April 21, 2024

Rev. Mark Behrendt’s Installation at Hope, Eagle

John 21:15-17

What a journey you have had Hope Lutheran. First, with everyone else, you came through the global pandemic. You said goodbye to a pastor and then welcomed an interim and two bridge pastors. You decided to give part of your building a makeover for your food pantry ministry. Outside your doors and down highway 44 in both directions your building watches tremendous construction and development. And you have continued, every week, to gather faithfully around Word and Sacrament.

It is wonderful to be here today and celebrate this beginning of pastoral and mutual ministry with you all and with members of the Treasure Valley Cluster of the Northwest Intermountain Synod. On an installation day, our deepest hope is for a pastor to faithfully shepherd, equip disciples, preach, and preside over the sacraments. They do all this so that a community is shaped by God’s love and also sent forth to share with the world the love made known in Jesus Christ.

With both the Jeremiah and John scripture passages, we get to continue this morning’s Good Shepherd Sunday theme, maybe give it another look. I will always remember the Concordia Christmas concert when the Jeremiah text was read aloud by the baritone voice instructor. I guarantee that during none of our concerts in Moorhead or Minneapolis did anyone in the assembly want to be accused of being one of those shepherds. It is a reminder today, if we need it, of the sin and brokenness in our world and in each of us. All of us, not just leaders, need the gifts of forgiveness and grace given freely by God.

At the end of John’s gospel, our passage today, Jesus joins Peter beside a charcoal fire—the same kind of fire around which Peter had denied his connection to Jesus. We do well to remember that in John’s Gospel, the inquiry posed to Peter around that previous charcoal fire was, “are not you one of his disciples?” Peter’s response was, “I am NOT.”

In today’s post-resurrection scene, we read that Jesus broke the bread, passed it around and asked Peter, “Do you love me?” Three times Jesus asked. Three times Peter replied, “Lord, you know I love you.” Jesus said, “Feed my lambs. Tend my sheep.” 

In today’s scene, Jesus restores Peter’s identity and renews his calling. In response to each of Peter’s confessions, Jesus responds by giving him good work to do, feed my sheep. Be a leader. Look out for these others. Devote yourself to this community. Peter is reinstated into the community of the faithful.  He is given renewed identity, and then he is given good work to do.

I understand why these verses are fitting for an installation. We rightly call the pastor the shepherd of a flock. But with each sermon, meal of bread and wine, baptism, Bible Study and caring conversation, the pastor gets to point to the love of God in Jesus Christ. And, thanks be to God, it is the love of God shown forth in Jesus that gives penultimate shape to our communities, not a pastor, not even a bishop. 

This text and this day is for all of us. Peter, at least in John chapter 20 if nowhere else in the gospels, is a model of what it means to live out one’s love of Jesus. He is a model not just for pastors and deacons, but for all followers of Jesus Christ, that means each of you.

I can point to all the saints who have taught about following Jesus, reminded me of God’s abundant love, and nudged me in discipleship. Many of them were lay people—teachers, mentors, my friends, longtime family friends, and my parents. But some of them were parish pastors, people called to lead specific communities of faith for a period of time. Through their preaching and presiding they bestowed the gifts of God’s grace. 

We sometimes say that a preacher preaches the sermon they most need to hear. That was my experience preparing for today. The world, and with it the church, is changing, and we need to live more fully into the priesthood of all believers and our ecumenical relationships. Also, the world, and with it the church, is changing, and we still need pastors to shepherd faith communities, to gather us around the means of grace so we can be sent forth to share God’s love, the love Peter confessed so adamantly. And as Pastor Mark and I discussed a few weeks ago, the world, including each of us, still needs grace-filled proclamation central to our worship—proclamation that reminds us we are nothing without the grace of God, but that with that gift of grace we have everything.

Today, Pastor Mark will specifically promise to preach and teach, to study the holy scriptures, love, serve, and pray for God’s people, and give faithful witness in the world that God’s love may be known. You will make these promises not in a vacuum, but in this community of faith. 

Today we celebrate mutual ministry—pastor and congregation together remembering the story of the risen Christ showing up where we least expect him; remembering God’s love for us and for the whole world; together remembering again that the love of God is deeper than any of our denials; trusting that the calling of God on all of us is stronger than our failures to live up to it.