Holy Cross Monastery, West Park, NY
Br. Scott Wesley Borden, OHC
RCL – Easter 3 C – Sunday 18 April 2010
Acts 9:1-6, (7-20)
Revelation 5:11-14
John 21:1-19
Here we are in the third Sunday of Eastertide and an interesting pattern in the scripture readings has caught my attention. Week by week we are learning that recognizing Jesus isn’t so easy...
Last week we heard the story of Thomas, who, when he comes face to face with the risen Jesus, needs tangible proof. He can’t see Jesus even when he’s standing face to face with him. He has to look for wounds.
And even before that, on Easter Sunday, Mary Magdalene encounters Jesus at the empty tomb. She looks at Jesus, but all she can see is a gardener. Not until he calls her by name does she recognize him.
This week we find some of the disciples still having trouble recognizing Jesus. At the Sea of Tiberias they have an unproductive night of fishing. In the morning they see Jesus, but they don’t recognize him. Jesus says “Children, you have no fish.” and they still don’t catch on. He tells them to give the net one more try, and for some reason they obey. When the net comes back unexpectedly full they finally recognize Jesus.
What if that net had come back empty, or with just a few fish... Would their encounter with the risen Christ have gone unnoticed? Just another inconsequential encounter with a stranger?
When we are face to face with someone, what do we see... and what do we fail to see?
Today we also have the story of Saul, who is just being made over into Paul. We tend to think of people coming to faith, but in Saul’s case, faith comes to him - aggressively. Saul is literally blinded by faith.
Being blinded by faith is not all that uncommon. And it's frightening - both to those who are blinded and to those who have to live with them.
Religious zealots, blinded by their faith, are willing to sacrifice themselves to the god of terror. They can fill pickup trucks with explosives, or wear their bombs as garments. They are willing to die for their faith - which is admirable. But they are also willing to kill for their faith - which is evil.
Sometimes religious blindness is much more intimate. I heard the story of a mother, a fundamentalist Christian, who’s sixteen year-old son told her he was gay. Believing that God hates homosexuals, including her son, she kicked him out of the house. A teenager, left to fend for himself and feeling utterly worthless and unlovable, he fairly quickly contracted AIDS and died. This mother now lives with tremendous sorrow. Her eyes, like Paul’s, have been opened. She dedicates her life to working with other parents to build bridges between them and their children.
If Paul’s story tells us anything about being blinded by faith, its that it is passing condition. Saul’s blindness gives way to Paul’s vision. Paul serves God with his eyes wide open. Faith in Jesus, the risen Lord, is a journey of vision, not of blindness.
The prophet Amos tells us that without a vision, we perish. Faith that lacks vision, blind faith, is deadly. The faith of Saul is blinded and blinding. The faith Paul is filled with vision.
There is a parallel between the disciples and Paul. The disciples having trouble seeing and Saul is completely blinded. Saul recovers his sight in a moment and the disciples seem to gain the ability to see clearly bit by bit. Lack of vision is followed by vision.
Saint Benedict tells us that we are to look for Jesus in the face of strangers. It's not so easy - clearly the disciples struggled. So we will struggle too.
So then what?
The little private chat Jesus has with Simon Peter at the end of today’s Gospel reading may be one of the most important conversations in the history of conversation. “Do you love me?” Jesus asks... Not once, but three times.
When you keep asking the same question, its usually because you don’t believe the answer. And clearly that’s the way Simon Peter interprets it, because by the third time he’s hurt.
But there is another circumstance when we ask the same question several times - and that’s when life depends on it. For example: sky divers, when they are getting ready to jump from the plane, check the parachute... several times... I think the reason Jesus repeats the question is because life depends on it.
If you love me, feed my sheep. Tend my sheep. Feed my sheep.
Notice what is and what is not asked. Feed my sheep. Tend my sheep.
As modern people we don’t tend to spend a lot of time with sheep - or with any type of livestock for that matter. If you love me, pet my cat doesn’t sound quite so transcendent...
Feeding and caring for animals is a very earthy, humble enterprise. It is not deeply intellectual, though it surely requires intelligence.
Most of all, it requires presence. You can’t tend sheep from the comfort of your home. To tend them, to attend to them, you have to be with them, observing them, seeing what their bodily functions are telling you.
Jesus is not calling Simon Peter to some rarefied and elevated work. “If you love me, be a priest in my temple...” Shepherds were at the low end of the socioeconomic scale. Jesus is calling Simon Peter down the ladder of society. And of course we recall that Jesus frequently spent time with the people at the bottom.
Jesus could have asked Simon Peter to lead his sheep... or teach his sheep... or to separate the good sheep from the bad... or to guard his sheep... or to hunt down the predators of his sheep... and Jesus is not asking for any of that.
Feed the sheep. Pay attention to them.
Jesus is speaking metaphorically. We know he’s not talking about actual sheep. He’s talking about our brothers and sisters... About us...
I think we are tempted also to hear the words "feed" and "tend" as metaphor as well. And I’m quite convinced they are not.
I think when Jesus tells Simon Peter to feed and tend the sheep, he is being literal. He wants Simon Peter, and by extension us, quite literally to attend to our brothers and sisters... to be present with them... to see that they are fed, and clothed, and comforted, and healed.
Jesus' conversation with Simon Peter ends with a two word direction: Follow me.
To follow Jesus we need to be able to see Jesus, to have a vision of Jesus. As with the disciples, sometimes Jesus will be standing directly in front of us, looking at us face to face, and we won’t see him... or her...
Its remarkable how patient Jesus is with the disciples. Its liberating to know that Jesus is just as patient, just as forgiving, with us.
Our own convictions and beliefs, like Saul’s, may blind us to God. But God doesn’t quit Saul. God recovers Saul and transforms him into Paul. And so, day by day, God transforms us. Perhaps not as traumatically and as instantly as Paul, but God makes us new.
And so we follow as best we can and we feed and tend the sheep - love and care for our brothers and sisters.
Amen.
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