Sermon for Sunday, April 25, 2004  

BREAKFAST ON THE BEACH

By

Rev. Cindy Bates

Scripture:  John 21: 4-19

⁴ Just after daybreak, Jesus stood on the beach; but the disciples did not know that it was Jesus. ⁵ Jesus said to them, "Children, you have no fish, have you?" They answered him, "No." ⁶ He 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. ⁷ That 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. ⁸ But 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 off.  

⁹ When they had gone ashore, they saw a charcoal fire there, with fish on it, and bread.  ¹⁰ Jesus said to them, "Bring some of the fish that you have just caught." ¹¹ So Simon Peter went aboard and hauled the net ashore, full of large fish, a hundred fifty-three of them; and though there were so many, the net was not torn. ¹² Jesus 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. ¹³ Jesus came and took the bread and gave it to them, and did the same with the fish. ¹⁴ This was now the third time that Jesus appeared to the disciples after he was raised from the dead. 

¹⁵ When they had finished breakfast, Jesus said to Simon Peter, "Simon son of John, do you love me more than these?" He said to him, "Yes, Lord; you know that I love you." Jesus said to him, "Feed my lambs." ¹⁶ A second time he said to him, "Simon son of John, do you love me?" He said to him, "Yes, Lord; you know that I love you." Jesus said to him, "Tend my sheep." ¹⁷ He said to him the third time, "Simon son of John, do you love me?" Peter felt hurt because he said to him the third time, "Do you love me?" And he said to him, "Lord, you know everything; you know that I love you." Jesus said to him, "Feed my sheep. ¹⁸ Very truly, I tell you, when you were younger, you used to fasten your own belt and to go wherever you wished. But when you grow old, you will stretch out your hands, and someone else will fasten a belt around you and take you where you do not wish to go." ¹⁹ (He said this to indicate the kind of death by which he would glorify God.) After this he said to him, "Follow me."

Breakfast on the beach!  Doesn't that sound like a great way to start the day?   I have a friend who has a sign on her office door that says, "If you're lucky enough to be at the beach, you're lucky enough."  Believe me, I really feel the same way about these incredible mountains here in Colorado, I feel pretty lucky to live here in such a beautiful part of the country, but I do miss the water sometimes.  I picture the sun coming up over the lake...a good cup of coffee...the sound of the waves lapping up on the shore.  I think I could get used to beginning every morning like that.  It sounds so peaceful, so civilized.  Unfortunately, I only begin my mornings with breakfast on the beach when I am back home in Michigan enjoying a few days vacation.  It isn't a routine way to start the day.

This morning's scripture is a story about breakfast on the beach.  It is not a story about a routine way of starting the day...but maybe it should be!

Here's the scene.   It is a few days since Easter morning.  Jesus has appeared to the disciples on two other occasions since the resurrection but now some time has elapsed and Jesus does not appear to be with the disciples giving them further instructions, telling them what to do.  Peter, who has been depicted in the gospels as moody, sometimes impetuous, doesn't know what to do. You can almost see him pacing back and forth.   He says to his friends, "I'm going fishing."  He needs to get back to what he knows, to what is familiar.  It's like he needs some comfort food.  He needs to get back in that boat and smell the sea and grip those nets and feel like he is doing something productive... the life he knew before Jesus came along and said, "Follow me."  Some of the disciples who are with Peter don't know what to do next either so they say to Peter, "We'll go with you."  Now here is where the story begins to sound very familiar.  In a way, we have come full circle.  Three years previously, Jesus had come to this same seashore and issued an invitation to these fishermen and their lives were changed dramatically.  But now, they don't see Jesus anywhere so they are headed right back to the way things used to be, doing what they used to do.

 (Now I know Harvey likes to give you homework and I don't want to let you off too easy just because Harvey isn't around so I have a little assignment for you.  Sometime this week check out Luke 5:1-11 and compare it to this morning's scripture.  How many parallels can you come up with?) 

So they fish all night and come up empty... probably in more ways than one.  And now it's dawn and as the sun is beginning to come upon the horizon and light breaks through their darkness, they see something... they see someone on the shore.  And then they hear his voice call to them, once again, "Children, you have no fish, have you?"  I think this may be one of the most patient, intimate, loving lines in all of scripture.  After everything that has happened... Jesus has been abandoned by these close friends after he spent three years trying to teach them about God's love and how they should live their lives.  He willingly lays down his life for these friends and they get scared and abandon him.  He is faithful to them and his promise that he will be raised from death and come to them.  And according to this gospel account, he has shown himself to them at least two other times since the resurrection and they still don't know what to do.  They still don't get it.  They go right back to their old life as though nothing has happened.  And there he is, once again, calling to them in such a loving, understanding, intimate way, "Children... he guides them in what to do in order to catch some fish, and then he invites them to breakfast, one that he has prepared around a charcoal fire.  He invites them, once again to have a meal with him... to come and be fed... to come and find sustenance for their emptiness.  (Now if you want to get some extra credit while doing your homework this week, read Matthew 15: 32-39.  See if you don't discover some similarities between this story of breakfast on the beach with the feeding of the 5000!)

The second half of the story continues when Jesus has a very intimate conversation with Peter.  Again we see Jesus, patiently trying to teach Peter and call him once again to a life of faithfulness.  It has only been a few days since Peter had a meal with Jesus and the other disciples and swore that even if everyone else abandoned him, he, Peter, never would.  And we know that just hours later, Peter sat huddled around a charcoal fire, hiding in a courtyard and out of fear, three times denied that he had ever known him.  Scholars suggest that the three questions Jesus asks Peter in this scene are to counter and forgive those three proclamations of denial and give Peter, yet, another opportunity to affirm his faith, his loyalty to Jesus.  Peter is asked three times, "Do you love me?"  By the third time the question is posed, Peter is hurt that Jesus keeps asking the question.  But Jesus is very intent on making sure Peter understands what it really means to say, "Yes, Lord, you know that I love you."  It is as though the issue here is less about the commission and more about the love that makes fulfilling the commission possible.  And we know from reading Acts, and the subsequent development of the early church, that Peter did finally get it.  He became that "rock" upon which the church was built.  Jesus, through his love reaffirmed, took Peter's tendency to flee, doubt and deny and restored Peter once again to be the shepherd of the sheep.  This scene on the beach, with Jesus once more teaching Peter and the disciples makes me think of those famous lines penned by T. S. Eliot in his Four Quartets.

            We shall not cease from exploration

            And the end of all our exploring

            Will be to arrive where we started

            And know the place for the first time

They had come full circle.  They were back at the place where it all began, but this time they seemed to finally know.

Over the years this "breakfast on the beach" passage has really become one of my favorite scriptures.  I believe it tells us so much about our human nature and so much about the nature of God.  When it comes to our faith I think we often have the tendency to flee, doubt, deny, give up and go back to our old ways.  But Jesus comes along and calls us again and again and again to be faithful.  He calls us out of our fears, our flight, gathers us around the table once again and nurtures us through God's love for us.

This scene of Jesus on the beach, for me, is like a centering point that I need to return to time and time again, a presence that calls to me to restore me in those times when I feel confused or lost or fearful or inadequate for what I believe I am being called to do and I just feel like giving up and going fishing. 

In his book, Holy Longing, Ronald Rolheiser says, "Most of us who are Christians have at least this in common about Jesus.  We admire him.  As Soren Kierkegaard once pointed out, however, this is not enough.  What Jesus wants from us is not admiration, but imitation.  It is far easier to admire figures of great morality and courage than to do what they do.  Admiration alone is a weak thing.  Imitation is more important, though we need to go beyond that as regards Jesus.  He is more than a model to be imitated.  What Jesus wants is not admiration, nor simple imitation (no one does Jesus very well anyway!).  What Jesus wants of us is that we undergo his presence so as to enter into a community of life and celebration with him.  'Jesus' as John Shea says, 'is not a law to be obeyed or a model to be imitated, but a presence to be seized and acted upon.' "

I believe the writer of John 21 invites us to envision how as individuals, and a community, we can continue to experience Jesus' presence and carry on the work we are called to do.

What would it be like for us if we could begin each of our days having breakfast on the beach... being called forth to be all God desires us to be... being reminded of that loving presence that calls us forth from the tombs that enclose us to living life in the presence of a love that will not let us go?  What would it be like for us to so live in God's presence that we could claim today's "Words for Mediation" as our own.

            It is the Lord, in the dawning,

                        in the renewal,

                        in the arrival,

                        in the new day.

 

            It is the Lord, in the crows

                        in the church,

                        in the conversation,

                        in the crisis.

 

            It is the Lord, in our joys,

                        in our sorrows,

                        in our sickness,

                        in our health.

 

            It is the Lord, in the stable,

                        in the jumble,

                        in the stranger,

                                in the poor.

 

            It is the Lord, risen and returned,

                        alive for evermore,

                        giving me new life,

                        saving me in strife.

                              It is the Lord.

                                          David Adam, Times and Seasons

I believe that what we celebrate on an Easter Sunday, the presence of a risen Christ, is to be apart of our awareness, apart of our everyday living out of our lives each and everyday of our life, not just on an Easter morning.  

The Sufi poet, Hafiz, in his poem , The Seed Cracked Open, states the reality of God's presence in our lives in perhaps a more light-hearted, playful way with these words: 

            It used to be

                  That when I would wake up in the morning

                        I could with confidence say,

 

                  "What am "I" going to do?"

                        That was before the seed

                              Cracked open.

 

                        Now I'm certain:

                  There are two of us housed

                        In this body,

 

                        Doing the shopping together in the market and

                              Tickling each other

                        While fixing the evening's food.

 

                              Now when I awake

                        All the internal instruments play the same music:

                        "God, what love-mischief can 'We' do

                              For the world today?"

It isn't "What can I do for the world today?" or "What can you do for the world today?".  If it were just me or just me and you we might just go back to bed or at the least, just go fishing, but we are called in the presence of God and with the presence of God to be and do and love so much more.  

Again, from Holy Longing, by Ronald Rolheiser, "The fire energy of God that so burns inside us will come to maturity, creativity, and calm when we shape our lives and our bodies in the way Jesus shaped his, when we help him carry the incarnation forward.  Spirituality,....is not a law to be obeyed, but a presence to be seized, undergone, and given flesh to."

Jesus didn't just have breakfast and a conversation on that beach with Peter and a few of the disciples.  He had a conversation with us, with you and with me and he continues to do so.  What would it be like if we began each of our days with breakfast on the beach?

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