April 18, 2010
Acts 5:27-32 + Psalm 30 + Revelation 5: 11-14 + John 21: 1-19
On this date in 1968 I was ordained a priest at age 25. Wheat was growing where this church now stands: wheat that would become bread, bread that would feed us and bring us to this day. More than half of this parish was not even born, but God had a plan that one day we would be here together and that we would break and share the bread that wheat has given us; and that we would share the promise and the faith that God would stay with us and Jesus would send their Spirit. With the deepest and most intense gratitude to God, and my most sincere gratitude to you, I break the bread of life and break open this word of God today thankful that you are so patient, so kind, so willing to look beyond short-comings and inadequacies and look for the hand and the face of God in an aging servant.
Now it begins very early in life for all of us. The earliest signs are seen in tiny children who pull away from a helping hand. One of the first words in every child’s vocabulary is: “No”. Then comes: “Let me do it.” And before long, its “I want to do it my way.” And the trouble begins. I can’t think how often as a priest I have stood by helplessly and watched a spouse who has lost a partner in the midst of their grief try to go back to life as it was – or try to continue living how and sometimes where they lived for years with a husband or wife who is suddenly no longer there. Eventually it does not work. Nothing is the same, and no matter how hard or how long they try, something new must happen. We all eventually discover that you just can’t go back.
The church, the faithful followers of Jesus Christ are discovering that by the time John writes his Gospel. The disciples experienced that in the days following the death of Christ. Those who came to faith by their witness a generation later realized that coming to life in Christ was more than a profession of faith. It was a whole new way of living, of seeing, or thinking. Peter is that church along with his fellow disciples. They have lost their companion, and in their grief, they want to go back, and so Peter says: “I’m going fishing.” But it does not work.
There are to two problems with Peter’s fishing trip. one: they are fishing at night. two: Peter starts the whole idea thinking it’s about him as he says: “I am going to fish.” By the time this story is over however, it is day light and the nets are full, but Peter didn’t do it. Peter has placed all his hopes on his own unaided efforts. When the others join in this kind of wrong-headed thinking, they are in for a night without success. Not until they are obedient, until the follow the Master’s instruction do they get anything and when they do, it’s more than they could have imagined.
There is a message here for us from John’s Gospel, and it is an important one for people like us who like to do things our way when we feel like it. This kind of thinking and approach to life cannot work for disciples of Jesus. John’s Gospel gives some important instructions to the first-generation church, and to us as well. When we come to believe in the risen Christ, nothing can ever be the same in the way we think and the way we act. If we go back to the old ways, nothing will happen – empty nets. If we start to think we can do anything on our own or do anything our way, nothing will happen – empty nets. Peter and his friends fished at night thinking that they would fill those nets on their own – empty nets but then comes the morning. Now they can see the master on the shore and following the instructions of the master on the shore, things are different. Like Easter morning, it is John and Peter again who come to this moment of faith. John proclaims his faith in word, and this time Peter proclaims his faith in action: he jumps into the water.
There are all kinds of theories, ideas, and ideologies around these days about how to fill our nets, our bank accounts or portfolios; about how to have peace, prosperity and security. Some of them are born out of disappointment or anger the same feelings shared by the disciples of Jesus in those days after their hopes collapsed on a cross and before an empty tomb they did not understand.
This Gospel affirms what we may already know from our fishing at night: If we do not follow the instructions of the master, it is all for nothing no matter how long we fish.
Remember, they had been told by Jesus that from then on they were to fish for people. In the vision of John’s Gospel and the Kingdom he proclaims, there will be no fishing in the dark for food from the sea. They will fill their nets with people who will be fed by the master on shore. Fish and Bread is what he used to feed the multitude several chapters earlier there beside the sea. The mandate for us is no different. Children of the light as we have become and celebrated in the Great Vigil of Easter, we must and shall do everything as the master has instructed. When we do there will be food for plenty, the nets will be full, and he will look at us again and say: “Follow me” not to the cross, but to glory.