“A common misconception cleared up”
By Rev. Michael Stonhouse
Meditation – Friday, December 27, 2024
John 21: 19b-24 (Forward, p. 59) CEV p. 1131
Here Simon Peter makes a mistake common to many believers, namely, that they assume that what is God’s will, or God’s calling, for someone else will necessarily apply to themselves as well. So here Peter wants to know what God’s plans for John will be, thinking, almost certainly, that what applies to John will also apply to himself, Peter. But that was not the case, not at all, and it was not Peter’s job to try to second guess or figure out what that plan might be for someone else. His job was simply to follow Christ in whatever He said to himself, Peter. That was sufficient.
How often we fall into the same trap as Peter. We see someone else’s gifts or ministries or abilities and figure that these should be ours as well. We figure that that we should be like them. But the apostle Paul made it quite definite that the Holy Spirit apportions out the gifts as He sees fit. After explaining that we are one body in Christ, “A body is made up of many parts, and each of them has its own use” (Romans 12: 4), he goes on to say, “God has also given each of us different gifts to use” (Romans 12:6). He makes this even more explicit in 1 Corinthians 12: “The Spirit has given each of us a special way of serving others. It is the Spirit who does all this and decides which gifts to give to each of us” (verses 7,11).
And so our job, our job alone, is to keep our eyes off other people and what they are up to, and focus only on Christ and what He has called us to do. Pursuing that task, and doing so faithfully and diligently, is all that we need to do. And so we do not have to be all alike, all doing the same thing. We do not have to compete or try to be like them. (There’s a basic misconception cleared up.) Thanks be to God. Amen.
Forward notes: “Follow me” (verse 19b).
“A friend of mine sent me a wonderful cartoon that depicts two guys sitting by a pond, reflecting on life and the world. One guy says, ‘I wonder why God doesn’t do something about all the bad things in the world, the hungry, the poor, those brutalized by war.’ His friend replies, ‘Well, why don’t you ask God?’ The first guy answers: ‘I’m afraid God might ask me why I’m not doing something about it.’
“Although John, whom we commemorate today, was the only disciple who did not die as a martyr, he experienced the challenges of following Jesus. It’s not easy. Following Jesus will comfort us in times of affliction and afflict us in times of comfort. It demands not only our better angels but also our best selves and requires us to take up the crosses we would rather not carry.
“Following Jesus will make us uncomfortable and, at times, afraid, but to follow Jesus is to stand with those whom Jesus loved, to champion the rights of the downtrodden and the forsaken, the left out and the left behind. To follow Jesus is to walk a journey of transforming the cross from an instrument of death into a symbol of life.”
Moving Forward: “How will you respond to Jesus’s command to follow him?”
A concluding note: with all deference to today’s author, hasn’t he left out a great deal of what Jesus has called us to? What about His final words, His marching orders, as found in Matthew 28: 19-20: “Go to the people of all nations and make them my disciples. Baptize them in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, and teach them to do everything I have told you.”
And indeed, do these words of Jesus not also resonate with the purpose of John’s Gospel, as related in John 20: 31, “These words were written so you will put your faith In Jesus as the Messiah, the Son of God, and thorough believing you may have life in his name.” Caring for others is part of our task, but only part. And seeing as this isn’t mentioned in His final words, but evangelism is, reaching out to the lost, is, shouldn’t that be more of a priority? I think so.