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May 10, 2009 Sermon
Sharing Our Story
John 21: 1-13
Reverend Sally Harris
Our reading from the gospel of John is like a postscript to the rest of the book. Scholars vary on the placement of this story - some say it was an appendix to the gospel; others say it contains more historical truth than any of the empty tomb and upper room appearances. While this debate continues, we the readers cannot help but notice that this is not first ending. In the first ending, Jesus came to the disciples as they cringed behind locked doors. He breathed new life into them and offered them peace. The author of this gospel made it sound like the end, but it was not the end, or at least not the only end, because here in the twenty-first chapter we have another story about Jesus meeting up with the disciples - the second ending. If it is all a little confusing, it is hard to blame these early tellers of the tale because we all know how hard it is to come to an end. You think you have said everything, and then you think of something else, something too important to leave out. P.S. you write at the bottom of the page and maybe even a P.P.S after that, because it is hard to stop, hard to fold the letter and lick the stamp and call it done.
On the whole, human beings are not so good at endings. We are much better at beginnings, when everything is new and exciting and full of possibilities. We like to hold babies better than we like to visit nursing homes. Most like daybreak better than midnight. We like saying hello better than we like saying goodbye. But it is not as if we get to choose. We have plenty of both in our lives – beginnings and endings – roughly one of each for everything that really matters to us. No wonder the author of the Gospel of John lingered over the ending for a while. The story teller wanted to make sure that we had been given everything we would need to make it through the long nights of waiting, before our next daybreak came. Of course the writer did not know how long it would be for some of us, but it was known how long it had been for some of the disciples so this story was told:
It happened sometime after the first Easter, no one knows when exactly, but long enough for the disciples to have left Jerusalem and made the long trek back to Galilee. It was home for them. It was the place where everything had begun for them, which made it the natural place for them to return once it seemed that everything had come to an end. There were seven of them according to the storyteller, which means that they were already coming apart at the seams, some of them going one direction while the others went another. These seven decide to go fishing and that makes a lot of sense. Fishing is a good excuse for thinking, after all, for just sitting quietly and letting silence do its healing work. It is a good thing to do when you want to do nothing, nothing but sit and watch your cork drift, knowing that your line is down there somewhere in the deep waters, just like you are, waiting to catch something, to hook something that will make it all worthwhile.
But fishing has added meaning for these seven, because it is their occupation – or was, before Jesus showed up. They do not fish for pleasure; they fish for a living. They do not fish with lines and hooks; they fish with big, heavy nets that smell of seaweed and dried fish scales, hauling them out of the bottom of the boat with hands that are calloused from years and years of casting and knotting and straining against the ropes. So when they decide to go fishing, it is not a decision to daydream but a decision to return to their former way of life, to go back to the only thing they know how to do without Jesus. So they go fishing, each of them sunk in their own thoughts as they climb into the old familiar vessel again, one of them reaching out to steady the boat while the others step inside and take their old familiar places, swamped with déjà vu.
They should have known better than to have believed it, to stake their lives on something that could come to such a quick and bloody end. They should have known that it would all boil down to business as usual, back to the grind, all their wild, joyful
expectation reduced to grim resignation as they go back to their nets. Only it does not work. They fish all night long without catching a single thing. Time after time their nets come up empty, a perfect match for their hearts. So now what? They cannot go forward and they cannot go back. All they can do is sit in the dark and watch the sky change color as the sun rises behind the hills. That is when they hear a voice. They cannot see, but they can hear, someone is calling out to them across the water, guessing the truth – that they have no fish – and suggesting that they try the other side of the boat. So they do, and the water begins to boil, all at once so dense with fish that some of them are pushed right out of the water, their shiny fins flashing in the morning light. It is déjà vu again: the boats, the nets, the stranger calling out to them. It is not the end after all, or else the end has led them back to the beginning again.
And Jesus invites them to break the fast. To break bread again– a resurrection meal, prepared by the One who knows the recipe.
I do not know why so many of Jesus’ post-resurrection appearances have something to do with food, but they do. Maybe it is because sharing food is what makes us human. Most other species forage alone, so that feeding is a solitary business, but human beings seem to love eating together. For us as people of The Story it is one of the clues to Christ presence: for when we eat together, we discover the risen Christ in our midst. Come, let us break bread together and share our common cup full of the blessing of the risen Christ.
BREAD FOR OUR JOURNEY! FOOD FOR OUR SOULS!
Reflecting on Our Story: An Invitation (John 21: 15-17)
This story of Jesus coming to the lakeshore is full of clues and an invitation for us when we too are marooned on the sea in the middle of the night, afraid that we have come to the end of something without any idea how to begin again.
In the first place, it is probably a good idea to hang out in community – we are invited to be in the same boat with one another. Another clue that the Presence may be around is a sudden change in fortune – not rags to riches, necessarily but a sudden change in the way one looks at their life. One moment it looks hopeless and the next possibilities never seen before emerge. One moment problems look too big to be budged and the next, handles that were never seen before are discovered. One moment the net looks empty and the next it does not. There is something wriggling in it where there was nothing just a moment before. It may be a little or it may be lot but it is alive – a living thing where, before there was nothing but darkness and death.
So like Peter before us we are invited to stand with the Loving Shepherd in feeding and tending the faith of this community. How do we know we are not alone in our feeding and tending? By staying on the lookout, I suppose. By watching the shore, and the sky, and each other’s faces. By listening real hard. By living in great expectation and refusing to believe that our nets will stay empty or our nights will last forever. For those with ears to hear, there is a voice that invites us to know the loving shepherd, as we are known. “Come,” that voice says, “I will lead you beside still waters.
Come and restore your souls.” May it be so with us. Amen
[resource: Gospel Medicine Barbara Brown Taylor]
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