Responding to the Resurrection: Making Amends

Witness, 4/18/10 (Easter 3). Testifying to a world long on apologies and short on amends, Jesus appears to the disciples once again and offers Simon Peter the opportunity to redeem himself by means of the latter. No cheap grace, here. Let us take heed …

Responding to the Resurrection:

Making Amends

Scripture: John 21:1-19

“Why?”

It’s the eternal human question, borne of every unfortunate human experience from tragedy to simple injustice.

A question that must certainly have rested on the disciples’ lips – even as they learned about the resurrection from the women at the tomb (two weeks ago), and then experienced the spiritual return of their Lord among themselves in a locked room without and then with Thomas (last week).

“Why?” Doesn’t God owe them an explanation, for taking away their Lord and not telling them where? And don’t we owe a faith-based explanation to those who experience the unexpected passing of a life from their midst?

Simon Peter comes up with an answer today. Having experienced the resurrected Christ, he proudly informs six other disciples of his discipleship plans:

“I am going fishing,” he says. Respond each of the other six: “Yeah – me, too.”

If John’s gospel were found on a DVD – it’s only a matter of time – go to Scene Selections, and then choose Chapter One. “Summertime, and the livin’ is easy.” Though not really. “Fish are jumpin’ …” Hardly.

Not into their nets. For this time – as at one time before – they have not gone fishing with Jesus.

I believe it was the Southern short story writer Flannery O’Connor who was fond of saying, “Sometimes, grace burns.”¹

Probably no disciple more than Simon Peter understood this.

If he wasn’t displaying misplaced piety by organizing a mountaintop resort for Moses, Elijah, and Jesus, he was fleeing his “come-to-Jesus” meeting today by throwing clothes on his body and plunging into a lake.

Kind of an odd scene, isn’t it? “When Simon Peter heard it was the Lord, he put on some clothes, for he was naked, and jumped into the sea.” I don’t know about you, but when I jump into water, I don’t reach for my wardrobe first.

But Simon Peter, of course, was ashamed. Here he stood, naked before Jesus … a denier thrice over … just as we was, without one plea.

He may have jumped into some shallow water in this story, but he knew he was in it deep with the Lord.

At least Peter didn’t trot out the obligatory “I’m sorry” – or its contemporary parallel of a cliché: “My bad.”

You know the drill: “My bad, Jesus. I’m sorry. I really, really am. I’m just as sorry as I can be.”

Indeed.

But Peter – always a man of action and reaction rather than apologies – simply jumped ship.

And yet, Jesus doesn’t mind. Once a sheepish Peter emerges, he does, however, have to lug the full net ashore. (If you’ve ever seen the 1980s movie “The Mission”, just picture Robert DeNiro lugging his load of penance up the hill after Jeremy Irons.) A full net of fish Peter hauls, to supplement the curious scene of breakfast on the beach – this feast that Jesus has prepared.

The feast that Jesus has prepared: Familiar words, to many of us. We hear them often – intoned by yours truly, every Communion Sunday.

Only this occasion is not a last supper. It is a first meal, of a new day dawning.

“Sometimes, grace burns.”

And so that soul-searing gift is proffered to Peter, sitting around that charcoal fire – where the sparks of Christ’s hospitality are made manifest even in the ashes left behind. A place where an all-wet disciple evidently has the opportunity to both dry off for Jesus and warm up to him – where bellies are now full, where a sanctuary has now been established, a safe place, no comeuppance feared, the cock crow of that awful, betraying night fading with the sunrise …

Jesus withholds grace until after the meal, here. He gives his lead disciple something more than fish and bread to digest: “Peter, do you love me?” Three times, Jesus asks him this. Once for each time Peter had denied him.

Three denials of allegiance – and now, three pledges of allegiance. Three pledges of action, actually – and not simply statements of faith and affection, where the answers are always, “I do” and “I will, with God’s help.”

For Jesus is asking Peter to make amends. No apologies necessary. No regrets desired. Get over it. And get busy.

“Feed my lambs … Tend my sheep … Feed my sheep.”

As with most biblical teaching – listen up, church friends – guilt is not presented by Jesus here as a fragrant offering to God. For as with Jesus’ appearance to Saul on the Damascus Road in another lectionary scripture today: the high drama here revolves around the amends.

When it comes to the life of Christian discipleship: Whatever has happened to amends? I wonder if, for us Protestants, making amends as an atonement for our past misdeeds – by omission as well as commission – simply went the way of the Reformation and the elimination of penance.

Once we bought into the priesthood of all believers idea back in the days of Luther and Calvin, we left it all up to each individual dealing directly with God. Indeed, it was the very cornerstone we Protestants laid, or claimed we uncovered: No prelate or other church power needs stand in the way of our individual salvation!

We Presbyterians often pull ourselves up the proudest and the loudest when we are trumpeting the constitutional maxim that “God alone is Lord of the conscience” But where does that leave the church – what John the Evangelist, the writer of this gospel, lifts up as the Beloved Community? At the least, it implies: Lambs – be damned! The sheep – let ‘em bleat! It’s just you and me, God. It’s really all about how Jesus and I feel about each other.

And so concepts such as amends and accountability – and much more so, reparations – are dismissed as dross at best and unnecessary at worst. Have guilt? Why not; the heavy heart and thumped chest always looks respectable. Make amends? Why? How? That’s all in the past. Let’s just engage in some dignified mourning – if not moaning – and move on.

Meanwhile – midst the sea of our confusion – Jesus awaits us on the beach. There he sits, lurking by the fire at resurrection’s dawn: “Feed my lambs … Tend my sheep … Feed my sheep.”

As if to say: Enjoy your breakfast at the beach, dear disciples … for there will be no such thing anymore as a free lunch – or cheap grace in between!

I have known several individuals over the years who have faithfully and successfully navigated the spiritual journey of Twelve Step recovery, including taking the Eighth and Ninth Steps. The Eighth Step: “Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all.” The Ninth Step: “Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.”

These steps were composed, you see, with the compulsive side of human nature in mind. Including our compulsive apologies for our compulsive activities that runneth amok over our lives and our loved ones. For apologies just don’t cut it when repairing the damage caused by self will run riot.

Ask my friend Tom. Over a half-century ago, at age 24, in a drunken blackout – meaning he has absolutely no memory to this day of doing this – Tom borrowed a car and ran over and killed two young people.

After being released from prison for manslaughter, Tom remained sober by working the Twelve Steps of spiritual recovery in his life. Eventually, he became the first ex-con hired by the Department of Corrections in the state of North Carolina. Before long, he rose to the top tier of its management, and – get this – has recently concluded his long career there by serving as warden for several juvenile correction centers.

Once, Tom ran over and killed two young people. Later, he walked with and cared for thousands more.

“Feed my lambs. Tend my sheep. Feed my sheep.”

Apologies just don’t cut it when repairing the damage caused by compulsive behaviors. And that includes the damage in others’ lives caused by each and every one of us, when our natural instincts runneth amok.

Sisters and brothers, dare I say this to you today: If you do not have a spiritual director or soul mate of some sort in your life – what Twelve Step folks call a sponsor – to hold you accountable to making amends in your life … then you are missing out on the fullness of discipleship. Find someone you can trust: someone whose spiritual life you admire … someone who may have overcome something you desire to overcome … someone who can keep your confidence … someone you can trust.

For let’s face it: Many of our solitary prayers for forgiveness to God just will not do! Perhaps – just perhaps – we Protestants are particularly adept at manipulating God without someone else holding us accountable. One Twelve Step spiritual text puts it well: “Somehow, being along with God doesn’t seem as embarrassing as facing up to another person.” Also, “what comes to us alone may be garbled by our own rationalization and wishful thing.” The upshot: “Going it alone in spiritual matters is dangerous.”²

Need we go further than cite the prophet Elijah, whose celebrated “still, small voice” told him to go out and organize the ethnic cleansing of Israel of all that was not Hebrew. We generally don’t hear the rest of that story – just the warm-and-fuzzy part about God allegedly murmuring in his ear, with no one else around!

Friends in Christ, it comes down to this: Without responding to the resurrection by making amends, what prevents us from simply going back home and tacking up our “Gone Fishing” sign – once and for all?

Without responding to the resurrection by making amends, what keeps us Presbyterians from continuing to diligently study and know the mind of God – all the while ignoring that Christ’s final words today to Peter are for us, as well?

Two words: “Follow me.”

Whoever has ears to hear, let them hear.

¹Quoted in James E. Atwood, The Leaven of Laughter for Lent and Easter (Victoria BC: Trafford, 2006), p. 46.

²Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions (NYC: AA World Services, Inc.), p. 60.

Benediction …

At the end of the gospel narrative today, Jesus gives it to Peter straight:

“But when you grow old, you will stretch out your hands, and someone else will fasten a belt around you and take you where you do not want to go.”

Though many of us may eventually be taken to a place we do not want to go in our lives, ours is a forward-looking faith. Not because resurrection living always seems bearable. But because resurrection living is always inescapable.

Go out into the world in peace, to love and serve our servant Lord. Amen.