It was torture. All he wanted was to be left alone with his failures—but instead he spent all night listening to the chatter of his fellow-apostles, who didn’t seem to notice he wasn’t his usual, impulsive self.
All he could think of was the red glow of that coal fire, and the reflection of that glow in the faces all around him as he had denied again and again that he knew Jesus. And then the rooster had crowed, and his heart had sunk like a stone, and he had run away.
He would never forgive himself.
Jesus had made a terrible mistake in claiming that he, Simon Peter, could be the head of the group, the leader of the apostles. He couldn’t continue Jesus’s work in proclaiming the good news of Jesus! He couldn’t even stand up for what he believed standing on a side street with a bunch of strangers.
Dawn came and, on top of having to endure PEOPLE all night long in that little boat, they hadn’t caught a damn’ thing. It was hot, and it was still, and the beer had run out a long time ago. It was the perfect combination of conditions for someone determined to be miserable, and it almost gave Simon Peter a grim, black sense of satisfaction.
Then, just about dawn, some guy on the shore had started calling out advice—and if there’s one thing a fisherman can’t stand, it’s some yahoo giving advice from the comfort of shore. “Cast your net on the right side,” the stranger had called. Oh, sure, THAT must be the problem.
But they hauled the nets up, sorted and rolled them, and then cast them on the right side of the boat. For a moment, the nets just sunk out of view into the gloom. And then, when they started to haul it up, the resistance caused the boat suddenly to tilt to one side. As soon as they had shifted their weight to right it, John had yelled out that the guy on shore was Jesus. He sounded so sure that Simon Peter squinted hard at the stranger—and he recognized the slope of those shoulders.
Simon Peter’s heart leapt to his throat, and he did the only thing he could think of—he made himself presentable and jumped over the side. It seemed like it took just seconds to reach the shore. Dripping, he took the hand Jesus offered as he flopped through the rushes, but then dropped it like it was hot. He saw that coal fire, burning merrily, and remembered.
Instead, he got breakfast. Breakfast, and forgiveness. There between the white-hot memory of two fires, and three denials.
On that ordinary day, Jesus makes sure the spiritual wounds of Peter are tended to, and placed on the way to healing.
One of the things that is most striking is the ordinariness surrounding Jesus’s encounters with his followers after his resurrection in the gospel of John.
Jesus appears so ordinary that no one recognizes him at first. Mary Magdalene thinks he’s the gardener just outside his empty tomb. The other apostles have to see the wounds on his body to recognize him—and some even demand it as we heard last week. And now, here he just shows up on the shore of the Sea of Tiberias, another name for the Sea of Galilee and starts yelling out fishing advice.
And, once again, it is in a simple meal that Jesus communicates so much. Jesus himself has provided the fire, some fish, and the bread—and invites them to contribute too, just as we do to this day in the Eucharist. As the apostles struggle to get the boat to shore dragging their bulging net, some of them remember that time along that same shore that Jesus had fed a multitude with just a few fish and a couple of simple loaves of bread.
So often, we expect to see Jesus surrounded by the miraculous. That expectation fools us, though, and makes us forget this most important fact that Jesus himself alluded to time and again in his teaching: Jesus is almost always found where we least expect him, because he is most present to us as one of us. The stranger offering us advice we don’t want to hear. The hungry elderly man choosing food over medical care. The homeless person seeking shelter and community who feels she’s been cast away by anyone she has ever loved. The refugees fleeing the only home they’ve ever wanted for the probably unfriendly shores of a foreign land where they may never be accepted.
It is in the ordinary that the true miracle of Christ’s love plays itself out for us in each moment, whether of joy or sorrow. We too often live between the fires of our past failures and our current temptation to take the easy way still. Yet we have all been called, like Peter, to proclaim our discipleship—and all of us have had times where we have failed. But not a word of blame is spoken by Jesus to Simon Peter, or to us. Just a simple question: Do you love me? And then Jesus feeds us, body and soul.
Each time Jesus asks, one of Simon Peter’s three denials is blotted out. “Do you love me?” Jesus asks again and again, even though he already knows the answer.
And many of us are bearing burdens of guilt and shame. Many of us, like Peter, allow our failures to haunt us. Sometimes, the hardest person to forgive is yourself. Sometimes, it’s so overwhelming that we go the other way-- we even deny we have done anything wrong, we refuse to acknowledge how we have taken others and our relationships for granted, in order to avoid admitting we have anything for which we need forgiveness. But, unless we are narcissists, we know better. And it eats inside us.
Jesus doesn’t come to Peter there on the shore of the Sea of Tiberias and demand that Peter beg for forgiveness. Instead, Jesus offers him breakfast. Breakfast, and the reassurance that Peter is still beloved, that Jesus still believes in him enough to turn over the care and feeding of his followers to Peter.
And here we are. Two thousand years later, and Jesus calls to us from the shore too, telling us to have faith and put down our nets, just as the rest of society claims that we are in a hopelessly secular time. We stay silent with the good news of Christ—and allow others to seize the microphone, claiming that God is all about retribution and fear and might making right. Our silence can be deadly.
In our gospel, those nets have been empty all night—and they remind me of the way many of us feel, on a personal level, that our nets are empty after these last years of stress and worry. How many times have we put our nets down in the last few years, and hauled them up empty, and had to persevere anyway? The dashed hopes, the lack of an obvious end point has been mentally, spiritually, and physically exhausting.
And that experience of the empty nets can apply to our religious life as well. We may feel that our nets are empty spiritually. And for those of us who pay attention to such matters, the decline of the role of faith in so many people’s lives is also a cause for worry. I think of the continued tales of gloom and doom that many proclaim as the number of people who profess faith in God and who attend religious services continues to shrink in North America and in Europe. Empty nets, empty pews.
Yet—a time of empty nets is also a time of opportunity, as Jesus reminds us. If our nets are empty, perhaps it’s because we are putting them down in the wrong place both for ourselves and in our spiritual lives. The fact is that there are plenty of fish there. Among those who think that Christianity is all about power and might and judging others. Among those who have been hurt by the Church’s tendency toward being an institution rather than a way of life devoted to serving God and each other, and in doing so, finding ourselves. Sometimes, even when we feel the most bereft, we realize that we have drifted away. God hasn’t. God is always there, calling to us from the shore. Urging us to remember whose we are. And urging us to cast down our nets that all can know the warmth of God’s love for them—love we all so desperately need.
We cast down our nets for ourselves and for others, not by fear or threats of a wrathful God, but through the lives WE live as people of resurrection, as people of hope, out in a world that is STARVED for that message. We speak up over the din of division, self-centeredness, and hatred, and let the love and light of Jesus shine out of us by the life Jesus offers us—and offers all—there on the shores of the sea. Jesus offers love, compassion, forgiveness, and nourishment.
That scene is a reminder to all of us to put our nets down where the need is the greatest. And be willing to joyfully take part in the work of discipleship-- the reason why we're here in the first place, really. We're reminded of that at the end of our gospel, because the reading ends with two simple words: “Follow me.” Simple, but not easy, as Peter and the apostles and as you and me all know.
“Do you love me?” Jesus asks us right now. Yes? Then let down your nets, and gather all you can. Draw the world to Jesus in your words and actions, and in your love most of all. Don’t worry about being overwhelmed, or about the net breaking. The net of faith is strong enough to hold everyone. Don’t worry about your own failures and shortcomings and doubts—know that you are beloved of Jesus, beloved, and worthy, and called to living a resurrected life.
Preached at the 505 on April 30, and at the 8:00 and 10:30 am Eucharists on May 1, 2022 at St. Martin's Episcopal Church, Ellisville.
Readings:
No comments:
Post a Comment