An Uprising of Discipleship
Christ is Risen! He is Risen indeed! Alleluia! And Happy Easter.
The season continues.
I want to spend some time imagining (again) the strange experience of Jesus’ followers after the crucifixion. Specifically, I ask you to think about the emotion of how life unfolds sometimes, and in particular, what it means to have your expectations – of what is normal, what is expected, what is true - challenged again and again and again.
Our reading today is from John’s Gospel, that latest of the four gospels to be crafted. It includes the most “post resurrection” content about Jesus appearing, and many think that the content of chapter 21, from which you heard today’s reading, was actually a later addition, probably written by another leader in the tradition of John’s community.
In the confusion that must have followed the crucifixion and the early experiences of the resurrected Jesus, I suspect the disciples were working through a lot of things –
Who are we and what do we do:
Now that Jesus is dead?
Now that Jesus is not in the tomb?
Now that Jesus has appeared to some of us?
Now that we have all experienced the risen Christ?
And there were THESE kinds of experiences – meeting behind a locked door in an upper room, walking along a road, fishing back in Galilee.
And then there were the experiences of the early church communities decades later – communities who had formed expecting Jesus’ immanent return to restore the Kingdom of God…an expectation that got modified with each passing year. And eventually, they outlived the founders, they moved generations past the first disciples, and still they have to promise their experiences without Christ’s return in the ways they expected it.
And so I have to imagine these early communities were also asking questions over these decades of experience.
Who are we and what do we do:
When Jesus returns?
When Jesus eventually returns?
Now that Jesus hasn’t yet returned and we are still waiting?
In light of that experience, I can imagine a leader in John’s community sharing “one more experience of the risen Christ” to help the community think about what they were being called to do.
I ask that you let all of that possible experience be a backdrop to how we hear the story read today…
Seven of the twelve disciples have gathered back in Galilee. They’ve gathered to go fishing – an activity that seems like something pretty “normal,” an activity that some of them knew very well. A skillset native to them – mending and casting and tugging and cleaning nets. A skillset that shaped their identity before Jesus. The identity from which they were called away to fish for people.
They are out in the boat overnight, perhaps for many hours, when a figure appears on the shoreline. The person says to them – “Have you no fish?”
(Now for my fisherfolk out there – you know that it is called fishing and not catching for a reason, right? So I don’t imagine this person on the shoreline naming the lack of success is particularly helpful.)
And then he says this – “Cast your nets on the other side.”
(Ah…so he’s an armchair quarterback too.)
“From where I’m standing, if you’d just do it differently – to the right and not the left – you’ll experience a new thing.”
But then suddenly their nets are laden with fish when they change up sides – so many fish that they can’t navigate the boat.
In that moment of abundance, Simon Peter realizes who is on the shore – it is the risen Christ.
And so he puts his clothes on and jumps into the sea, headed for the shore. The other disciples drag the boat and teeming net ashore.
Jesus had built a small fire, already with some fish and some bread. Their net full of 153 fish is damaged by the haul…but breakfast awaits. And as we have heard in other post-resurrection experiences, Jesus shares bread with the disciples…and they recognize him.
We then witness an important encounter between the risen Christ and Simon Peter. Poor Peter – who as Jesus had predicted, denied Jesus three times at the crucifixion – now faces a new opportunity.
Jesus asks, “Simon, son of John do you love me more than these?
Simon son of John, do you love me?
Simon son of John, do you love me?”
And each time, Simon Peter says yes. You can imagine how he might have been hurt by the repeated questioning…but this questioning from the risen Christ mirrors Peter’s denial at the crucifixion, the denials Jesus foretold at the last supper.
It is as if Jesus is reminding Simon Peter that it is his love of Jesus that matters – and that those past denials, from whatever place of scared uncertainty they came, do not matter.
And so, Jesus tells him –
Feed my sheep.
And how loaded with meaning and responsibility those words must have been to Simon Peter. The disciples had heard, many times, Jesus talk about how he was a shepherd to a flock. Now he was tasking Simon Peter with that same work – make sure the sheep are fed.
Fed with food. Fed with love. Fed with understanding.
Fed to become. Fed to grow. Fed to multiply.
The risen Christ has shown up one last time with these seven men. And he’s once again teaching and training, equipping and sending.
Don’t fish on that side of the boat. Try the other side instead.
I know what you said about me before. What do you say about me now?
If you love me, Simon Peter, then do something with that love. Feed my sheep.
So much teaching. So much instructing. So much formation. So much sending out.
In our ongoing journey with Brian McLaren in the book We Make the Road by Walking, McLaren focuses attention this week on what it means to be a disciple, to follow someone in order to be a student who learns, grows, imitates and is then sent out to teach and feed and lead others.
Last week we talked about what it meant to be a “fellowship,” a group investing itself in common values. To that we add this work of being a fellowship of disciples – investing ourselves in common values with a commitment to growth and obedience and learning and apprenticeship and imitating and teaching others to do the same.
It seems important, in light of the story we’ve explored, to remember that learning and growth come with second and third chances, with opportunities to learn from our past mistakes.
I think sometimes we forget that this discipleship thing is a journey of learning, of recognizing our limits, of having to tackle new things and repent of old things so that we can face the challenge of meeting more people with whom to share the good news.
It seems important to me that the disciples had to learn something new or experience something new with the risen Christ in order to keep moving forward into the unknown after the resurrection.
Lately, I’ve been thinking a lot about how we keep moving forward as disciples even as the world changes around us…even when we are uncomfortable with the changes. And I think that was probably a real challenge for the earliest followers who thought that Jesus was going to return any day to upset the existing order of things and set things to rights – make things as they were supposed to be.
But that isn’t how it happened, is it? It isn’t how it happens.
How do we live while the world continues to shift and change, walking in the footsteps of a man who taught us to love and care and witness and work?
How are we able to worship during a pandemic?
How are we able to understand things like marriage, sexuality and gender even as science continues to reveal marvels of the created order?
How are we able to share power with those who do not look like those who have held power in the past?
What do we need to learn to keep moving forward? To keep playing our role in bringing about the Kin-dom of God?
Ron Heifetz, who writes about church leadership, talks a lot about technical and adaptive challenges. This week, I realized how incredibly important this distinction is for our journey in this particular season.
Technical challenges can be solved with the knowledge and experience of existing experts. But adaptive challenges require new learning and growth. Adaptive challenges require new inventions and discoveries. Adaptive challenges will require trial and error. And trial and error. And trial and error.
Because we don’t know how to meet the challenges before us – we have to learn something new.
For me, a year into pandemic, a few years (or decades) into deadlock in our denomination, and while folks are showing up in our congregations to experience God’s love and to serve others, I am feeling like I have reached the end of my technical challenge rope – and so much of what faces us as a church right now is an adaptive challenge.
Maybe you can relate.
We have to learn to listen and see in new ways.
We have to learn to serve in new ways.
We have to learn what Jesus was talking about in new ways.
And here’s my confession. That can feel overwhelming at times.
It won’t be enough to just do what we’ve done before. Being a disciple means that in seasons, we will have to drop our net on the other side of the boat. Heck, it might mean we need to learn how to catch seaweed instead of fish. We might need to name our love of Jesus again and again and again to counteract recent denials.
The kinds of changes that are needed will require us to learn new things and, in the process become a new thing ourselves, individually and collectively.
For me, this sermon feels like one we might be revisiting over the coming year – pondering the adaptations calling us.
What if we started small this week. Where is one place in your work of loving others that you believe you might need to learn a new thing in order to meet the challenges of this time?
Maybe it some new skills for handling conflict.
Maybe it is some ability to trust something different from what we’ve always known.
Maybe it is the ability to wade into an uncomfortable conversation.
Just one step on the path this week will make a difference.
Let’s journey on.
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