We were hacked last weekend. Last Saturday instead of our Celtic cross, the flag of Serbia was flying on our home page. It showed up again on Monday.  Even the dullest church member didn’t think we’d changed our home page. If the flag didn’t tip you off, the language was a dead giveaway.  It came at a tough time when you were trying to get online to make reservations for our 25th anniversary celebration next Sunday. A lot of you still haven’t done that; I hope you’ll take care of that after worship today. It is a must-attend event, an evening when we will celebrate the way God has called us together and given us a clear mission and purpose.  I really hope you will be present because this is our shared success, whether you are an old-timer or a new-arriver. Everyone is an important ingredient in the recipe we call Geist Christian Church.

It was bad timing to be hacked when we were. It was also revealing. I can’t tell you how disconnected we are as a congregation without our website and email. As one church in two locations, our staff depends on email to stay in touch with each other. Our offices are at different campuses. It was hard on our ministry team.  We also discovered how frequently many of you look at our website by the number of calls that we received.  “Do you know?”  It is always better to know many times over than not know but, it taken up lots time explaining that our web host was hacked and 130 other churches also had the Serbian flag as their home page. A few of you were a little impatient about emails, thinking we were ignoring you. There is good reason. Our staff manages well over 1000 emails a day.  We were disconnected from you.  We felt like sheep scattered. We needed something to bring us together. An email solution was found on Tuesday, and now worship has gathered us in. We are connected again.

The disciples in our story needed something to bring them together because, they, like us,  were sheep scattered.

Jesus predicted it.  He told the disciples that when the shepherd was struck, they would scatter like sheep. They did. We witnessed it just a few weeks ago on Good Friday.  Then, he began the effort of bringing them back together, first meeting with them on Easter evening and then, the following week, again, in the same place. Each time he offers them peace and attempts to reorganize into a community and offer grace by blowing His breath, the breath of the Holy Spirit on them.  Even the most skeptical of the eleven, Thomas who was the Twin, believed. But their sense of belonging, their connection to one another was still weak, so they scattered again.   

At least seven of the remaining eleven returned home, scattered to Galilee, returned to the routine which they left three years earlier to follow the One who self-identified as the Good Shepherd. It was a good three years, a campaign that had potential. Now, the seven are fishing, just the right number needed to man the Jesus boat found in the Sea of Galilee a few years ago. Six on the oars, one on the rudder. We aren’t told where the other four are; they are scattered to parts unknown. “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.” (John 21: 2). As this story unfolds we’ll discover that one of the other two disciples is “the beloved”, John himself. The seventh disciple is not named.

Shepherds say it is easiest to round up a flock in a familiar pasture. These sheep are gathered not in a pasture but a beach, so the familiar that they experience has déjà vu written all over it.  The seven fished all night and came up empty. It was the exact circumstances which Luke tells us that Jesus used to call Peter and the Zebedee brothers, bringing together his disciples and launching his mission. The only difference is that Jesus is on the beach instead of in a boat. But it is sunrise again after a night of empty nets and Jesus says “Cast the net to the right side of the boat, and you will find some” (John 21: 6a)  If you remember the first time this happens, Peter protests but casts the nets begrudgingly.  But this time there are no protests.  “So they cast it, and now they were not able to haul it in because there were so many fish” (John 21:6b). John realizes it’s the Good Shepherd standing on the beach and when Peter hears it is Jesus; he puts on his robe and jumps in the water to walk ashore. Jesus has just duplicated the launch of his mission with a miraculous catch.

When they get to the beach, Jesus extends an invitation. “Come have breakfast.” I have to admit that one of my favorite things to do is to have breakfast on the beach.  Ann and I have a special place where we have breakfast on the beach in Puerto Vallarta. We found it on our honeymoon and it feels a bit like paradise to me. We have another favorite breakfast place near Ephesus at Izmir, a beach where maybe Paul himself might have had breakfast. When I meet the resurrected Lord, I hope he says, “Come have breakfast.”  I know that in the book of revelation John’s vision of heaven is without water which means there is no beach, but I hold onto this passage of scripture as a little bit of hope, holding out for a beach and breakfast with the Jesus.  Our risen Savior is having breakfast with the boys just like he probably did lots of times during the first years of their Galilean ministry. He’s bringing them back together like a family reunion, gathering them back into the flock like a shepherd sent to hunt down lost sheep. 

It’s not surprising then that once he has part of the flock together, he uses shepherding language. They are just pushing back from the table, cleaning up the dirty dishes and he says, ‘“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.’” (John 21: 15b). Jesus goes at him a second time, asking Peter “do you love me?” Peter says yes and he says, “Tend my sheep.” Again, a third time, Jesus says, “do you love me?’ So Peter, felt hurt but he answers the same way, ‘Lord, you know everything; you know that I love you’ Jesus said to him, ‘Feed my sheep.’”

Jesus isn’t just gathering the scattered sheep. He is restoring the relationship with Peter and bringing him back into the center of the leadership circle.  In this story, Peter is restored, restored to himself, to his Lord, to the discipleship community and Peter is commissioned. Peter is given work to do that matters. He is offered a role and given a purpose as he is commissioned into servant leadership. [1] It’s a story about belonging and about purpose.

There are a couple of new books out on a subject that we can’t get enough of, happiness. Happiness research is a hot issue. One of is titled, The Politics of Happiness: What Government Can Learn from the New Research on Well-Being and another is titled Happiness Around the World: The paradox of happy peasants and miserable millionaires. If you try to order that on Amazon, it’s temporarily out of stock, sold out because, a lot of people want to find happiness. The books offer interesting research, particularly when you compare lottery winners with people who have devastating accidents that leave them in a wheelchair and find, statistically, that accident victims are happier than lottery winners.[2] There is a lot of research reported, but in the end, there are two consistent findings, two ingredients that are essential to feel happy with your life. One, a sense of belonging to a community and two, the belief that what you do matters. Those are the two key predictors of fulfillment and productivity: belonging and purpose. 

Belonging requires being in community, it requires being together and being reconciled to one another. It is why Jesus is gathering sheep. You have to be in the same pasture, on the same beach, in the same place to have community. You can’t be a flock all by yourself. You can’t fish from the Jesus boat alone. Community is essential. Are you in community? Do you have a sense of belonging, a spiritual connectedness that grounds you to the Body of Christ?  The answer is a lot more complex than the question sounds; it has multiple levels.

There is the practical level of just being in the flock, physically being together. It was a challenge after Easter. They were scattered. It is a challenge today and again, it happens a lot after Easter. We are scattered. There are major cultural forces at work which scatter us to our own Galilees. When you go missing, not only does the Body of Christ suffer, you suffer too.  When you go wandering from the flock, you are spiritually at risk and your personal well-being and emotional happiness are at stake.  Heed my warning. The temptation season is upon us.  Lake cabins, family vacations, golf, tennis, and sailing all sound like that are the very things that make your life happy. If they come at the expense of your spiritual discipline and they result in the loss of community, then you jeopardize your own spiritual health and happiness as well as that of the community. The fabric of the community of faith is damaged. God’s people are torn from one another.  You can’t be in the Good Shepherd’s flock if you aren’t in the pasture.  You can’t have breakfast with Jesus if you aren’t by the sea.

But you can be present and still not have a sense of belonging because being in community isn’t just practical, it is also personal. Belonging is feeling personally connected and being personally connected is simply impossible if there is something between you. There is no relationship you have that can be a full and complete relationship if there is something going on. If there is a problem going on in the marriage, there has to be reconciliation and forgiveness or eventually you won’t belong to each other. If you have wronged a friend, you have to deal with it or you will go separate ways. Even if your dog bites your hand and you don’t forgive him, you won’t have a dog or he won’t be your best friend. Every relationship requires reconciliation of wrongs or you can’t belong to each other. You have to feel right. Belonging functions at a personal level.

You know you can tell a lot about people if you watch them at breakfast. It doesn’t have to be by the sea. I’ll admit that when I’m out at breakfast, I watch people. I’ve never been asked to leave Bob Evans for overt staring but when I’m by myself, I check people out, see what their body language says, how they interact.  The couple who sit down, put up the newspaper and never even talk to each other have something between them, something going on, something that needs to be reconciled and put behind them.  The couple who lean over their oatmeal, get nose to nose over the orange juice have a strong sense of belonging.

We see this in our story. Peter’s physically on the beach with the disciples and Jesus, but he isn’t really there. He is still missing; he is in spiritual hiding because of his betrayal of Jesus. If you were sitting around that charcoal fire, you would have been able to tell that something was going on between the two of them. But Jesus doesn’t let Peter stay disconnected. He offers forgiveness to Peter for his absence, he lets Peter tell him three times “Yes, Lord I love you.” Jesus did not just forgive Peter; he brought him back into community with a purpose.

Belonging that comes from reconciliation always leads to mission. When you get right with someone, you want to demonstrate what you feel, you want to do something to make amends.  It’s why the reformationist, Martin Luther said that justification and vocation were on the same side of the coin. What he meant by that is that when you get right with God you want to do something about it.  Forgiveness leads to mission and restoration to purpose. Reconciliation creates servant leadership.

At breakfast by the sea, Jesus hands over the leadership mantle to Peter. He’s empowering him to gather the sheep from their scattered location. He does that at the time of Pentecost. They will all be in one place in Jerusalem. With an urgency created out of the moment of that breakfast reconciliation, Peter will feed the sheep with his first sermon, launching the church.  Three thousand are gathered and reconciled to Christ Jesus. And this new group of sheep “devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers.” (Acts 2: 42) I don’t know about you but that sounds a lot like feeding sheep to me.

So here we are, back together. At least for a moment, we aren’t scattered. We aren’t having breakfast by the sea or virtually connected around our website. We are gathered in worship around the table and Peter’s story.  But this story is our story too, because we know this truth. God sent Jesus on a search and rescue mission, to hunt down sheep scattered to every Galilee and bring them back into relationship. It’s not just about being together in community; it’s personal. It’s about getting right with God and if you are being honest in this moment, you know that there is almost always something going on between you and God, some brokenness, some sin, something that you need to lay down and get beyond.  Because that need is great and strong in you and you and me, the question isn’t just Peter’s, it’s mine, and it’s yours.  So I’m going to ask it again and give you an opportunity to answer. It’s a pretty simple question with a simple answer. It’s either yes or no. Peter said, “Yes, Lord you know that I love you.”  How will you answer? Here’s the question now:   

Jesus says to you, “Do you love me? Feed my lambs.”

And what will you say?

“Yes, Lord; you know that I love you.”

Then feed his lambs.

He’s going to ask you a second time.  Will you answer again? “Do you love me?”

“Yes, Lord; you know that I love you.”

“Tend his sheep.”

And he says to you a third time, “Do you love me?” Don’t get hurt. We need to say it over and over again. Even though the Lord knows everything.  Just answer, from deep down inside, from the place that holds the very core of your belief, the heart and soul of precious truth in your life. What do you say?

“Lord, you know everything; you know that I love you.”

Jesus says to you, “Feed my sheep.”

There you go.  You belong; you’ve purpose.

Feed Lambs. Tend Sheep. Feed Sheep.

Own it; claim it. Make it yours.