This sermon was preached on May 4, the third Sunday of Easter, at the Church of the Good Shepherd in Augusta, GA where I serve as rector.
God on high, hear our prayer.
In our need, you have always been there.
Bring us your peace, bring us your joy, be with us. Amen.
Case and I were in Columbia yesterday to see our all-time favorite musical: Les Mis. While God did not see fit to give me the ability to carry a tune or sing consistently in any recognizable key, he did give me the gift of an opinion. I am a Les Mis aficionado, a connoisseur of the musical, a devotee of 24601. Here are my “nerd” credentials:
Back in the 1900’s, I owned multiple CD recordings from numerous productions.
I can rank my top 5 favorite Valjeans and Javerts of all time.1
I am vehemently opposed to the abominating sacrilege that was Hugh Jackman and Russell Crowe’s film, also known as “The time Australia ruined Les Mis.”
Les Mis follows the intertwining story of two characters: Jean Valjean and Inspector Javert. It is the kind of tale we all love: good and evil, light and dark, grace and sin, gospel and law.
Valjean worked 19 years of hard labor for stealing a loaf of bread.2
Can you imagine the sentence for stealing a dozen eggs?
As the law’s representative, Javert warns Valjean not to forget him in his parole.
Valjean experiences a new birth after robbing a compassionate bishop. The agéd cleric offers forgiveness rather than condemnation;
Mercy rather than vengeance;
Grace rather than judgment.
Valjean is “raised out of darkness,” his soul “bought for God,” he is redeemed. Leaving behind his life of sin and shame, he becomes grace’s representative.
Despite this transformation, Javert will stop at nothing to catch and convict his nemesis for breaking his parole. His “duty is to the law” and he “swears by the stars” that he will “never rest” until Vajlean is “safe behind bars.” Javert relentlessly pursues his foe. Like Roy Kent from Ted Lasso, “he’s here, he’s there, he’s everywhere.”
But there’s a plot twist: in his decades-long pursuit of Valjean, Javert hasn’t noticed that the representative of grace begins to stalk him! My, how the empty tables have turned.
In musical theatre, a reprise3 is a technique re-presenting and recalling tunes and lyrics used earlier in the show but slightly altered, emotionally charged. A reprise invites you to think, “Wait a second, we’ve been here before…but now it’s different.”
Valjean’s shame-soliloquy is recalled by Javert’s suicide-soliloquy;
Fantine’s death-bed plea of “come to me” is powerfully recast when Fantine and Eponine sing “come with me” to Valjean before his death;
The two candlesticks graciously given by the bishop sit on Valjean’s desk as he writes his last confession.
Like Victor Hugo, John the beloved disciple is a master storyteller. Our resurrection story from John’s biography of Jesus is replete with reprisals. The beauty of this final story is found in the details which John is intentionally reprising for his readers.
This is Jesus’ fourth resurrection appearance in John. He first appeared to Mary in the Garden, he then appeared to the disciples behind closed doors, and then to the artist formerly known as Thomas-the-doubter.
Now, after all that, we find 7 disciples fishing on the Sea of Galilee.
This grouping of 7 is interesting:
You have Peter, James, and John (duh);
Then you get Thomas the doubter-turned-faither;
There’s Nathaniel whose tweet didn’t age well when he said, “Nothing good can come from Nazareth.”
I think the two unnamed disciples are Philip and Andrew. It appears that John is regathering the disciples whom Jesus has called directly in his gospel. Philip originally told Nathaniel to “come and see” Jesus the Messiah. Andrew was called to follow Jesus at the same time as his brother, Peter.
We aren’t entirely sure why they are there – John doesn’t tell us – but we might be able to guess the reason with a question…
What do you do when your world is turned upside down?
The disciples have been rocked and riveted first by Jesus’ brutal execution and then by his miraculous resurrection. Their world has been “changed with just one burst of light.”
Perhaps they go fishing to regain a sense of normal or to find peace in the familiar.
Remember how after the hurricane we all wanted “a return to normal?”
Say what you will, but resurrection isn’t normal…
“Christ is risen…so what next?”
Apparently the “next” thing to do is go fishing.
Peter is the leader of this deep sea fishing expedition. Peter reprises his role as a fisher – the same role he had when Jesus said “follow me” in the earliest lines of John’s gospel.
After a long night catching no fish and no z’s, Jesus appears on the shore.
Only they don’t know it’s Jesus.
All they hear is heckles from the peanut gallery: Little boys, have you no fish?!
And then he follows it up with a suggestion: Try it on the other side of the boat!
You would assume that the sailors would scoff at the stranger’s suggestion to let down their net on the other side as though they haven’t done that already. Half of them were professional fishermen. But they don’t argue. Desperate for even the tiniest tilapia, they do as they’re told and the result is miraculous. The nets are straining, the boats are struggling, the catch is abundant and bountiful.
And John realizes it’s Jesus.
This is the second time Jesus has taught them how to fish.
The catch was so great the first time that the nets broke.
This time the nets hold because the resurrection changes everything.
Our Collect today tells us that Jesus was made known in “the breaking of the bread.” This recounts Jesus’ walk on the road to Emmaus with two disciples. He is revealed to them only when he breaks the bread. Here, however, Jesus is seen and known through the keeping of his word. Bread will be broken later in the story, but the realization comes at the miraculous catch.
A stranger called out from the shore to fishermen with instructions.
They responded with faith and their lives were changed.
Now he calls again from the shore to fishermen with instructions.
They respond with faith and their lives are changed even further.
Do you see what John is doing?!
Jesus reprises his original calling to Peter, Andrew, James, and John.
It is the recapitulation of Jesus’ promise to “make them fishers of men”;
It recalls his word that “the harvest is plentiful but the laborers are few.”
Peter wastes no time in getting to Jesus. The boat can’t make it ashore quickly enough so he jumps ship – plenty of splash, Captain – and does the Peter paddle in record time.
Jesus waits on the beach with a breakfast of fish and bread on the fire.
And that little detail is overflowing with rich meaning:
The word for fire here is anthrakia and it specifically means a charcoal fire. The only other time a charcoal fire is mentioned in John is the fire which Peter used to warm himself while denying Jesus three times.
A charcoal fire would obviously evoke feelings of shame and disgrace. Peter’s worst memory, his living nightmare, is brought back to his mind instantly by the power of smell, the weight of sin.
Bread and fish show up another time in John’s narrative. John presented us with a mission: impossible as Jesus fed a crowd of over 5,000 with only 5 loaves of bread and 2 fish.
You’ll recall that it’s Philip and Andrew who take center stage in that story – the two unnamed disciples in this story. In faith, bread and fish are provided. By the power of God in Christ, they become bountiful food for everyone gathered.
Jesus abundantly provided food for the crowd out of his compassion;
Jesus abundantly provides forgiveness for Peter out of his compassion.
What do you need Jesus to abundantly provide for you out of his compassion?
With the table quite literally set, Jesus asks Peter the same question three times: Simon, son of John, do you love me?
Jesus’ three questions recalls Peter’s three denials.
Peter feels his shame inside him like a knife after the third question.
But through Jesus, sins are forgiven, shame is wiped away, all is made right. Let me say that again for anyone who needs to hear it: Through Jesus, sins are forgiven, shame is wiped away, all is made right.
This isn’t a forgiveness story or reconciliation tale, however. It is a reinstitution, restoration, and redemption story. It is a reprise, a re-commissioning for ministry. As C.S. Lewis so masterfully describes it in The Last Battle of The Chronicles of Narnia: Jesus invites Peter to go further up, further in.
The Good Shepherd tells Peter what to do based on his love:
Feed my lambs. Tend my sheep. Feed my sheep.
The calling of Peter in that moment is to act as an undershepherd to the Great Shepherd, to perform the tasks that a shepherd would on behalf of the One who is the true Shepherd. This is nothing new, it is simply transformed by grace through the resurrection.
Remember, Peter was called to become a “fisher of men”;
He watched Jesus’ baptism in the Jordan;
He witnessed the healing of his mother in law;
He said, “You are the Messiah, the Son of God”;
He walked on water;
He saw the Empty Tomb.
Peter had seen a lot, been taught a lot, learned a lot, and now he is invited to take the next step.
Jesus reiterates his call to Peter and to us: follow me.
The task of making disciples can only happen when you are a disciple yourself. You can only invite others to follow Jesus when you are following him.
In their penultimate confrontation, Valjean does the unspeakable: he forgives Javert, saving the life of the man who has been so determined to bring about his downfall and demise. Valjean tells Javert: there are no conditions, no bargains or petitions, nothing that he blames him for. He gave him his life, he gave him freedom. It is the enactment of grace.
There is an explicit invitation: accept forgiveness or reject it.
In the “Epilogue” or final song, at least 5 other songs are reprised as Valjean breathes his last and enters into his heavenly glory, led hand in hand by Fantine and Eponine and embraced by the Bishop who saved him all those years ago.
But then something unique happens. It’s as though the fourth wall, the invisible barrier separating audience from performers, is torn down and the ensemble addresses the audience directly: will you join in our crusade?
There is an explicit invitation: join us or reject it.
Our lessons today did the same thing. The fourth wall is torn down and God invites us through these lessons to follow him.
We read about the conversion of Saul;
The calling of Ananias;
The commissioning of Peter;
The charging of the disciples.
As they were beckoned further up, further in, so too are we beckoned further up, further in.
This “going further” can look different for different people.
For some, it means responding to Jesus’ gracious call to follow him for the first time. Jesus constantly called to least likely people: a Pharisee who arrested Christians; four fishermen who lacked education; a tax collector; someone who would hand him over to death…need I go on?
It doesn’t matter what you’ve done, where you’ve been, or how hard you’ve pushed against Jesus in the past…he’s calling you.
Saul was baptized and he became Paul, he followed Jesus and gossiped the good news with everyone he met.
For others it means a call to ordination. I firmly believe that we have multiple generations of clergy sitting in our pews right now…they just haven’t been ordained yet. And I’m not even including Lynn Tyson in that number! I know of two boys who are under the age of 10 who feel called to the priesthood, I know that there are women and men in this room whom God is calling to serve him as a deacon or a priest. You may be feeling your heart stirring right now as I even say that – don’t ignore it! Put your nets down on the other side. If you think that *might* be you, I invite you to pray into it, lean into it, and talk with someone about it…my door is always open.
Those are the two extremes: first time faith in Jesus and ordination…for everyone else in between, Jesus is inviting you to go further through a robust lay ministry. It means engaging in Bible Study; it may mean taking on a leadership position in a ministry; it may mean moving from irregular to regular church attendance or plugging into one of our many ministries. The beauty of the good news is that you can always go further.
Notice how Jesus meets Peter in his shame;
How he meets Saul in his persecution;
How he meets Ananias in his prejudice.
Jesus meets you where you are;
He calls you to lay down your burdens.
Lay down the sin and shame;
Lay down your fears and failures;
Lay down your need for control and self-reliance;
Lay them all down and then follow him further up, further in.
The resurrection forces us to ask the question: now what? And then invites us to realign our lives around that reality. Good Shepherd, will you join me as we go further up, further in with Christ and his Kingdom?
NOTES
1. Valjean: John Owen Jones, Colm Wilkinson, Ramin Karimloo, Nick Cartell, Alfie Boe.
Javert: Philip Quast, Michael Ball, Terrance Mann, Nick Rehberger, Jeremy Secomb.
2. 5 years for stealing and “the rest because you tried to run.”
3. In classical music this may be known as recapitulation.
Porter C. Taylor 