5-24-09

We are about to do in Eastertide. This is the seventh and last Sunday in the season of Easter. There are always seven Sundays of Easter, for Pentecost always appears on the 50^th day following Easter.

Following worship today we will take down our marvelous Lent/Easter mural, a gift to us from June Rovero in memory of her mom, Phyllis Chalfon. We have enjoyed it greatly. But for everything there is a season. Next week wear red. We will celebrate Pentecost.

Still, we have Easter by its heal, and time for one more Resurrection story. Last Sunday for the congos I preached the first Resurrection appearance in John. This morning you heard Kama read the last. It is timely. It is seasonal. We're going fishing.

You see, for the disciples Easter is over. There is no more risen Jesus in Jerusalem. What to do now?

The disciples do what people always do. They return to what they know. They go back to their old way of life. For the disciples this means they go fishing.

Mind you, as I've told you before, this is fishing on a Monday, as in earning a living; not fishing on a Sunday, as in recreation.

May I suggest to you if you want to re-create, skip work and go fishing, don't skip worship and go fishing. Same goes for golf. Take time out of your work life to be renewed. Don't take time out of your worship life. It's what renews you!

Like the couple in my congregation who told me mid-year they were going to pull back from church. It seems, as she explained, Sunday morning was the only time in the week that they could be together and get some chores done. It is good to prioritize. I would question these priorities, however. How about spend some time together in worship on Sunday mornings? You will find the time and energy to get your chores done.

I think it was President Truman who said, "If you don't have time to worship, then you are busier than God intends you to be."

The disciples have no such luxury. They are back to work. Fishing. Seven of the disciples we are told in our text. They are Simon Peter, Thomas (called the Twin, though we know him as "doubting" Thomas), Nathanael, James and John, sons of Zebedee, and two other disciples who are

not named.

We can assume one of the unnamed disciples is Andrew, brother of Simon Peter. Assume the other unnamed disciple is you. Sacred scripture reads more interesting this way. We are in the same boat as the disciples.

Easter was great. A big boast. A dandy day. But now it is back to life as usual. Back to reality.

Simon Peter says, "I'm going fishing." What else to do? What else do they know? Like sheep without a shepherd, the other disciples chime in, "We'll come too." So they board a boat and put out to sea. The Sea of Galilee, that is. Our text this morning calls it Lake Tiberias. Don't be confused. It's the Sea of Galilee.

Back in 30 A.D., the time of this story, Tiberias was emperor of Rome. So everything was called Tiberias, after Caesar Tiberias. You understand. Kind of like Lewis and Clark around here. Lake Tiberias. Don't be fooled. It's the Sea of Galilee.

Good fishing back then. As today. Eighteen species of fish. The principal species was tilapia of the family cichlid (sik'lid), a sunfish look-alike known today as "St. Peter's fish." But not then. No fish was named after Peter at this time.

The disciples made their living catching tilapia, as well as sardines. But these are not good days for Peter and the disciples. They fish all night and nab nary a nibble. The disciples are discouraged, defeated, depressed, way down from their Easter high.

Which reminds me of the story of the two brothers who went fishing. Ever since they were little boys they fished together. And the younger brother always caught the most fish. He always caught more, and he always caught the biggest. It was this way when they were youth, and it was this way now that they were grown men vacationing together with their families.

Finally, one vacation the older brother has had enough, and he decides to do something about this lifetime of humiliation. So he up gets early in the morning, before anyone else, and sneaks out of the cabin with his brother's fishing pole and tackle box, and heads for the hole where they were hitting on his brother's line the day before.

He arrives at the lake just as the sun's rays are beginning to break over the eastern horizon. It is beautiful. Just right for fishing. He casts out. Nothing happens. He casts again. Nothing. Again. Nothing.

Finally, a fish pokes its head about the surface of the water, look around, surveys the shoreline, and then says to the older brother, "Say, where is your younger brother?"

It was something like this for the disciples. All night. No fish. No luck. It's sunrise, brothers and sisters.

As the sun's rays begin to break over the eastern horizon of the Sea of Galilee, which is the Golan Heights, by the way, there is a stranger standing on the shoreline, who asks the fishermen, what else does one ask fishermen, (yell) "Catch anything?"

The disciples respond, how else do fishermen respond to the one question always asked, "Catch anything?" The disciples respond like any self-respecting fisherman, "Nope, nothing at all."

Why, I've known fishermen who have caught enough fish to keep a cannery in operation, "Nope, nothing at all."

Only this time the disciples are telling the truth. They've caught nothing. Nada. Zero. Zippo. Skunked.

So the stranger, whoever he is, says to the disciples, "Cast your net out on the other side of the boat, and you will catch some fish." Oh, really? Who does this guy think he is?

Peter, and his fellow disciples, are fishermen. Their fathers were fishermen. Their father's fathers were fishermen. True, things haven't been going too well lately, but they do know fishing. This is the one thing they do know. So why in the world would they listen to the advice of a carpenter?

Who doesn't know what he is talking about. You do not "cast your net out on the other side of the boat." The boats were rigged with the nets on one side. You would not pull the net in, these are big nets, detach it, drag it across the boat, reattach it on the other side, and cast out again "on the other side of the boat." They would have to be dopes to do this. No, they gather the net in, turn the boat around, and cast out the net again, on the same side of the boat, but in the opposite direction.

Nevertheless, when your life is cast adrift, and even the one thing you know how to do is not going well, when you've been out fishing all night, and have nary a nibble, you might be inclined, in this desperate disciple- state, to take the advice of a stranger on the shore. Even Peter, who is known to be easily perturbed.

So the disciples do as the stranger suggests. Advice I am sure they would have rejected on the front side of Easter. Peter would have been peeved.

But it strikes me that sometimes we listen better, are more in touch with the still small voice within, and more receptive to suggestions from without, when our pride is deflated and we are feeling down.

Which is to say, sometimes the tomb is necessary to turn things around. So, hang in there.

The disciples turn it around. The boat, that is. I still believe they turn the boat around and cast their net on the same side, but in the hole the stranger suggests, and catch so many fish they cannot even pull the net in. 153 whoppers in all, if you are keeping score, as most fishermen do. At least when winning.

The disciple whom Jesus loves most, who is the disciple John, at least this is how the Gospel of John tells the story, the disciple whom Jesus loves most now recognizes the stranger amidst the catch of the day, and says to Peter, who would be slower to recognize the stranger, "It is the Lord."

Not dead and disappeared, not arisen and ascended, but present! He is still here. For the third time, it is the Risen Lord! Impetuous Peter, never a leader in his sensitivity group, but always first to react, leaps from the boat, and rushes to the Lord.

The other disciples follow and once ashore, Jesus says to them, "Come and eat." "Come and eat."

So it is on the sunrise shoreline of the Sea of Galilee, Jesus breaks bread and fries fish for his faithful followers, serving them holy communion one more time for the last time. Tradition records this site as the town of Tabgha along the western shore of the sea, not far from the fishermen's home in Capernaum. Some of us were recently there. Mensa Christi, "the Lord's table," or the place of St. Peter's primacy.

Perhaps tradition has it right. Tabgha means seven springs. The warm waters of the springs pour into the sea at this location. A good location to fish for tilapia, for as a tropical fish they would have preferred these warmer shoreline waters to the cooler springtime

waters of the Sea of Galilee.

It has got to taste mighty good to Peter and the disciples. Together again, fed by Jesus, whose presence reassures them, to steal a line from another Resurrection appearance, "And, lo, I will be with you always, to the end of the age." (Matthew 28:20)

The disciples never fish the same again. In fact, in the text which follows, they are told by the Lord to "Feed my sheep."

The disciples are transformed. From fisherman to ranchers. But more to the point from failed fishermen to dedicated disciples, from fearful followers to outrageous apostles, from lost sheep to shepherds, for as Jesus' says to them in his final words, "Follow me."

They follow, and the rest is history, which we can read about in the Book of Acts.

Well, Easter in the Year of our Lord 2009 is history for us. We are down the road from the Resurrection, ready to turn the page to Pentecost. But never the same, we pray. Never again the same. The Lord is here, firming our faith, calling us forth, asking us, "Do we love him?" If the answer is "yes," then we are commissioned, like Peter, to feed "God's sheep."

To serve the world in bold, courageous ways in the Spirit of Christ. To not take defeat as the final word, but to recognize the Lord of life among us from shoreline to shoreline.

It was 1815, the decisive Battle of Waterloo, near modern day Brussels. The Anglo-Allied army, led by the Duke of Wellington versus the French forces of Emperor Napoleon. The British had a system to send word back to England regarding the consequences of this critical campaign.

A ship sat in the English channel, ready to relay signals from the French shoreline to a signalman atop Winchester Cathedral in London, who could then signal to the city and beyond the outcome of the war.

With the battle ended, the first word was signaled, "Wellington." Then the next, "defeated." At this point, the fog rolls in, what could be more London-esque, and the ship can no longer be seen.

For three hours the message broadcast across England, "Wellington...defeated." There was gloom throughout the land. Then the fog lifted, and the message continued. "Wellington...defeated...the enemy." England's gloom turned to joy, along with that of Europe.

Napoleon had fought his last battle. The dictator was deposed, and exiled to Saint Helena until his death. Louis XVIII was returned to the French throne. It was new life for France. An Easter parable for the last Sunday of Eastertide.

With Christ as King there is no way we can be defeated by land nor skunked upon the seas of life. Easter is a done deal. The battle fought, the victory won, enter thy Master's joy. It cannot be taken away from us. The Lord is with us, now and forever. The nets of the fishermen are full.

We cannot repeat the first Easter, but neither can we ever again go through any season of life without Easter. Wherever we go, Easter will carry the day, and wherever we go, Easter will carry the night, for "lo, (the Lord) will be with you always, to the end of the age."

AMEN