Instructions folks received prior to worship: For worship today, please take a ‘fish’ with you. Share anything you wish that you are most grateful or joyful for in your life. During the message, we will have the opportunity to place these into the ‘net’ at the front. You will also have the opportunity to share your thoughts aloud during the service.
Today is Holy Humor Sunday, or Bright Sunday--a day in which we celebrate how God turned the tables on sin and death by raising Jesus from the dead. We have hymns about joy; we have an ice cream social later, and we have the opportunity to express those things in our own life for which we are most grateful or joyful.
In Easter, above all other times, God reverses the rules of nature--namely that the dead stay dead. In many ways, the forgiveness which Jesus preached and taught also reverses the rules of nature--even though these people who were closest to Jesus betrayed him and abandoned him at the time of his arrest and trial and death--Jesus has forgiven them!
And Jesus has a pretty good time doing it, too--and that’s what we see in this Gospel story of breakfast on the beach. The disciples don’t know what else to do with themselves, so they go out fishing. They’re on the boat all night, and catch nothing.
Then Jesus shows up, and gives them a little fishing advice, and they have so many fish that they can’t haul them all in. And Peter realizes it’s the Lord--and has to find some clothes because he’s fishing naked--(and it’s worth noting that where he’s fishing, is obviously warmer than Wisconsin)!
But that’s alright. By the time Peter and the other disciples get back to the shore, Jesus has the fire going and is cooking them breakfast.
Jesus has enough faith in his friends that even though they messed up, and are also crummy fishermen, he just wants to feed them. He takes joy in doing so. And then he's going to give them a new task-- they might even do better at it: fishing for people.
There is also in the Gospel story this somewhat puzzling interchange with Peter--”Feed my sheep.” Jesus has a special role for Peter, who had betrayed him. The disciples who were instructed to fish for people, are now also asked to feed lambs--to tend the young and raise them. This requires a great deal of trust. Yet, Jesus has restored the relationships and given them new purpose, to restore relationships between God and people, and among people themselves, wherever they may reach. It is a task that will certainly be messy, much like fishing or feeding sheep, but one that is deeply rooted in the joy of being loved and forgiven.
Feast or famine? [A Hands-On Activity]
This is an opportunity to write what you are most grateful or joyful for in your own life, and share it with one another. When you are ready, you may bring your fish forward and place it in the “net,” or one of the ushers will come and collect them for you. We see when all of them are gathered how abundant our joy is--something so important to remember in the midst of daily life when we worry about bills to pay or who’s fighting with who or any of the deeper difficulties in life as well. Where is our joy?
If you would like to take a moment and share your word or phrase, please do so.
(Pause)
We follow the Lord, by feeding his sheep, by tending his lambs, by hauling in an incredible amount of fish--both again messy tasks, but ones that can also bring incredible joy.
Before I finish, I want to remind you not only of Peter but of our other story this morning, of Saul, a persecutor of Christians, who becomes Paul, an apostle whose prolific letters and pastoral care kept up the churches all over the Mediterranean, and still give us hope today. God has a sense of humor in that. --God qualifies the least likely people to do incredible things.
God forgives us and continues to love us, and still has a place for us, no matter what we’ve done or been. God’s faith in us is rooted in joy. We have this reason to be joyful always!
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