Rev. Eugene N. Nelson, Jr.
The Community Church of Sebastopol
March 27, 2005 Easter Sunday
John 21: 1-14
When I think back on our family vacations as I was growing up, one of the first things that comes to mind for me is breakfast. I always loved breakfast when we were traveling. We would go to a restaurant, you see, and could order anything: pancakes or waffles or eggs and sausage. Breakfast out was always a special meal. When we had breakfast in a restaurant, then I knew we were really on vacation. I suppose that what made breakfast out so special was that breakfast when we were home was hardly ever special at all. My father would leave early for work and for many years my mother worked outside the home, so breakfast was always rushed. It was usually a case of “what cereal would you like today and don’t put on too much sugar.” Breakfast at home was just so ordinary – except for those times when Mom would burn the toast, and open the back door and fling the blackened pieces of toast out into the yard. That was kind of fun. But usually, breakfast in our home was ordinary, not special in any way.
Which brings me to our text – a text about a certain breakfast. “Simon Peter said to them, ‘I am going fishing.’ They said to him, ‘we will go with you.’” So Peter and the other disciples get in their boats for a morning of fishing on the Sea of Galilee. Now, on one hand, this would not have been unusual. After all, they were fishermen; this was how they made a living. Except that, as they are climbing into their boats, it has now been a little over a week since that first Easter morning and in the Gospel of John they have already seen the risen Lord twice. But today it is back to work – business as usual. They have seen the risen Lord and in response they have returned home and gone back to work.
Now I realize that even as we worship here together on this Easter Sunday, there are a wide variety of beliefs about Easter and resurrection represented here today. But I ask you, if you had come face-to-face with a person resurrected from the dead, on two occasions no less, would you be able to go back home and go back to work as if nothing had happened? If you had been one of those first disciples, is this how you would have handled that first Easter? “Well, that certainly was interesting, but would you look at the time…I’m late for work!”
Eugene Peterson, New Testament scholar and pastor, notes that it just might be easier to deal with crucifixion than with resurrection. After all, most of us think of resurrection as something that happens to us after we die, when we are taken up into another world. But the resurrection of Jesus did not occur in some ideal future. It was here and it was now. So perhaps the trouble the disciples had with resurrection was not simply that someone had come back from the dead. The problem was that resurrection had moved from the future tense to present tense. Here is Jesus…now what are we going to do with him, or what is he going to do with us? It actually might have been easier on them if he would have just remained dead. Death – now that they knew how to deal with. But resurrection? New life? And so they returned to Galilee and went fishing. Says Peterson, “They needed to reinforce their grip on everyday reality. They had experienced a great shock, after all.” Only they weren’t trying to get over the trauma of death. They were trying to deal with the trauma of life, eternal life, resurrected life, new and challenging life, right there, among them.
In Morris West’s novel, The Shoes of the Fisherman, there is a great scene where the Pope goes through the one of the poorest sections of Rome incognito, wearing only a simple cassock and clerical collar. As he is walking along, the door of an apartment opens and a man rushes out. He runs into the Pope, almost knocking him down. The man apologizes, then catches sight of the cassock and says curtly, "There is a man dying up there. Maybe you can do more for him than I can. ” Who are you?” asks the Pope. “A doctor,” the man replies, “They never call me until it is too late.”
The Pope goes into the apartment and finds a man who is obviously near death. He is alone except for a young woman who is attending him. The Pope tries to talk to the man, but is unable to get any response. “It’s no use, Father,” the young woman says, “He is too far gone to hear you.” The Pope kneels to pray. Soon the man dies. The woman says, “We should go. Neither of us will be welcome now.”
He protests, saying, “I would like to help the family.” But she insists, “We must go.” Then she adds, in one of the novel’s classic lines, “They can cope with death. It’s only living that defeats them.”
Did I mention to you how ordinary breakfast was at our house? Still is, to tell you the truth, although Betty seldom bugs me about too much sugar on my cereal. And I suspect breakfast is not much different at your house. Few of our meals are more predictable, humdrum, ordinary than breakfast. We just want something to help us get up and get going in the morning. And so where does Jesus meet the disciples on the morning described in our text? On some high mountain? In a beautiful sanctuary? At a spiritual retreat? On the 17th tee? No, he meets them at breakfast – ordinary, routine, predictable breakfast. This may be the peculiar hope, glory and challenge of Easter. There, in ordinary Galilee, during an ordinary workday, he shares an ordinary meal with his disciples. This is where we meet the risen Christ, or more to the point of the story, where he meets us.
In Tale of St. Francis, Niklos Kazantzakis, tells this story: “Listen my children.” St. Francis said. “Each year at Easter I used to watch Christ’s resurrection. All the faithful would gather around His tomb and weep, beating on the ground to make it open. And behold! In the midst of our lamentations, the tombstone crumbled to pieces and Christ sprang from the earth and ascended to heaven… There was only one year I did not see him resurrected. That year a noted theologian, a graduate of the University of Bologna, came to us. He mounted the pulpit in church and began to elucidate the resurrection. He explained and explained until our heads began to swim; and that year the tombstone did not crumble and, I swear to you, no one saw the resurrection.”
Well, as a preacher, I almost didn’t share that story with you today. There is a warning here. How easy it is, how tempting it is, to explain and explain and explain until one has explained all the life out of Easter. Because, as mysterious as this day can be, it is not a day for explanations. The question of this day is not, “Do we believe in the doctrine of the resurrection?” You want to talk doctrine, make an appointment and we’ll talk about it all morning. That breakfast on the beach was not about doctrine. This day is not about belief, rather, the question asked by our text and by this day is “Have you encountered the risen Christ in your life, and how is that making a difference?” I mean, a lot of people today say they are believers, being a Christian is ‘in’. In fact I think it is a requirement now for working in Washington. A lot of people sat they are Christians. And then these “Christians” go out and say and do such terrible and nasty things, display a shocking intolerance. All of this makes me think that they really know nothing of Jesus and his compassion, his love, his inclusiveness and acceptance. They say they believe all the right things and they insist they have the truth, but they don’t seem to know Jesus and they certainly don’t know Easter.
Death we can deal with. Leaving Jesus in the tomb…that’s the easy way out. But life – his life – new life among us right now…that might demand some changes, some new expectations, new hopes, new ways of relating to the world. In the words of Craig Barnes, “Easter is the last thing we are expecting. And that is why it terrifies us. This day is not about bunnies, springtime, and girls in cute new dresses. This day is about more hope than we can handle.”
The story of that Easter breakfast on the beach does not record any great ethical instruction by Jesus. I can’t find anything there that we are supposed to go out and do tomorrow. But as one pastor has said: “This story is told to us as a kind of gracious promise. Because we will go back to Galilee, resume whatever it was we were doing before we came to Easter worship, take up our everyday, work-a-day duties. And that is where he promises to meet us. He comes to us, he calls us, feeds us, gathers us, strengthens us, is deeply, undeniably present to us. And in so doing, he redeems all of our lives, not just on Easter Sunday, but also on Easter Monday. Easter is so gloriously ordinary.”
One of my favorite Easter stories is the closing scene of Zorba the Greek. Zorba has invested all the boss’s money in building a slide designed to bring timber down the mountain to the community where it will be used to reinforce the walls of an old mine. And this restored mine, it is hoped, will then restore the economic life of the community. The whole village comes out to watch and celebrate on the day the first logs are scheduled to go down that slide. But everyone’s hopes are dashed when the huge logs caused the slide to collapse. They all leave in despair, leaving only Zorba and the boss. The boss talks dejectedly about now having to leave the village.
Zorba says, “Boss man, I’ve never loved a man as I love you, but there’s one thing you lack – a little madness to be free.” And the boss, who all along has been amazed by Zorba’s ability to live life so happily, just looks at him. Zorba stands up, looks at the ruined slide, and begins to laugh.
“Why are you laughing?” asks the boss.
Zorba replies, “Have you ever seen a more stupendous crash?”
To which the boss responds, “Zorba, will you teach me to dance?”
The story ends with the two men dancing and celebrating life at the site of their greatest failure. Today we celebrate One who is alive, who brings new life, and who can meet us in church in a beautiful Easter service, but who can also meet us, well, even at breakfast. And knowing that, believing that, we too, no matter what life brings, we too, can dare to dance.