Sermon: Breakfast on the Beach
The Easter banners are still up, but the lilies in the chancel here are all gone – along with the tulips and hyacinths. I might have said the brass music is gone – and thank goodness for Charles Priest, our guest trumpet player today. Spring break for our school system – that’s been over a week now, and children and youth and teachers are back to school. Some of us who took some vacation time that week – we’re all back to work now too. Our routine was interrupted a bit when Tubby Smith left for Minnesota – but now that Billy Gillespie has arrived – UK fans can settle back down again, and get back to their routine. The Derby is coming – that will interrupt our routine a bit. Last night Thunder over Louisville – which I know some of you strongly oppose – was fun. We got home around ________ - not too bad really. Judy and I have our shared season tickets for the Bat’s – they lost on Friday night and (won / lost) on Saturday. They are 7 and 7 so far this season - some would that’s about average. So on the whole, life is pretty much back to normal. Now please don’t respond to this liturgically, as you ordinarily might – but in these days it might feel a bit like this: we’re all sitting in church, and we hear the Easter greeting, but our minds are somewhere else: “Christ is Risen!” “Oh yea, right – I wonder what kind of fertilizer I should put on the lawn this afternoon after I cut it. Maybe I should stop at Eden Shale on the way home.” It appears this back to normal, back to the regular routine of life also the case for the disciples - the very ones who saw and spoke with and touched the risen Christ. In John’s gospel, two weeks ago, on Easter Evening, the risen Jesus came and stood among them, and said “Peace be with you.” And then last week, you remember, we learned how Thomas, who was not there with the disciples on that first Easter evening – how he showed up for church last Sunday – and again, Jesus came and stood among them – “peace be with you” - and Thomas saw and believed – and Jesus blessed all of you and blessed me and all “who have not seen, and yet have come to believe.” Those must have been heady days for the disciples – exhilarating and inspirational – Jesus who was dead was alive again - the resurrected Jesus showing up like that. Amazing and inspiring and wondrous. But now – now some time has past. The heady days waned a bit, and the routine returned. Now we find several of the disciples - Simon Peter, Thomas, Nathanial, the Zebedee brothers James and John, and two others – not named – today we find them no longer in Jerusalem, no longer close to the events of Holy Week and Good Friday and they heady days of Easter and the week after Easter. No – now they are back to Galilee – back home – back to the Sea of Tiberius – another name for the Sea of Galilee. This was the same place where Jesus had called many of them to be his followers. But that was now three years ago – and now it felt like the right time to get back home and get back to work – back to providing for themselves and their families – back to the regular routine of life. “I’m going fishing, Simon Peter says. “We will go with you,” reply the others. Now remember, this was not a leisurely day off to go fishing – to relax and to fish for sport. This was their work – their now resumed and necessary work to provide for themselves and for their families – who after all had to fend for themselves while they were off following Jesus – and they were hoping for a good catch so they could sell most of the fish and earn some money. And it was also back to the familiar, back to the job – back to what they knew how to do. So off they go to their work – off to fishing - from the wee hours until daybreak – and nothing. How frustrating and defeated – and even scared they must have felt. Then – then a voice calling out – from someone on the beach, loud: “Hey there – got any fish?” “No – nada – Zip.” “Cast your net on the right side of the boat – you’ll find some there.” I can hear one of them saying, or at least thinking, “Oh – what the h-e _ _ c-k – what’ve we got to lose?” The haul of fish was so big the nets nearly tear open. And later we are told, oddly I think, that there are 153 fish in the net, of all shapes and sizes. Did they actually count “one, two, three…” or is John suggesting something else? One scholar thinks 153 represents the number of known nations and peoples in the world at time. It is only when the huge haul of fish is caught that “the disciple whom Jesus loved” recognizes who was calling out to them. He says to Peter, “It is the Lord.” After putting some clothes back on – Peter dives into the sea and comes to Jesus – while the other disciples bring the boat and the haul of fish ashore. Jesus too has been at work – already, before he called out to the disciples. A charcoal fire, some fish on the grill, bread. It is breakfast on the beach – a standard menu for that time and place. “Bring some of the fish you have caught – and come, and have breakfast.” John tells us that “Jesus came and took the bread and gave it to them” – words that sound familiar to us, words of Holy Communion with Jesus. It was, as Barbara Brown Taylor says, “A resurrection breakfast prepared by the only one who knows the recipe." I cannot recall ever having breakfast on a beach. Looking out onto a beach, yes. Some years back, in March, on Sanibel Island, on the Gulf side of the Florida coast – a bit of paradise, especially at the time of the year. Maybe some of you have had breakfast on the beach, somewhere, sometime. And of course, I like breakfast – anywhere – the beach, Cracker Barrel, at home. Even after a hard night of working, like the disciples had, there is something restful, and refreshing, and even hopeful about breakfast on the beach, with the rising sun of a new day, particularly when the breakfast is provided by, and prepared by, and served by the risen Lord Jesus Christ. “This was now the third time,” the gospel writer John tell us, “Now the third time Jesus appeared to his disciples after he was raised from the dead.” This editorial comment, inserted during this breakfast on the beach, mirrors the introductory first verse of this chapter: “After these things - (after the words with Thomas, last Sunday) - After these things Jesus showed himself again to the disciples by the Sea of Tiberius; and he showed himself in this way. “Jesus showed himself again.” “This was now the third time Jesus appeared.” Here John is trying to emphasize – pushing the narrative to point out again – he is saying, in other words “Do you get it disciples? Do you get it, O church?” The Lord is indeed risen - Christ is alive and present – present with you when, like the disciples, you are afraid and closed in behind locked doors. Christ is risen and present when you and I have out very real doubts and when we struggle with our faith. Christ is present in the heady and inspirational days of the first Easter Day and in all the Easter Days and seasons to follow. And – and - the risen Christ is present with us even when we go about the normal everydayness of our lives – present in the routine days of working, and going to school – present in all the regular stuff of life – including our regular gatherings at table for breakfast – and lunch and dinner. We proclaim – that by the power of the Holy Spirit, the risen, real presence Christ is with us, when we gather around the Lord’s Table, when we gather for worship – as we take up the hammer and saw and build a Habitat House – and, thank God, the Risen Christ is present in times of tragedy and sadness and fear. We have all felt that tragedy and sadness and fear this past week, with the tragic events at Virginia Tech. Before I heard this on the news, my son Andrew told me that one of the victims who died was a graduate of Manual High School, where Andrew and Blake Ryan now attend, where other Beulah member have graduated. And when Judy told me that one of the first persons killed was a RA, a Resident Assistant, we both thought of our daughter Katie – at Morehead State, an RA, and Assistant Head RA for her dorm next year. I wondered, even out loud, if we should call Katie to come home for a time. Katie found out I had said this, and she called me, and said that all of the RA’s at Morehead were writing letters to all the RA’s at Virginia Tech. It is, to me, a sign – a sign of the power and presence of the Risen Christ, a sign which finds expression in the amazing show of support and encouragement that is going out to the students and faculty and staff and parents of that university. It is a sign which says “Even though it is terrible and sad and horrific, you are not facing this all alone. We are with you.” It is the message we have always known – as it says in Psalm 46: “The Lord of hosts is with us; the God of Jacob is our refuge.” In Jesus words, in Matthew’s gospel: “Remember, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.” Jesus is with us – and the Risen Jesus Christ invites us to know that presence in the high and lows and the routine stuff of our lives. And he says to Peter, he says to us: Do you love me – then feed my sheep – tend and take good care of one another – and always, no matter what, follow me. May we know that presence - and may we love, and follow. Amen. |