A Meditation on John 21:1-19
Alongside the Community Church of Durham
Sunday, April 26, 2020
1.
So it’s been a long, long, long night. For Peter and Thomas and Nathaniel and the others. They’ve been out there on the lake a good bit of the night, casting nets, playing hunches, rehashing things. They’ve tried everything. But they’ve caught nothing, nada, zip. Not a minnow. And all this futility chews at their souls, eats at their spirits. It’s been a pretty rough couple of weeks. There’s been some speculation in their crowd, some wishful thinking about resurrection and hope and new life. Rumors and that kind of thing. Where they’re headed, where the future takes them, nobody knows.
And it’s been a long, long, long night—another long, long, long night in a string of them—and for Peter and Thomas and the others, futility breeds frustration, and empty nets mock whatever faith they used to have. Before the crucifixion of their teacher. Before the dissolution of their ministry. Before the pandemic hit their shores.
Now I don’t know about the rest of you, but I’m not sleeping through the night anymore. I wake up at three, three-thirty, anxious that there’s some news I’m missing at that hour. Could there be news that I’m missing at that hour? Or I wake up agitated by the evening’s reports of gun-toting rebels marching on state capitols. Like they’ve got all the answers. Or wake up worrying about all the high school seniors out there—like my daughter—who will miss their graduation ceremonies and now have to wonder when and how their lives will resume. And when I can’t stand it anymore, I pace the hall—at three-thirty am—vexed that it’s been six, seven weeks now, and I haven’t written a book, and I haven’t lost 30 pounds, and I haven’t learned a new language. Any of you know the feeling? The futility? The frustration? Through the long, long, long night.
Now there are a couple of details is this morning’s text that really intrigue and even amuse me. I wonder if you caught them too. First, at some point that night, at some point out there on the lake, Peter strips down to his birthday suit. Peter takes off his clothes. Butt naked on the lake. Peter the Rock. Peter the one Jesus chooses to launch his world-wide church. Butt naked on the lake. Catching nothing. Wallowing in his frustration and their shared futility, grieving his own vulnerability and impotence. Because biblically, that what it means to be self-consciously naked: like Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, or Jonah in the belly of the great fish. To be self-consciously naked is to lose control. To be self-consciously naked is to fixate on one’s own vulnerability, one’s own powerlessness. We all know the drill.
So imagine Peter out there, in his boat, and he’s casting nets all over the place, all night long, hour after hour after hour, and he’s catching nothing. And it’s supposed to be different. Jesus is supposed to be risen and raising the rest of them to courageous service and loving revolution. But there’s Peter, on the lake, naked all night long. It’s a grand metaphor, right, a stunning metaphor, really, for the futility we experience, the futility we all experience when even our faith isn’t enough to meet the challenges of grief, or injustice, or hell, a pandemic for that matter.
So you heard the story. You know that Jesus shows up on the beach and he’s built a little charcoal fire there. And you know that Jesus calls out to Peter and Thomas and the others, that he tells them to cast their nets out on the right side for a change. (As if they hadn’t already tried that a dozen times!) But this time, this time, there are so many fish out there, there are so many fish caught up in their net that they can’t even haul it on board. And Peter is so befuddled, Peter is so overwhelmed, Peter is so delighted by Jesus’ presence: that he quickly whips his clothes on again, and then bizarrely heaves himself over the side of the boat, into the lake. And swims wildly, joyously, breathlessly to shore. To Jesus. To his teacher. To the waymaker. To the one who makes a way out of no way.
So that’s the first detail that catches my attention this morning: Peter whipping on his clothes, rocking the little boat all the while, and then diving into the lake. When he realizes, when he sees that it’s Jesus on the beach, that it’s Jesus making breakfast, Peter finds his nerve again. Peter finds his groove again. After a long, long, long night. After a night that went on and on and on. Peter finds his groove again.
You know, there are scholars who suggest that John’s Gospel was written as a kind of manual for baptism, a curriculum for adults preparing to join the church and dedicate their lives to the gospel of love. And if they’re right, this scene at the end of John’s gospel may be a meditation on baptism itself: what it means to see life in Jesus and Jesus’ teaching, and then what it means to put on a baptismal robe (which is often what they did) and step into the deep waters of new life and Christian commitment. Peter leaps into the lake. Peter’s spirit is renewed. Peter joins Jesus on the beach for a simple feast and extraordinary fellowship. Baptism, right? Baptism. Life with Jesus. Discipleship at the dawn of a new day.
The second detail is this bit about the 153 fish in the net. When the others get to shore, Jesus asks for a couple of fish to cook up on his fire. And we’re told that there are 153 large fish in the net that morning. 153. And throughout the years, theologians and preachers have speculated, pretty wildly, about that number: what it means, what it might signify. Some say 1 plus 5 plus 3 is 9, and that’s somehow important. Others line up the first, fifth and third letters of Hebrew or Aramaic and find a word that seems intriguing, suggestive. 153. I kind of wonder if the point isn’t simply the magnitude of the number, the unusual number itself. There were a lot of fish out there in the lake that night; and now there are a whole bunch of those fish in the disciples’ net. Jesus’ presence—which is a sign of God’s grace and mercy: Jesus’ presence reveals the abundance of life in that lake, the beauty and wonder and nourishment available in that lake, even though it seemed for much of the night that those same disciples were destined for failure and futility. Catching nothing. Butt naked in the dark.
The point Jesus seems to make—here and so often elsewhere—is that it’s God’s world, it’s God mystery, and it’s God’s economy. By grace, by sweet grace, by God’s grace, we are invited to partner with God, to partner with God, in blessing and cherishing and sharing that economy. “Feed my sheep,” Jesus says to Peter. It’s really very simple. “Feed my sheep.” Our human vocation is simply and significantly this: not to make ourselves rich at the expense of others, not to fish the lake to the point where no fish survive, but to feed one another, to bless and cherish the earth, to bless and cherish God’s economy. It’s not Wall Street’s economy. It’s not China’s economy. It’s not Donald Trump’s economy. And it’s not Google’s economy. It’s God’s economy. And our vocation is to bless and cherish it; and to serve creatively and imaginatively so that all the sheep, all the children, all the nations are fed.
3.
We’ve been living through some long, long nights. And all over the world this is so. Walking the halls at 3 am. Feeling the heat because we haven’t learned a new language. Worrying about our kids, our grandkids, the world they’ll find when this is behind us.
But friends, hear the Easter story, again, this morning: the promise of resurrection life and human purpose and Christian vocation. Jesus lives. God’s grace moves: in our hearts, in our lakes, in our skies and seas, in our communities and families too. The night may be a long one, and our frustration may overwhelm us sometimes. But joy comes in the morning; joy will come again in the morning. God’s economy is a blessing and a mystery. God’s economy is good news and grace. Even in the darkness, even in the strange darkness, Jesus our Christ is making breakfast. Jesus our Christ is setting the table. Jesus our Christ is gathering us for a feast. Let Easter touch your heart this spring. Let Easter move you, inspire you to dive in, to dive deep, to live by the light of his fire: Jesus’ fire on the beach.
And let his message, his joyful message of resistance and resurrection move us to action and purpose: “Feed my sheep,” he says. “Feed my sheep.” Live by the light. Breakfast is on!
Amen.
