Restored

Here's my monologue for next Sunday, based on the restoration of Peter (John 21:15-17). I've sent it to Pastor...hopefully it will fit with where he's heading.

How will you be remembered?
Do you have any idea what is like to be know for the one thing you’ve done wrong?
Thomas forever will be called the doubter.
Moses was the stuttering Hebrew who killed the Egyptian, but became the man of faith who led God’s thankless people to the Promised Land.
King David was the adulterer, the murderer, the bad dad who became known as the man after God’s own heart.

His Psalm holds the key to the transition: restore to me the joy of my salvation.Restore…to give back the original condition. Jesus did that for me.

There we were on the shore, eating fish. We didn’t think it was going to happen. We had pretty much given up. We had gone back to our old ways. Fishing, after all, was what we knew. What we were made for.

But there over breakfast, Jesus reminded us that he had more in mind.

I sat just outside the group. Surely, he really couldn’t mean to include me. Not after what I had done. Not after what I had said. The lies, the cursing, cutting off that man’s ear. I really thought I had meant that I would follow him anywhere. But that was all gone now.

It was one thing to come back to the guys. No, it wasn’t easy. They could have turned me away…if they had I probably would have ended up dead like Judas. But they let me back into their circle. I never expected that Jesus would. I knew I had gone too far…certainly he couldn’t use me.

Restore to me the joy of my salvation. David’s heart was no more for you than mine, God. No more than mine. But I deserve to be out here.

I sat for a bit in my solitude, doing a pretty good job of beating myself up. When suddenly, but quietly I realized that Jesus was sitting beside me. I could barely look at him. Was he going to scold me, like he did when we fell asleep in the garden, or when we couldn’t cast out the demons. My faith was so small. I wanted to reach out but my shame consumed me.
“Peter, do you love me, more than these.” His words held me in their tenderness. I couldn’t help myself, I was like a parched man at a fresh spring lapping up the life. “Yes, Lord, you know I do.” I would leave them in a second to be back in relationship with you. Sure I needed their acceptance, but not like I needed that of the Lord’s. “Then feed my lambs.”

“Simon, son of John, do you love me.” What was he asking? Son of John, that’s who I am. Do I
love you more than myself? “Yes Lord, I love you.” And again, “Then feed my sheep.”Then he asked me again. What wasn’t I getting? Why did this seem so hard? I wanted to give him the right answer. “Do you love me?” You know everything already, Lord. You don’t need to ask.

Wait, the right answer isn’t for you is it, Jesus? What are you saying that I need to hear?
Do you love me? Not, “are you sorry for what you did, for what you said, how you acted?” Those things were cluttering my mind, not his. He asked if I loved him, not because he needed to know—but because I needed to know. I needed to be redirected. Restored.

Then, just as he did years before he looked deep into my eyes and told me, “Follow me.”
He knew my heart was true. He knew I was easily distracted; how terribly easy it is for me to get my eyes on others. He wanted me to live in my love for him and to serve him out of that same love. He wanted me to follow him with my whole heart, soul, mind, and strength.

This moment wasn’t just about making me feel better. He was drawing me back. Back into service. I wasn’t going to be about fishing anymore. There were flocks to feed. There was work to be done. I needed to quit feeling sorry for myself and get to it.

I’m restored to serve him. That’s what I want to be remembered for, but if you must remember the failure, go ahead. Just be sure that you see he still was willing to use me. Me and my love for him.