BREAKFAST BARBECUE

Rev. Dr. Mary Lou Howson

John 21, Easter 3B

April 18, 2010

Today's text is one of the three great resurrection stories in scripture. Most often they have been read as scientific or historical proof that Jesus rose from the dead. But today we are going to search for wisdom that they may speak to us about the spiritual life.
First of all, this chapter is a story of love, intimacy, and surprise. It is not more than a few weeks after Jesus appeared to Thomas. The disciples, like us, must still be in emotional crisis. They are still what we would call "at sea." They have stayed close to each other – as we do in our own grief and trauma. Like them, we seek comfort, security, and familiarity so that we can get our bearings again. Somehow they have to find a new life but it doesn't yet have any form or shape. They have been found but they are still feeling pretty lost.
Since at least four of them are fishermen, they have come to the sea with their boat – one of the places they have always know who they were. So it is that Peter, who can be still no longer sit still, says, "I am going fishing." And maybe to avoid spending another night struggling with turmoil and confusion, they all pile into the boat.
We've all known such times in our lives, haven't we – when the demons disable our sleep and invade our days, when we can't get our bearings and everything is off kilter. So here they are on the sea, catching nothing. Their nets are as empty as their hearts and lives. And all their efforts are fruitless. All they can do is endure.
One of the beauties of this story is that when this stranger on the beach tells them to fish on the other side of the boat, only John recognizes him and he does nothing about it. Peter has no clue who it is. Nevertheless, they put their nets out on the other side and find a huge school of fish. Then John tells Peter who spoke to them and Peter puts on clothes and leaps into the water to get to the beach, leaving the rest to haul in the fish. But brash impatience that leaves the work to others or quiet patience that completes the task at hand, they all arrive in time for breakfast. And Jesus is waiting with the charcoal fire already going. And he is cooking fish for them.
Then, in an extension of the loving intimacy, Jesus feeds them breakfast – although he needed some of their fish to complete the meal. And, as he did on the hillside with the 5,000 and at the last supper, he broke the bread and fed them – both a physical and a spiritual act of giving life.
There are no prior tests of faith or qualifications. This is a family moment. We feed those we love with food, with presence, with care and compassion, with truth, with respect. Whether we speak of our individual families or of the human family, we, too, are as Christ's disciples, not only fed, but also called to feed with the same love and compassion.
But there is also another level of meaning I want to speak about today. There is another clue in the text: the Greek verb used for "find" as in finding fish. In Greek it is used for finding fish or it can mean to ponder deeply or seek God. It is possible that the word here has more than one meaning. The Greeks understood that searching our depths (or creation's depths) in the search for meaning and for the holy, was like searching the sea for fish.
It could be rocky, stormy, cold and blustery. Our boat could capsize or be blown off course. It could also be calm and beautiful. Or even so still that we were becalmed and could not move. Our inner spiritual journey can follow any of these patterns. We can know this sea, but never fully. And surely we cannot master or control it.
It is in a similar spiritual and unknown sea that we search for the treasures of wisdom, love, joy, hope. (Please notice that we have to get on the sea or in the water. Standing on the seaside is not sufficient.) Metaphorically, then, fish can be understood as the treasure of the Spirit, just as they are the treasures of the sea. They are there for all who seek them, who dare to venture out, who look beyond the surface, who are patient, and who accept the struggle.
Yet those treasures must be integrated into our being in order to nurture us and enable us to grow – just as the fish must be eaten in order to sustain us. That Jesus feeds them bread and fish reminds us of that hillside and of the eucharist when we symbolically or spiritually integrate into ourselves the essence of Christ.
Spiritually or mystically, if you will, Jesus still feeds all of us who are willing to get in the boat and put out to sea. He still cooks fish for us on the charcoal fire by the sea, and he still needs our self-offering of fish to complete the meal. And he still sends us out to feed others as we have been fed.
We know that Peter had denied Jesus 3 times on the night before his crucifixion. Now is the moment when Peter and Jesus must deal with this betrayal. In the Bible the number 3 means completeness, fullness, or wholeness. Thus Peter's 3 denials were complete abandonment and Jesus' 3 questions were complete forgiveness. Yes, there is accountability, but instead of condemnation there is redemption. And with that redemption, commissioning, "Feed my sheep." By this time we must understand that while the very word feed refers to physical food, it also includes spiritual food. Peter is to feed as he has been fed.
One more point, in the last section, Jesus and Peter seem to be walking and John is following them. Peter turns to Jesus and says, "What about him?" Jesus responds, If it is my will that he remain until I come, what is that to you? Follow me." Now this has always been understood as answering two historical questions: Why did John live longer than the others? And Why did John die before the second coming of Jesus? Because it seems to imply that Jesus will return before John dies – except he did not. We translate the Greek ["until I come" because we understand the second coming as an historical point in time. Obviously, such an understanding implies that Jesus is not coming to us now but is still distant or separated or in heaven or far away or off there, somewhere.
Some scholars have suggested that grammatically the Greek should really be translated not as "until I come," but rather "while I am coming." It's a dramatic difference because it implies not a moment in the future when a distant Christ returns to stake his claim with the power and authority of a heroic conqueror who has slaughtered all who are unworthy, but rather the Christ of intimacy who is already cooking us breakfast on the seaside, simply waiting for us to put in and join him. This is a Christ who is always looking for us, always waiting for us to come, always ready to feed us what we need – and always surprises us, as even the disciples were surprised. This is the Christ whom St. Augustine, who wrote our opening prayer, knew. This is the Christ of our statement of faith. As our Statement of Faith says, we are called "to share in Christ's baptism and eat at his table [and] to join him in his passion and victory."
Do you see . . . we are called into the story. For the story is now. It is always now. And we are always invited to put out onto the sea, to share breakfast with him, and to feed his lambs. And he is always with us.
For as the psalmist says, "If I take the wings of the morning and dwelll in the uttermost parts of the sea . . . even there shall your love find me."

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