I find the lectionary tradition designating the Fourth Sunday of Easter “Good Shepherd Sunday” odd. I don’t get interrupting the flow of resurrection appearance stories with Jesus’ pre-Passion “I am the good shepherd” discourse. We're not done with Easter! So this week, we will explore the post-resurrection fish fry in Water Daily land and at the Christ Churches.
Clergy and church musicians often take a vacation in the weeks after Easter – I managed a whole three days this year. We’re actually in good apostolic tradition – Jesus’ disciples did the same thing:
After these things Jesus showed himself again to the disciples by the Sea of Tiberias; and he showed himself in this way. Gathered there together were Simon Peter, Thomas called the Twin, Nathanael of Cana in Galilee, the sons of Zebedee, and two others of his disciples. Simon Peter said to them, “I am going fishing.” They said to him, “We will go with you.”
Maybe they went fishing as a way of getting out of Dodge – they’d been holed up in that house for fear of arrest since Jesus’ death. And that anxiety was amplified by the weirdness of Jesus’ resurrection self showing up here and there when they least expected him. Maybe they wanted to get back home to Galilee, to feel safer, relax a little.
Or was “going fishing” code for “the old life?” Were Peter and the others going back to what they’d known before Jesus came along and said, “Follow me, away from your nets – I will teach you to fish for people?” Were they giving up the mission for which they’d trained? Maybe they thought he’d come back to pick up the work again. Or maybe they were too mystified, and too drained, to do anything but something they were good at.
Whatever their motivation, it was a very human response to a time of not knowing what comes next. They were in a transition time; Jesus would soon give them clearer instructions and then ascend into heaven, after which there would be another waiting period before the power of the Holy Spirit came upon them. But they didn’t know this was a transition. Maybe it was the end. We often don’t know we’re in transition – sometimes it just feels like we’re in limbo. Emerging from this year of pandemic and bitter conflict and lockdown can feel like that.
In your life right now, are you in a time of settledness, or transition, or limbo? Do you know which it is? Where is God in this time? It’s okay to ask – “Lord, how do you want me to use my gifts? Where are you calling me to make you known?” It might be in the same places and ways, and it might be in new ones. And always we can ask Jesus to be discernibly present with us in the not-fully-knowing.
Not-fully-knowing is where we live in this life. In times of grief or confusion, going off to do something relaxing, something we’re good at, can be the best response. And sometimes, like Peter and the gang, we discover we’re no longer so good at that thing – we have been re-purposed. And then we have to wait to be sent.
No comments:
Post a Comment