Remembering how sacred, the secular really is (sermon from May 5, 2019)

Reading:  John 21 (yup, the whole chapter)
 

In John 21 – the last chapter of the Gospel, the first flush of Easter has passed.  The disciples’ first life-changing experiences of the risen Jesus are behind them, and now they face the question of what to do until the messiah comes again.  They are back in Galilee – at the seaside, and back at what they know best to do for a living -- fishing.  And it’s here, in the midst of their ongoing, normal life that they encounter the risen Jesus again.

This was an important story for the early church because by the time the Gospel of John was written, faith in the risen Lord was beginning to fade.  The last few verses of this reading refer to rumours in the early church that Jesus would return in glory before the death of his beloved disciple John, and when this didn’t happen, some began to waver in their faith in Jesus as God’s messiah.  In this story, the Gospel makes the point that discipleship is not about waiting for his glorious return, but about being open to his ongoing presence in our ordinary, daily lives and in the ongoing life of the world.

Do you ever feel that the magic is gone?  That the glory of life has faded?  That the holiness of the world has disappeared?  That life now a lot of the time is one big slog, or unholy mess, or unmanageable crisis – a cross you have to bear until maybe some day salvation from it will come?

If not, if magic and glory and holiness of life in this world are still real to you, then maybe you’re one of those who in your own way are writing and bearing witness to the Gospel – to the good news of the kingdom of God on Earth for others to read and be cheered by.  Thanks be to God for that, and for you.

But if the feeling about life I described is yours, as it is sometimes mine then you, like me, are more honestly one of the characters in the gospel story, needing to hear and to be able to believe the good news it has to tell. 

At the time the Gospel of John was written – and maybe one of the reasons it was written, the church was losing its faith in the presence of the risen Lord with them and among them.  Their first experiences of resurrection from death were behind them. 

And in some of the stories about those encounters with the risen Jesus, it was reported that Jesus said he would return in full glory before the death of John, the disciple he especially loved.  So rumours began that Jesus would be coming back soon.  The focus of faith shifted from awareness of the ongoing transforming presence with them of God and the risen Jesus in the present moment, to just waiting instead for some future time when he would come again in glory and bring this time to an end.

The life of faith became a matter of hanging on and waiting for this to be over and for Jesus to come again.  And then when John died and Jesus hadn’t come, faith became difficult.  The believers weren’t quite sure what to believe in now, and how to connect with God and with Jesus who didn’t come in the way they expected.

That’s where the disciples are at the opening of this last chapter of the Gospel.  Easter seems a little behind them at this point, and not quite sure what to do now that Jesus doesn’t seem to be coming, they do the only thing they really know to make a living.  They go fishing.  It’s their thing, so they go back to it.

And they go fishing on the Sea of Tiberias.  Which really is the Sea of Galilee, but the name – the change in name, means a lot.  Sea of Galilee is the Jewish name for it.  It’s the holy land name for it.  It was on the Sea of Galilee that they first met – or were met, by Jesus and where their lives were changed – they thought, forever. 

But now it’s known by the world around them and by them, as the Sea of Tiberias.  That’s it’s Roman name, its pagan name, its secular and imperial and life-deadening name.

Tiberias itself was a city established on the west shore of the Sea of Galilee around 20 C.E. – right in the first disciples’ lifetime, just ten years or so before the crucifixion of Jesus.  It was built by the Herodian dynasty, was named after the second emperor of the Roman Empire, and was never intended to be a centre of Jewish life.  The fact that there was a cemetery – a place of the dead, attached to the city made it ritually unclean for Jews right from the start.  The more orthodox stayed away, and Herod was quite happy to populate it with non-Jews and build it up as a hub of Greco-Roman life in the area.

And it worked.  The city flourished, as did the empire in that area.  Year by year until well into the second century, Galilee became less Jewish and more Roman, less holy and more pagan, less a land open to God, more and more just another land where life is hard and true glory and deep holiness so often get sucked out of everything.

Do you ever feel that way about the world we live in?  That it’s a place where hope goes to die?  Where promises of something good are always broken, and dreams of something better are something that at some point we have to wake up from?

Do you ever feel that way about your own life?  That wholeness is a dream, and brokenness the reality?  Light is a hope, and shadow the reality?  Joy is a promise, and disappointment is what you get?

That instead of walking with Jesus happily and purposefully at the Sea of Galilee, our time now is spent fishing all through the night for what we need on the Sea of Tiberias, often with nothing to show for it?

Not surprising we too sometimes put our hope instead in some future day when Jesus will return in glory, bring this world to an end, and usher in a new reality for us.  Or when we win the lottery?  Or maybe when can retire and just enjoy ourselves? 

Except, is that really what the hope, the promise, and the honest-to-goodness good news of God-in-Christ is?

The Gospel of John was written to help believers like us answer that question in a faithful, honest, life-giving way.  It was written to help the church remember what its faith is based on, the kind of living Lord they follow, and the way the risen Lord keeps coming to us where we are, forgiving us for how we’ve failed him, and recalling us again and again to faithful service to him and leadership of others.

And seeing them remembering this way, encourages me -- helps me, remember how in my own life I’ve been met in life-changing ways in the here and now. 

How as I teenager, when I was depressed and angry about how boring, dusty and deadly  moralistic church was, I found myself for a few weeks one summer surprised by the joy of hearing a handful of people speak in tongues a few times at a Bible study group a friend invited me to.  Not something I felt a need to return to, but glad for ever since of the way my heart just knew, 'It's the Lord."

How the time I was starting theology studies in Toronto, starting to feel some of the right and wrong reasons for being there, and one afternoon while reading and praying in the Thomas Aquinas Chapel of Trinity College, being suddenly surprised with the awareness of Jesus standing behind me, leaning over my shoulder and with his finger pointing to what I was reading, affirming the path I was on.  So like Peter after he jumped into the water, I kept on going – swimming, splashing, wading towards the shore ahead of me.

Or the time I first held Aaron – one day old, for nearly an hour in the crook of my arm and just knew that I was cradling and staring into the fullness of the holy.  Or the way Japhia comes to new life and holy purpose every time the grandkids come by for a visit, or she can go to them.  “Come and eat,” the risen Lord says, “and let yourselves feast on the life that saves you.”

Or more recently the time I was on retreat – thinking I was there to learn how to be a spiritual director for others, but instead finding out one day in prayer and journaling time that I was there so God could get my attention and let me know how thoroughly I am forgiven of all I’ve done wrong – something I continually forget, and continually need to be reminded of, to avoid falling into shame and fear.  “Do you love me?” he asks, giving me as many times to say yes as I have with my actions said no.  “Good,” he says, “then feed my sheep, and follow me.”

And how many times and in how many other ways, on random days and in regular spiritual practices am I aware of the same thing – the same One, at the heart of all my life?  Were they all to be written down, there would not be enough sermons, enough stories, enough blog posts or books to hold them all.

And I'm sure you could speak of much the same kinds of things at different times in your life, all along the way.  Because we are not alone.  The risen Lord, God is with us.  And the way of faith is the way of letting ourselves be aware of, and be opened to, and be reminded of the ongoing presence of God and of the risen Jesus to touch and transform us.

Today we have baptized Thomas and Luke as a way of remembering and celebrating their life as children of God – born as we are into the brokenness of the world, and surrounded as we are by God’s redeeming love.  We have done this and remembered this for them and for ourselves.

And it does make a difference to us and to the world.

Do you remember Tiberias, the city that was such a sign of glory gone, of hope faded, of death triumphant?  The city that was made to be pagan and part of Herod’s and Rome’s Greco-Roman rebranding of the holy land?

For a while, the plan worked.  The town was spiritually toxic and Jews stayed away.  Tiberias became a hub of Greco-Roman influence over the area.  But things started to change after 70 CE when Rome destroyed Jerusalem. 

Jewish refugees needed moved north and one of the places they moved to was Tiberias.  They took steps to ritually cleanse the city, and began to move in.  The city became a focus of Jewish life and community.  Synagogues and schools were built.  Scholarship and worship flourished, and from the second to the tenth centuries Tiberias was a leading religious and political hub of Jewish life.  By the sixteenth century it was one of the four holy cities of Judaism, with Jerusalem, Hebron and Safed.  What had been pagan, deadly and toxic, was raised to new life as a place of light and life for all the world.  Even though the name of the place was still Tiberias, the spirit of the place was once again very much that of Galilee.

The good news is the God who saves and transforms us and the world around us is not far away nor in some future “great event,” but is near, at hand, just waiting to be noticed and met in any and every present moment.  And faith is a matter of remembering and opening to the One who calls us his own, who feeds us with what we really need, and who as often as we fail him forgives us and calls us again to follow him.

We all feel at timel like we're just sailing around on the Sea of Tiberias, fruitless and frustrating.  But it really is the Sea of Galilee.  Thanks be to God for being able to be reminded of that.