Third Sunday of Easter, rcl yr c, 2022
Acts 9:1-6; Psalm 30; Revelation 5:11-14; John 21:1-19
Gathered there
We come, here, in John’s Gospel, to the end.
Well— that’s not quite right. It’s the end of John’s Gospel, where we hear about the last of Jesus’s first disciples. But this last chapter of John describes the beginning of the life of the church, the beginning of a life we share with those disciples—it describes the beginning of our life together with the resurrected Jesus.
And to get a handle on this new beginning, the new beginning we find at the end of John’s Gospel, let’s turn to the opening chapter of John’s Gospel.
In the first verses of John we hear of the Word that was with God in the beginning; that this Word was God, and made flesh in Jesus; and that the Word made flesh came to live among us. And then almost immediately, right in the first chapter of John, Jesus, the Word made flesh, invites his first disciples to come and abide with him, to spend time with him, to be with him, to remain with him.
I’ve mentioned this before, but it bears a reminder—this is what it is, in large part, to be a disciple of Jesus: to simply find yourself in the company of Jesus. Which is precisely what those first disciples did. They abided with Jesus, they spent time with Jesus, they hung out with Jesus.
But, as Rowan Williams points out—if you follow Jesus, and if you find yourself often in Jesus’s presence, don’t be surprised if you find yourself in the presence of the sort of people that Jesus spends time with. With questioning religious leaders who just don’t get it, like Nicodemus; with those who would betray the one who loves them most, like Judas; adulterers; people who are bad with their money; with the hungry, the poor, the addicts. To spend time with Jesus, is also to spend time with the people Jesus spends time with.
All this is set into motion in that very first chapter of John—that God the Word is made flesh in Jesus, and that Jesus begins to gather around himself a whole lot of misfits and cranks, oddballs and weirdos.
And then a few other things happen after John’s first chapter. There’s conflict and miracles, some long sermons, and above all there’s the passion, the crucifixion, and the resurrection of Jesus. Which brings us to where are in John’s Gospel: the final chapter, where the resurrected Jesus is appearing to his friends and disciples.
There’s a good question hidden in these resurrection appearances of Jesus. If abiding with Jesus is to abide with the Word made flesh, as was clear right from the start of John’s Gospel, what does it mean to abide with a resurrected Jesus? Sure, the resurrected Jesus is fleshly, and John’s Gospel goes to some length to make this clear—from Thomas putting his hand into the side of Jesus, to the story we have today, of Jesus broiling some fish for his friends. But it’s not quite the same flesh, is it, and John’s Gospel goes to similar length to say that the resurrected Jesus’s flesh is not what it used to be; Jesus can, after all, now appear anywhere at anytime. And so this is what John 21 seeks to answer: what does it mean to abide with a resurrected Jesus?
The first answer to what it looks like to abide with the resurrected Jesus is in the first two words of verse two of chapter 21. “Gathered there.” Jesus is resurrected; and the disciples carry on, and they continue to gather together.
It is interesting to see what they gather to do, though. They gather together to work, to fish together. Don’t pay much mind to those who say that the disciples get this wrong because they don’t gather together to do the real spiritual stuff, to worship, to pray, to serve. I imagine that John is saying, actually, that spending time with the resurrected Jesus includes gathering together for work. That is: your work, what you do to make a living, is most certainly part of the resurrection life, not a misunderstanding of it. And so the question becomes something more like, what does your life at work look like, if your work life is part of life with the resurrected Jesus?
And the fish they haul in! John is precise in how many fish are caught: a hundred and fifty-three. There’s a tradition of reading something into that number: that there were, in the mind of the ancient world, a total of one hundred and fifty-three different kinds of fish, and that on that day, the disciples caught one of each of those fish. This net full of fish is seen as an analogy for the church—that the church can keep safely together every different kind of person, just like that unbroken net did with a hundred and fifty-three different kinds of fish in it.
Now I’m not a great fisherman, and so when I go fishing I seem to catch all the wrong sorts of fish. When Karen and I were in Newfoundland fishing with my family, we caught more Flatties and Rock Cod than we did Atlantic Cod. And in Lake of the Woods, I caught more Northern Pike than I ever did Walleye. And I always hoped to see an old Musky or even an ancient Sturgeon swimming through the reeds. The ugliest fish though, in my fishing autobiography, is the Red River Catfish.
So imagine that if the disciples were Canadians, they would have caught that day many desirable fish: Rainbow Trout, Walleye and Pacific Salmon, but only one of each; they would also have caught an ugly Pike and a Musky, an old dinosaur of a Sturgeon, one Cod, one Flatty, and one tiny Capelin too. Every sort of fish, from the beautiful and the desirable, to the ugly ones you’d rather throw back in the lake, to the small ones that you don’t think matter but really do, all these are caught in the disciple’s net—and the fish in that net are the image of the church. The young, the old, the dinosaur, the ones you’re glad to see, the ones you’d rather not, and even the tiniest and smallest of them all. All caught in the same net, a net that by the grace of God does not break, and in all in our difference we are held together.
That’s what life with the resurrected Jesus is like.
And then there’s Peter’s restoration to Jesus. Just like Peter denied Jesus three times, so does Jesus ask Peter three times if he loves him. And Peter gets a bit annoyed with this, as many of us might. After asking the third time, “Peter, do you love me,” Peter says, “Come on, Jesus! You already know that I love you.” But this, in many ways, is what it’s like to be restored to a friendship when we’ve hurt someone, when you’ve done some real damage to a relationship. In one way, when we are truly loved, truly forgiven, trusted, and welcomed back into a relationship that we’ve had a hand in damaging—just as Peter damaged his relationship with Jesus—when we are truly loved, truly forgiven, trusted, and welcomed back, it is a difficult thing to bear and to comprehend, because we often feel unworthy of such love and forgiveness. In fact, most of us need to hear that we are loved waaaaay more than three times before we can believe it.
And so this is life with the resurrected Jesus. We gather and we go to work. We believe in the one who would welcome us into his life, no matter the ways we may have rejected him; because now we are now reconciled to him, alongside all the others gathered into his church, this weird body of strange, eccentric, and sinful people; a church where we listen to the disciples’ testimony about a Jesus who can forgive Peter; we hear, over and over, and we believe without seeing that we are, indeed, reconciled in him and to him: forgiven and loved, forgiven and loved, forgiven and loved.
The Revd Dr Preston DS Parsons
Angus Sinclair was appointed Director of Music of St. John the Evangelist on February 1, 2023. Having graduated in 1981 (Honours B.Mus.) in organ performance from Wilfrid Laurier University, he went on to distinguish himself as a church musician, recitalist and accompanist touring in both Canada and the UK. For over 40 years Angus has served parishes and congregations throughout Southwestern Ontario as director of music. He experiences his present appointment to St. John’s as a welcome homecoming, both spiritually and musically.
As our parish musician, he provides both support and leadership so that a variety of parish programs can find musical expression and attract participation. When our handbell choir is in season, he is one of our ringers. At parish dinners, he provides popular piano music for the guests to dine by. For both worship services and concerts, he will rehearse and accompany vocal and instrumental soloists from our congregation on piano, organ, or even accordion.
Angus Sinclair was appointed Director of Music of St. John the Evangelist on February 1, 2023. Having graduated in 1981 (Honours B.Mus.) in organ performance from Wilfrid Laurier University, he went on to distinguish himself as a church musician, recitalist and accompanist touring in both Canada and the UK. For over 40 years Angus has served parishes and congregations throughout Southwestern Ontario as director of music. He experiences his present appointment to St. John’s as a welcome homecoming, both spiritually and musically.