A Different Kind of Knowing
“A Different Kind of Knowing”
Acts 9:1-20 John 21:1-19
Third Sunday of Easter, Year C, May 5, 2019
Pastor Andy Kennaly
Sandpoint, Idaho
In one of The Far Side cartoons, Gary Larson draws a biblical scene of Jesus in a boat, standing at the bow, dressed in a white robe, with long hair and a flowing beard, and looking ahead in a steady way. Behind him, three of the disciples are looking annoyed at a fourth disciple who is dancing with finger cymbals. The text has one disciple scolding the dancing one, saying, “You idiot, he said, ‘Cast the nets!’” Those little cymbals are called castanets. This play on words has a humorous ring to it.
In this morning’s passage of Jesus on the shore, calling out to those fishing in the boat, there are other plays on words that are easy to skip over, but if we pause and ponder, these phrases lead us to deeper lessons.
For example, after the disciples fish all night without catching anything, at first light, Jesus appears but they don’t know it’s Jesus. From shore, Jesus said to them, “Children, you have no fish, have you?” This is more of a statement than a question. He uses the term, “Children,” meaning Little Children, and like small children they are still in need of growth, of maturing, of learning new perspectives, of having experiences, of gaining wisdom. At the same time, Children is also a relational term, involving love and connection.
Another phrase or backdrop to this scene is that they did not recognize that it was Jesus. Even when they somehow, “know” it is Jesus, they don’t ask him who he is. On a surface level, in a literal sense, this could mean Jesus has a different appearance. But perhaps this is an invitation for a deeper meaning, as a metaphor, more along the lines of pointing out the fact that you cannot see what you have not grown to recognize. He has just called them children; they haven’t grown to recognize certain things.
Another dynamic to this scene is when Jesus tells them to throw their net on the other side of the boat. This almost comes across as a trivial suggestion. They’ve been fishing all night, and Peter and some of the others are professionals. They know what they are doing, they are comfortable with how things work, familiar with systems they have learned and used for years. What’s one side of the boat compared to the other, in terms of the water underneath you? It’s only a matter of feet, As most people who have fished on a slow day could attest to, trying one side of the boat verses the other is not usually the key factor in catching fish. Yet Jesus tells them to throw their net in the same water, only on the other side of the boat. Of course, this request has little to do with fishing and more to do with Resurrection Life. Jesus is requesting that they throw their net on the unconventional side of the boat. This is a total re-work of all the systems they have set up.
But that’s where they find fish. Jesus invites them to something unconventional. That word, “unconventional” has to do with alternative, unusual, even eccentric. This is certainly involving discomfort as new things and thoughts are explored and tried, old patterns are questioned, and previous assumptions no longer serve as limitations. The Jesus they don’t recognize, yet somehow know, even though he’s on shore, is figuratively ‘rocking the boat’ as he makes his peculiar request that leads to not only fish, but lots fish, and large ones, and they don’t rip the net; all the positives one could hope for in a fish story; they even ate some fresh catch on the beach.
Just to mention briefly the other reading from the Acts of the Apostles, and we see similar themes. Saul doesn’t see Jesus, and then comes to a conversion experience where he knows the Lord. While he’s in a home with a blindness, another unconventional, paradoxical scene sets up, where Ananias, a Christian, has a vision where God tells him to go visit Saul and help restore his sight. Saul’s reputation as a persecutor of the early church, of people of “the Way,” is well known to Ananias, who questions God about doing this. Yet going beyond conventional values, Ananias takes this alternative message in a stance of faith and devotion, and Saul receives him, hears about Jesus, scales fall away and his vision is renewed and he’s baptized and begins to gain strength for the journey God is calling him on.
Back in John’s Gospel, in the conversation Peter has with the Risen Lord, we see themes involving a progression; from young to old, from feeding lambs to tending sheep and then feeding sheep. Metaphorically, this really resembles the dynamic of first half of life spirituality and second half of life spirituality. Even in the story, Jesus talks about Peter as a young man, and Peter as an older man. It’s as the older Peter that persecution comes, but not laced with fear or foreboding, but steeped in a sense of Presence and reassurance.
The conversation between the Risen Lord and Peter is also a progression in the reality of forgiveness. The question asked three times, Peter do you love me, echoes the three times Peter denies Jesus leading up to the cross. Notice in this story that in the boat, Peter is naked, and then to get to shore before the others he jumps in the water to swim. But first, Peter puts on his clothes. Again, this detail is here for more reasons than literal story value or historical referencing, but in a representative way. In terms of first half of life, second half of life spiritualities, Peter puts on his clothing, perhaps representing his life as it is up to that point, including his denial of Jesus three times. He wants to see Jesus but he brings his baggage with him.
Peter jumps in the water, which to our Christianized ears sounds like a baptism, an immersion, and he’s washed clean, there’s absolution. This foreshadows in image the words Jesus uses in his questions, forgiving Peter.
Again, if you want to take this scene deeper, it seems to have something to do with identity, with being attached to our self-made perceptions of who we think we are, and its often from the foundation of our false self that we take action, like Peter jumping in from the boat, which is not exactly solid ground.
Suzanne Guthrie shares a quote from Desmond Tutu and Mfho Tutu, as they explore in their book, The Book of Forgiving, the idea of identity linked with the pain we carry in life. They say,
“We can so easily make ourselves victims of our own thoughts and feelings of guilt and shame for what we have done. Make no mistake, we must be accountable for our actions, but when we stay stuck in the unhappy story of what we have done – when we make an identity out of our past actions – we deny ourselves the gift of transformation. We can all learn from the mistakes of our past. Learning from the past is not the same as being held hostage by what we have done. At some stage we must let go of the past and begin again. We have said repeatedly that no one is undeserving of forgiveness, and this includes you.”
(http://www.edgeofenclosure.org/easter3c.html).
Another aspect of this passage involves the season we’re in. This is the Third Sunday of Easter, and this Resurrection celebration claims that Jesus died on the cross, was laid in the tomb, and on the third day, on the Lord’s Day, Christ arose. Jesus died, Christ arose. In these post-resurrection scenes, and this morning we read the third one, the disciples don’t recognize Jesus. There’s something qualitatively different about the Risen Christ. Yet through a different kind of knowing, the disciples hear Jesus say, “Follow Me.” Follow me. Not, worship me. Follow.
Follow Jesus deeper into love, into living without fear, free from self-inflicted identity which clings to pain, as ego tries to separate and seem superior on its mandate to wipe out all it does not understand. Follow deeper into faith which uses the heart as an organ of spiritual perception, open to the wisdom of God and deeper meanings which are revealed as we learn and grow and mature through a spirituality which no longer needs to cling or carry baggage of conventional understandings. Follow Jesus, who shows us the Way to depths of discovery as we are released from the tyranny of the false self, and are given peace and all good through our True Self in the Risen Christ.
As God’s children, may this morning’s readings bless us with wisdom through the power and Presence of the Living Spirit, even as we trust that God is glorified, NOW, even as forever. Amen.