Listen to Readings and Sermon

Easter 3

The Good News Written

Odes of Solomon, Ode 8.3-6

Stand up with your shoulders back, you who sank low. You who were silent, speak. Your mouth has been opened. You were despised. Now feel uplifted. Your goodness is high. God is with you and will keep you.

John 21.1-11 (NRSV)

¹After these things Jesus showed himself again to the disciples by the Sea of Tiberias; and he showed himself in this way. ²Gathered there together were Simon Peter, Thomas called the Twin, Nathanael of Cana in Galilee, the sons of Zebedee, and two others of his disciples. ³Simon Peter said to them, “I am going fishing.” They said to him, “We will go with you.” They went out and got into the boat, but that night they caught nothing. ⁴Just after daybreak, Jesus stood on the beach; but the disciples did not know that it was Jesus. ⁵Jesus said to them, “Children, you have no fish, have you?” They answered him, “No.” ⁶He 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. ⁷That disciple whom Jesus loved said to Peter, “It is [our Teacher]!” When Simon Peter heard that it was [Jesus], he put on some clothes, for he was naked, and jumped into the sea. ⁸But 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. ⁹When they had gone ashore, they saw a charcoal fire there, with fish on it, and bread. ¹⁰Jesus said to them, “Bring some of the fish that you have just caught.” ¹¹So 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.

The Good News Proclaimed

Preached by the Reverend Doctor Durrell Watkins at the Sunshine Cathedral on Sunday, April 18, 2010.

Fish stories we will always have with us. Myth and metaphor, story and allegory, moralizing and editorializing keep showing up in our lives as ways of helping us explore the deeply true issues of life. And today, in John’s gospel, we have another fish story. And it was one that was no doubt profoundly important to those who first told it and to those who first heard it. Perhaps it can remain important for us today as well.

We just heard last week the apostles being told to breathe… to receive the holy Breath… to inhale the Breath of Life as a way of remembering that right where they are, God is, and wherever God is, peace is possible.

Well, today we are in the next chapter. In fact, we are in the final chapter of John’s gospel. And what has happened from chapter 20 to chapter 21? Breathe. Take courage. Go to peace instead of to pieces. That’s where we left off last week; and this week… we see Peter and John and Nathaniel and the others trying to reclaim the past. They are trying to go backward. They are trying to recapture the comfort of what was rather than daring to move forward into what might yet be.

These fishers had become teachers, evangelists, activists, healers… and when things get rough, they just want to return to the past. They want to go back to fishing. But how does that work for them? They aren’t catching anything… that’s how it worked for them. They had moved on… you can’t unlearn what you’ve learned. You can’t erase what you’ve become. You can’t un-grow. You can’t go back. As the Greek philosopher Heraclitus said, “You can’t step into the same river twice.”

The one constant in the universe is change. When we can’t cope with change, we make ourselves miserable. And when we are miserable, we sometimes think we’ll feel better if we make other people miserable… but it never really works that way.

Sidhartha, the Buddha, said, “The secret of health for both mind and body is not to mourn for the past, or worry about the future, or anticipate troubles but to live in the present moment wisely and earnestly.” Buddha taught that attachment is what caused suffering… by being too attached to what inevitably changes, we find ourselves mourning when the change comes. Buddha taught people to accept the fact that life is constantly changing; being attached to what is impermanent only leaves us sad when the inevitable change occurs. You can’t step into the same river twice.

St. Paul nudged people toward change, expansion, newness when he said, “Those who are in Christ are a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new!” (2 Corinthians 5.17).

Moses dealt with this same issue, didn’t he? He’s risked life and limb leading his people out of slavery, and every step of the way they complain about how hard the journey is. Some of them even miss Egypt… they remember it as being a place where at least they had plenty to eat. They have already forgotten that Egypt didn’t respect them, didn’t value them as human-beings, didn’t recognize their sacred value. Egypt used them, and demanded they know their place… and Moses promised freedom. Sounded good, but once they had to do the work of being free, some of them missed the good old days of being not even second class citizens in a place that despised who they really were.

One day Moses is on a mountain top and he hears a big commotion… he’s afraid his people are under attack. He runs down the mountain to see what is happening to his people, and what does he find? They’re having a party! And in the middle of this party is a golden calf… you see, one of the gods of ancient Egypt was Apis, the bull-god. After all they’ve been through to leave Egypt, they have now built a monument to the past they worked so hard to move beyond. Moses loses his temper and way over re-acts, but we’ll deal with that at another time. The point is, rather than making the most of the present and envisioning what was possible for the future, Moses’ people romanticized the past and even attempted to worship it. But you can’t go back; you can’t step into the same river twice.

The disciples wanted to go back. Remember the good old days when we just fished for a living? Wasn’t that nice? We didn’t’ have any problems back then! Really? Then why when Jesus said “follow me” did you jump at the chance? If we try to stay stuck in the past, we’ll miss the blessings today is trying to offer, and we will utterly fail to build the kind of future we deserve.

The disciples try to go back. But that doesn’t work… here are people who were formerly commercial fishers, and when they try to go back to doing what they used to do the way they used to it, nothing happens for them. They can’t go back. They can’t step into the same river twice. These professional fishers can’t catch a thing.

And they are so busy trying to reclaim a past that no longer exists for them, they don’t even recognize a divine opportunity when its right in front of them. Jesus speaks to them, and they don’t even know who he is. When we try to go back, we miss what is present for us today.

Finally, Jesus says to the failing fishers, “cast your net in a different direction.” Try something new. Stop trying to go back; choose instead to go forward. And when they try that, abundant possibilities flood into their experience. Trying to go back leaves you only disappointed… the miracles are in the new direction.

Release the past to the past… the mistakes and the victories, the failures and the successes, the lovers and the enemies, the jobs and the hobbies… remember them, learn from them, but don’t become so attached to them that you can’t move forward. Some people become so attached to their fear, or their hatred, or their regret, or their suffering, or that one moment when they let themselves feel good about themselves, or the unhealthy relationship they left, or an old job that they were good at… something from the past, they are so attached to what was they’re missing out on what is and what can be. They don’t know how to enjoy and thrive in the here and now. It’s time to cast your net in a new direction, and start hauling in new blessings.

Every week, every single week… I get emails criticizing us for not being more like some other church. People hate that we use inclusive language, well, except for those who don’t believe we are nearly inclusive enough with our language. There are people who hate our grand opening hymns, but they shouldn’t be confused with those who hate our contemporary praise choruses, which is not the same group that hates our occasional use of secular music, which of course is not the same group that hates our happy, clappy gospel recessional hymns. By trying to be inclusive with our blended worship to offer something to everyone, we’ve actually managed to annoy everybody!

And though MCC was started in 1968 to make a place for same-gender loving people and their allies, every single time I mention LBGT issues from this pulpit, I get complaints. It’s MCC… I thought you knew. I’ve even heard one complaint that an image I used of Jesus as a sermon illustration was too muscular… it was the first time I had ever heard that fitness was theologically problematic.

But guess what… I get it. I get that people miss the past. I spent my first four years in MCC trying to make the MCC that I call home be the reincarnation of St Barnabas Episcopal Church – God forgive me! But I outgrew it, and fell in love with what was new. The past is part of me, but it’s not my destination. And learning that lesson has brought me here… and now we must all keep moving forward together.

Read Spirit & Truth. Read Sharing the Light. Watch the Sharing the Light webcast. Come to church each Sunday. Take a Light University class. Take a membership orientation class, or retake one if it’s been several years since you experienced it. Learn what we are today, and what is possible for tomorrow. Be part of the miracle of growth, expansion, outreach, and newness. Cast your net in new directions and see what all you start to bring into your experience.

We’re not Baptist. We’re not Roman Catholic. We’re not Anglican. We’re not Lutheran. We’re not Methodist. We’re not Presbyterian. We’re not 7^th Day Adventist, Christian Scientist, Mormon, or Pentecostal. Those are all wonderful traditions in many ways, and we may share some qualities with each of those traditions, and you personally may hold dear something you learned from those traditions and you are entitled to, we all do it, but as I’ve said probably 50 times in the last 20 years, I say again today… Please don’t be angry with the church that wants you for not being the church that doesn’t.

We can’t go back to Egypt.
We can’t step into the same river twice.
We can’t be the churches of our past; we can’t even relive this church’s past.
We are where we are now, and we have a future to create… and lingering in the past will not move us forward.

The best is still ahead… if we’ll go forward instead of back. There are NEW blessings for you… you deserve them, and God wants you to have them. So cast your net in a new direction, and start hauling in your blessings today. This is the good news. Amen.

The Good News Affirmed

I am new and renewed!

I embrace the blessings Today is offering.

And I am creating a future filled with hope and joy.

I give thanks for infinite possibilities.

And so it is.

The Good News Repeated

“I will attempt almost anything that I think that I can bring off. It could be almost anything.” Angela Lansbury

Audio readings and sermon (http://sunshinecathedral.org/sermons/audio/20100418_1.mp3)