Senior Sunday

Breakfast. They say it’s the most important meal of the day.

Breakfast for breakfast

Breakfast for lunch/ brunch.

Breakfast for dinner/brinner.

When Jim and I went on our first anniversary trip, he made fun of me because every day we would go to this breakfast buffet and I would load up with all the things.

Pancakes. Waffles. Cinnamon rolls? I love it all.

I’m kinda like … in Lord of the Rings asking about first and second breakfast.

But the disciples weren’t expecting breakfast in our gospel reading.

In fact, they weren’t expecting much of anything anymore.

They were in this weird in-between time. They had seen Jesus be killed. Then he appeared among them in a locked room, but now he is gone again. Here today, gone tomorrow. Heartache. Elation. Confusion. Now what?

They are in-between what they knew and what they aren’t sure about. They are in-between past dreams and a future hope. They are in between everything about their lives being changed and no clue where to go from here.

And in the middle of the in-between, Peter says “I’m going fishing.” In the midst of resurrection appearance and locked rooms, Peter (never one to dilly dally) is gonna get back to what he knows. We all have those things we do that help us to cope when we are overwhelmed or unsure what to do next. Maybe for you it’s working or binge-watching or baking or taking a nap. But for Peter, it was fishing. And so the disciples join him and they fish late into the night.

Only to catch......nothing.

They are exhausted no doubt and the day is only just breaking when in the thin light a man is standing on shore and yells out “children, you have no fish, have you?”

Noooo, can’t you see? I imagine them lifting up their empty nets to show him.

The man doesn’t seem bothered. He doesn’t say I’m sorry to hear that. He just says “cast the net to the right side of the boat and you will find some.”

Maybe they had tried that already. Who is this guy? What’s so miraculous about the right side from the left side? But they do, and now they aren’t able to haul it in because there are so many fish. They went from zero to 153 in an instant. Imagine not just one big catch but all the catches coming in all at once. So many fish that they could barely try to haul it in because it was so heavy.

What is so significant about 153? There are a lot of thoughts around this.

Is 153 the number of nations at the time?

Is 153 the number of different kinds of fish known at the time?

Is 153 the size of the early Christian community?

Or is 153 just a sign of the God’s abundant grace that met them in their midst.

Or is it as Karoline Lewis says, “As Karoline Lewis says, “Because in this story, the promised memory is abundant life, and here again, it is. Abundant fish. Don’t metaphorize this. And I don’t care if that’s not a word. What if it was really true? 153 fish? That is a crazy amount -- and why? Because that is how much God loves us.”

The disciples weren’t telling people about Jesus. They weren’t witnessing to his resurrection. They weren’t leading a small group. They just returned to their life doing what they knew how to do and wondering what to do next, and suddenly their boat is overloaded with fish. Suddenly the risen Lord is here and it all comes rushing back.

Back to when Jesus told them to throw their nets out in deeper water.

Back to water into wine.

Back to when a boy with five loaves and two fish turned into a feeding of 5,000.

Back to healing and abundance and resurrection.

As Barbara Brown Taylor says, “One moment it all looks hopeless to you and the next you see possibilities you never saw before. One moment your problems look too big to be budged and the next you discover handles on them you never knew were there before. One moment the net looks empty and the next it does not – you discover life where was there nothing but darkness and death before. ‘It is the Lord!’ That is what the beloved disciple said. How did he know? How do any of us know? By staying on the lookout, I suppose. By watching the shore, and the sky, and each other’s faces. By listening real hard. By living in great expectation and refusing to believe that our nets will stay empty or our night will last forever. For those with ears to hear, there is a voice that can turn all our dead ends into new beginnings. ‘Come,’ says the voice, ‘and have breakfast.’”

What might your net-breaking stories of God’s love be? Those times when it shocks you and leaves you proclaiming like the beloved disciple “it is the Lord” or diving all in like Peter.

A love that is almost impossible to contain, a love that defies logical sense and rational explanations, that bursts through the walls of our expectations, a love that overwhelms and nearly breaks any container we have for it, and a love that beckons us to come close and sit down and have breakfast.

Can you feel it? The warm charcoal fire.

Can you smell it? The aroma of bread and fish.

You see, there is no last supper narrative in John’s gospel. In the gospel of John, the last supper is breakfast on the beach, and it isn’t pointing to suffering and death but to resurrection and abundance.

While I don’t have catfish Communion for you this morning, I want you to wrap your senses and your soul around this scene. Breakfast on the beach with Jesus. This isn’t a character meet-n-greet at Disney World. This is Jesus once again meeting the disciples where they are. Not shaming them. Not judging them. This is Jesus who is already ahead of them, already preparing the food, already inviting you to gather round.

Resurrection is active and moving. It doesn’t sit still. Just like when Jesus found them and called them, resurrection seeks us out and appears in the most unlikely and ordinary spaces. Last Monday when we went Easter caroling at Indywood and Azalea, I sensed the presence of Christ among us as we sang out Easter hymns. What was beautiful was watching them sing along. Watching the memory of the promises of hope come flooding back through their spirits and out through their voices. Whether you are in a locked upper room, in a boat off shore, in a new town and college, at work or at home or on vacation, there is no place that the resurrected Lord cannot meet you.

I used to sing this hymn based off psalm 139 that asks

“Where can I run from your love? If I climb to the heavens you are there if I fly to the sunrise or sail beyond the sea, still I'd find you there.”

May there be no place that the resurrected Lord isn’t already going ahead of you and preparing for you. May the love of God always find you, stretch and overwhelm your life with grace, and invite you to breakfast on the beach.