THE KIRK OF KILDAIRE PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH

CARY, NC

www.kirkofkildaire.org

A sermon preached by Stephanie Arnold

April 22, 2007

John 21:1-19

After these things Jesus showed himself again to the disciples by the Sea of Tiberias; and he showed himself in this way. Gathered there together were Simon Peter, Thomas called the Twin, Nathanael of Cana in Galilee, the sons of Zebedee, and two others of his disciples. Simon Peter said to them, "I am going fishing." They said to him, "We will go with you." They went out and got into the boat, but that night they caught nothing. Just after daybreak, Jesus stood on the beach; but the disciples did not know that it was Jesus. Jesus said to them, "Children, you have no fish, have you?" They answered him, "No." He said to them, "Cast the net to the right side of the boat, and you will find some." So they cast it, and now they were not able to haul it in because there were so many fish. That disciple whom Jesus loved said to Peter, "It is the Lord!" When Simon Peter heard that it was the Lord, he put on some clothes, for he was naked, and jumped into the sea.

But the other disciples came in the boat, dragging the net full of fish, for they were not far from the land, only about a hundred yards1 off. When they had gone ashore, they saw a charcoal fire there, with fish on it, and bread. Jesus said to them, "Bring some of the fish that you have just caught." So Simon Peter went aboard and hauled the net ashore, full of large fish, a hundred fifty-three of them; and though there were so many, the net was not torn.

Jesus said to them, "Come and have breakfast." Now none of the disciples dared to ask him, "Who are you?" because they knew it was the Lord. Jesus came and took the bread and gave it to them, and did the same with the fish. This was now the third time that Jesus appeared to the disciples after he was raised from the dead.

When they had finished breakfast, Jesus said to Simon Peter, "Simon son of John, do you love me more than these?" He said to him, "Yes, Lord; you know that I love you." Jesus said to him, "Feed my lambs." A second time he said to him, "Simon son of John, do you love me?" He said to him, "Yes, Lord; you know that I love you." Jesus said to him, "Tend my sheep." He said to him the third time, "Simon son of John, do you love me?" Peter felt hurt because he said to him the third time, "Do you love me?" And he said to him, "Lord, you know everything; you know that I love you." Jesus said to him, "Feed my sheep.

Very truly, I tell you, when you were younger, you used to fasten your own belt and to go wherever you wished. But when you grow old, you will stretch out your hands, and someone else will fasten a belt around you and take you where you do not wish to go." (He said this to indicate the kind of death by which he would glorify God.) After this he said to him, "Follow me."

For us, Easter is a wonderful celebration-good music,
It is a high-attendance Sunday for most churches. Everyone wants to join in the victorious celebrations….
(Blood Diamond)
But, I'm not sure that is how the disciples experienced the resurrection the first time. Emotionally, they no doubt went from fear joy to despair to confusion to hope and often multiple emotions all at the same time. Peter in particular had a bumpy emotional ride. Being so close to Jesus, he had a front row seat:

• He was hopeless when he watched the injustice of the soldiers arresting Jesus;
• He was despairing when he observed the unfairness of the government that sentenced an innocent man to death;
• He was ashamed when he added to the ordeal by his own betraying words;
• He was belwildered when he ran to the tomb in disbelief;
• And he was overjoyed celebrating with the disciples in the upper room.

Peter was in the center of all the action. He was vindicated, truth ruled, Christ

I don't know about you, but by the end of the story, I want Peter to become a super-hero. I want him to be a champion of truth and justice. I want him to be on fire for Christ-- telling people far and wide about the miracle he just witnessed and the truth of God's love. I want him to immediately be bold, daring and confident. Some time before, Jesus had told him, "You are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not prevail against it." I want him to confidently and quickly become that rock.

Eventually, Peter will be boldly preaching to the masses, praying confidently before the congregations, leading scores of new converts to the truth. I'm not sure we can jump forward that far that quickly.

In our passage today, we find a short interlude between the resurrection and the next chapter of Peter and the disciples' lives, which is recorded in the book of Acts.

I can only imagine that it was late one evening after all of the flurry of activity and emotion settled down. Peter was probably sitting around with some of the other disciples, Peter had a flash of inspiration and decided what to do. After all of the events of the past few weeks, he stood up and said, "I'm going fishing!"
And so, Peter and some other disciples ran all the way back home. Back to business as usual, which is where we find the disciples in today's passage.
They are gathered again at the Sea of Tiberius. They are there once again, in the same spot where they were found by Jesus three years before- -at the shore, in their boats, with nets in their hands.

It is a familiar scene for them. In many ways it seems like a strange sort of déjà vu experience. It is a strange sort of flashback. This isn't the first time we have seen them here-it was only a few years earlier when Jesus first approached them from that very same spot with the vague invitation to come follow him. This story may begin the same way as but something very new happens.

No one will know for certain what the disciples were thinking as they were there on the beach. My suspicion is that they were returning the activity that they knew best and the place where they were most comfortable.

• Perhaps they were still struggling with all that had happened to them, with the amazing events and ideas that had impacted their lives.

• Perhaps they needed to gather once more in a place that was familiar.

• Perhaps they needed time to work out some of their thoughts and questions by doing something they knew by heart: fishing.

And so, they went fishing.

Except well -- they weren't doing so well this evening, maybe they were rusty or maybe they were just unlucky. All night-- no fish. How disheartening.

But as we just heard, Jesus comes once again and changes their lives. With yet another simple command, "Put your nets on the other side," their eyes and hearts are once again opened.

They wanted to run away, to take a break. But, just as Jesus had done many times before, he stood in their way. There would be no more business as usual. There was no longer an escape back to mundane and ordinary lives. Jesus had a bigger plan and higher expectations.

(As they did years before, they followed Jesus' command and did indeed catch fish. We are told that there were 153 of them, to be exact. According to historians, at the time, it was believed that there were only 153 kinds of fish in the world. Having been to two aquariums in the past three weeks, I can tell you that there are far more than 153 species. But to them, that was representative of all of the fish in the sea.)

Jesus prepared a barbeque breakfast for them and then had a haunting conversation with Peter. Three times, Jesus asks Peter the haunting question, "Do you love me." To each of his positive replies, Jesus instructs him… there is something more you can do… feed my sheep.

It is probably not an accident that Jesus asked him the same question times- corresponding to the 3 times he denied Christ weeks early. Jesus granted him freedom, forgiveness, resurrection in Peter's personal life.

Sure, Peter had messed up a few weeks before. Sure he made a decision to go fishing instead of going boldly. Jesus was there giving yet another second, third and fourth chance. Jesus was clear that his death was not the end. Even his resurrection was not the end.

The resurrection was not a one time event that has little to no implications for the future. It is something that must be alive in us as it was for Peter. It must change who we are and what we do. …

Before graduation, Ed Christman, the college chaplain gave each member of the graduating senior class a present. Apologizing for its simplicity, it was a copy of a poem written by Wendell Berry, a Kentucky farmer, novelist and poet. It was the poem, "Manifesto: The Mad Farmer Liberation Front." It has become one of my favorites poems.

The most powerful line is the last. "Practice Resurrection." I think Jesus would have told Peter the exact same thing-"Practice Resurrection."

Resurrection is not just something that happened one time a while back. It is something that is and must be alive in us and therefore alive in the world.

We practice resurrection when we too affirm that death is not the final word. The worst that humans can do is not the final word. Cruelty, hatred, and violence do not have the final word. Loveless power does not have the final word. God's raising of Jesus from the dead is the final word. Resurrection is the great gift and hope of the Christian.

Practicing resurrection means having hope that defies all odds. In the very same passage, Jesus extends grace and the hope of resurrection to Peter and in the same breath, tells him of his own death. Practicing resurrection is not easy.

E. B. White, wrote an essay about his wife, Catherine, when she was on the verge of death. She loved to garden. Every year she planned carefully, ordered from seed catalogues, created a new diagram for each new year's planting. After she became ill, and was nearly incapacitated, she managed somehow to get herself outside when it was time to plant. Here's what E. B. White wrote, "Armed with a diagram and clipboard, Catherine would get into a shabby old raincoat, much too long for her, and put on a little round wool hat and proceed to the director's chair placed at the edge of her plot. There she would sit, hour after hour, with the wind and the weather, [surrounded by] dozens of packages of new bulbs and a basket full of old ones, ready for the intricate interment. There was something comical, yet touching in her bedraggled appearance on this awesome occasion. The small hunched-over figure; her studied absorption in the implausible notion that there would be another spring; oblivious to the ending of her own days, which she knew perfectly well was near at hand; sitting there with her chart under those dark skies in the dying October calmly plotting the resurrection."

That is defiant hope of the resurrection. Hope in the face of death, injustice and pain.

Defiant hope can take other forms, of course. In the early days of the Christian church, while the followers of Christ were still a persecuted minority, they regularly fed twenty-five thousand of Rome's poor-not as a social strategy, not because they had so much and felt obliged to share it. Rather, they did so because of what they believed happened in the world through Jesus Christ. Living in the light of the Resurrection, they determined to practice a bit of resurrection themselves, to plant signs of defiant hope as one might plant bulbs in the fall, even when you have no prospect of seeing the flowers bloom in the spring.

Practicing resurrection does not assume success. Certainly was not going to be for Peter. When Jesus gave Peter a second chance, he did not promise an easy life or that things would all workout without a problem.

There is a wonderful story about Clarence Jordan. He practiced resurrection by forming a Christian community called Koinonia in GA during the 1940s and 50s. The community was open to people of all races in a time when the world around them was segregated. One night, the KKK visited the Koinonia farm and burned down all of the building except the one in which Jordan and his wife and child lived. That building they riddled with gunshot. During the raid, Jordan recognized the voice of on of the hooded attackers: it belonged to a local newspaperman.

The next day, Jordan returned to the fields to hoe and plant and continue the work to which he had been called. Out into the fields walked the reporter heard the night before. "Well, Jordan," he said, "I guess you'll be moving on now, after all this damage." To which Jordan made no reply, but continued to how and plant, hoe and plant.

"Well, Mr. Jordan," inquired the reporter, "What is your reaction to last night's incident?"

Jordan continued to hoe and plant, hoe and plant.
"Mr. Jordan, what do you think? You've worked here fourteen years and all you've built lies in ruins. What do you think now that all you've worked for has failed?"

At which time, Clarence Jordan stopped hoeing, looked that unmasked Klansman in the eye and said: "you just never have understood about us Christians. It's not about being successful. It's about being faithful." And with that, he went back to hoeing and planting.

No more business as usual. We cannot simply go back to the way things were before the resurrection. Christ is alive and stands on the shore while we are adrift at sea. Christ calls us to a life that is different than it was before we knew him. In the face of injustice and failure and hatred, the risen Christ breaks into our business as usual lives and we cannot go back to our factories and labs and kitchens and classrooms and churches living as thought evil has the final word.

So what do we do in the face of injustice?
What does practicing resurrection mean in the face of tragedies such as unfathomable events at VT this week? Most of us, like Peter, would prefer to go fishing. To run away from the pain. I know I'd rather change the station, forget all about it and perhaps becoming more cynical. While there may be great wisdom in changing the station, practicing resurrection does not mean forgetting the pain. Rather, it means forgiving the gunman, continuing to work for peace,

Look it squarely in the eye as people who have seen beyond it, keep on hoeing and planting, practice resurrection, until in God's time and by God's hand, we get it right.