things they needed to know so that when they happened they could keep the faith by remembering what he said. He fed his lambs and pronounced they were now going to be sheep, if you will. 

After his resurrection, he tended to them, in appearances and reassurance of peace, giving the Holy Spirit and his love. And now he talks to Peter one more time because he knows that Peter is still in survival mode. But they’re all there. He feeds them when they feel like lambs all over again by helping them catch actual fish that will feed their families, and making them a real meal before reminding them, “you have a purpose. I believe in you still. Follow me still.”

The tending Jesus modeled was focused and powerful. But when I asked people this past week what came to mind when they imagined tending, the main answers were “endless” and “time consuming” and ‘we have no idea if it makes a difference.” 
I asked you earlier if sometimes you have been or maybe are in “survival mode.” Now I ask, is there a part of you that feels wounded and in need of tending? Wouldn’t being tended make a difference? 

So much of our world can feel like we get pretty banged up by fractured relationships, disappointments, or frustrations- for ourselves, for our families, our communities and our world. Maybe there are also unanswered questions about why things happen the way they do or what the future holds. Just for like Peter and the disciples who said “Yeah let’s just go fishing. What else can we do?” 
Savannah Guthrie wrote a book entitled Mostly What God Does: Reflections on Seeking and Finding God’s Love Everywhere. After much of her book focuses upon what God does, she has a chapter entitled “Mostly What We Can Do.” Jesus’ told his followers to love and now asks, “Do you love me?”

Savannah saw a commercial depicting suffering children who are barely treated as humans and she asked herself if she says that Mostly What God Does is Love, how does someone like that feel that mostly what God does is loves them?” 

And then wondered why do some people suffer and struggle and others don’t? Why isn’t life fair? Why are there stumbling blocks to our faith? These are all valid spiritual questions. 

But, she writes, “our valid spiritual questions should be no obstacle to doing what we can do. “Mostly what we can do is love. It’s what we’re divinely called to do.”^[1] The answer to “How does someone wounded or struggling feel that what God does is love them” comes from when they feel that love from us. Just as Jesus gave the Holy Spirit to the disciples to tend one another, we too receive this same Spirit so we are empowered to tend each other and then share that love because we know its power. 

Jesus’ appearance can be too abstract to recognize, “But love, care and touch from a fellow human being alongside you should not be.”^[2] Jesus seeks all his flock to be loved and cared for. To be tended. A final word related to “tending” is “tender.” 

Sometimes we sheep need some TLC. Tender Love of Christ. May you find it here. And remember, just as Jesus believed in Peter, Jesus believes in you. Whenever wounds and worries emerge, may you rest in the Tender Love of Christ, and then bear the Tender Love of Christ in the world. Amen. 

^[1] Savannah Guthrie, Mostly What God Does: Reflections on Seeking and Finding His Love Everywhere, W Publishing Group (2024), p. 253
^[2] Guthrie, p. 254.

Copyright Rev. Carolyn K. Hetrick, 2025 All rights reserved.  May not be reproduced in whole or in part without written permission.

Sermon Text: John 21:1-19

     ¹ After [he appeared to his followers in Jerusalem,] Jesus showed himself again to the disciples by the Sea of Tiberias; and he showed himself in this way. ² Gathered there together were Simon Peter, Thomas called the Twin, Nathanael of Cana in Galilee, the sons of Zebedee, and two others of his disciples. ³ Simon Peter said to them, “I am going fishing.” They said to him, “We will go with you.” They went out and got into the boat, but that night they caught nothing.
  ⁴ Just after daybreak, Jesus stood on the beach; but the disciples did not know that it was Jesus. ⁵ Jesus said to them, “Children, you have no fish, have you?” They answered him, “No.” ⁶ He said to them, “Cast the net to the right side of the boat, and you will find some.” So they cast it, and now they were not able to haul it in because there were so many fish. ⁷ That disciple whom Jesus loved said to Peter, “It is the Lord!” When Simon Peter heard that it was the Lord, he put on some clothes, for he was naked, and jumped into the sea. ⁸ But the other disciples came in the boat, dragging the net full of fish, for they were not far from the land, only about a hundred yards off. ⁹ When they had gone ashore, they saw a charcoal fire there, with fish on it, and bread. ¹⁰ Jesus said to them, “Bring some of the fish that you have just caught.” ¹¹ So Simon Peter went aboard and hauled the net ashore, full of large fish, a hundred fifty-three of them; and though there were so many, the net was not torn. ¹² Jesus said to them, “Come and have breakfast.” Now none of the disciples dared to ask him, “Who are you?” because they knew it was the Lord. ¹³ Jesus came and took the bread and gave it to them, and did the same with the fish. ¹⁴ This was now the third time that Jesus appeared to the disciples after he was raised from the dead. ¹⁵ When they had finished breakfast, Jesus said to Simon Peter, “Simon son of John, do you love me more than these?” He said to him, “Yes, Lord; you know that I love you.” Jesus said to him, “Feed my lambs.” ¹⁶ A second time he said to him, “Simon son of John, do you love me?” He said to him, “Yes, Lord; you know that I love you.” Jesus said to him, “Tend my sheep.” ¹⁷ He said to him the third time, “Simon son of John, do you love me?” Peter felt hurt because he said to him the third time, “Do you love me?” And he said to him, “Lord, you know everything; you know that I love you.” Jesus said to him, “Feed my sheep. ¹⁸ Very truly, I tell you, when you were younger, you used to fasten your own belt and to go wherever you wished. But when you grow old, you will stretch out your hands, and someone else will fasten a belt around you and take you where you do not wish to go.”  After this he said to him, “Follow me.”

 

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