Only two weeks ago we were celebrating the joyous event of the resurrection. Here we are with Peter and the other disciples in today's Gospel reading going back to the way things used to be. In the beginning of Jesus ministry he called Peter to fish for people, but that was before the crucifixion and resurrection. Now after all the events, Peter and the others go back to fishing. They are still full of sorrow. It is as if the resurrection still has not come home for them. Yet it is when Jesus comes back into the picture for them that they are able to catch more than enough fish return to shore and spend time with the risen Christ. Peter is asked three times by Jesus: "Do you love me?" Three times Peter answers "You know that I love you." Jesus calls Peter to feed the sheep.
How about us? Have our own lives gone back to normal since Easter Day? Are we all still wandering about as if nothing happened on Good Friday or Easter Day? May be our remembrance of the resurrection has been interfered with because we lost a job, a loved one or had a car accident. May be we have suffered from the bad economy or experienced some kind of gay bashing. Life can throw us some amazing curve balls that can cause us to question what God is doing. Many may find themselves not believing, because the events of our life are just too painful to totally trust God. And so, we try to go things alone. We no longer invite God into our hearts in prayer. We want God to come to us on our own terms.
In today's Gospel for Gays we read an interesting reflection on this story.
There is a dream-like quality to this post-resurrection story, the epilogue to John’s gospel. It begins in a very matter-of-fact way: “I am going fishing!” “We will go with you.” But at the end of a fruitless night, in the first light of dawn, a figure appears on the shore. As in a dream – the figure is simply there: no one sees it approach. And the figure knows that the men in the boat have caught nothing:
“Children, you have no fish, have you?”
When they arrive on the beach, there is already a fire burning, and on it there are fish, cooking. But the mysterious person (whom they recognize but are afraid to question) nonetheless asks them to bring their miraculous catch ashore, and there is a count (although, again as in a dream, we do not know when or if any of the disciples actually sat down and counted the fish): 153, a strangely precise number that turns out to have symbolic significance connoting totality.
“I am going fishing!”
“Children, you have no fish, have you?”
Hardy is right to point out that, in a temporal and spatial sense, this mysterious story does not belong with the other Johannine resurrection accounts. Without warning, Peter and the others are back in Galilee, and we don’t know how much time has passed since the catastrophic event of Jesus’ death, his resurrection – and possibly the events that closely followed: the ascension and Pentecost. We don’t know where – or how – the story fits into the overall narrative.
But do we need this information?
“I am going fishing!”
“Children, you have no fish, have you?”
The story hangs on these two lines. In the first, Peter, back home in Galilee, takes up his normal life as a fisher. He has followed Jesus for several years, but now the story is over. He has gone home, he has returned to his old life, with his ordinary work and expectations. The others join him (two are his old business partners). They go out on the lake.
But their lives have been completely changed. They try to take up their previous way of life – their pre-Jesus life – and there are no fish.
“Children, you have no fish, have you?” They answered him, “No.”
Such a simple question, and so honest a response. We encounter Jesus, and then we try to go on with life as if nothing had happened: our jobs, our interests, our iPhones, our Beemers, our friends, our lovers. We want everything to be the same.
But it isn’t the same. We fish and the net is empty; we seek, and we do not find, we knock and the door does not open.
Has he abandoned us? Are the sceptics right after all: there is no God, there is no meaning to life, apart from a few brief years of material pleasure and, perhaps, human love that either disappoints or dies? Along with the illusion of progress?
Then, without any agency on their part – our part – a figure whom they (and we) recognize as Jesus appears, intervenes, and our nets are full of fish – fish we don’t need for our own material hunger, fish that point symbolically to a new vocation and a new harvest – that includes everyone, absolutely everyone: totality.
And a new life adventure, still undiscovered, begins.
Lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered people continue to offer the Church the opportunity to see beyond Good Friday into Easter Day. The Easter event changed the way many people understood things around them. No longer does death have the last word. When Jesus Christ rose from the dead all humankind was given a new beginning to know and love one another. No longer was there any scape goat. Jesus Christ had paid the price for our sin. Jesus Christ rose from the dead and said: "Peace be with you." Even Jesus did not hold the disciples accountable for abandoning him during his passion. Instead, he prays for them to have peace.
As we journey into the Acts of the Apostles we see that the early Church is challenged by new ways of thinking as they introduce the Christian faith to generations of people who in the past have been not been open to new things. The early Church suffered greatly for trying to help others see that the message of the Gospel was about service to the poor and those who were left on the margins by the religious authorities. LGBT individuals challenge the Church here in the 21st Century to continue to become a more welcoming community for all people. Yet, we see many in the Church who are not so agreeable to this need for change.
We Anglicans might like to think that the notion of gays being blamed for child sex abuse is only thought of by Catholic leaders. However after reading a very disturbing post in the Episcopal Lead, I can assure you that is not entirely true.
Ordained while gay -- it's the new driving while black.
In a revealing campaign, Anglican Mainstream seeks to persuade you that sex with children reveals whether you are gay. And it's using the Catholic sex abuse story to make its claims. (And also is an apologist for that church's handling of sexual abuse.) Anglican Mainstream claims the problem is not with the church, but with homosexuals in the priesthood. According to its website, the "Primatial Adviser" of Anglican Mainstream is The Most Rev Drexel Gomez, former Archbishop of the West Indies who chaired the committee that drafted the Anglican Covenant.
We Episcopalians like to get into the idea of thinking that because we ordained Bishop Gene Robinson back in 2003 and we are about to ordain Bishop-Elect Mary Glasspool and the work of our last General Convention that the worst of our work towards a more inclusive Church is some how finished. The reality is these things are still a beginning. They are a terrific beginning, but they are only the beginning. We still have much work to do to help Deans, Rectors, Bishops and others understand that the Easter message is not complete for the Episcopal Church when the Church is not inclusive on all levels. As long as we stick to old understandings and prejudices that keep LGBT people away from the Episcopal Church or the Anglican Communion, we are still trying to "fish" for a church institution built by human understanding, rather than be fishers of people who embrace all with the good news of God's unconditional love. Just as in the days of the Gospel there were people who did not understand the Gospel in an inclusive way, so we do in 2010. And we should be challenging the Church to be a more inclusive Church in every way.
O God, whose blessed Son made himself known to his disciples in the breaking of bread: Open the eyes of our faith that we may behold him in all his redeeming work; who lives and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen. (Third Sunday of Easter, Book of Common Prayer, Page 224).
Gracious Father, we pray for your holy Catholic Church. Fill it with all truth, in all truth with all peace. Where it is corrupt, purify it; where it is in error, direct it; where in any thing it is amiss, reform it. Where it is right, strengthen it; where it is in want, provide for it; where it is divided, reunite it; for the sake of Jesus Christ your Son our Savior. Amen. (Prayer for the Church, Book of Common Prayer, Page 816).
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