The night before the morning meal,the disciples, perhaps feeling grief or hopelessness, returned to the profession that had once sustained them: fishing. All night they toiled, but as the sun crept over the Sea of Galilee, they had nothing to show for their labors. When Jesus called to them from the shoreline, he asked them to shift their nets, and when they did so, they found them filled with fish—not from their effort and toil, but as an immediate effect of their obedience to the Christ.
Coming to shore, Jesus gave his students another spiritual lesson by feeding them bread and fish. As they dined together on the beach, it is easy to wonder if the disciples were thinking back to when Jesus had given them loaves and fishes to hand out to the hungry multitudes. This breakfast, too, came as a gift through the Christ—directly from the Father. As a gift, it was not earned by occupational labor, produced by human resourcefulness, or created through individual ingenuity.
With these lessons in place, Jesus took Peter aside and asked, “Lovest thou me?” When Peter replied in the affirmative, Jesus gave him a commandment to follow: “Feed my sheep” (John 21:16). Was Jesus showing Peter that there was a connection between loving the Christ and feeding the sheep? Was feeding the sheep the way Peter could demonstrate his love, not with words, but with actions? It is almost as if Jesus had said, “Do you love me, Peter? If so, prove it to me by feeding my sheep.”
But how was Peter to do that? Was he to parcel out what came to him through his own labor and toil? Or was he to distribute what the Christ gave? The spiritual lessons at the morning meal had been preparing Peter’s thought to be obedient to this command—feed my sheep—and know how to do it. The sustenance that Christ Jesus shared was not just for Peter’s belly, but was to be given to all of those who needed it. This was how Peter could show his love for the Christ. And that’s what Peter did—he spent the rest of his life tending to Christ’s flock.
This command to “feed my sheep” continues today and is the basis for our benevolent activity at The Principle Foundation.