The Third Suday of Easter 2007

This sermon was preached on the Third Sunday of Easter, April 22, 2007 by the Revd Deacon Polly Bowen.

ABOUT TEN YEARS AGO I was watching a special on TV.  Eight people in their twenties gathered together to talk about their plans, their hopes and dreams, their frustrations and disappointments, their fears.  They were believable people, and supposedly a good representation of their peers.  Their plans for the future were modest; their frustration-levels were high.  Their by-word seemed to be “Why bother?  What’s the use?  Who cares?”

THESE YOUNG PEOPLE had no causes that united them – no political cause, no social or moral cause.  Even the so-called American Dream had failed them – they didn’t expect to be as prosperous as their parents were.  Nobody mentioned Church; apparently it wasn’t much of a factor in their lives.

NOTHING SEEMED TO TOUCH THEM.  One of them spoke of the children of Somalia – the international tragedy du jour at the time.  He mentioned flies crawling on little faces, more ribs than you can count, starvation-swollen bellies, and he said this didn’t mean anything to him.  He’d been seeing scenes like this since childhood as he munched his sugar-pops in front of the TV.  Was it real or was it fantasy?  It all blended together for them.  It was a pretty sad picture.

THOSE TWENTY-SOMETHINGS are now thirty-somethings, probably married, probably parents, probably established in some sort of workable pattern of life.  I wonder if they are still as disillusioned as they were ten years ago.  I hope not. 

TODAY’S GOSPEL FEATURES a group of mostly twenty-somethings from another era.  The disciples, discouraged and disillusioned after Jesus’ death, return to their former ways:  ”It’s all over.  There’s nothing left of the dream.  We might as well go fishing!”   Things had gone terribly wrong for them, and they reverted to what they knew best, what was an old familiar pattern for them.  They went fishing.  And nothing happened.

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NOBODY KNOWS WHY they didn’t catch any fish.  It just happens that way sometimes, and needless to say, it didn’t improve their mood. One wonders, then, why they even bothered to listen to a stranger who told them to cast their net off the right side of the boat.  But they did – and you know the rest of that story.

SUDDENLY THERE WAS WORK to do, and they had no time to wallow in self-pity.  And it was at that point that they recognized Jesus!  Coincidence?  Maybe.  There are many ways of looking at this.

WHERE DO YOU GO when you just have to get away from it all?  How does Jesus meet you there?  Or –

WHAT IF THE POINT is to emphasize that when they tried to do it on their own, nothing happened, and when they acted in response to Jesus’ word, the catch was phenomenal?  Some scholars have connected that with the “fishers of men” idea, bringing it up to date: do we seek new church members because we have such a nice building and wouldn’t it be nice to see it full on Sunday mornings and (oh, by the way) to see the offering plates overflowing.  Or do we seek them because we truly care about them and want to share the glorious salvation story with them? 

IT’S GOOD TO  wrestle with Bible stories– what good is Scripture if we don’t learn something from it?  But it does strike me as a strange bit of eisegesis – reading into the Gospel – to make the leap to church attendance and support. 

BUT – MOVING ON - there’s more to the story.  Jesus bids them come and bring some of the fish.  Now, look at that passage again – there were already fish cooking on the fire.  Do you get the implication here?  Obviously God can and does provide for us, but he also invites us to contribute. 

WHEN JESUS CALLS us, he calls us to a shared journey.  He expects us to bring along our gifts, our talents, our treasure.  Discouraged or not, we have a role to play in God’s kingdom.  This gets very personal for Peter in the next few verses:

 “PETER, DO YOU LOVE ME?”  A silly question, Peter thinks, and he answers, ”Yes, of course I do.” It doesn’t translate very well into English.  In the Greek, Jesus uses the word agape, which means holy love, and Peter responds with the word filios, which my Greek/English New Testament translates as “Yes, I’m fond of you.”  Fond of you!  That’s a considerably lesser kind of love.  But Jesus keeps asking, and finally he uses Peter’s term, accepting what Peter is able to give. 

 AT THAT MOMENT, fresh from disappointment and disillusionment, and not yet grasping the life-changing enormity of the moment, Peter couldn’t promise the kind of love Jesus asked for.  But God is gracious enough to work with what we can give, and of course we know that Peter did prove his great love in the years to come as he led the fledgling Church and eventually went to his death proclaiming Jesus.

 THIS MORNING there are two events taking place at the 10:00 service.  The first event is two people pledging their love anew after many years of marriage.  The love they started out with is not the same as the love they feel for each other today.  Through the joys and sorrows of their 41 years together, their love has grown and deepened until it has become, in the words of the prayer book, “a sign of Christ’s love to a sinful and broken world.”  And their manner of life reflects Christ’s love as they reach out in love and concern to others – an example of love growing and deepening into agape love.

 THE OTHER EVENT is the baptism of Alexa Rose Chiaramonte.  Alexa’s parents and sponsors will make some promises for her.  They have had a period of discernment, and on Friday we talked about the promises they will make.  They will do the best they can to help Alexa grow in the love of Christ, and each of them will have different ways of doing that.

 ALEXA ISN’T READY to make these promises for herself.  That’s why others who love her promise to be there for her, to support and teach her, so that when she’s a twenty-something she will have something that will sustain her no matter what life throws at her.  She may have a period of rebellion – most young people do – but she’ll be back –if she has that secure background of agape love.

 WE WHO WITNESS the baptism will also make some promises.  We’re responsible for this little soul who is joining our church family.  This is the precious gift we give to Alexa and to all the children of this parish.  They grow up in a world where the Church is less and less relevant, a world strangled by greed and temptation, where people are steeped in an aimless inability to set worthy priorities. 

WE HELP OUR CHILDREN, as we help one another, to break down the barriers that would imprison us in this world by daring to pass on the Word, and the Bread, and the Cup.  Because if we dare enough, we allow ourselves to be transformed into the community that Jesus taught and Peter learned to live: the community of the kingdom of God, where friends and strangers, joyful and sorrowful, frail and sturdy, old and young, rich and poor, and especially little ones like Alexa are welcomed and cherished.

IT'S AN EXTRAORDINARY GIFT,  and an awesome reponsibility. Brothers and sisters, let us teach our children well. Amen.