SERMONS

John 21: 1-14
The Reverend Angela L. Ying
Bethany United Church of Christ

April 26, 2009

Have you ever had one of those days when no matter how hard you try, you come up short?

What do you do?

I’m sure we all have our own survival skills. Some healthy — as in getting some R and R, exercise and reading a book and some unhealthy.

For me, I walk, pray, connect with family and friends and go to a favorite fish market in Beacon Hill and get some fresh fish. Halibut for the halibut!

My grandmother taught me to how to tell a fish is fresh. Just like human beings, you can tell a fresh fish from one that is days old or old hat by the looking into fish’s eyes. If they are open and clear, it is fresh. But if the eyes are cloudy and a bit hazy, the fish is not fresh.

Sometimes, I forget this healthy learning and teaching and instead fall back on my old patterns, by choosing to go to the frozen section in the coop and purchasing frozen fish.

The frozen kind, does not push the boundaries, is familiar to me, and looks the same, not to mention, the fish do not stare right back at you.

But as the good news and gospel is proclaimed, we can find the courage to bring in fresh fish in our every day lives or partake in the lifeless, frozen kind that is familiar and known, with no unknowns, no wounds and no surprises.

In today’s scripture passage in the fourth gospel, the Gospel According to John — Simon Peter, who thinks he has pushed the boundaries as far as he can by following Jesus, decides to return to fishing.

“I’m going fishing,” Peter proclaims one day to the others with him. Out to lunch. Gone fishing.

He had done it before. He could do it again.

Peter loved fishing. He was good at it.

He had seen and heard his Lord and Savior Jesus Christ crucified.

He wanted to go back to his old patterns, and in a way, have things the way they were before he gave up fishing to be a follower of Jesus and one of Jesus’ disciples.

Play it safe — less to risk and to be afraid.

It hadn’t been easy being with Jesus.

In being in the presence of Jesus, one never quite knew what Jesus would do next.

Preach to the poor and call them, not the rich, blessed. Heal on the Sabbath against the known guidelines put out by the religious bureaucracy. Welcome the little children into the community as full human beings. Bring good news to the poor, proclaim release to the prisoners, recovery of sight to the blind and to let the oppressed go free.

Following Jesus had been more than a handful for Peter and the other disciples.

To go back to the simple and uncomplicated life of fishing — now, that sounded like the old Peter.

Peter not only goes back to fishing. He convinces the rest of his community to go fishing with him.

Get a little stability, if not security, back into their lives after experiencing both the highs and the lows of being with Jesus.

So, they went out, got into their familiar small boat.

But when they went fishing this time — strangely, enough, they caught nothing!

They caught not one fish!

Well, what do we make of that?

It’s as if once you and I have experience the life and death and resurrection of Jesus, we cannot go back to how you were before – even if you try.

Once your eyes are opened, you cannot close them without going through a lot of anger and denial.

All night they waited for a good catch.

All night they brazed the cool winds knowing that surely one or two fish would bite to save them from looking foolish or out of touch.

But nothing. Absolutely nothing. Not even one fish to remind the disciples that they still “have it” in them as before.

Then to make things worse, a stranger standing on the shore calls out: “Have you any fish?”

The answer: No.

Whispering to yourself, “Why, do you have any good ideas?”

And then something rather odd happens, as it always does when we are called to change our old patterns, our perspectives, our ways of life.

The stranger says, “Cast your net on the other side and you will find some.”

The OTHER side?

What for?

We do not know what is on the other side.

What does the stranger mean by saying, “cast the net on the other side and we will find some?”

Hey, does not the stranger know we have been doing this for some years. Shouldn’t we know what you are doing?

Besides, doesn’t the stranger know that he is talking to professional fishermen — trained to be fishers of people?

Who are you?

We’ve done this a million times. “Cast our net wide on the other side — what good will that do?”

It’s strange about faith in God.

You think you have a handle on things and as you start losing your grip, if not control, you get asked to do something very different and in a new way.

Has this ever happened to you?

It happens to me all the time.

I’m going along minding my own business and bang, someone in our community reminds me to keep casting God’s net wide — to try the other side.

As some of those disciples in the boat, I am tempted to respond, “No thanks. The risk of getting hurt is too high.”

For I have a hunch that if I were in that boat alone, after a night pulling out more frozen fish sticks because nothing new has come up … as the disciples, I would be tempted to get discouraged and head back to shore with no fish to show.

But thanks be to God, that you and I are not the only ones in the boat.

Amen!

Thanks be to God, we are in the boat riding the waves together with God.

How often, in this individualistic society, we forget that as people of faith, as part of a community of faith, we are not alone.

And that as people of faith, we are a part of the great and diverse body of Christ.

For I bet as Simon Peter was just about give up and turn the boat and head back, one of the disciples said, “Hey, what do we have to lose by casting our net wide?

“Why don’t we listen to the stranger and give it a try? We have been doing it our way and have caught nothing.”

Author, Frederick Buechner writes that “faith is better understood as a verb than as a noun — better understood as a process than as a possession. Faith is on-again-off-again rather than once-and-for-all. Faith is not being sure where you are going, but going anyway.”

You ever wonder what would have happened to God’s church if they had decided not to cast their net on the other side.

Well, Peter and the other disciples in that boat decide that casting the net wide may not be such a bad idea.

So, together, not alone, they cast the net wide on the OTHER side.

The side they have never been to. The side of the unknown. The side that does not look like what they had in the past. The side that says, “trust the God who give us courage to jump in again.”

The disciples follow the stranger’s voice, and now, unlike yesterday, they are not able to haul the net in because there are so many fish. One hundred fifty three, scripture says, to represent every kind of fish.

Knowing that no one but God can do this, the beloved disciple of Jesus immediately says to Peter, “It is the Christ!” For the disciple knew that without the grace of the God who gives us courage to jump in, we can do nothing.

Peter comes to his senses that it is Jesus Christ who has done this.

And instead of remaining codependent and feeling sorry for himself and the others with him in the boat — we see a change come over Peter who dares to jump into the water again — with all his clothes on, as the others bring in the net!

Cast your net wide, Jesus told his disciples.

I wonder what happens when we remind one another to keep casting God’s net wide?

I wonder what would happen if as a nation, we started to see the people in Iraq as a part of the larger international community, interwoven in our lives, rather than as seeing them as bait?

I wonder what would happen if this country would see the importance of universal health care for all people.

Casting your net wide takes faith, courage and as the disciples discovered, a whole lot of every day practice.

For fear can get in the way. Fear of failure, fear of what others may think of us, fear of letting go of the past to live in the present, fear that stops us as individuals and as a community from casting our net on the OTHER side, as the resurrected Christ calls us to.

Last week, an unemployed, unglamorous, unfashionable, unmarried church volunteer, Miss Susan Boyle, age 47, confounded a multitude of stereotypes by unveiling her gorgeous singing voice on “Britain’s Got Talent”.

In front of judges who were prepared for something and someone else, Susan Boyle sang “I Dreamed a Dream” from Les Miserables, which she dedicated to her late mother, leaving the judges and everyone gathered wowed.

“I dreamed a dream in time gone by. When hope was high and life worth living. I dreamed that love would never die. I dreamed that God would be forgiving …”

Susan Boyle lives in the small village of Blackburn in Scotland with her 10 year old cat, Pebbles. She is the youngest of nine children.

Calling herself, “frumpy”, Susan did not have a chance to sing professionally, because she cared for her sick mother who recently died at the age of 91.

But strangely enough, it was her dying mother, who told Susan that it was time she went out and found her own voice. To cast her net on the OTHER side.

How scary is that?

Very.

And yet, what the world heard come from Susan’s voice was someone who, despite all odds, did not choose to blame others for her situation or spend time whining about it as a good victim. If there was unprocessed anger or resentment, we would have heard it in her voice.

No.

With the God who gives us courage to jump in again, Susan took the risk to cast her net on the OTHER side.

The side that was unfamiliar to her. The side she had never experienced before.

The side that has more questions than answers, more unanswered prayers than straight forward, pat answers.

The side where you know you are not in control. The side that requires risk.

The side where you let the God who gives you courage to jump in … on life

In March of 2001, our own Bruce Hanson, who stands and sings this Sunday morning, was in a serious skiing accident while one of his daughters witnessed it all. In a split second on the mountain, everything changed.

At the time, his family was told that Bruce had over a ninety percent chance that he might never walk again — perhaps, paralyzed from the waist down.

The doctor told his wife, Kate, that she should not be hopeful.

But with the God who gives us courage to jump in again, how can we lose hope.

Without missing a beat, one of the daughter’s responds: “He can still hug us.”

Day 2 — No change.

Day 3 – Trouble breathing. “He can’t move, can’t sit up, can’t roll over, can’t lift his head … and he can hardly breathe.”

Days and weeks go by with little if no change.

The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. often said, “We must accept finite disappointment, but we must never lose infinite hope.”

Day 2088 Bruce helps his daughter, who had witnessed him fall and injure his spinal cord, get her ski boots on and the two think of skiing together again — for by the grace of God, as Bruce’s wife, Kate writes, “Some things are unbreakable.”

As we grow God’s dynamic, intergenerational congregation in south Seattle called Bethany Church, will we cast our net on the OTHER side, as Jesus says?

Will you jump ship, when we are disappointed that things are not as you want them to be? Or will we, together, as a community, follow the God who gives us courage to jump in … again, from the other side!

Only one brings in the fresh fish!