Sermons from St. Paul’s Episcopal Church
Easter 3, Year C 2007
The Rev. Melissa Skelton
John 21:1-14
Jesus showed himself again to the disciples by the Sea of Tiberias; and he showed himself in this way. Gathered there together were Simon Peter, Thomas called the Twin, Nathaniel of Cana in Galilee, the sons of Zebedee, and two others of his disciples. Simon Peter said to them, “I am going fishing.” They said to him, “We will go with you.” They went out and got into the boat, but that night they caught nothing.
Just after daybreak, Jesus stood on the beach; but the disciples did not know that it was Jesus. Jesus said to them, “Children, you have no fish, have you?” They answered him, “No.” He said to them, “Cast the net to the right side of the boat, and you will find some.” So they cast it, and now they were not able to haul it in because there were so many fish. That disciple whom Jesus loved said to Peter, “It is the Lord!” When Simon Peter heard that it was the Lord, he put on some clothes, for he was naked, and jumped into the sea. But the other disciples came in the boat, dragging the net full of fish, for they were not far from the land, only about a hundred yards off.
When they had gone ashore, they saw a charcoal fire there, with fish on it, and bread. Jesus said to them, “Bring some of the fish that you have just caught.” So Simon Peter went aboard and hauled the net ashore, full of large fish, a hundred fifty-three of them; and though there were so many, the net was not torn. Jesus said to them, “Come and have breakfast.” Now none of the disciples dared to ask him, “Who are you?” because they knew it was the Lord. Jesus came and took the bread and gave it to them, and did the same with the fish. This was now the third time that Jesus appeared to the disciples after he was raised from the dead.
From time to time BBC America rebroadcasts “The Vicar of Dibley.” “The Vicar of Dibley” is a comedy series about the adventures of Mother Geraldine Granger and her eccentric parishioners at St. Barnabas Church in the small fictitious English village of Dibley.
Mother Granger is a kind of womanly spark plug, challenging St. Barnabas to do and be new things. In one episode, at Mother Granger’s encouragement, the parish decides to form a choir. And so a time is set for auditions. But as happens in some small churches, no one thinks to publicize the auditions beyond putting up a small notice on the church’s bulletin board. And so on the morning of the auditions, a nervous Vicar along with the organist-choirmaster open the doors of the church to see if any one has shown up to sing for them.
What they discover is that word of mouth works, for a surprisingly large group of people—probably half the villagers of Dibley—stand in a long line before them: a motley crew, to be sure, ranging from the very old and feeble to a group young punk rockers sporting purple Mohawks.
Mother Granger is, of course, delighted and turns to the choirmaster and says: “Well it looks like everyone’s here. Let’s get to it then; there’s no time like the present.” After a long and thoughtful pause, the choirmaster wistfully responds: “Yes, but then there was the past—the past was lovely, wasn’t it?”
Our gospel story this morning is a story about the disciples retreating to the past. They go there not because the past was lovely, but (perhaps) because they’re confused and bewildered by the present, and because they’re hungry. They retreat to the past because they don’t know where else to go, don’t know what else to do.
And so after everything the disciples went through with Jesus while he was alive, after everything they went through with Jesus at his death and after having now encountering him on two separate occasions after the resurrection, they return to fishing. Led by Peter, the disciples return to fishing.
I so get this. I so get this. For when many of us are in a terrifying new zone of life, we retreat into the past to reassure ourselves, or to give ourselves a bit of a respite. But in this story, the disciples’ return to fishing doesn’t end up giving them either of these things. It’s as if they’re attempting to return to something that just isn’t there anymore—to selves that no longer exist, to work that is no longer theirs.
“There’s no time like the present.” Mother Granger, the Vicar of Dibley says. Our story suggests there’s no time but the present.
Led by Peter, the disciples go back to fishing. They fish at night: night, of course, being not only a time of day but, more importantly, a state of being in the Gospel of John. They fish at night, and out of their benighted state, they catch nothing.
And so this makes me wonder about the night fishing you and I might be doing these days. Night fishing: attempts to return to lives that made sense in the past, attempts to look for food in places that can no longer feed us. I think of those among us who have tried to stay with jobs that have come to feel like so much fruitless toil. I think of those among us who have tried to stay with religious communities that no longer feed them. And I think of some of us who keep returning to relationships with an expectation, an expectation that must be frustrated, that the relationship will function as it always has, will give us and the other person what it always has.
Night fishing: so understandable, so necessary, so tempting, and, of course, so futile.
So futile because, as the disciples discover, when we go night-fishing, we don’t end up catching anything. The experience itself is our best teacher. And so Jesus’ first words to those who have returned to their nets is not a word of criticism but instead is a gentle question that notices the fruitlessness of their labor, “Children,” he asks, “you have no fish, have you?”
But there’s something more—there has to be something more. It’s not just that our night fishing yields no catch. It’s that somewhere deep within us or somewhere beyond us is the glimmering of a figure standing on the shore with the day breaking behind him or her—a figure whose identity we are uncertain of but whose presence is there to tell us something: “Cast the net to the right side of the boat,” “Bring some of the fish that you have caught,” “Come and have breakfast” the figure whispers, or for some of us, shouts.
And though we feel awkward and uncertain at times about both who this figure is and about how we will ever cope with the present day, the present light, that he or she is calling us into, we feel we must go forward. Some of us go forward because in the figure’s words we hear an invitation in the figure’s words, and invitation that we can no longer ignore; some of us go forward because we have an unquenchable hope in what the present day will bring us; and some of us go forward because we receive the words of that figure as powerful commands that we just need to do and that we will only understand when we cast the net, when we haul in the fish, and when we eat the food that is set before us.
But whether it is through exhaustion, invitation, hope or obedience that brings us there, in the end what we are promised is breakfast at daybreak on the beach with the figure that is no longer just a figure but is the Lord of Life offering us the abundance of loaves and fishes, the same loaves and fishes he’s offered us at other times: God’s abundance that always transforms a little into a lot, sustaining us for the new work we do, the new risks we undertake.
A number of years ago during a very stressful period of my life, a personal time of anxiety, I developed a method that I used whenever I woke up at night and was not able to get back to sleep. I would close my eyes and I would travel back in time to when I was about ten years old in my bed in the early morning, listening and dozing to the distant sound of my parents downstairs in the kitchen getting things out for breakfast. These were some of the sounds I heard back then: the murmur of the voices of my mother and my father, low laughter that came as they teased each other; the sound of pots and pans clanking together lightly; the sound of dishes being set on the table. What I would do was to imagine all of these sounds and what I discovered was that if I did this, I was able during times of wakefulness or worried sleeplessness to fall back asleep.
“There’s no time like the present” the Vicar said. To this the choirmaster replied: “Yes, but then there’s the past. It was lovely, wasn’t it?” Whether it was lovely or not, it is the past, a place of former joy, of former fruitfulness, of former faithfulness to God.
Our resurrected Christ does not live in the past but lives in the present, making breakfast on the beach at daybreak under and within the present light. This is the life to which he invites us, to which our hope points, toward which he commands us to take action.
