I Am Going Fishing

Scripture Lessons: Revelation 5: 11-14 and John 21: 1-19 Sermon Title: I am going fishing Preached on April 15, 2018 Last week for Spring Break, we took a big trip to Florida. We spent a few days exploring the Everglades, saw our fair share of alligators, and on our way home we spent some time at the beach outside Ft. Lauderdale, and while we were there we ate breakfast in a little diner and in that diner one of the waitresses had the exact hair style that my grandmother had for all the years I knew her. It was that classic look that requires you to carry a grocery bag in your purse to cover your hair in case of rain. My cousin Eric once proudly reported to his kindergarten class that his grandmother wasn’t some old gray headed lady, which made my grandmother laugh, though she confessed that her red hair came from a bottle. She died just a few years ago but seeing the unnatural color of that waitress’ hair and catching a whiff of her hairspray made my eyes fill up with tears. Now why is that? Maybe you know. Because sometimes you make a connection to people you’ve loved and lost at the strangest of times, but some of those times really aren’t so strange when you think about it. Maybe you feel something like what I’m talking about when you go to a baseball game. You sit down next to your grandson and you remember being his age and sitting next to your grandfather. Or you bake a pound cake using the recipe your mother scribbled out on an index card, corners now dulled, and ink smeared, but you wouldn’t dare throw it away, would you? No – because to touch the card and to use the recipe is to travel to a different time. It’s a link to someone you love. You can think about fishing this way. Here’s a good fishing joke. How do you keep your Baptist friend from drinking all your beer when you take him fishing? Invite a second Baptist friend. I like that joke because it’s about Baptists, but to my point: Fishing so often has nothing to do with catching fish. It has to do with relaxing or connecting. For fathers and sons or old friends, let’s go fishing is really code for, “let’s get away and spend some time together” because men can’t just come out and say that. It’s one of the many things where the relationship between you and the person you do it with is far more important than the results, so when Peter says, “I am going fishing,” just about all of us know it’s not because he’s hungry. Peter goes to throw his nets back into the sea, because he wants to feel connected to the one who taught him how to fish for people. Peter wants to breath the sea air to rekindle his connection to the one who valued and redefined him. Peter goes fishing because he doesn’t want to lose the connection that he has with his friend and his savior. You know what I’m talking about. That waitress with my grandmother’s hair – it took some self-control not to hug her neck. All I did was placed my order, but I wanted more. I wanted her to tell me things that my grandmother never had the chance to say, and I wanted her to tell me things that she had said a million times before. I wanted her to see our girls, to meet the grandchildren she didn’t get to watch grow up. And I wanted to tell her that I miss her, that I think of her, and that I’m sorry for the time when I called her the day after her birthday because I forgot to call her on the actual day. You know, when people die, it feels like any chance you had of righting the wrongs is lost. When people die, to some degree you just have to learn to live with regrets. So, what was Peter thinking as he cast an empty net into the sea? You can imagine. With each toss of his net he was wrestling with the image of his Lord being led away in chains, “and what did I do?” Peter asked himself, “I denied him.” One in a crowd asked me, “You are not also one of his disciples, are you,” and I said, “I am not.” You can just about hear Peter doing what people do when grief and regret assault the mind and the heart: “Just like he said I would, I denied him, I denied him, then I denied him again.” You can imagine. It’s hard enough to lose the people we love, but so often they leave us, not only with grief, but with regrets, and such regrets as these keep us chained to the past, never set free to really live a future that the departed don’t get. So, he cast his nets without his fishing buddy wishing for some forgiveness that the departed can’t give, but not so with Jesus. Peter was out there fishing, and the disciple whom Jesus loved spotted him first. The nets that had been empty were filled miraculously once again, and Peter didn’t see him, but this other disciple pointed him out, so Peter put on his clothes and jumped into the water. Isn’t that interesting. But that’s the classic sign of shame and regret in Scripture. When Adam and Eve were ashamed, they made clothes from fig leaves because they couldn’t stand before the Lord without inhibition. Therefore, it is for shame and regret that Peter covers his nakedness, but he jumps into the water in urgency, and once he reaches the shore he is fed and set free. You heard it: “When they had finished breakfast, Jesus said to Simon Peter, “Simon son of John, do you love me more than these?” Three times he asked him, and three times Simon Peter affirmed his love. In the place of three denials came three declarations of love, and one road map for his future: “Jesus said to him, “Feed my sheep.” Now, consider that, and imagine, what do you think my grandmother wants from me? To keep beating myself up about forgetting her birthday, or for me to remember all her granddaughters’ birthdays? What do you think any of the saints of light want from us? To regret what’s happened in the past, or to charge into the future? And what do you think our Lord wants from us? To beg forgiveness? To cover our shame? Or to feed his sheep? We are all the time drowning in regrets. But did you see what Jesus did with Peter – in no time three declarations of love erased three denials, and immediately the one who escaped reality to go fishing and to polish his regret was sent out into the world with a new purpose. Just like my grandmother would have if she were still here, Jesus fed those disciples and he forgave them. He filled up their nets one last time to get their attention, he prepared a meal for them on the beach, he let them know once again that washed in the water they had been made new, and he put them back to the work of feeding sheep, getting them away from the work of self-inflicted regret. If you go fishing for the same reason that Peter went fishing, I hope you have the same experience. Because you and I need to be feeding sheep, not feeding shame. But don’t let me tell you how to do it. Don’t let me lecture you about what you should be doing. I don’t want to teach you how to fish. You’ve heard it said: “Give a man a fish and he eats for a day. Teach him how to fish and he eats for a lifetime”? That old expression has been revised by a writer name Roy Blount Jr.: Give a man a fish and he has to clean it. Teach him how to fish, and you’ll just make him mad. But what if you feed him? 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. Why? Did he look like the Lord? Did he sound like the Lord? Did he dress like the Lord? Or did he just act like the Lord? Jesus did teach those disciples a lot about fishing, but more than that, he fed them. By this example he teaches us about feeding sheep. Now let me tell you a story. Last week my glasses broke. More accurately, a screw fell out, and I broke my glasses trying to fix them. I went into the optometrist. Georgia Eye Specialists it’s called. They’re close by, but the internet reviews have been hard on them, so I was suspicious. However, as soon as I got in there I was convinced that this was a great place and I want to tell you why. The nice lady who greeted me at the door and who was taking down my insurance information, she was eating skittles, and this other lady behind the desk kept reaching into her little pile, stealing skittles one by one. A little annoyed, the lady taking my information looked at me and said, “You want one too?” I did, so I took a pink one, and then I finished giving her my insurance information, she sent me to the part of the store where they repair glasses. I handed a young man my glasses, told him how I had broken them, sat down a little ashamed, and next thing I know, the lady from the front desk is coming to see me offering me her very last pink skittle. At this point I’ve decided that I have found the absolute best optometrist in the area. Why? I have yet to see the doctor. I haven’t had an exam, but they fed me. They fed me, and that makes a difference. During Holy Week our kitchen volunteers fed at least 700 people who came to worship in our church. Every Sunday morning and every Wednesday Night the same thing happens, and they’re doing a lot more than just feeding bodies – they’re feeding souls. And when I sat at the counter of that diner at the beach, you know what I was thinking about? How many times I’ve been fed by a lady with the kind of hairdo that requires you to carry a grocery bag in your purse in case of rain. How often she looked at me like I was the center of the universe. How she would listen to me when I talked with her full attention. How she drove over for my freshman orientation because she was proud. And how she’d call me darling, even when I wasn’t. Jesus fed them again, as he feeds us every communion Sunday, and then he sends us out to live our lives with purpose: feed my sheep he told Peter. Then he reminded Peter of what’s true: “When you were younger, you used to fasten your own belt and go wherever you wished. But when you grow old, it will be different.” Don’t spend any more time fishing for regrets. Don’t spend it on shame. The clock is ticking. So, feed his sheep as you’ve been fed. Amen.