Rev. Jung Ho Kim  

The popular drama "All In" ended in Korea some time ago. I watched it with great interest. The last scene was a monologue about this main character Kim In Ha looking back on his troubled life and swears how he lived his life as a gambler. He lived his life betting on worthless things. But now he was going to invest rest of his life on the love of his life. He was going to bet "All In" for that one person. It was boring but fantastic ending. Why was this drama ever so popular? There might be a lot of guessing but I think it was because of our yearning for this genuine human love. This man's struggle to keep his love genuine made us all nostalgic about what it means to be a human. We all have this nostalgia of genuine love and friendship.

We all have this need for love and this need to be loved. The assurance of being loved and the courage of being able to love make our lives richer and meaningful.

The first thing Jesus did after the resurrection was looking for his disciples who ran away. The guiltiest one must have been Peter. He denied him three times. He swore he would never leave Jesus' sight but was the first one to run away for the fear of his life. But Jesus came looking for Peter. His first word to him was "Do you love me?" Jesus wanted to revive love. This recovery of love brings us alive.

The important thing in this recovery of love is the confession of our love. I love you. I love you, mother. I love you, dear. I love you, my son. This word "Love" brings life and death. The strength of our lives being happy, joyful and hopeful is this story of love. Love of a parent. Love for children. Love between lovers. We are all in debt for this love.

This truth prevails in our spiritual lives as well. He wanted this confession of love. His lordship begins with this sharing of our confession of love with Jesus. Even with all our faults and mistakes, God still comes to us the moment we confess our love for him.

It's our joy to love our children. It's our ultimate happiness to love our spouses. Having someone to love next to you is equally important as love itself. God gave us responsibility to love. Loving only your own family can be selfish love and cannot bring happiness. We all die someday. We all die even if we don't want to. So there's limit to parents love for their children. It is same for husbands and wives. But the everlasting love comes with loving what God wants us to love.

Peter is the one who lost the meaning of life in today's scripture. It was his decision to follow Jesus gave meaning and purpose for life. But he broke down after denying Jesus three times. He was burdened with heavy load. Eventually, he lost the direction and the purpose for life. But Jesus came and asked him, "Do you love me?" The recovery of love. He asked him three times, "Do you love me?" and then directed him. "Feed my lambs." "Take care of my sheep."

God makes useless useful. He gives directions and purpose in our lives. Now we have eternal life even though our bodies will rot.

There is an English proverb. If you want to be happy for a day, have a haircut. For a week, get a car. For a month, get a house. For a year, get married. But if you want to be happy forever, believe in Jesus. For Catholic priests, they elaborated a little bit more in a book. If you want to be happy for a day, get drunk. For a year, get married. Forever, be a priest.

For priests who do not get married, being happy is no easy task. I read an interesting book long time ago called "The happy man who wears skirt." It was a bunch of stories by a 58year old priest that gave me insights to being Catholic priests and also made me think. In it wrote, the loneliness of a man who has no woman to love and to be loved. The lonely man who has no child. The pitiful man who has no money even to rent a room. The lonely man who has nothing to show for. But without joy and happiness from God would have made me lonelier. And without joy and happiness from God would have made me lonelier.

Peter realized that he had no one to love and no one to love him after he denied Jesus three times. We too are faced with times like that sometimes. The times that we lose the whole meaning and purpose even with all that hard work and effort.

When I reflect on my life at a crisis would be also when I lost the meaning and purpose of my life. It was also difficult to be faced with the death of my father, with the problems involving children and with worry for next day's meal. But those were the difficulties to overcome. Those were the problems to beat. Not the serious crisis. When we are shaky on our belief for meaning and the purpose of life, when we lose that someone to love, when we lose that task of serving God with all we've got, that is when we are in serious crisis.

I understand a little bit about how Peter must have felt when Jesus came to Galilee after resurrection. It must have been the lowest point of Peter's life. He must have been overwhelmed with shame that he wished he was invisible. Even so, Jesus used that exact moment to recover and confess our love for him. "Peter, do you truly love me? Peter, do you truly love me? Peter, do you truly love me?"

The love in Jesus' first question is used as Agape. The second as a Phylleo. Agape is unconditional love. Phylleo is friendship and affectionate love. But most theologians who study Bible feel that instead of putting too much emphasis on the meaning, they agree that Jesus asked Peter simply if he truly loved him. I agree with that. When we think about confessing our love for Jesus, how can we mention Agape when we cannot even handle friendship? Even though it might be theologically incorrect, I think when Jesus first asked Agape Love from us, it was way too much for us to handle. That's why he asked second time as Phylleo Love. Jesus might have thought Agape Love is the love God gave. So it would be enough for us if we could just offer the right Phylleo Love. If we offer just the friendship love, God would answer back in Agape Love. We all know we cannot even answer back in this conditional Phylleo Love to the love that God has shown us.

It is overwhelming just the mere mention of Love, Love. It is ambitious just to love. I received an e-mail from a friend pastor in rural Iowa. At the end of the mail, he wrote "Let's live with inconvenience." What does it mean to live with inconvenience? He was talking about running into some difficulties collecting money to help run the noodle factory in North Korea among The United Methodist Committee. He mentioned that if we are all willing to sacrifice a little, we could send more to help the hungry in North Korea. We shouldn't be afraid to live with little inconvenience. Because I know him well, it wasn't difficult to picture him putting his foot where his mouth is. I was thankful for his effort.

Let's live with inconvenience. Because love is love that endures inconvenience. Before talking about greatest love, endure inconvenience because of love.

Why did Jesus ask three times? I think it's because he wanted to free Peter from feeling guilty about denying three times. Peter who denied Jesus three times became spiritually sick. The disappointment and despair, the guilt and shame. Being spiritually sick, he might have lived a life of guilt. There was no one to save him from the pain of betraying Jesus' love. Jesus was the only one who could and so he came and did heal him.

After this incident, Peter no longer talks of his pain or shame of his past sin. This recovery of love through experiencing Jesus' love, he became free of his sins. He died a martyr witnessing Jesus' love. The recovery of love has great power.

It might seem like hell after tremendous failure in life. Even the spouses might become enemies after the horrifying experiences. We might feel a heavy cross over our shoulders raising children. But if we come to a realization that it is a pure happiness just having someone around who needs our love. It is a blessing to have someone or something that we can love with our whole heart.

At the end of Leo Tolstoy's conversation, there are three questions. "Remember. The most important moment is now, this moment. The most important person is the one next to you. The most important thing is doing something good for that someone. Dear. Nicholi, these are the three most important things in the world. That the reasons for our being here in this earth." The very reason for being here right now is doing something good for the ones around you. That is love.

Things that we do might feel tedious and strenuous. But if we realize that we are doing God's work at where we are, we need to love doing it forever. It is the blessing of all, if we realize what we do is what God want us to do. There is no profession too noble or too humble. Home is where the mission starts for housewives. The work place is where the mission starts for businessmen. Where you are is the place that glorifies God's work. That is where the mission starts.

Are you a businessman? You should manage and feed your workers well. You should satisfy your customers. So people would think that Christian businessmen are different. So people would praise your management as Christian businessmen. Are you raising children? Raise them well and educate them well. Do not fill this world with selfish and rude children. Are you a doctor or a nurse? Treat your patients with God's care. Do you run dry cleaning service? Pray that your customers are happy wearing your clean clothes. That is how we respond to the command when Jesus asked us to feed the lambs.

Do you love me? Feed my lambs. That is the purpose of life. That is the direction and the purpose of life for us from God. What ever you do, do it with God's love. Jesus did not ask us to take care of the sheep first. Do you truly love me? was what he asked first.

Dear congregation, what kind of love is you showing? What do you love with your whole body and soul right now? It is heartbreaking to see a wasted life. Recover your love. When Jesus came to Peter, he also came to us. Jesus who came to Peter came to us.

Our Lord is not asking us to leave a benchmark in history. Our Lord wants us to confess our love for him. Lord, you know that I love you. I hope that this is the confession that we give to our Lord who died on the cross only to live again.

Henry Nouwen, who taught spiritual psychology at both Harvard and Yale, is one the most talented professors in the 1980s. One day, he resigned from his profession in Harvard and spent rest of his life in the community for men and women disability. In his book, "In the Name of Jesus", he wrote that one of the shock he felt was when living with them, was none of them were interested in his accomplishments. None of them was interested in what his profession was or how many books he wrote or how famous he was. He confessed that the truth he realized living there, was disciplining oneself to answer the question "Do you truly love me?" Even though he volunteered with the notion of obeying the words of Jesus, "Take care of my sheep", even though he volunteered with the notion of helping the neglected, the weak, he realized how wrong he was. The thought of sacrificing himself for these people even though he was this famous person, even though he was this noted scholar at Harvard had nothing to do with these people. It became a hindrance rather. That's when he realized, he need to confess "Yes, I love you Lord" to the question "Do you truly love me more than anything else in this world?" Jesus asked.

If I feel this way, I know it might feel same to you too. We might be like Peter, "You know that I love you Lord." Humbly bowing our heads. We might answer with weak voices with our shameful lives. But we know that someday our Lord will use us and see us as the believer who loved the Lord more than anything else. I hope that we love our Lord more than anything else in this world.

Loving Jesus is fulfilling our lives from where we are. Loving Jesus is spreading his love through me from where we are. Loving Jesus is spreading his love to our children so that they believe in him. There is a practicing atheist in theological term. Confessing Lordship but does not spread his love thus becoming a practicing atheist.

It is a tragedy if we only live to survive our own. That is not love. Do you truly love me? We need to recover our love for someone we love or for something we love even we have to sacrifice ourselves. If we want to be happy, we need to love. That is the base for our lives.

I went on a short mission to Haiti long time ago. We built water tank in the rural city Duplant, which is located an hour away from capital city Port au Prince in Haiti. It was a poor country. I was able to get a book of children's prayer and was moved by it.

"Dear Lord, we led a meaningless life like weeds. But you picked us up and planted in your garden. And we became flowers."

Because of our Lord's love, we are here. We were like weeds but because of his love, I believe we became flowers. Dear Lord, thank you for loving us. I love you Lord. Let us recover our confession of love to our Lord.
  

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