Again and Again and Again –
A Sermon based on John 21. 1-19 –preached at First Presbyterian Church, Clarks Summit, PA on May 4, 2025
Hearing the news of my boyhood
friend’s fatal heart attack, I went home. Home to the twin towns whose streets
and fields we roamed as kids. Home to the company of friends as we sat together
in silence in the familiar setting of a funeral home where some of us had
gathered many times over. Home to be
with others with stories to tell of the smiling kid who became a loving
husband, a devoted father, a doting grandfather. Tales of the kind of friend
who would pop up on Facebook on Palm Sunday night to write: “Hey Jimmy, this is
your big week. I’ll be thinking of you
all the way to Easter.”
So, when I read a commentator suggest
that Peter and others had lost faith, I don’t buy it. The loss of someone you love is not something
you get over just because someone reminds you of the promise of
resurrection. The return to familiar
places and routines is, in and of itself, part of the healing. Between the
moments when your mind goes blank with grief come memory flashes bringing a
smile or a tear or a laugh or all three at once.
We
greeted Chris’s children and waited for the funeral to begin. We gathered in a
cluster in the hall to hug and swap stories.
Afterward we shared a meal and raised a glass, savoring the stories,
knowing the truth that those we love are never completely lost to us if we
continue to remember them.
Give the disciples some credit.
They’ve gotten out from behind closed doors where they cowered in fear during what
felt like the longest, slowest week of their lives. They were moving on, though
to what they were still not sure. Yes, they had felt Jesus breathe the Holy
Spirit on them to empower them to do all he taught them to do, but that lacked
specificity. It would take some time
between the silences to remind each other of all he had said and all they had
seen him do. It is the kind of thing
that takes as long as it takes…and no one can tell you how long that will be.
For Peter and the others, going back
to Galilee was going home, and home is where their first journey with Jesus
began. Home is where Jesus shows up to
pull them along for the second time.
Notice the two words with
which
today’s reading ends: “Follow Me!”
That Jesus shows up where disciples
live and work and play, is a message not meant just for those in the story. It
is directed at us, too, in whatever place is now the home where our heart
beats. Some folks spend their lives waiting for Jesus to drop down out of the
clouds. But if you read these stories you find he shows up where you’re
spending your time, where you live, where you work.
Jesus shows up when the old timer at
work becomes the mentor to the new kid. Love your neighbor plays out as the
technicalities of the job are taught along with the way to treat co-workers and
customers, and the way to deal with disappointment, and how to be resilient.
Jesus shows up when the young folks move into the house next door and the
long-time resident listens over the fence to a boatload of frustrations before
offering some sage advice. Jesus might show up when a story is read to the
little one who has crawled into a lap.
Theology Professor Lisa Driver
provided the inspiration for the title of today’s sermon. She looked at the last chapter of the Gospel
of John and pointed out how today’s passage follows a familiar pattern. She
writes: “Repe-tition brings revelation and fellowship not only to the disciples
but also to all those ‘who have not seen and yet have come to believe (20:29)
in Jesus as Lord.
“Again, the resurrected Jesus appears.
Again darkness is barren, while light
brings life.
Again Jesus commands, and the catch is
abundant.
Again Peter charges headlong toward what the Beloved Disciple is first to understand and believe.”[i]
God repeats the lessons of faith until
we get them!
The again and again and again of God,
trying to get through to us, goes way beyond the repetition of the
post-resurrection appearances of Jesus to his disciples. The again and again and again of our gracious
God is traced as the end of the Gospel of John ties up threads that have been
woven through it from the very beginning.
Professor Glass explains: “…John 21
functions as a thematic restatement about the path to knowing God through the risen Jesus. Recalling the pattern of creation, light follows darkness, and understanding follows confusion.”[ii] There is a new creation taking place here as
Peter is rehabilitated and renewed in his tasks.
There are promises fulfilled too. One of the interesting sidelights in the
story is the presence of the disciple named Nathanael. He doesn’t appear in the lists the other
gospels provide…but that may be the beauty of it, reminding us that you don’t
have to be part of the inner circle to be found faithful or to have the
promises of God fulfilled before your eyes all in a days work.
Back in the first chapter of John,
Andrew heard John the Baptist speak of Jesus as “the lamb of God!” He ran and
told his brother Simon, “We have found the Messiah.” Andrew brought Simon to
meet Jesus. Jesus “looked at him and said, “You are Simon son of John, You are
to be called Cephas (which is translated Peter.)”
The next day, on his way to Galilee, Jesus finds Philip who went and found Nathanael and said to him, “We have found him about whom Moses in the law and also the prophets wrote, Jesus son of Joseph from Nazareth.” Nate scoffs: “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?” Philip persists: “Come and see.” And when he does, Jesus gives a spot on assessment of Nathanael’s character: “Here is an Israelite in whom there is no deceit.”
Having been so thoroughly known by
this man he has just met, Nathanael proclaims: “Rabbi, you are the Son of
God! You are the King of Israel.” Before the encounter ends, Jesus promises
Nathanael: “You will see greater things than these.”
Now here he is in the boat when Jesus calls from shore and tells the weary fishermen to cast the net on the right side of the boat. With the net suddenly strained by the load of fish it captured, with the Beloved Disciple calling out “It is the Lord,” with a breakfast of fish and bread already waiting for them on the beach, Nathanael sees greater things brought about by the presence of Jesus!
The scene on the beach is tied to something else that happened before. Louise Lawson Johnson points us to a map. She notes: “A major theme is suggested by the geo-graphical location of this post-resurrection appearance by the Sea of Tiberias. Surely we are meant to associate this miracle with the one in John 6 where Jesus fed the five thousand by the Sea of Tiberias. The sub-stance of that meal was also bread and fish, and though the boy’s five barley loaves and two fish were not sufficient to feed the crowd, the disciples dis-covered that Jesus can trans-form insufficiency into abundance. Likewise we see that Jesus turns the disciples’ insufficient (make that, non-existent) catch into an abundant one”[iii]
In the sweep of the Gospel of John,
Gail O’Day finds another instance of “there Jesus goes again!” She links this
miracle of abundance on the last pages of the Gospel with the first miracle
story at its beginning, when Jesus turned
the water into wine at a wedding in Cana of Galilee. On that occasion, while the guests were apparently oblivious to a crisis averted by a miracle, his new-found followers saw what happened. The last line of that story says: “and his disciples believed in him.” The miracle at the wedding had a purpose larger than keeping the party going. The miracle on the Sea of Tiberias did too. Professor O’Day explains: “first and last revelatory acts in the Gospel narrative are both miracles of abundance in Galilee.”[iv] Their purpose was to inspire belief, to give faith a boost.
All three of these miracle stories
find Jesus providing more than enough. They underscore the belief that God will
always provide enough. You can’t talk
about God providing enough without remembering the wilderness wanderings of the
Hebrew children released from slavery in Egypt…where the manna came as a daily
gift…and enough had to be enough.
To trust God will send enough is the
inspiration that leads us to bring bags of food to be handed out on a Saturday
morning in Scranton…to fill boxes of groceries at the CEO warehouse, or stand
shoulder to shoulder downstairs slapping sandwiches together for hungry teens. When
the disciples hit the beach and found fish and bread already on the fire they
were invited to add to it from their catch. It is an invitation for us to do
the same and become part-ners in the work of God.
The story of that breakfast around a
charcoal fire has surfaced another “again” to contemplate. Peter finds himself beside a charcoal fire,
again. The last time he was at fireside was on the night Jesus was
arrested. Peter warmed himself by that
fire, and when those around it mentioned three times that he looked a lot like
the fellows who followed the man who was on trial inside, he vehemently denied
it.
Being around a fire again, the smell
of it triggering unpleasant memories, leads to a much, much bigger again for
Peter. After breakfast, Jesus and Peter have a conversation. With those nearby
finishing their breakfast, we are privileged to overhear it. Peter’s three-fold denial of Jesus on that
dark, dark night are replaced by a thrice repeated interrogation by Jesus in
the light of day, and by three challenges to serve.
Notice how it begins. Jesus doesn’t
call the fisherman by his nickname, Peter. Instead he addresses him the same
way he did when first they met: “Simon Son of John,” which someone at our Men’s
Breakfast the other morning pointed out was his legal name. Beyond that recall
a time as a child when someone wanted to get your full attention. I read
somewhere recently that “the sole purpose of a child’s middle name is so they
will know when they are really in trouble.”
When Jesus looks at him and calls
Simon Son of John, we’re watching as their relationship is healed. They’re starting
over.
“Simon son of John, do you love me
more than these?”
The
question is addressed to a man who in the Upper Room had made the claim that he
would stand with Jesus to the death, saying “I will lay down my life for
you.” But he had not. Now he’s given another chance as he answers:
“Lord, you know I love you.”
“Feed my lambs.”
“Simon son of John, do you love me?”
“Lord, you know I love you.”
“Tend my sheep.”
A third time Jesus asks the question, and the man being questioned is hurt, so he adds:
“Lord, you know everything; you know I
love you.”
“Feed my sheep.”
Peter will feed the lambs and tend the
flock, which as far back as the Old Testament is the description of what those
God calls to leadership are charged to do.
Simon Peter, the names reminiscent of who he had been and who he was
becoming, was again on the path to follow Jesus…
and in
the end, he would lay down his life for him.
Simon Peter is forgiven by Jesus.,
Simon Peter is once again entrusted
with the care and feeding of not just the little lambs, but the tough old sheep
as well.
Simon Peter is again invited to follow
Jesus.
Again and again and again darkness is
overcome by light; death is over-come by life; sinners are forgiven and called
to love and serve.
Again and again and again, we are asked the musical question we will sing in a moment: “Will you come and follow me?”[v] These are
words written by John Bell and his writing partner are set to the tune named
for Kelvingrove, one of the places we visited in Scotland.
We
have the rest of our lives to answer daily.
[i] Lisa D. Maugans Driver, Feasting on the Gospels, John, Volume 2, Chapters 10-21, (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2015), p. 332
[ii] ibid.,
[iii] Louise Lawson Johnson, Feasting on the Gospels, John, Volume 2, Chapters 10-21, (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2015), p. 334
[iv] Gail R. O’Day, The New Interpreter’s Bible, Vol. IX, (Nashville, TN, Abingdon Press, 1995), p. 856
[v] Hymn 726, Glory to God, Presbyterian Hymnal.
