3rd Sunday of Easter - C
April 22, 2007
Acts 9:1-20 Revelation
5:11-14
Psalm 30 John
21:1-19
May the words of my mouth and the meditations of each heart be
acceptable in your sight, O Lord our God, our Rock and our Redeemer. Amen.
It is been the
sort of week that will live in infamy.
Thirty two people killed as they studied and taught. We’ve seen the images of a disturbed young
man full of hatred and violence. This same week, eight years ago we heard the
same story, except it unfolded at Columbine
High School
And of course, the same day 32 people died in Virginia ,
160 died while shopping at a market in Baghdad
and on that same day 16,000 children died of preventable diseases brought on by
poor nutrition and lack of basic medical care.
It’s been the sort of week that makes you want to turn off the TV, crawl
under the covers, the sort of week when all of humanity’s broken-ness and grief
and violence come into stark relief and we find ourselves feeling helpless and
vulnerable and so very afraid. The sort
of week that makes you think that sin and death just might win.
And now this
morning, on the first day of a new week, we hear a story. Some men had been through the sort of week
that would live in infamy – a week of betrayal and shame, of fear and hiding, a
week of violence and death, as their teacher was taken from them and beaten and
killed – and now these men have made their way back home. They are back at the sea where they used to
fish, where their teacher had performed that miracle of feeding over 5000
people with a few fish and loaves of bread.
Maybe in an attempt to ground themselves in something familiar, something
normal, they go out in their boats and cast their nets. As they do, a man appears on the shore. It’s no one they recognize. He asks, “Children, you have no fish have
you?” "No", they reply. "The fish aren’t biting this morning."
He tells them to let their net off the side of
the boat and when they do, the sea that just moments earlier seemed to have no
life in it, suddenly was teeming with fish, with flopping, moving, living fish,
so many that the men struggle to bring in the catch. And in that moment – as soon as they saw the
lifeless sea bring forth such a great abundance, they knew, that there is only
one person who can bring life from nothing, that the man on the shore was the
resurrected Christ. They go to him as
quickly as they can, to bring him the catch, only to find he already has a
campfire started, the fish for breakfast are already cleaned and cooked, and
there is enough bread to go around. And
there around that shore breakfast, next to the miraculous catch, with mouths
full of bread and fish, Jesus asks Simon Peter, “Simon, son of John, do you
love me more than these?” And Peter
replies, “Yes, Lord you know that I love you.”
Jesus says, “Feed my lambs.”
Again Jesus asks, “Simon, son of John, do you love me?” Again the answer is yes. Jesus says, “Tend my sheep.” A third time, the same question; this time
Peter is hurt. He says, “Yes, Lord, you
know everything, you know that I love you.”
Jesus says, “Feed my sheep.”
Three times
Jesus asks Peter if he loves him. Three
times Peter says yes. Three times the
people in the courtyard had asked Peter if he knew Jesus and three times Peter
had said no. During that infamous week on
that night when Jesus was betrayed and it had seemed like the powers of death
were going to win and Peter had felt helpless, vulnerable and afraid. And he did the only thing he knew how – he
laid low, he protected himself out of fear.
But now, on the shore in the morning light, Peter saw the resurrected
Christ. There in front of Peter was his
resurrected Lord, God’s victory over death, sitting on the shore, eating
breakfast, the assurance that life will always conquer death. After that moment never again would Peter lie
low and try to protect himself. From
then on he would go out into the world and feed Christ’s sheep with the good
news of Jesus’ death and resurrection.
Peter would feed God’s sheep with the good news even when it became
obvious that doing so would lead to his own death. But Peter was not afraid anymore, because he
knew that life would conquer death; he had seen the proof there on the
lake shore.
The resurrected Christ appeared to Peter and the
disciples that day as the sign and promise that despite all appearances, death
will not win. The resurrected Jesus is
the sign and the promise that love will conquer hate. He is the sign and the promise that God’s
kingdom of love, justice, and peace is coming.
And he sends those who love him into the world with his resurrection
power to feed his lambs, to tend his sheep, to feed his sheep with his life and
his love.
As many of you
know, each year a team of people from Calvary travel to the town of El Triunfo , Honduras . One of the ways Calvary
has partnered with our brothers and sisters there is by providing the funds
needed for their milk program and now for their lunch program. Mothers from the neighborhood come early in
the morning to prepare meals like rice and beans and, on a good day, chicken
feet – to feed to over 100 children. For
many of them, this will be the only food they will eat that day, aside from a
tortilla or the mangos they find lying around in the streets.
One of this year’s team members told me a
story about serving lunch one day. He had
filled bowl after bowl and after the last child was served, the stew ran
out. Just at that moment a little girl
came up to him and held out her bowl and asked, “mas?” More?
And he had to say, “Lo siento. No
mas.” I’m sorry. No more.
And as she walked away with her bowl and her stomach still empty, he
felt defeated. He felt like the
broken-ness of the world that keeps that child in poverty was going to win
again. He felt like the powers of
injustice that keep that neighborhood and that country from developing were
going to conquer. He feared that little
girl might just become one of those 16,000 that die every day.
And so the next day he did not want to go
back, he did not want to have to tell another child there was no more – it made
him feel too vulnerable, too helpless, too afraid to see so much hunger and not
know what he could do about it. But,
come lunch time the next day, he was there in the line and that day there was food
left over. And who should come to him with her little
bowl but that same girl. “Mas?” she
asked, unsure. “Si, mas,” he said and
filled her bowl. And as he saw her with
her mouth full of rice and chicken, he saw the resurrected Christ. And he knew that knew that sin will not
win. He knew that Christ always has the
power to provide enough to feed all God’s children. And he knew that through the power of the
resurrected Christ, God will bring new life to that community and to that little
girl. And new life will come as more and
more people are filled with resurrection hope, as more and more people refuse
to stay at home and pull the covers over their heads, as more and more of the
people who love Jesus go out and feed his lamb, and tend his sheep, as we go
out to our community and our world and feed Christ’s sheep with bread and fish
and chicken feet, as we feed the world with hope and the good news, the good
news that no matter what kind of week it’s been we know that death will not win,
because Christ is risen.
Feeding God’s
sheep, of course, is more than filling bowls day after day. It’s asking why the children are hungry in
the first place and then doing something about it. It can be tempting to feel defeated by things
like poverty and hunger and unemployment and disease. Just as it is tempting to feel defeated by a
culture of violence, by the world’s love of war, by our own mortal bodies; but
we are people who gather every week on the first day of a new week, on the day
when new life came to the world through an empty tomb. No matter what the week before has brought, despair
will not defeat us, we will not be scared into inaction, will not let our own
vulnerability keep us out of the world’s hurts.
Because we have seen God bring life out of death and we know that God
will do it again. We go into the world
to serve and ignite people for Christ with the vision of Jesus sitting on a
lake shore in the early morning light, sitting next to grilled fish and fresh
bread and a net teeming with fish; we hear Jesus saying “Do you love me?” Feed
my lambs. Do you love me? Tend my lambs. Do you love me? Yes, Lord, you know everything, you know that
we love you. Feed my sheep. Amen.
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