Sermon 8/9/15
John 21:1-19
Summer Days: Gone Fishin’
This summer, we’ve been playing around with some of the
fun summer themes we can draw from the scriptures: Eutychus and sleep, a picnic
and the feeding of the 5000, (and a potluck of our own, of course,) a road trip
with the Good Samaritan. Today, we’re going fishing with Jesus and the
disciples. But I hope in the midst of these summer days, you’re thinking about
our dreams at Apple Valley, God’s dreams for Apple Valley. I hope you notice
that it’s been in the bulletin each week – a reminder of the dreams will be
thinking about in more focus in the year ahead – an Apple Valley that is
fruitful, and prayerful, and invitational, and missional.
This summer I’ve been working with another church in our
conference helping them put together a strategic plan for their outreach
ministry. We’re using a process called Asset Based Community Development – a
way of planning for the future that starts by focusing on what you have,
instead of on what you don’t have. It’s really easy in the life of the church
to get caught up in what you don’t have. We don’t have enough money, or people,
or a new enough building, or good enough facilities, or enough children, or
enough volunteers, or enough activities, and so on. And pretty soon, despite
our proclaiming that we have a generous God, we feel like we don’t have enough
to do anything with at all, and we’re in big trouble. But in Asset Based
Community Development, you start out by thinking very carefully about everything
you do have – the people you have and their gifts. The space you do have. The
finances you do have. The connections you have to other organizations and
institutions. And pretty soon, you’ve got a huge list of things that are tools
for ministry. And suddenly it begins to seem pretty silly to suggest that there
is anything that, with God’s help, you can’t accomplish. It’s kind of like
learning to see 5000 people and see them and the fives loaves and two fish and
see such abundance, instead of panic-inducing scarcity.
What do you see, when you look at the assets we have
here? Does it feel like we don’t have enough? Or like we have so much that
there’re possibilities everywhere you look? When it comes to dreaming with God,
I think we get from dreams to realities when we see how much we have already
been given to do the work that God calls us to.
Today, as I said, we’re going fishing with Jesus. This is
one of the post-resurrection appearances of Jesus. Remember, way back in the
season of Easter we spent one Sunday looking at all of these appearances
together – times that Jesus was present with the disciples after his
resurrection, before he returned to God, in this forty-day span of time. This
is one of my favorite post-resurrection scenes. There’s a small group of
disciples gathered by the Sea of Tiberias, another name for the Sea of Galilee.
They decide to go fishing, but they catch nothing. But then, at daybreak, Jesus
stands on the beach. The group doesn’t recognize him. Why? We can’t be sure,
but several of the post-resurrection stories suggest that Jesus is hard to
recognize – at first. Jesus tells them to cast their nets to the other side of
the boat, since they haven’t been catching fish. They don’t question him, but
do as he says. And suddenly, there are so many fish that they can hardly haul
them in. One of the disciples recognizes Jesus just from this – the abundance
that suddenly comes where they thought they had nothing – it’s a sign that
Jesus is in their midst. We read that Peter, upon realizing that it is Jesus,
puts on his clothes, and jumps into
the water to see him. How many of you have seen Forest Gump? I can’t help put
but picture that scene in the movie where Lieutenant Dan comes to work on
Forest’s shrimping boat, and Forest is so excited, so overwhelmed to have him
there, that he jumps off his moving boat and into the water to get to him just
that few seconds faster. That’s how Peter feels and acts when he realizes he’s
in the presence of Jesus. Eventually, the rest of the disciples catch up too
with the fish, and they come ashore.
They find Jesus waiting with a fire and fish and bread.
He tells them to bring some of the fish they just caught. John, the gospel
writer, tell us that there were 153 fish. For thousands of years, scholars have
tried to figure out the significance of this number, to no avail. My personal
take is that it is pretty simple – 153 is a lot of fish! Most people I know who
fish know exactly how many they got. And the disciples: they got a lot of fish. John tells us that the net
was not torn, despite the large haul. And Jesus invites them to have breakfast.
They don’t ask “who are you?” Because they know now. It’s the Lord. It’s Jesus.
After breakfast, Jesus and Peter talk. Jesus asks him,
“Simon, son of John, do you love me?” And Peter answers affirmatively. “Yes,
Lord, you know that I love you.” This happens three times in a row. And with
each exchange, Jesus responds, “Feed my lambs,” then, “Tend my sheep,” then,
“Feed my sheep.” A few verses beyond our
text for today, the gospel concludes, with John saying that the world itself
could not contain the full account of all the things that Jesus said and did.
He’s offered, it seems, what is most significant in his mind, what we most need
to know.
I’m wondering if some things about this passage seem
familiar to you, seem similar to you
to other stories that we find in the gospels. I notice a lot of things in this
scene that we’ve seen before. There’s Jesus and the disciples at the seaside,
of course. There’s the disciples not recognizing Jesus until he does something
special, so Jesus-like that they know it’s him. There’s Jesus, the carpenter,
telling the group of fishermen what to do. There’s these fishermen who don’t
catch any fish at first, and then catch so many it is beyond what they
expected. That’s happened before around Jesus. There’s Jesus and fish and
bread, again, like before. There’s Peter, having three opportunities to commit
or deny his connection to Jesus – only this time he responds affirmatively,
where once he denied even knowing Jesus. This whole encounter is echoes of
former scenes from the gospel.
I don’t think it’s accidental, all these parallels. I
think what we’re seeing is an intentional before and after. Think of all the
things that are marketed with dramatic before and after pictures. This is your
life without this essential product, and this is your life afterwards. What’s
changed in the gospels from before to after? Jesus has been crucified and
resurrected! Death has been conquered in life. And in this, in the
resurrection, the disciples have the hope, the strength, the trust they need to
start seeing assets instead of needs. From here on out, not without bumps and
challenges, but from here on out what the disciples will do in the world is
astonishing, as they go out into the world in the name of Jesus. Before and
after, the results are convincing. Aren’t they?
Friends, we are already resurrection people. But
sometimes I think we’re still living our faith as people in the “before” frame,
instead of the “after” frame. Like we’re waiting for something that will make
our dreams real possibilities. Instead, I think God is waiting on us! God is
waiting for us to recognize Jesus, calling to us. Waiting for us to put our net
out into different waters, if they keep coming up empty where we are. Waiting
for us to sit down to breakfast. Waiting for us to say “Yes” where before we
said “no.” God is waiting for us to get to the after, so that we can live into
God’s dreams.
We’ve been blessed to have Laurel here today talking to
us about imagining a world with no malaria. That’s no small goal. But people
like Laurel and others who have been working diligently on this campaign have
not let the magnitude of malaria stop them from acting, with such powerful results.
Laurel is the kind of person that throws herself into whatever she’s doing with
such heart, and I have admired the way she’s believed that an annual conference
that often sees itself as without can
do amazing things and commit themselves to a cause, a passion they didn’t even
know they had until Laurel got to them! I think about this little congregation,
and Liz challenging us to support our young people in going to camp – a
challenge we will return to in September to tally our offerings – and beyond my
wildest expectations we raised more money in a single special offering than we
often do in several months at a time of mission offerings. I think about my
garden, and plants that will take up as much room as I can give them. I’ve been
surprised by some plants that will just get bigger and bigger and bigger if
they can, bigger than I was expecting. Sure, sometimes space considerations
require containers and small plots. But what does it tell us that our garden
will grow into as big a space as we’re willing to give it?
Are we living as before people, or after people? Are we
people with assets, or just needs and deficiencies? How much space are we
willing to give to God’s dreams? We are blessed to serve at God who is a God of
second chances. A God who will remind us with another feast about being the
body of Christ in the world. A God who believes in trying and trying again,
until we really see the difference that Jesus makes in our lives. God is
dreaming for us, with us. I want you to help me not make the dreams we’ve been
talking about just nice words for the bottom of our bulletin. I want us to live
in the after. I want us to know, to
believe, to trust, to act as people who know that this congregation can do all
that God has called it to do, because our nets are full to overflowing, and our
hearts are full of love, and God is calling our names. Thanks be to God. Amen.
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