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^ 0 pYQ U > 0 2 V : V V ^ > , $ ^ ^ ^ 1 A f t e r t h e s e t h i n g s J e s u s s h o w e d h i m s e l f a g a i n t o t h e d i s c i p l e s b y t h e S e a o f T i b e r i a s ; a n d h e s h o w e d h i m s e l f i n t h i s w a y . 2 G a t h e r e d t h e r e t o g e t h e r w e r e S i m o n P e t e r , T h o m a s c a l l e d t h e T w i n , N a t h a n a e l o f C a n a i n G a l i l e e , t h e s o n s o f Z e b e d e e , a n d t w o o t h e r s of his disciples. 3Simon 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.
4Just after daybreak, Jesus stood on the beach; but the disciples did not know that it was Jesus. 5Jesus said to them, Children, you have no fish, have you? They answered him, No. 6He 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. 7That 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. 8But 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 o f f .
9 W h e n t h e y h a d g o n e a s h o r e , t h e y s a w a c h a r c o a l f i r e t h e r e , w i t h f i s h o n i t , a n d b r e a d . 1 0 J e s u s s a i d t o t h e m , B r i n g s o m e o f t h e f i s h t h a t y o u h a v e j u s t c a u g h t . 1 1 S o S i m o n P e t e r w e n t a b o a r d a n d h a u l e d t h e n e t a s h o r e , f u l l o f l a r g e f i s h , a h u n d r e d f ifty-three of them; and though there were so many, the net was not torn. 12Jesus 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. 13Jesus came and took the bread and gave it to them, and did the same with the fish.
When we go to the New Testament to look at the resurrection stories, as I said earlier, there can be some confusion. Lets just take a minute to look at this......and see where we can go from here. I thank Bishop John Shelby Spong for a great deal of material and inspiration in this process --- class last August on Resurrection and Life after Death.
Resurrection stories in the New Testament come from five different sources.
Taken together, these stories may be confusing and contradictory.
They were written over a span of 45-50 years. They disagree on almost every significant detail of the Easter story.
Things like:
Did women go to the tomb?
Who went --- what did they see? Mark....no appearance of risen Jesus, other gospels....appearance stories differ greatly.
Where were the disciples?
Every significant piece of the story is argued in the New Testament.
Every verse written AFTER the Resurrection experience, whatever that may have been.
Now, let me quickly say, this does not mean these stories have no significance for us. Not at all. The gospels were written quite a while after Jesus had died......long enough for small communities of his followers to have been gathering regularly....in fact, some of them actually lived communally. They had had plenty of time to share his teachings, to talk about what they meant, and in fact...these communities were living a very radical lifestyle based on his teachings. They were doing things that were unheard of in their culture......they pooled all their resources.....they fed and gave other material assistance to the poor.....they spoke up for those who were oppressed.....they were known for providing healing prayers for those who were sick......and they generally went about showering love on anyone and everyone. They were thought by many to be a little crazy, actually!
Clearly, those who began these communities had been deeply affected by this man Jesus. Books werent written in those days.....but obviously, his followers thought his teachings were so important, they should be preserved for others. All of these writings point to the story of a man whose life and teachings were SO unusual, SO inspiring, SO transformative, that the stories had to reflect this.
Despite all the incompatibilities of the resurrection stories, what we DO know, is that something amazing happened, around the year 30, in which people experienced in a new way, that death was not the end of a relationship. During his life, Jesus had broken all kinds of boundaries the usual security systems of gender roles, tribal relationship, religious rules....were all broken by him. He declared over and over again that LOVE knows NO boundaries. He lifted up a God who was All About Love --- for everyone, no matter what. It seems that those who spent time with him were empowered to break these boundaries too ---- in the name of Love. Thats what we saw in the early Christian communities.
But even more than that, I believe.......being around Jesus --- who must have just been a non-stop Love Generator, kind of like the Energizer bunny---- being around Jesus transformed people. Their hearts were opened like never before. Have you ever been in the presence of someone whose love just flowed out over everyone? It makes everyone feel light and whole and fully human. I recently met a Tibetan Lama who had that effect on me and on many others who were there that night. It was an incredible experience. Im imagining that being around Jesus made people feel like they were really ok, no matter what unskillful acts they had done in their lives. Made them feel like everything was all right with the world. Feel like whatever they had done wrong was wiped clean, and they were starting over fresh and clean. Thats what being loved unconditionally does for us. Its the greatest gift we can ever receive. And its the greatest gift we have to give, as well.
Well, Jesus spent his short time on earth telling people about this amazing gift......its a gift we all have inside ourselves, but for most of us, its kind of locked away. Our hearts arent very open, much of the time, and it really is impossible to share love from a closed-up heart. So in order for us to be able to share this gift, we need to somehow pry open our hearts. Ill come back to this in a moment.
Now, the lucky people who got to experience Jesus love had their hearts opened for them......and we know not EVERYONE went with the experience, but many who might have resisted found themselves transformed anyway. The ones who were closest to him, of course, were his disciples. And it is very clear that THEY experienced something quite extraordinary AFTER Jesus death as well.
Bishop Spong spent 3 days laying out for us why it is unlikely that any kind of resurrection experience actually occurred on the 3rd day after Jesus died. Condensing that information is tricky and maybe risky....but here I go anyway. For me, the most compelling way to understand that the Resurrection experience took time......is to think about what it is like to lose someone you love dearly. If you havent had that experience yourself, you know someone who has. You are plunged into a world that makes no sense. It is like trying to breathe underwater with your hands tied behind your back. Grief is really like drowning. It is disorienting. It makes many people wonder if theyve gone crazy. Add to this the guilt of the disciples who, all of the gospels report, left Jesus after his trial deserted their dear beloved teacher and left him to die alone. Most likely they were in great fear for their own lives, being closely associated with him. Most likely they ran and hid for a while..... So, they had a lot of processing to do. And that processing, as you all know, takes time more than anything else. It cannot be hurried.
Thats why I chose for our scripture today the story of Peter and his companions, returning to their work as fishermen quite some time after Jesus death. One does come through grief, and the world never looks quite the same again. Their world had been transformed by the boundless love and compassion Jesus had shown them was possible.....they had experienced it, and had felt what it was like to share it with others. Their boundaries had been broken.....but so had their hearts. We can imagine the healing of their hearts was helped by remembering Jesus and his teachings. Undoubtedly as they worked, they were still processing. And remembering. Everything they did together reminded them of their beloved teacher. They had seen that Jesus had never stopped loving all humans, even those who condemned him to death. He did not resist or fight back, he did not lash out at those who accused him. It is very possible that he did say something like forgive them.....this was a man of boundless or boundary-less -- compassion. He refused to allow anything to interrupt his flow of love --- though this surely was the greatest challenge anyone could face. Jesus entered into an experience of suffering that no one likes to imagine --- and managed to stay in his core of LOVE throughout that experience.
Reflecting on the enormity of Jesus capacity to love through this experience HAD to take time. And one could not reflect without being changed, transformed by even a small understanding of what this means.
Peter was probably Jesus main disciple, perhaps in addition to Mary of Magdala. He is mentioned first in any account where the disciples are named. He is not elevated as a super-disciple, he is shown to be very human, with doubts and unskillful acts. But he is always shown as being close to Jesus. Jesus pushes him more than any other disciple to grow in the face of his own prejudices....Peter lived in the midst of the divine relationship....he watched Jesus cross boundaries again and again, societal and religious .....broken by the power of Love. Jesus always said this LOVE was GOD.
SO, Peter understood that something of God was in Jesus --- that Jesus was reflecting this extravagantly loving God........now he was dead. God didnt save him. Peter may have mused: How could he be what I thought he was??? In him I had a powerful experience of God-presence.......his death meant the God they thought they knew had abandoned them.....the Supernatural God didnt intervene. Spong says Peters mind had to be a cauldron of confusion about these things.
But as time passed, perhaps his heart and mind began to clear a little. And they went back to work as fishermen. The fishermen would work all night, and have some fish for breakfast in the morning, having brought a loaf of bread with them. We can imagine that during the long night of unproductive fishing, conversation would naturally turn toward their beloved teacher --- perhaps they wrestled with his message to them, with the image of God he portrayed.
So on this morning, when miraculously they caught an abundance of fish, Peter now takes the bread they have, begins the ceremonial (Jewish) blessing ....he thinks of putting Jesus into the content of the prayer...he speaks of how the infinite love of God acts in the world...how LOVE breaks down boundaries.......how Jesus was the life through which we saw this love.......he loved EVERYONE, even those who killed him.....nothing NOTHING can break the love of God....Jesus remained Gods love-r even as his body was broken. Through Jesus, Peter and the others had a BIGGER EXPERIENCE of Gods love. Seeing beyond the obvious, Peter saw beyond the boundaries of the ordinary....he saw Jesus in the light of Gods living Love. As the morning dawned on this day, Peter tried to explain it all to his friends...........and so it was, that Peter experienced a resurrection......a reconstitution of his understanding of Jesus message.....Peter suddenly found that message in his very bones.
And he had to share the Revelation which had dawned in him that morning. He finally took that leap that Jesus had been calling him to all along.
And now to our task, today and every day. We too are called to break through our security systems and take a risk --- to love wastefully, extravagantly.....moving beyond our comfort zone. Jesus words to his friends on the night of their last dinner together were love one another as I have loved you. They knew what he meant --- they had experienced that love. And clearly, the early Christian communities knew how to do that.....one of the things that was said about them was see how they love each other.
Peter realized that the God Jesus taught about was not a supernatural being who would step in and stop bad things from happening......but this Holy Being was in fact the source of the LOVE he had seen in Jesus. The Love which has the power to hold us through any kind of suffering we can experience.
The amazing thing about this Love is that there is an endless supply of it. We can ALWAYS tap into it, because it lives in the core of our being, just as it lived in the core of Jesus being. Yes, we have it too.....Jesus was, certainly, much more able to let it flow unimpeded than we are. But it all comes from the same source. And that was Jesus message......You have this in you, it is who you are. You are not your gender, your tribe, your occupation, your religion.....you are LOVE. This love has the power to resurrect us too --- to reconstitute our being --- to remind us that we are also able to transcend our deeds --- good or bad ---- when we try to live from this place of love. NO its not easy. Its a HUGE challenge. AND it IS what changes us, transforms us, into the people we know we can be. To be fully human is to live from that place of love. And that is what we are called to do. Earlier I said in order to do this, we have to somehow pry open our hearts. Turns out, the way to do this is......by turning to LOVE......that is, by deciding to LOVE. Thats the first step. We have to DECIDE TO LOVE WASTEFULLY....try it, see if you notice your heart beginning to crack open, bit by bit.
Oh, and by the way, this is a choice we have to keep making over and over again. My image of the cross on your bulletin came from a meditation on how we keep coming to crossroads in our lives, daily...hourly even, w z |
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Let me close with some words from Stephen Levines book Turning Toward the Mystery:
It is an insistent grace that draws us to the edge and beckons us to surrender safe territory and enter our enormity. Amen.
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