|
First
Reading
|
Psalm |
Epistle |
Gospel |
| Acts 9:1-6
|
Psalm 30 |
Revelation 5:11–14 |
John 21:1–19
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Advertising is a large part of many companies’ budgets and hence advertising is a major industry in and of itself. Come to think of it, advertising is also a large part of educational and non-profit institutions, too. The world puts terrible pressure on those it calls to be its leaders to provide and conform to what it wants. By the world’s standards a good leader is driven to give people what they demand, or to convince people that they have the answers to what the people crave and need. It is not surprising that in our age, the assurance of security is the sign of a popular leader”
But unlike the world, Jesus isn’t driven by the world. The risen Lord is the one who prepares a new way, who calls us out of despair, who invites us to come closer, who transforms changing circumstances into new opportunities. Jesus calls followers, not to be power brokers or czars of the spiritual realm, but to model a fresh and different type of leadership in the world.
On these Sundays after Easter, many of the Gospel lessons report the appearance of Jesus soon after the discovery of the resurrection. Most of the appearances have several things in common. They didn’t happen on what we would call Holy Ground. They were not in places set apart for divine revelation or spiritual enlightenment. They did not occur while the followers were in the temple, or within the local synagogue, and even on retreat at a local shrine. Jesus appeared on roads where people routinely traveled, in rooms where people ate and performed the ordinary chores of daily living, and along lakeshores where people fished and made their living. Moreover, the disciples did not usually recognize Jesus at first. Like us, I suspect the early disciples did not expect Jesus to show up in such ordinary circumstances. Secondly, Jesus didn’t appear and immediately take over, overpowering the airwaves as it were, with the glory of the resurrection. Jesus let people come to recognize him rather than demanding or driving us to recognition.
The question for Easter people is what type of leadership is Christian discipleship? Where do the examples of Jesus on the lakeshore, on the road to Emmaus, or in the upper room take us? Jesus’ appearances seem to suggest that one needs to reconsider the assumption that God is confined only to a separate holy ground.
In today’s Gospel Peter and his companions are back fishing. They worried over whether they would catch enough fish to pay for the effort. Like Linda Greenwood in her book, The Hungry Ocean, an account of a commercial fishing voyage, sometimes even today with all the latest electronic sophistication, fishing crews return to harbor poorer rather than richer for all their hard, back-breaking efforts.
In the midst of their struggles to catch fish, Peter and the crew began to pay attention to the one who stood along side them. They recognized that it was Jesus. The risen Jesus lifted their horizons to a larger task; to feed people everywhere from the abundance of God’s mercy, and the harvest of the Good News. Peter recognized that the living Christ continually opens the words of scripture and gives us the meaning and purpose of our lives. Peter and the others found incredible spiritual strength as they discovered that to claim that the living Jesus is Lord is to defy the ultimate claims of the powers of the world and the false gods who call themselves Caesar
The tragedy down at Va Tech, revealed all the driven-ness of the world. Almost immediately there began a rush to assign blame, and to be first to report some bizarre aspect of the story. However, the witness of people of faith reminded the world that mourning and comforting the victims came first. Explanations were not as important as crying and offering hugs. Later there was a sense that there were resources among the victims to drawn on, resources that had nothing to do with government aid, promises of politicians to fix things or explanations by reporters of how it had happened.
I suggest that at Va Tech there was also revealed a sign of Easter, helping those involved in the tragedy to grow, giving them a deeper appreciation of life, and offering real strength, not power as the world might define it, but real strength, to mourn, to heal, and in the future, to thrive. For Easter involves claiming that God is present with those who seek reconciliation and justice on this earth, and will not let death and evil have the last word.
And I offer this to you in the name of the Living God, Amen.
