Grace Bats Last (Easter 3C)

The beach on the north end of Lake Tiberias 

 

“Grace Bats Last”
Easter 3C
5 May 2019 8:00 a.m. Said and 10 a.m. Sung Mass

The Very Rev. Fr. Tony Hutchinson, SCP, Ph.D.

Parish Church of Trinity, Ashland (Oregon)

Acts 9:1-6, (7-20) ; Psalm 30; Revelation 5:11-14; John 21:1-19

God, take away our hearts of stone and give us hearts of flesh. Amen.

When mobile phones began to include cameras, one group of people were particularly threatened—the fishing community.  No longer would it be so easy to exaggerate the size of their catch—spouses and coworkers would expect photos!  Soon those wanting to tell “fish stories” found that holding the fish in both hands far out and closer to the camera usually did the trick—a 6 inch fry appeared 14 or 15 inches long.  But your bigger-than-natural hands gave it away.  Soon companies were producing “fish hands,” smaller-than-natural plastic hands on the end of what otherwise might be a selfie-stick.  Holding the fish in these for the camera, your lies would be confirmed by seemingly incontrovertible photographic evidence.  

  

One hundred and fifty-three fish!  That’s a lot.  Rarely in John’s Gospel does he give you specific numbers—usually, he gives rounded estimates, unless he has some symbolic meaning in mind.  But here it’s 153.  Scholars have proposed many explanations, and the best, I think, is from the science of the era:  St. Jerome in the 4^th century tells us that the classical Greek zoologists had catalogued 153 different kinds of fish.  John’s Gospel, if referring to this, is saying that in that unbroken net, there were found every kind of fish: Overwhelming abundance and wildly expansive diversity.  It’s what the Church is.  It’s what resurrection does. 

 

In this story, Peter says “I’m going fishing.”  That means, “enough of this Jesus stuff, death and resurrection, going on fruitless mission trips.  I’m going to find some respite in what I am most used to, what I have spent most of my life doing.  I am going to get lost in my work, my job.”  But the fishing is fruitless, pointless, with even fewer results than his prior ministry under Jesus.  It is here that they hear someone calling to them from the beach, telling them how to fish.  The miraculous “draft of fishes” results.  And so John, the beloved disciple who founded the community whose Gospel this is, recognizes that the one on the shore is the Risen Lord, and he tells Peter. 

In most modern translations of the Bible, Peter then puts on his clothes, because he is naked, and jumps in to swim to shore to Jesus.  This strange image is an artifact of poor translation:  when you are careful about the Greek, what happens is Peter immediately ties up his lose outer robe to be decent, since he was, as they say, “going commando” with no undergarment, and jumps in and swims.  He gets to the beach first. 

 The altar and historic stone at Mensa Christi

The place where this happens is a small and lovely rocky beach on the north side of Lake Tiberias, the Sea of Galilee, called forever after “the Primacy of Peter” because Peter arrived at the beach first.  When I was on pilgrimage to the Holy Land, we had mass at the Church erected on the site, the altar built on a large smooth stone just above the beach, called from the 4^th century on “Mensa Christi” (the table of Christ).   John recognizing Jesus and Peter arriving at the beach first is how this Gospel explains that the Johannine Community, though distinct, is a cherished part of the great Church.  Peter may have become the leader of unified Christianity, but John was the one who recognized Jesus!  

 Fr. Michael Hiller and Deacon John M. Hayes lead SCP Mass at the beach near Tagbha and Primacy of Peter (2015). 

When on shore, the disciples are treated to a fire-roasted fish breakfast with Jesus.  Jesus then poses to Peter the three post-prandial questions translated as “do you love me?’

We often hear that this is John’s way of helping Peter undo the three “denials of Christ” he made the night of Jesus’ arrest.  But if you go back and read that story carefully, Peter never denied Christ.  What he said was, “I don’t know him.”  He denied his own relationship with Jesus, the fact that he had been his disciple.  When the Risen Lord here asks Peter “Do you love me” three times on the beach,  he is not asking him to undo a denial of Christ, but rather to re-establish the relationship he once had with him but had under stress broken off. 

Most translations of the story miss a major element in the drama of how it is told in Greek.  Jesus points to the abandoned fishing tackle, those very things Peter had sought respite in.  He asks, “Peter, do you love me more than these things?”  But Peter replies with another verb for love, a word that is primarily about the affection of friendship rather than the usual word for love itself that Jesus has used.  “Of course I like you.”  Jesus replies: “Then feed me sheep.”  Jesus asks a second time, “Peter, do you love me?” Again, Peter replies, “I like you, Jesus.”  Jesus says again, “Then feed my sheep.”  And then, as if Jesus has gotten tired of Peter misunderstanding Jesus’ question and the nature of their relationship, Jesus softens his question, adopting Peter’s verb for love: “Well then, Peter, do you like me?”  Peter:  “I really do like you,” is the reply.  And again, “Feed my sheep.” 

Jesus here reaches out to Peter and welcomes him back.  In so doing, he accepts Peter for who he is and where he is.  Even if Peter’s love is not quite what Jesus has in mind, it is enough for now.  Jesus’ accommodation for Peter, his acceptance of him as he is—this is what brings Peter back into the circle of love and fellowship.

In today’s lesson from Acts, we see Jesus reach out to someone who not merely denied a relationship with Jesus like Peter.  The man whose Hebrew name was Saul and Greek name Paul was a persecutor of Christians: he actively bullied and pressured people to abandon Jesus because he thought that this was the best way he could show his devotion to God.  Again accepting Saul where he was, Jesus reaches out and asks simply, “Why do you persecute me?” Saul’s reply, “and who, sir, are you?” receives the shocking answer that turns Saul’s world upside down, “I am Jesus of Nazareth whom you persecute.”  Just telling Saul who he actually is—this is an invitation for him to turn back and become a disciple. 

 
Are there ways that we, like Saul, persecute Jesus?  Do we scapegoat others, label them as insufficient or even abominations, decline to seriously take to heart what these objects of our judgment are saying, but rather transfer our hurts, guilts and fears onto them and try to make ourselves feel better about ourselves by labeling them, isolating them, gossiping about them, working them harm, and or outright persecuting them?  And do we do this, like Paul, for what we think as the best of reasons, the noblest of causes, scripture and truth?  

Are there ways that we, like Peter, deny even knowing Jesus even as we proclaim that we will never forsake him?  Do we say we believe in Jesus, but then not act as if he lives and reigns?  Have we failed to live up to the values we profess: openness, hospitality, diversity, welcome, and reverence”?  Are we negligent in prayer and worship, and fail to commend the faith that is in us?  Are we deaf to Christ’s call to serve others as Christ served us?  Have we instead sought to comfort ourselves and reduce or cloak our guilt by avoiding Jesus, burying ourselves in tasks, returning to routine and habit, and not letting ourselves be challenged and changed by the new situations and people that God has put in our lives? 

Beloved family here at Trinity:  we all fall short of the mark, and in some ways we are all Saul or Peter.  But know that it is okay.  Jesus loves us regardless.  He reaches out to us where we are.  He accepts us with all our infirmities.  He expects us to accept our weakness and brokenness, the way we are, even as he accepts them.  But he also promises to heal us and change us.  He regularly seeks us out and lets us know in startling and shocking ways, like he let Saul know, how we have gotten things wrong.  And then he calls us to go to our sisters and brothers who live on a Street Called Straight so they can help us heal and be better.

When Jesus asks us, “do you love me,” and we reply “I like you,” he keeps asking us the question.  When we persist in a multitude of ways to say “love is maybe way too much for me right now, how about ‘like’,” he keeps at it, but ultimately says, “Like is good enough for now, my friend. Love will come tomorrow.” 

Again, it is all about grace.  Resurrection is grace, and grace is abundant and diverse.  Grace stretches itself and comes down to our level so that it can raise us up. 

Yesterday, a great light went out in the world: Rachel Held Evans died.  She once wrote this about grace:  “Perhaps we’re afraid that if we get out of the way this grace thing might get out of hand.  Well, guess what?  It already has.  Grace got out of hand the moment the God of the universe hung on a Roman cross and with outstretched hands looked upon those who had hung him there and declared, ‘Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.’  Grace has been out of hand for more than two thousand years now. We better get used to it.” 

And as Anne Lamott so eloquently put it, "Grace bats last." 

Amen.

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