On abundant fish, crumbs, and God's unbreakable net - Sermon for 3rd Sunday of Easter (5 May 2019)

3^rd Sunday of Easter

Lutheran Church of the Redeemer, Jerusalem

The Rev. Carrie Ballenger

John 21:1-19

Abundant bread outside Damascus Gate, Sunday 5 May 2019

On abundant fish, crumbs, and God's unbreakable net

Alleluia, Christ is risen! Christ is risen indeed, alleluia!

Dear friends, Christ is risen, He is risen indeed, and for the next several weeks the church continues to celebrate that the power of resurrection life has triumphed over the powers of sin and death. For this reason, today we hear Christians throughout the city of Jerusalem continue to greet one another with the ancient greeting in Arabic: 

Al Masih kam! Hakkan kam!

The tomb is empty, and we proclaim with joy that by dying Our Lord has destroyed death, and by rising he has granted us eternal life, and still we recognize that the world does not yet live in the fulness of that Good News. As Archbishop Desmond Tutu wrote, “Goodness is stronger than evil, love is stronger than hate, light is stronger than darkness, and love is stronger than death” – and yet:

on Easter morning hundreds of Christians were murdered in Sri Lanka;

on the last day of Passover a US synagogue was attacked, with one member killed and others wounded;

since Easter Sunday we have commemorated both the Holocaust and the Armenian genocide;

this weekend, as Ramadan is just beginning, hundreds of airstrikes have been launched between Israel and Gaza, killing both Palestinians and Israelis;

and it’s only two months ago that we were mourning the loss of 51 Muslim worshippers at 2 mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand.

It’s all just…too much.  

Too much killing. Too much hatred. Too much cancer. Too much corruption. Too much occupation, for far too many years.

The world and its pain and chaos, especially our shared human capacity to hurt one another—it stretches us. It stretches our patience, it stretches our belief in a better world to come, indeed it can stretch our ability to believe in the power of Resurrection.

And so, we retreat.

When we feel stretched beyond our limits, we find comfort zones—places and political positions, ideologies and even theologies which make us feel safe and certain. We find ways to make sense of the ugliness of the world, and of God. And often we find, or create, safety nets.

Hear these words again from this morning’s reading from the Gospel according to John, when the Risen Jesus appeared to the disciples on the beach:

  When they had gone ashore, they saw a charcoal fire there, with fish on it, and bread. Jesus said to them, “Bring some of the fish that you have just caught.” So 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. Jesus said to them, “Come and have breakfast.”

At the end of holy communion a few weeks ago, my colleague Jeni’s finger gently swiped the full circle of the Armenian-style plate we use as a paten, gathering up the last miniscule bits of communion bread left there. She deposited them into my outstretched palm saying, “Carrie, these are so much more than crumbs. This is the Body of Christ, broken for you.”

“Thanks be to God,” I said, as I took a healthy gulp of wine and covered the empty paten, along with the other vehicles of grace gathered on the altar. Communion was over, and all had been fed. This was, in itself, a miracle, as I had been breaking the Body of Christ into smaller and smaller portions as people kept coming, and coming, and coming to the table that Sunday morning.

The 9 a.m. worship service was packed to the rafters—literally—with standing room only in the balcony and lots of violation of personal space in the pews below. Even so, we sang “Beautiful Savior” (in harmony!). We shared the peace in many languages. We heard the story of Mary and her abundant, audacious love, poured out for Jesus in gratitude for raising her brother Lazarus and in anticipation of what he was about to do as they entered Jerusalem.

And we received communion—Jesus’ Body and Blood, abundantly poured out for us in, with, and under the bread and the wine.

In fact, that word – ABUNDANCE—seemed to leap from my heart the whole morning. There was nothing meager about that gathering. An abundance of guests. Abundant smiles. Abundant tears (from some). Abundant music. Abundant love. And—abundant bread, even when I began to doubt there would be. It was enough, more than enough. Enough for all, as it always is.

Love, shared extravagantly, multiplies extravagantly.

At least, that’s what I said in my sermon that morning. That’s what I hoped—along with my worship assistants—to model in the service that day.

But then…

Three people into the greeting line after the service, I was met at the door of this 12^th century  chapel by a man wearing a large golden cross and carrying an open Bible. “I have a question for you,” he said, with a smile that seemed to emanate from a place where smiles aren’t generally born.

“I have a question,” he repeated, and stepped around to my side so he could speak directly into my ear. “What do you believe about gay marriage?”

My ear grew hot and my face flushed as my hand continued to shake the hands of 50, 100, 150 happy guests.

Believe me, I tried to stay in the “abundant love” zone. I tried to think of what my friends would say (Remember, “Nolite te bastardes carborondorum, Carrie. Don’t let the bastards grind you down!”) but there he was, not stopping with the words. He was saying:

“Romans. Leviticus. Men and men. Women and women. Abomination. The WHOLE MESSAGE OF GOD.”

And then, just like that, I was done.

I let go of the hand I was shaking and turned to the voice in my ear to say:

“NO. Don’t tell me that the WHOLE MESSAGE OF GOD is about who is sleeping with whom. Did you listen to my sermon? Did I not just place bread in your hand and raise a cup to your lips? What did that mean to you?”

Not my best pastoral moment, perhaps! Having viewed this icy interaction, a few folks in the greeting line made their way quietly past us to the table of hot tea.

The man with the open Bible and I shared a silent moment of eye contact.

Then he raised the book to the level of my face and said: “I see. So you DON'T actually believe in the Gospel.” Then he slammed it shut so close to my nose that I could feel the little “whoosh” of air as the pages made contact. And he exited the church.

Crumbs.

Crumbs are all I received of holy communion that day. And yet I had been fed, filled, satisfied, and nourished by the abundant love of God in Christ Jesus. I knew that those tiny crumbs held the whole of God’s love for us, and for me. I’m so thankful.

And I can’t help but feel that this man, with his shiny golden cross and tasteful leather Bible, could have used a few more of those crumbs.

Maybe all he’s ever been fed are giant loaves of dogma. Day-old breadsticks of judgment. Crusty stale croutons of institutional statements.

Listen, I don’t know his story at all. But maybe the world and its sorrows have simply stretched him too far.

Maybe he has felt the awful sting of hatred for who he is, or for who he loves.

Maybe he has been targeted for his religion, for his skin color, for his gender.

Maybe for these or other reasons, he worries there just can’t be a net large enough, wide enough, strong enough, to hold love and grace abundant enough not only for him but also for me, and for you, and for the bounty of other fish in the sea—gay ones and straight ones, protestant and catholic ones, Israeli and Palestinian ones, ones who vote and live and love like him, and those who vote and live and love differently from him.

And so, he created a safety net. He found refuge in a way of reading the Bible and understanding God which guarantees that most stay outside the net—and which keeps the net small and manageable.

But Jesus said: “Bring some of the fish that you have just caught.” So 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. Jesus said to them, “Come and have breakfast.”

Though there were so many, the net was not torn!

The world has taught us there is seemingly no limit to our human capacity to hurt, to hate, and to divide. And yet, as much as we stretch the limits of God’s love and patience, God’s love for us is greater. The cross of Christ and the empty tomb of Easter teach us we don’t need to be afraid that the net of God’s love for the world will tear or break. We don’t need to worry about the net’s size or its strength or its capacity. Your worst failing, your greatest secret, your biggest fear, even death itself, is held safely within its grasp, is redeemed in its embrace.

So we are not called to create safety nets.

We are called only to trust. We are called to trust God with the entire load of the world’s sins, including ours. And…we are invited to follow.

We are invited to follow Jesus to the shore, follow him to breakfast, follow him on the road to peace based on justice, follow him on the path of reconciliation and forgiveness, follow him in proclaiming abundant love to all who hunger for it.

Dear friends, I finished writing this sermon early yesterday. In the afternoon, I learned the news of the untimely death the same day of Rachel Held Evans, a Christian author whose books kept so many connected to Jesus and to the church. Rachel once wrote:

“This is what God’s kingdom is like: a bunch of outcasts and oddballs gathered at a table, not because they are rich or worthy or good, but because they are hungry, because they said yes. And there’s always room for more.”

Though there were so many, the net was not torn.

You know, I really wish that man with the golden cross and open Bible would come back to church. If he were to return, I would take that beautiful Armenian-style paten from the altar and would wipe the edges with my finger. I would scoop up every last crumb and place them in his hand in love saying, “Brother, this is the WHOLE Body of Christ, broken for YOU, and for me.”

Thanks be to God for such crumbs. Thanks be to God for such abundance.

Thanks be to God for Jesus, and for the expansive net of love and grace he casts out among us—strong enough, wide enough, secure enough for all.

Alleluia, Christ is risen! Christ is risen indeed, alleluia!