Disclaimer: Yes, this is a farmer's blog. I'm a farmer, and that's at the heart of what I do and how I move around in this beautiful, bruised, burgeoning world. Now, part of a farmer's job is to pay attention to EVERYthing, especially the connections that bind us all to every other aspect of Creation. Sometimes, those connections--and their implications--are so powerful that it's hard to explain. Dry facts won't do it. So I reach into the storehouse of sacred stories, and it comes out less like an essay, more like a sermon. Still, the farm--and our way of farming--is right there, mixed up in the myths. If you've come here to read about farming, you can sidestep the sermon and skip down to other entries as you please, or enter the story here. Either way, welcome!
“Hard Roads and Empty
Nets”
A sermon for April 14th, 2013
(Easter3C)
(Based on Acts 9:1-20 and John 21:1-19)
I have
a lot of questions, today. The first one is the most important, so
pay attention—maybe scribble your answer down—and we'll come back
to it later. Where do you see Jesus? That's the first
question. Think about it. I'll ask you about it later.
Second
question: what do you do when a nightmare becomes real? What do you
do when the center of your life gets scooped out like the seeds of a
pumpkin, leaving you hollow as a jack-o-lantern, staring at the world
with empty eyes? What do you do when it all goes south, and you
don't know which direction to turn?
That's
where they were, Peter and the other disciples. The beautiful vision
had crumpled, their hopes were shattered, and they didn't have the
first clue of how to pick up the pieces and move on. Everything had
gone off somewhere in a hand-basket. So who can blame Peter? He
grabbed his favorite John Deere cap—the one with the brim curved
just the way he liked them—and his old barn coat, his fleece vest
and his rubber boots, called up his buddies and told them to meet him
at the old place—you know, just off the side of that back-road
bridge down on Range Pond. He grabbed his rod and his old tackle box
and headed out, slamming the door behind him. He felt the muddy
ground beneath his feet, and then felt the crunch of gravel as he
stepped from the driveway onto the road. “When the going gets
tough, the tough go fishing.” (Well, maybe that wasn't how the
saying really goes, but in Pete's mind, it should have.)
Meanwhile,
down another dirt road, on the other side of town, along came Saul.
You know Saul, right? He's that guy who's always got an ax to grind,
the one who gets up at meetings and starts shouting about THOSE
people, and how THEY'RE the cause of all the trouble? You all know
Saul. Well, Saul was on his way down to the Town Office to give them
a piece of his mind. The closer he got, the more he thought about
everything that had gone wrong. He was sure he knew who to blame,
and how to shut them up once and for all. He'd done it before. He
could do it again. And if he could just get a-hold of the authority
to do it, why... I hardly need to tell you what ol' Saul was planning
to do. With every step he took, his heart beat a little faster,
wrapped up in the heat of his self-righteous rage. Yes, Saul said to
himself, SOMEbody's got to clean up this town, and I am the MAN to do
it. “The Lord helps those who help themselves...” wasn't that
what the Good Book said? (Don't tell Saul, but it isn't in the Good
Book. It was Ben Franklin who came up with that one!)
Down
at the shore, Pete and his buddies fished for hours. Pete, Tom,
Nate, and the rest of the guys stayed out all night, in fact,
sometimes talking low so's they wouldn't scare the fish, sometimes
just staring out into the darkness, wondering if the sun would ever
rise again. Not once did any of them feel a tug on their lines, even
though the fishing was supposed to be good. Well, it figured.
Hadn't everything else gone all to heck? Well, Jerusalem crickets,
why should this be any different? When the dawn did come, it was a
cold light—that weak, early Spring light that shows the lay of the
land but doesn't warm it one bit. Their lines were empty, their
hearts were empty, and—frankly, with all the stress of the last
week catching up to them along with the sleep deprivation—their
heads were kinda empty too. So when the stranger showed up, right
there, between the pond and the bridge, well, they just couldn't
figure it out at all. Had he been standing there all night? Nobody
had heard a motor, and you know the way sound carries over water.
Had he come on foot, or by boat, or what? The light was still weak,
and they couldn't quite make out the guy's face, but there was
something about him that seemed familiar. None of them could put a
finger on it.
“Good
morning!” the stranger said. He looked at their empty nets, their
slack lines. He gestured over to the other side of the bridge, where
there was just a small ledge between the water and the road. “They
not biting? How 'bout you try the other side,” he said, and there
was a funny catch in his voice, as if he were halfway between a laugh
and a sob. Pete thought he must have a screw loose or something, but
the guy sure seemed earnest—and, frankly, at this point, what did
any of them have to lose? They'd already lost pret-near everything.
So Pete and Nate and Tom and the other guys ambled up onto the
roadbed and then sidled down onto that little ledge and cast their
lines in. And the stranger walked up to the pull-off and started
setting up a beat-up barbecue grill.
Now,
Saul, meanwhile, had about walked the soles off his shoes, stomping
along towards town. In his mind, it played out like some old
Western: him all spurs and pointy boots, ten-gallon hat and silver
star, catching the unsavory riff-raff and ridin' 'em out of town on a
rail. Maybe he'd tar-and-feather them first for extra effect. He'd
get rid of everybody that didn't belong, starting with the People
From Away.
And
that's when it happened. It was like all the lights at Oxford
Speedway, come on at once, so bright he couldn't see. And a voice—a
voice like the saddest country song you ever heard, calling his name,
asking, “why do you persecute me?” Saul flung himself on the
ground and asked, “who are you?” and the voice answered, “I am
Jesus, who you're persecuting. Now get on into town, hush up and
listen. This time, listen good, 'cause somebody's going to tell you
good. There, you'll find out what to do.”
Now,
maybe you've got the story all figured out. You know what's coming
next: Saul loses the spurs and the silver star. He meets up with a
Guy From Away—and, because he's been blinded, he doesn't even see
the out-of-state plates or the peace bumperstickers all over the back
of the guy's Prius—and, even though they circle each other like
wild dogs at the start, it turns out they both take God seriously,
and the scales of judgment fall away. Both of them change.
Together, they create a whole new ministry. And down by the bridge,
Pete and his buddies have filled up every bucket and cooler and the
whole back of Nate's big Ford truck with the craziest catch of fish
you ever saw. The guy at the grill in the pull-off calls them over
for breakfast, and they have themselves the best fried fish ever, and
suddenly they understand: it's Jesus. And we all know how it
ends...or maybe we don't.
Because
here's the thing. This is how the resurrection happens. Jesus shows
up—in the garden, at the shore, on the road—and we don't
recognize him. Jesus calls us by name when we're not even ready to
hear. Jesus shows up among the people who make us uncomfortable, the
people who tick us off, the people we reject, the people we hate.
And Jesus shows up at the table, right when our hearts are aching and
our souls are absolutely starving, and he reaches out and offers to
feed us.
So,
maybe we don't know the end of the story. Because maybe the story
hasn't ended. Maybe there are new chapters waiting to be written.
Maybe God needs us to help the story continue, to help the Good News
unfold.
So,
where's the crossroads? Where do we see Jesus now? Think for a
minute. Who are the people we persecute? Who are the strangers
here? Who reaches out and serves us? Who disturbs us? How does the
Risen Christ come to each of us, and in what disguise?
I
can't finish the story myself. Remember, I'm one of those People
From Away. And so, now, I ask you to help me out. Someone—Anyone:
where do you see Jesus? And by that I mean: who challenges you? Who
feeds you? Who do you persecute? Who opens the way to New Life?
This
is how God comes to us. This is how Jesus is revealed. Not locked
away in some dusty old book, not a holy relic in a climate-controlled
vault. The Risen Christ reaches out to us on the roads we travel, on
the shores we stroll, the place we fish, the place our kids learn
to swim. Here, now, where our Good Fridays keep bumping up against
his Resurrection.
Next
time you see Pete, or Nate or Tom at the boat launch... Next time you run into Saul at
the Dollar Store, reach out your hand. Because this is our new
chapter. We have seen Jesus, and now we have to do the hard work
together: living out his kind of love.
