May 4, 2025 sermon

Transcript>

Hey friends, as I mentioned in my other video this week, we are doing something unique on Sunday morning with the homily time, so you will not hear a standard reflection from me. That said, many of you have shared how meaningful my sermons are to you, so I want to offer a thought to get you through the week ahead. Our gospel passage this week is from the Gospel of St. John chapter 21, verses 1 through 19. We hear the story of Jesus helping the disciples fish, transforming their encounter with him through food, and calling Peter to be the leader and head of the church.

This is a rather unique passage in the Bible, because it comes from a final section of St. John's Gospel that appears to be a later addition to the original text. And yet, this possibility does not take away from a really provocative and powerful lesson about the importance of community, of leading, love, and frankly, paying attention. Best of all, it's a little lesson about fishing. I find fishing such an interesting element of the gospel tradition. I've been fishing from the time I was Anna's age, and I remember when I was about seven, I caught my first fish, a hulking 18-inch catfish that I could barely pull out of the water. When I got older, I would take trips with my maternal grandfather down to Shreveport to spend a few days fishing Caddo Lake, a bayou wetland straddling Louisiana and Texas. But my interests were always pulled in multiple directions, so I never became a serious fisherman who lived, breathed, and ate the sport. It was always at most an impassioned hobby. To be a serious fisherman, you have to have this almost otherworldly sense of dedication and fortitude.

Even the best fishermen in the world will have days and stretches of days with absolutely no reward to show for their efforts. It can be joyful and life-giving, but it can also be brutal and unforgiving. For most of the disciples, their experience of fishing was as a way of life. They did not have the luxury to be fair-weather anglers. For them, it was a life and livelihood. They didn't fish, they didn't eat, and their families didn't eat. At least that's what we presume from the gospel record. And yet eventually in strolls Jesus with a radically different way of life. He calls them and they leave everything to follow him. For some amount of time, their lives are lived away from the water and the throes of ecstasy at being by Jesus' side through the power and transformation of his earthly ministry. But then the unjust and devastating crucifixion and death.

And in the aftermath of such a horrid experience, it seems that they simply go back to their old ways of getting by, finding a place in the world through the hardscrabble struggle of fishing. Now, this isn't exactly right, because in chapter 20, we do see that Jesus is already resurrected and appearing to the disciples, but he's no longer consistently with them. He's coming in and out of their lives in ways that seem kind of elusive and slippery. Kind of fishy, or fish-like at least. And when that happens, like the frustrated hobbyist who can't catch a break, the disciples in this post-resurrection moment seem to struggle to keep their focus unless things are happening, unless Jesus is among them, showing clearly the incredible work his presence brings about in the world. This in and of itself is kind of an analogy for fishing. Trained anglers can spend long hours and days on end plying their trade even if it isn't bearing fruit in ways that far exceed the patience or attention span of us lesser mortals. And as fishers of men instead of fishermen, the disciples aren't really fully there yet, fully formed yet. They're getting distracted and sidetracked from the call that has been placed on their lives. Even Peter, the one ultimately given primacy, is distracted enough that he does not recognize Jesus until verse 7, when the beloved disciple exclaims, And this is the moment everything changes. Jesus meets them in their struggle, has pity on them, and transforms their experience into the new life to which they are called. These final four verses of our passage today show Jesus instilling in Peter that ultimate call, on his life that lasting transformation in which Peter will bring his attentiveness and concentration as a fisherman into his new calls the leader of the body of Christ on earth he will no longer bring meager and half-hearted focus to his work for the kingdom he will no longer be as easily distractible or inattentive to the presence of Christ in his life and the ministry that presence brings forth it will become his all-consuming passion and drive Now, I for one hope that this meant he still got his fair share of fishing.

But it no longer became the central focus of his life. His call as a disciple to disciple and lead others, to feed and lead the sheep, to build community in the name of the kingdom. That became his singular work for the rest of his life. Today, even in our joy and celebration of resurrection and new life, we too can often become easily distracted. How often, even today, does it feel like Jesus' presence can be slippery and elusive. We too can struggle to keep our focus unless things are happening. And even in community, we can fall back on our old ways, looking upon the task of discipleship as being too challenging, too tedious, too fleeting in its joy and reward. This season of Easter resurrection is our reminder that everything has changed. With the passing away of the old, we are not only renewed, but transformed for the greater work of the kingdom to which we are called. And that calling is not the same for all of us. Some of us may be leaders like Peter. Some of us may be inspirers like the beloved disciple, helping the leaders see Jesus. And some of us may be the others gathered around, finding our call in the power of the community and the transformation that the whole brings. because each of us live into our own part of that story. Each of these calls, all of the work together, is the work of being disciples of love, of feeding and tending each other in love, of being community in a way that keeps our focus and attention on Jesus, so that we are transformed together, and that we may likewise together transform the world.

Thank you, friends, for spending these few moments with me today. And blessings to you in this coming week ahead.