Bishops' Blog

In a recent quiet day on Ash Wednesday at Trinity, Ambridge, I reflected on John 21, and in particular His interrogation of Peter. What if we take that passage as our starting place for ministry, namely our own incapacity and need of forgiveness. What if we can only be its witness to others as people in need of it ourselves? What if ministry begins with forgiveness, a meal with the risen Christ, and being sent out to suffering which Jesus, in the Gospel of John, consistently describes as 'glory'?

  

We preachers all know of times when our listeners heard things different from what we intended. Well, I had the opposite experience: a seminarian heard more than I said, and expressed it better! So I offer her poem for your own Lenten reflection.

 

I have shown myself a servant

neither faithful nor good.

Forgive me, my master, my friend.

Hear my regret even as you lay dead,

bearing my betrayal in both feet, both hands,

   the ghosts of nails

   in your skin.

 

Know that I have returned to serving the sea

—a lord I can neither kill nor betray—

resuming my life as a fisher of fish

   and rightly so,

   dead master, dead friend.

 

How is it, then, that you appear even now

on the shore of oceanic inadequacy,

telling me, telling me still,

   where I am

   to cast my net?

 

How is it that you appear

alive again, bearing a word of promise

and command, and a question

   which begs a surer answer

   than I can give?

 

Do not cease to ask me,

risen master, risen friend.

Sit with me and eat,

send me out to feed your sheep, but

do not cease to ask me

   until you make of me

   the answer that you seek.

 

Dress me in yourself, Lord Christ,

and bring me, bring me where I do not

wish to go, that through this dreaded death

—on your cross with arms outstretched—

I may know your risen life,

and come to answer,

   “Yes, my master;

   Yes, my friend;

         I love you.”

           And you need not ask again.