A Final Invitation

Only two week days left before we reach the end of Paschaltide or Easter Season. By Monday of next week, we will have left the "alleluias" of our prayer. Perhaps they will continue to echo in our souls as we return to Ordinary Time. The end of the Easter Season presents us with one last chance to reflect on chapter twenty-one of the Gospel of St. John. Scripture scholars have accepted that this chapter is a redaction of the original manuscript. However, there are no manuscripts extant which do not include this final chapter.

Very often, we look at this last chapter as an attempt on the part of the community of the Beloved Disciple in Ephesus to "rehabilitate" Peter. We cannot help but notice that Jesus asks Peter three times if Peter loves him. Of course, we cannot forget that elsewhere in the Gospel, Peter denies knowing Jesus three times.

While the community of Ephesus may have felt this questioning was justified in light of Peter's denials, I cannot help but feel that it would have been out of character for Jesus to relate to Peter in this way. When Jesus first appears to the disciples gathered in the upper room, his first word to them is "Shalom," "Peace be with you." If he were going to berate Peter for his failure to acknowledge him, one would think that this three-fold questioning would have happened before Jesus' bestowal of peace and the Holy Spirit.

Another possible way to look at this story is as another example of the narrative convention which we call "inclusio." Notice that this conversation concludes with the very words which began their relationship when Jesus approached Peter at the Sea of Galilee the first time, "Follow me." Those words act as "book ends" and complete the narrative of the relationship between these two figures. It begins and ends with the same invitation.

That invitation is offered to us as well. While we oftentimes recall the commandments which we receive through the Scriptures, I am always impressed that Jesus never commands; he always invites. Like all invitations, we can either accept it or turn it down.