I.N.I.

A sermon for the 3rd Sunday of Easter, being 25 April 2004, and to be preached at Christ Lutheran Church (ELCA), Elizabethtown, PA, and based on the Gospel for the Day, St. John 21:1-19

Grace, mercy, and peace be yours in Christ Jesus, our Lord!

Dear Friends in Christ,

When I told a friend of mine that I was preaching this Sunday, he wanted to know what the text would be. I quickly summarized the Gospel for the day. And we agreed together that there’s a lot in this passage from the last chapter of John’s Gospel. A lot.

We could talk about fishing trips. Or how Jesus instituted the tradition of a men’s prayer breakfast. Or include something about raising sheep. But let’s be a little more inclusive. I’d like to work through this text with you and show you how it teaches that our continuing future lives are based on the love relationship that we have with the Lord Jesus.

Maybe you’re already thinking “I don’t think I see a lot of relationship in what the Church teaches. And sometimes the love isn’t even there.” Maybe you’re already thinking something like “Well, okay, but I’ve still got a lot of baggage – either guilt or shame or sore feelings or something like that – left over from my past, and I can’t really focus much on the future yet.” Maybe you’d like to be experiencing this new life in Christ, but never seem to be able to change the old habits, the old patterns, and the old way of life that seem to be keeping you from getting on with it.

Boy, talk about old habits! Look at these disciples. Some while after Jesus had appeared to the disciples the second time (the time when Thomas was with them), Peter looked around and said “Hey, anybody up for a fishing trip?” Six of the others say ‘Sure’ and they all pile into a couple SUVs and head for the lake. I know some of the women here can vouch for the historical truth of this biblical fishing trip. Isn’t it soft of a stereotypical male behavior?

Things were getting a little tense there in the house waiting to see if Jesus will appear again. Somebody (probably one of the women like Martha) had perhaps said ‘Well, if you guys are just going to be hanging around, here’s a list of chores that need to be done.” Or maybe one of the more astute women starting to drop hints that maybe the guys ought to get out of the house and do a little evangelism work or something. So, since it wasn’t deer season, Peter and the guys go fishing instead.

One of the neat things about this trip to the lake (some 80 miles or so, as the crow flies, north of Jerusalem) is that Jesus comes to meet them right where they are. I believe there’s a lesson in that for us today. Jesus can still come to meet us right where we are, right in the midst of our busy lives, right where we think we won’t see him. Suddenly, there he is in school with us. There he is at our kitchen table. There he is at work.

For some of these 7 disciples, anyway, fishing was their work. Jesus had called them away from it at the beginning of his ministry, and it would be a neat writer’s device to end the story with the disciples heading back where Jesus had found them, floating away from shore with the sky slowly getting lighter as the sun rises and the credits start to roll across the screen. That’s not the way it ended, of course. The boat had gotten about 100 yards offshore, and day was just breaking when Jesus called out knowingly “You don’t have any fish, do you?” That’s the way Jesus calls to us every day. He already knows we don’t have fish in our nets. He already knows what our day has been like. He already knows where our hurts and empty places are. But he starts the conversation with us anyway.

Jesus enters into our daily lives because he’s got something to offer us that’s just as helpful as the advice he gave his disciples about dropping their nets to starboard. His offer to each of us is tailor-made for our own situations, and maybe it’s going to be just to make some little change in what we’ve been doing or how we’ve been living. We don’t have to chuck our lives overboard and all become full-time churchworkers. I believe, with Luther, that God sanctifies just about every calling in the world. He can reach in and give a tweak to everyone’s lives, blessing them, and letting us honor him in them.

At the same time, Jesus motivates us out of our old ways of life when they make us drift away from him the way the disciple’s boat was drifting out from shore. His word gets us to fish on the right side of the boat. We don’t necessarily stop being accountants or teachers or farmers or salespeople or fishermen or whatever, but we can start being them in ways that follow God’s directions. The specifics on that score are up to you and the Lord, of course. But we all need to listen to Jesus’ call and then follow up on it.

The disciples put their nets in on the other side of the boat, and it was when the net surrounded a huge school of fish that they finally realized it was Jesus over there on the shore shouting to them. What a blessing they reaped just by listening to and following their Lord’s directions! He called. They responded. He blessed. They recognized him.

And again, Jesus’ word threw the disciples into action. When they suddenly had so many fish that they couldn’t haul in the net after a whole night without a single catch, that’s when one of them asked “Who is that guy on the shore?” And beloved John, one of the younger disciples, probably with better eyesight than Peter and the others, John told Peter “It’s the Lord!” That motivates Peter. He pulls on a T-shirt or something because it wouldn’t be proper to greet his Master naked, and he jumps right into the lake to swim to shore. Precipitous action. He might have looked before he leapt, but he didn’t hesitate to leap. Peter needed to be next to Jesus a.s.a.p.

The other 6 were left in the boat to bring it to shore dragging a net full of fish behind. Their focused action might have taken a little longer, but with teamwork and a little steady work on the oars, they pulled up to land, jumped ashore, and went to greet Jesus. Leaving the fish still in the net still in the water.

All of the disciples heard Jesus and headed his direction, following their natural pattern of behavior, fast or slow. We should be reacting the same way. Wherever Jesus finds us, whatever we’re doing, however we’re living, our response can be to bring our focus in his direction and head towards the sound of his voice. The movement is from where he finds us towards him.

Then focus on this magnificent cookout Jesus has prepared for his friends. Ever the gracious host, Jesus invited them to bring some of the fish they had just caught. When all was ready, he took the bread from the stones where it had baked and passed it to them. And he did the same with the fish broiling on the charcoal. A lesson here could be that while Jesus eagerly invites our participation in his work, he returns to us more than we give him.

Jesus feeds us. The bread and fish weren’t a sacramental meal like the one we will share with him shortly, but it shows us again the Lord’s caring for the needs of his friends and followers. These disciples had been out on the lake all night, and ended at dawn with their muscles straining over the heavy net and then in their efforts to get to shore as quickly as possible. They needed a break. They were tired and hungry. Jesus saw their deep need and he met it.

That’s how Jesus still treats us, his friends and followers. When we open our eyes and ears, we find that he’s caring for us as well. He knows us well enough to sense what our deep needs are. He knows just what we need for refreshment. He knows the burdens we bear and begs us lay them down because he’s got something better for us.

Peter, despite having just swum the hundred yard dash, then helping haul in the catch of fish, and then sharing in breakfast with Jesus and the guys, Peter still carried a heavy burden on his back. Nobody mentions it out loud in the story. The narrator doesn’t bring it up. But it’s there. I’d think anyone reading John’s Gospel for the first time would be real aware of it. Just a few chapters earlier, that person would have read how Peter had gone out and wept bitterly after he had denied even knowing Jesus when the Lord was in deep need of a friend. Then the next scene that Peter’s in was on Easter morning when he and John ran to the tomb. Our reader-for-the-first-time would notice that Simon Peter the denier was denied a meeting with the Lord at the tomb. “Yep, it figures. You deny the Lord like that and he’ll avoid you and your friends.” So what does this reader think of Peter diving into the lake to swim to Jesus? Or of Peter jumping on board the boat to pull in the net after Jesus asks them for some fish? Doesn’t it seem like he’s going a little, well, overboard to try to make up to Jesus?

And it’s not until after breakfast that Jesus, in the text, speaks directly to Peter. Three times he asks Peter whether Peter loves him. Three times. Until each of the three denials is repealed by a declaration of love. It’s not 70 times 7, but that’s not what was needed here. Just the three. Once for each. It’s how Jesus still forgives us. Once for each offense. Over and over again. Patiently. Consistently. Every sin trumped with God’s love for us.

Jesus forgives us and loves us no matter what we’ve done. He forgives us and loves us no matter how dirty our hands have gotten. He forgives us and loves us no matter what we’ve said or thought or felt. He keeps coming back to us, offering more of himself.

And the Lord gives us something to do. His rejoinder to Peter directs him to “feed my lambs” and “feed my sheep.” One could see here Jesus’ direction to his followers to continue the feast of caring among all people, young and old alike. Everyone is in need of a loving relationship with the Lord. He wants us to take it out to all people. It’s a continuous process. We all live close enough to farms to know that there are rhythms to the work, and that unless the farm dies the work continues unabated. That’s one of the ideas behind Jesus’ words here. The work he gives us goes on until we die. So isn’t it interesting that, in talking with Peter, the commission to feed the lambs and sheep leads Jesus right into a description of that disciple’s eventual death?

And then that’s capped off with the discipleship call that’s echoed down through the centuries to each and every one of us: “Follow me.” That’s all Jesus really wants of us. And if that’s all we do, we’ll be doing everything he asks us to do. When we follow him, even to our deaths, we will find ourselves in relationship to the Lord and to each other.

Do you see how this text teaches that our continuing future lives are based on the love relationship that we have with the Lord Jesus? Even if we don’t see a lot of real relationship in some corners of the Church, and even if we don’t feel radiant love from every direction of God’s family. Maybe we’re still caught up in a reflexive old habit or pattern or way of life that sets us drifting away from Jesus (like the disciples 80 miles away from where they’d last seen Jesus and floating away from the shore). Whatever it is that seems to cut us off from that close connection with our Savior, our ready willingness to break bread with Jesus is the key to receiving the refreshment and energy needed for the life he wants us to lead.

Jesus wants us to feed his lambs and his sheep, and to keep at it for the rest of our lives. He wants to feed us so that we have the strength and energy to carry this mission out. Let’s celebrate this opportunity before us today as we are gathered here before the Lord’s altar to renew his ties with us, each other, and the world around us. Amen.

And may the peace of God that passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus our Lord. Amen.

S.D.G.