April 22, 2007
John 21: 1-19
Grace and peace to you from God the Creator and the Lord Jesus. Amen.
Newton’s First Law of Motion holds that a body will remain at a state of rest until it is compelled by an outside force to do otherwise. The extension of that law is obvious: In the absence of that outside force, that body will return to a state of rest.
So here we are, two weeks to the day after Easter. I’ve taken an informal survey among my clergy colleagues, and I can tell you: Pastors are glad that Easter is over! Our choir certainly looks happier now that they’re out from under a heavy rehearsal schedule. And I’ll bet that those of you who hosted a family gathering that lasted more than a day, well, while you were glad to see them come, I’ll bet you were also glad to see their taillights.
And why the relief? So we can get back to normal, we can settle back into our routines, our lives can resume some sense of predictability.
We are not alone in our affection for the familiar. Look at the disciples. What is their response to the Resurrection? How did they react to the fact that the risen Lord Jesus appeared in their midst, not once but twice? They went fishing.
“I am going fishing,” Peter said. “We will go with you,” they said. By the way, that’s one of my favorite verses in Scripture; I plan to use it as Biblical justification for how I plan to spend a little of my time this summer. But when these men went fishing, it wasn’t a hobby. This was their livelihood. When they went fishing, they were taking up where they left off, they were getting back to work, they were becoming who they were before the Resurrection. After all, these people were, by occupation, fishermen.
And it’s just as well. If you read about these disciples, not only in the Gospel of John but also in the other Gospels, you quickly realize that these people were not very good disciples. They consistently misunderstood what Jesus told them, and usually too afraid to ask him what he meant. All in all, they were bumblers. The only thing they were good at was the one this Jesus called them away from doing, so now that Easter is past, they get back to it. They go fishing.
And that’s when Jesus appears to them and asks them the essential question: Children, you have no fish, have you? Like a good attorney, Jesus never asks a question to which he doesn’t already know the answer. He knows they don’t have any fish. He’s not looking for information; he’s looking for some self-awareness and some honesty. He comes to them as someone who knows them far better than they know themselves and asks a question that we might unpack this way:
“Now that things are back to normal and you’re back in your usual routine, how is it going? Are you productive and satisfied in how you’re spending your time? Or does how you spend your time leave you with a vague sense of emptiness inside? What of real significance, as God measures significance, do you have to show for how you are spending your lives? Children, you have no fish, have you?”
And they give him the only honest answer there is: No.
Well, Jesus said, throw your net on the other side and you will find some. They do, and Wham!, they gather so many fish in their net that they can barely haul it in. One hundred fifty-three large fish in all – but the number itself isn’t very important; it’s meant to convey overwhelming abundance, enormous success.
Jesus is inviting his disciples to stop doing life as they’ve always done it, and to toss their net on the other side – to start living their lives – on the other side of Easter. And he’s telling them that they don’t have to die in order to do it; but that they can live that life now.
Jesus is making the same invitation to us today, inviting us to live our lives on the other side of Easter. It is s a life-giving invitation, and it is the only real answer to the tragedy at Virginia Tech.
Thirty-three lives wasted, gone in an incomprehensible act of madness. Thirty-three lives gone, and how many more wrenched apart from now on from grieving. We’ll try to find some answers, we’ll find someone to blame, we’ll identify places in the system that broke down; but in a sense it doesn’t matter. Thirty-three lives snuffed out.
Part of the problem is that what happened at Virginia Tech won’t stay isolated. A letter in Wednesday’s Kansas City Star pointed out that the death count at Virginia Tech is just an average day’s body count in Iraq. Every day. We manage that fact by saying, “Well, that’s war.” But what does it say about us that we can just toss it off by saying, “It’s war”? And once we notice that, we can’t help noticing that we’re at the eighth anniversary of the Columbine High School killings, and the 12th anniversary of the Oklahoma City bombing. And the acts of madness seem to flow together. The phrase “9/11” will have immediate significance in this country for generations.
And those are just acts of intentional human violence. But death counts are not the result only of human acts of violence; sometimes they’re the result of economic injustice. It’s been reported that 6,000 people in Africa die every day from preventable, treatable disease, for lack of drugs that you and I can buy at Walgreen’s. Six thousand, every day.
We take all that in, especially the shock of last week, we look at each other and we shake our heads and say, “This is crazy! How does this happen? How did we create a world where we do this to each other? I know I can’t do much about it, I’m just one person; I can’t impact the big picture. The best I can do is to fight to keep my own head above water and do what I can to care for my loved ones and hope against hope that the bad stuff doesn’t happen to them.” And we hear that question come down to us, “Children, you have no fish, have you?” In this respect, we are very much like those first disciples.
Jesus called them to cast their net, to start living their lives, on the other side of Easter, and he told them exactly what he meant. He showed them – showed us – the night before the Crucifixion when he knelt down before each of his disciples, including Judas, and washed their feet. The master washed the slaves’ feet.
“This is what I mean,” Jesus told them. “This is what I mean by love. It’s agape, concrete acts that serve the best interests of the neighbor, concrete acts in which one’s own interests are set aside in favor of meeting the needs of the other.
“This lifestyle is to be your distinctive mark in this world,” Jesus told them. “It will be how the whole world will know that you belong to me and not to something less. In fact, it is how you stay connected to me. And it’s how you stay connected to the love of God, which is the only reality that counts. And it’s the way you form a community that not only endures amid the unpredictability of this world but triumphs over it.”
And what became of these fishermen? They were transformed. Not overnight; it took time. They learned and then practiced Jesus’ lifestyle, and as they did the power of God flowed among them. And they formed a community that was absolutely distinct in the world. When the world told them to hate, they chose to love. When the world told them to guard and protect what they had, they chose to open up and share. When the world warned them to remain silent in the face of injustice, they chose to speak boldly for what was right. When the world offered them fear, they chose God instead.
They became a community of Christ, and because of it they lived with strength and joy.
Life on the other side of Easter. For you and for me, it’s real life, here and now. Amen.
