Friday of the Seventh Week of Easter

“What Is That to You?”

Today and tomorrow we come to the end of the Acts of the Apostles with Paul under house arrest in Rome, where he remained for two years, Acts states. It is a rather poignant picture of the great Apostle to the Gentiles who spent his entire post conversion life as a missionary to everywhere in the known world of his day preaching the Gospel, now spending some of his last days living alone and captive in Rome. Acts has nothing further to say and there is no definitive source of Paul’s fate though tradition has always claimed he was finally martyred in Rome. Yet he welcomed everyone and continued to preach the Gospel boldly. It is also worth noting that there were no written Gospel accounts at this time. It is a kind of forever question how much of the four Gospel accounts were influenced by Paul’s evangelical work.

We also complete the Gospel of John today and tomorrow. We are at the conclusion of the great twenty-first chapter of John that was begun at the liturgy some weeks ago in the early Easter season. There is really nothing else in all the gospel accounts that quite equals the power of John’s final chapter. With John’s canonical placement at the end of the four Gospel accounts, it concludes the entire evangelium. John’s account is the only one that contains more than one chapter on the post resurrection of Christ. Virtually all scholars agree that it is what is known as a redaction, something added later. But no one knows when or by whom. It must have been quite early since the most ancient manuscripts of John all contain it. But there is no agreement that the author of the first twenty chapters of John also wrote the twenty-first. Therefore John 21 is quite mysterious, especially as it reveals that the very mysterious “Disciple Whom Jesus Loved” is its author and witness.

The first part of John 21 that we heard weeks ago, is extraordinary in its depiction of the Apostles, in despair it seems and having returned to where they were before they met Jesus, re-experiencing the miraculous catch that inaugurated their apostolic lives (Lk 5:1-11) when they first met the Lord on Lake Galilee and now meeting the resurrected Jesus making them breakfast on the same shore after all that had happened and all their bewilderment, shame and sorrow.

Now we pick up the story after the Apostles’ silent breakfast on the beach with the resurrected Jesus, who finally breaks what must have seemed like an eternity of penitential silence, by asking Peter, not once but three times (one for each of his denials), “Do you love me?”  Peter, of course, does love the Lord and tells him so three times also, to which the Lord tells him another three times, “Feed my sheep.”  And then Jesus tells Peter what that love will require of him.

It is precisely that prophecy of the Lord regarding his chief Apostle that often frightens us. What will he ask of me, we ask ourselves? What will it cost? And we find ourselves grateful for Peter being Peter, who after everything, rather vainly wonders to Jesus about the mysterious disciple; of what would happen to him. “What is that to you?”  Jesus replies, and we must assume gently and without any rancor or scolding, “You follow me.” 

And that also is the answer to our fears. What does it matter how others have followed Jesus? Why do we assume it will be how we must follow him? Why do we fret over what is simply our imagination, our fantasy? Jesus again and finally urges us, do not be afraid. “In my Father’s house there are many mansions,” he told them at the beginning of the Last Super and the beginning of their fears. He says the same to us. Whatever the Lord will ask of us he will also supply us with all strength and joy to do it. We will long to say yes without fear. “My yoke is easy and my burden light.” It only requires willingness and faith in him alone to come to know that that is true. Following Jesus can lead only to the way that has always been prepared for us, the way that will bring us the fulness of life not to mention the peace that passes understanding.

Finally, we pray that we can stop fretting about others, stop being disturbed or offended by their behaviors, words or attitudes. And stop comparing ourselves to others. Everything is a gift from above so why do we compare our gifts, as if it had anything to do with our value or that anyone could somehow do anything to deserve them? “What is that to you?” let us hear Jesus gently and lovingly say to us. We are not responsible for what others say or do. It is not our concern. We cannot “fix” or change anyone else but ourselves (and that only by God’s grace and with great effort and prayer). We can only be who God has made us and nothing else. Paul told the Romans to, “Have the same attitude towards everyone.” To achieve that requires love, for love has no favorites, seeks no rewards, asks nothing in return and never takes offense. It is the greatest gift from God of all, for God is love. Let us pray that we simply believe that God wants us to have it and seek it daily in every way.