Peel away the top layer of any communication you experience, such as:
- Someone talking to you
- A book
- A movie
- The ocean
and you’ll find layers of meaning, more complicated and more significant than the message perceived on the surface. The number of layers and the meanings derived is based on the intellect, sensitivity, and knowledge of the person. The tourist on a boat sees waves, the oceanographer sees whales, fish, seaweed, and changing salt water chemistry due to industrial outflows half a world away. The kid sees a movie about Cinderella, but her subconscious mind perceives a morality play about the need to believe in herself, find her inner goodness, and transcend the shabby world and evil people around her. A stranger on the street starts talking to you about how the spacemen abducted their dog and you perceive the person communicating a reality to you: “I feel lonely and my best friend died but I can’t admit that truth because it’s too painful to me. Please listen to me long enough to show that you think I’m a human being”.
The experience of perceiving layers of hidden meaning is endlessly entertaining to me. Listen to people talk and hear what unstated fears drive them. Sit on a bench and watch the cars go by and see what people are trying to say about themselves by their purchases and style of driving. Sit on the porch behind my house and look at the forest and see the creatures come out to eat food, talk to each other, and feel the trees grow and the Earth gently roll on its axis. There are undercurrents, invisible except when your antenna are up, all around us, everywhere. For an exercise in finding the hidden meaning, figure out why the movie “Blazing Saddles” is fundamentally like “Driving Miss Daisy”. Why is “The Andromeda Strain” like “War of the Worlds” or the movie “E.T.” like the Gospel according to Luke? Each movie in each pair tells the same story.
One experience brought this home to me (yet again) the other day. I am indebted to a book written by Pope Benedict XVI called “The Apostles” which gives his perception of each of the apostles based on Scripture, tradition, and writings of the Church Fathers. Bringing his knowledge of Greek, the language of most of the New Testament, the author describes a layer of meaning that I was unaware of, despite reading and hearing a particular passage so many times over the years I thought I had extracted the last drop of meaning.
The reading is from John 21, where the resurrected Christ talks to his chief apostle, Peter, who previously denied knowing Christ when questioned after Jesus’ arrest. Peter is shamed by his actions and Jesus gives him three opportunities to unwind his threefold denial. “Peter, do you love me?” Christ asks, and three times Peter says “Lord, you know I love you”. What I didn’t know was that the original Greek version uses two words for love, “agape”, which means “infinite, Godlike, unconditional love” and “filos” which means “human love, limited and finite”.
In the Greek, the exchange goes roughly like this:
- Jesus: “Petrus, agapas me?” (Peter, do you love me infinitely?)
- Peter: “Kyrie, filos se” (Lord, I love you in a limited, human way)
- Jesus: “Petrus, agapas me?” (Peter, do you love me infinitely?)
- Peter: “Kyrie, filos se” (Lord, I love you in a limited, human way)
- Jesus: “Petrus, fileis me?” (Peter, do you love me in a limited, human way?)
- Peter: “Lord, you know all things, you know ‘filos se’ ” (*You know enough Greek now to translate it yourself*)
On the third exchange it says that Peter is shamed. I assumed this was because he had been asked “do you love me” a third time. But in this subtler understanding, Jesus takes a step down the third time, asking only to be loved as Peter can, in his limited human form. Peter understands that Jesus has accepted his limited love but is shamed that this is all he had to offer. If he had been asked these questions prior to the Passion (and his denial), Peter would probably said “Kyrie, agapo se” out of his pride and confidence in himself.
As embarrassing as it is for Peter (and us) to admit that our love for the Lord is limited, we find peace in knowing that what we have to offer is enough. Ever wondered if you loved enough? Gave enough? Did enough? Were Christian enough? If the man who denied knowing Christ during His greatest trial could be forgiven, so can we all. If Peter’s faltering loyalty was enough for him to be the first head of the Christian Church, then our best is enough for the Lord.