Breakfast on the Beach

Bloomsbury Central Baptist Church

9 October 2016 11.00am

Listen to this sermon here:
https://soundcloud.com/bloomsbury-1/simon-woodman-meals-of-jesus-series-4

John 21.1-17

After these things Jesus showed himself again to the disciples by the Sea of Tiberias; and he showed himself in this way.  ² 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.  ³ Simon Peter said to them, "I am going fishing." They said to him, "We will go with you." They went out and got into the boat, but that night they caught nothing.  ⁴ Just after daybreak, Jesus stood on the beach; but the disciples did not know that it was Jesus.  ⁵ Jesus said to them, "Children, you have no fish, have you?" They answered him, "No."  ⁶ He said to them, "Cast the net to the right side of the boat, and you will find some." So they cast it, and now they were not able to haul it in because there were so many fish.  ⁷ That disciple whom Jesus loved said to Peter, "It is the Lord!" When Simon Peter heard that it was the Lord, he put on some clothes, for he was naked, and jumped into the sea.  ⁸ But the other disciples came in the boat, dragging the net full of fish, for they were not far from the land, only about a hundred yards off.  ⁹ When they had gone ashore, they saw a charcoal fire there, with fish on it, and bread.  ¹⁰ Jesus said to them, "Bring some of the fish that you have just caught."  ¹¹ 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.  ¹² Jesus said to them, "Come and have breakfast." Now none of the disciples dared to ask him, "Who are you?" because they knew it was the Lord.  ¹³ Jesus came and took the bread and gave it to them, and did the same with the fish.  ¹⁴ This was now the third time that Jesus appeared to the disciples after he was raised from the dead.  ¹⁵ When they had finished breakfast, Jesus said to Simon Peter, "Simon son of John, do you love me more than these?" He said to him, "Yes, Lord; you know that I love you." Jesus said to him, "Feed my lambs."  ¹⁶ A second time he said to him, "Simon son of John, do you love me?" He said to him, "Yes, Lord; you know that I love you." Jesus said to him, "Tend my sheep."  ¹⁷ He said to him the third time, "Simon son of John, do you love me?" Peter felt hurt because he said to him the third time, "Do you love me?" And he said to him, "Lord, you know everything; you know that I love you." Jesus said to him, "Feed my sheep.”

Ezekiel 47.1, 6-12

⁶ Then he brought me back to the entrance of the temple; there, water was flowing from below the threshold of the temple toward the east (for the temple faced east); and the water was flowing down from below the south end of the threshold of the temple, south of the altar.

He said to me, "Mortal, have you seen this?" Then he led me back along the bank of the river.  ⁷ As I came back, I saw on the bank of the river a great many trees on the one side and on the other.  ⁸ He said to me, "This water flows toward the eastern region and goes down into the Arabah; and when it enters the sea, the sea of stagnant waters, the water will become fresh.  ⁹ Wherever the river goes, every living creature that swarms will live, and there will be very many fish, once these waters reach there. It will become fresh; and everything will live where the river goes.  ¹⁰ People will stand fishing beside the sea from En-gedi to En-eglaim; it will be a place for the spreading of nets; its fish will be of a great many kinds, like the fish of the Great Sea.  ¹¹ But its swamps and marshes will not become fresh; they are to be left for salt.  ¹² On the banks, on both sides of the river, there will grow all kinds of trees for food. Their leaves will not wither nor their fruit fail, but they will bear fresh fruit every month, because the water for them flows from the sanctuary. Their fruit will be for food, and their leaves for healing."

Revelation 22.1-2

Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, bright as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb  ² through the middle of the street of the city. On either side of the river is the tree of life with its twelve kinds of fruit, producing its fruit each month; and the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations.

Let me tell you a bit about Simon:

He's always full of bright ideas,

          which seem to him, in the moment that he has them,

                   to be brilliant and compelling;

          and he can’t quite understand why everyone else

                   doesn't follow his lead immediately.

Experience has shown him that more often than not he's on the money

          with whatever insight or idea has just popped into his head,

but that just sometimes he's heading off down a dead end,

          and will need to back track to get back on the right course again.

But that doesn't stop the ideas coming,

          and it doesn’t make him any less enthusiastic about today’s big plan.

The thing you need to know about Simon,

          is that what it is that he's doing now, is never enough,

                    and so he's always running on ahead in his mind

                   to what comes next.

And another thing: Simon likes to perform,

          he likes to do well, and to be seen to be a leader,

          or at least at the centre of things.

And actually, he does very well in most things he turns his hand to,

          and he ends up as the leader of a significant church.

But there’s a brittleness there that it can be hard to spot at first glance:

          the competent confident veneer

                   hides a fear of failure that can be all consuming,

          because deep down, Simon is afraid

                   that he can only be loved for what he does,

                   and not for who he is.

And so he needs to learn that being is more important than doing,

          and even though he is often successful in what he does,

                   and even though the Lord is with him

                   in many of his projects and ideas,

          sometimes he has to learn to let go of all the effort,

                   to relax, and discover that he is loved

                   not for what he does but for who he is.

Does this sound like anyone you know?

I’m talking, of course, about Simon Peter in John’s gospel.

          And any similarity to anyone else, living or dead,

                   is purely coincidental.

In today’s sermon we come to the last in our series

          looking at the meals of Jesus,

          which has taken us on our journey up to and through harvest.

And we have seen how Jesus disrupted power structures

          by eating with the wrong kind of people,

          and by sitting people in the wrong places at the table,

          and by allowing the wrong kind of activities to take place around the table.

But today’s meal, the breakfast on the beach

          with just a handful of disciples,

          is a different kind of story.

Here we meet Jesus in a far less public, and more intimate setting.

          Just him and some of his friends,

                    quietly having some fish and bread

                    early one morning on the shore of the sea of Galilee.

We don’t even know the names of all those present,

          but there’s surely some significance in the fact that there are seven of them,

                   because this is John’s gospel, and the way he writes,

                   the little details always carry levels of significance beyond the obvious.

So if seven is the Jewish number of perfection,

          then the seven friends who sit on a beach with Jesus,

          are probably to be understood as in some way representative

          of all those who would be Jesus’ followers.

And here, immediately, with this little clue,

          we start to find ourselves invited into the world of this story.

If the seven friends on the beach stand for all disciples,

          then they stand for us.

And we are invited, in our imaginations,

          to begin to picture ourselves sat on the beach with Jesus,

                    perhaps as one of the unnamed disciples,

          whose identity has been omitted by the author

                    so we can fill the gap with our own face.

Or perhaps we see ourselves as one of the named disciples,

          maybe Simon Peter, or doubting Thomas.

Maybe we see in their reaction to Jesus,

          an echo of our own personality,

          of our own response to Jesus.

The story of the breakfast on the beach sits,

          within the narrative structure of John’s gospel,

                   as part of a concluding section,

          where a number of loose ends are wrapped up.

Immediately before it we meet doubting Thomas

          getting to put his finger in the wounds of the crucifixion on Jesus’ body,

          with his doubts being finally answered.

And immediately after it, we have Simon Peter

          being brought face to face with the abject failure

                   of his three-fold denial of Jesus

                   around the charcoal fire of the high priest’s courtyard (18.18-27),

          as Jesus speaks to him over a charcoal fire on a beach,

                   and three times forgives him and commissions him for further service.

And these two key characters, the doubter and the denier,

          Thomas and Simon Peter, are both present in the boat,

and they, with the other five disciples,

          are those who get to share breakfast with Jesus on the beach.

I think it is these two characters, and what they represent,

          who provide us with the key to understanding our passage from this morning.

And it’s a strange little story,

          which almost feels comic in the way it’s told.

I mean, it’s almost impossible not to have a laugh

          at the idea of Simon Peter sitting there naked,

          and then deciding to throw on his clothes before jumping into the sea.

It’s typical Simon Peter, isn’t it?

          It just seemed like a good idea at the time.

The naked part wasn’t so unusual,

          as apparently on a mild night fishing from a boat,

          it was quite usual to strip off if you were in and out of the water.

But the decision that if that’s Jesus on the shore, he’d better put some clothes on,

          followed immediately by the decision to jump into the water

          and swim to shore rather than wait for the boat to paddle in,

is classically Simon Peter in its planning and execution.

And in fact, Simon is the driving character

          in this narrative, with his personality and character,

          moving the action at every turn towards its conclusion.

It starts with Simon and the others gathered in Galilee.

          We’re not told why they’re there,

          but we know we’re a week or three after the resurrection,

                   and it seems that some of the disciples at least

                             have made the journey north from Jerusalem

                             and back to Galilee where it all started.

And then, suddenly, kind of out of nowhere,

          Simon announces, ‘I’m going fishing’.

It’s like he can’t sit still.

          The waiting is killing him, so he jumps up and sets off.

And I wonder how many of us are like Simon?

          As you will have gathered from my introduction to the sermon,

                   I know I have tendencies in that direction.

Sometimes, any activity is better than no activity,

          because ‘doing’ is infinitely preferable to just ‘being’.

And because Simon is a natural born leader,

          where he goes, others tend to follow.

So the other disciples set off with him.

And of course, for a character like Simon Peter,

          the success of a night’s fishing will be determined

          by how many fish have been caught.

I’m told that there are those who go fishing for the tranquillity of the experience,

          to sit still beside a lake contemplating the beauty of creation,

          and meditating on the delights of solitude.

There may even have been those on the boat that night with Simon,

          who were happy enough just to come long for the ride,

                    regardless of whether any fish were caught,

          because it was a warm night and they wanted the company.

But Simon is definitely there to catch fish,

          to be productive.

He’s stripped off ready for action,

          and if there’s any diving in to be done, he’s ready to do it.

And after a night on the lake, he’s caught nothing.

          From Simon’s perspective, this is failure;

          and failure, in Simon’s world, is the ultimate in shame.

And then, as darkness turns to light,

          Jesus appears on the shore, unrecognised at first.

Now I can’t tell whether he says it with a sarcastic tone or not,

          but his question, ‘Children, you have no fish, have you?’

                   is certainly a rhetorical question,

                   designed to prick away at the moody failure of Simon and the others

                             to be productive in their task of fishing.

Their sullen, single-word reply of ‘No’,

          highlights the humour of the moment.

They’re like sulky teenagers

          owning up to something shameful.

And then, in an echo of a story from Luke’s gospel (Luke 5.1-11),

          Jesus tells them to let the nets down on the other side.

We’re not told how Simon the experienced fisherman responded

          to this instruction shouted by a stranger on the shore,

          and I can imagine he was muttering something about grandmothers and eggs

                   as he gave it one last go on the other side of the boat.

But I think it says something about Simon’s desire to succeed at all costs

          that he was willing to give it a go.

The little voice that sometimes won’t let us give up

          even when we know we should have walked away long ago,

          encouraged him to give it just one more try.

And, lo and behold, a net full of fish.

Ta-Da! A miracle.

But more than this, from Simon’s point of view:

          Success! A result!

For Simon, the night is redeemed,

          his decision to lead them out into the lake fishing is justified,

          he’s done something worthwhile,

          and his value is restored.

And we could leave it there, but because this is John’s gospel,

          there are layers upon layers in this story

          which we need to unpack to get at the heart of things.

Firstly, there’s the whole metaphor of fishing.

Yes, at one level it’s a story where Jesus does a miracle,

          and the disciples recognise him.

But fishing is not a neutral image in the gospels,

          or indeed within the Jewish scriptural tradition.

In both Mark and Matthew’s gospels, (Mt 4.18-20; Mk 1.16-19)

          Jesus’ calling of Simon and Andrew to be his disciples

                   is accompanied by a promise that they will leave their fishing nets

                   to become ‘fishers of people’.

And in the prophetic writings of the Jews,

          fishing was an image used for bringing people to judgment,

          like fish caught in nets (Jer. 16.16; Ezek 29.4-5; Amos 4.2; Hab 1.14-17).

So we might say that fishing here is a metaphor for mission,

          and that our story from John’s gospel invites its readers

          to reflect on their own experience of fishing for people.

It is of some small comfort to me

          that it seems to have been the experience of the early church

that it was possible to spend all night fishing,

          and come back with no results.

I mean, I long for a full church, I really do.

          I long for a world where we extend to many people

                   the love and acceptance of Christ,

          and where we join together in bringing the good news of liberation

                   to a world where so many live in darkness and pain.

And I feel the lure of the program driven approach to mission,

          where we adopt the right formula,

          implement the right systems,

          and see the results come flooding in.

I have the little voice on my shoulder encouraging me

          to give it one more go, to try letting the nets down again,

          because this time it’ll be different.

And who knows, it might be!?

I mean, Simon Peter had a night of darkness and no results,

          and then netted a great catch on the final throw of the dice.

Who’s to say we won’t be the same?

          Who’s to say we won’t suddenly find ourselves

                   with 153 new fish by the morning.

          Who’s to say that our failure may not yet be redeemed by success?

But this story challenges such ways of thinking.

          Because it turns out that it’s not about the catch at all.

When Simon Peter gets to the shore,

          fully clothed and soaking wet,

          leaving the others to haul in and count the fish,

he discovers that Jesus has already got a fire going,

          with fish roasting and bread ready.

The catch, impressive though it is, isn’t the point.

And in a world where we are what we do,

          and where we’re only ever as good as our most recent achievement,

the story of the breakfast on the beach

          causes us to stop and consider whether Jesus actually needs us

          to put in all that effort to be successful,

                   either as individuals or as a church.

What if, actually, we’re loved for who we are,

          and not for what we do.

What if we’re loved whether we’re successful or not?

          What if we’re loved whether we have 53 or 153 on Sunday morning?

What if our fixation on productivity and effectiveness

          is irrelevant to love that God has for us and the world?

What if the sea, and all that is in it,

          already belongs to God,

          and our efforts at fishing are, at best, tangential to his greater purposes?

Evelyn Underhill, the spiritual writer from the early twentieth century,

          said that we spend most of our lives conjugating three verbs:

                   to want, to have, and to do.

          While the fundamental verb of the spiritual life is ‘to be’.

What if our desires, our possessions, and our actions,

          are nowhere near as important as they seem to us,

and our being in God is all that ultimately matters?

What would it take for us to learn to let go?

          To set aside our desire for success,

                   our drive to achieve?

For Simon Peter it took a moment of great failure,

          followed by a moment of great love,

to learn that he was valued for who he was, not for what he did.

The denial of Jesus in public, in the courtyard of the high priests house,

          was the moment of ultimate public shame and failure for Simon Peter.

For a man of his personality to be caught out in this way,

          would have been a disaster of unimaginable proportions

          as his self-image was destroyed before his eyes.

And yet, from his failure came his forgiveness by Jesus,

          and his recommissioning over the bread and fishes on the beach.

And Simon learned that lesson that can only be learned by going through it,

          which is that failure sets you free

          to be loved for who you are, rather than what you do.

Faithful discipleship is not about achievement or productivity,

          it is about faithfulness.

And the vision of a net full to the brim but not breaking,

          is a vision of the kingdom of God where all are welcome

          with no-one feeling threatened by anyone else’s inclusion.

The vision of Ezekiel that we read earlier

          offered a vision of the world transformed,

where the dry and dusty land between Jerusalem and the Jericho

          is brought to life,

with the salt waters of the Dead Sea teeming with fish,

          and the barren banks verdant with trees.

The kingdom of God is about the transformation of the earth,

          it is about the salvation of all things,

          and the healing of the nations as creation itself is redeemed.

And this is not about successful church growth,

          and it is not about personal or corporate achievement.

The transformation of the earth comes about, in Ezekiel’s vision,

          through the pure clear water which flows from the temple in Jerusalem.

It is the people of God who are the source of life to the earth,

          and that blessing flows through us to bring renewal and refreshing to all.

It isn’t something we can manufacture or perform,

          rather it is the gracious gift of the love of God,

which invites us to discover what it is to be truly loved for who we are,

          so that others may discover what it is to be truly loved for who they are.

And any religion or form of faith that requires any of us

          to be something other than that which we have been created to be,

is ultimately a hollow shell of a faith

          that brings judgment and not blessing.

We are loved.

You are loved.

I am loved.

This is the gospel of Christ, who invites us to discover new life with him,

          as we join him for breakfast on the beach.