A Sermon Delivered by The Rev. John D. Painter at Centenary United Methodist Church Metuchen, New Jersey April 22, 2007

Text: John 21:1-19
After these things Jesus showed himself again to the disciples by the Sea of Tiberias; and he showed himself in this way. Gathered there together were Simon Peter, Thomas called the Twin, Nathanael of Cana in Galilee, the sons of Zebedee, and two others of his disciples. Simon Peter said to them, “I am going fishing.” They said to him, “We will go with you.” They went out and got into the boat, but that night they caught nothing.
Just after daybreak, Jesus stood on the beach; but the disciples did not know that it was Je-sus. Jesus said to them, “Children, you have no fish, have you?” They answered him, “No.” He said to them, “Cast the net to the right side of the boat, and you will find some.” So they cast it, and now they were not able to haul it in because there were so many fish. That disciple whom Je-sus loved said to Peter, “It is the Lord!” When Simon Peter heard that it was the Lord, he put on some clothes, for he was naked, and jumped into the sea. But the other disciples came in the boat, dragging the net full of fish, for they were not far from the land, only about a hundred yards off.

When they had gone ashore, they saw a charcoal fire there, with fish on it, and bread. Je-sus said to them, “Bring some of the fish that you have just caught.” So Simon Peter went aboard and hauled the net ashore, full of large fish, a hundred fifty-three of them; and though there were so many, the net was not torn. 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. Jesus came and took the bread and gave it to them, and did the same with the fish. This was now the third time that Jesus appeared to the disciples after he was raised from the dead.
When they had finished breakfast, Jesus said to Simon Peter, “Simon son of John, do you love me more than these?” He said to him, “Yes, Lord; you know that I love you.” Jesus said to him, “Feed my lambs.” A second time he said to him, “Simon son of John, do you love me?” He said to him, “Yes, Lord; you know that I love you.” Jesus said to him, “Tend my sheep.” He said to him the third time, “Simon son of John, do you love me?” Peter felt hurt because he said to him the third time, “Do you love me?” And he said to him, “Lord, you know everything; you know that I love you.” Jesus said to him, “Feed my sheep. Very truly, I tell you, when you were younger, you used to fasten your own belt and to go wherever you wished. 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 wish to go.” (He said this to indicate the kind of death by which he would glorify God.) After this he said to him, “Follow me.” —John 21:1-19, NRSV
A pastor, known for his lengthy sermons, noticed a man get up and leave during the middle of his message. The man returned just before the end of the service/
Afterward the pastor asked the man where he had gone. “I went to get a haircut,” was the reply.
“But,” said the pastor, “why didn’t you do that before the service started/”
“Because,” the gentleman said, “I didn’t need one then.”
That’s not an omen or a warning, by the way. It is, however, a way for me to tell you that the message you’re receiving this morning is very different from what I envisioned when I put this theme in the April Lamplighter. You might have suspected that.
And besides, I really needed a moment of humor this morning…and maybe you did too. It’s been a heck of a week…almost enough to swallow smiles and overwhelm laughter it seemed at times. I am really counting on your grace this morning because this message was definitely “pulled together” in the last moments. Tina and I…mostly Tina…have been engaged in resettling her 94-year-old mother in an assisted-living wing at Crestwood Manor. Between us, we have put about 1,500 miles on our cars traveling up and down the Parkway to Whiting, and transporting hundreds of pounds of items to a nearby thrift and consignment shop where, ironically, she served ably as the volunteer manager for over 30 years. We are both tired…perhaps exhausted would be the more ap-propriate term.
But on the way back home yesterday evening, caught in a minor traffic jam around milepost 120, I got to reflecting: Yes, John, it’s been a heck of a week. But our 33-year old son is alive and seems to be doing okay. There were times during his adolescent years when we had serious con-cerns about that, but he is a good and productive person. Nobody has aimlessly pointed a gun in his direction and taken his life or wounded him…and I don’t think he’s a candidate to be a shooter. Despite the deluge of biblical proportions on Sunday and Monday, our basement and garage re-mained bone dry (thank you, Trustees!). And in that moment of reflection, things sort of came into perspective for me.
On top of all the other concerns and anxieties of our routine daily lives, we have been hit with a kind of “double whammy” this week: The shocking death of 33 persons at Virginia Tech and, more locally, the severe flooding in several areas of our state. This morning I want to focus my remarks primarily on the situation at Virginia Tech…especially since a number of our national re-ligious and governmental leaders have asked us to spend some time in prayerful reflection. But be-fore I do, let me indicate that in a letter on Friday…in which he asked us to be in prayer for both the victims at Virginia Tech and those who have lost so much in the flooding…our Bishop Sudarshana Devadhar indicated that our United Methodist Committee on Relief (UMCOR) is already on the scene in New Jersey preparing to assist with cleanup and rebuilding. And he has asked us to share presently in giving to this concern. We will share that information with you in the next couple of weeks.
“In this joyous season of Easter, we have discovered how Good Friday has intruded on our world again…” Those were the words of Bishop Janice Riggle Huie, president of the United Methodist Council of Bishops, during a prayer to open a denomination-wide ‘town hall’ meeting on Tuesday, April 17. Looking at the profiles of the dead, you may be struck by their diversity: They ranged in age from 18 to 76; they came from nine states, along with Puerto Rico, Egypt, India, Indonesia, and Romania. They were male and female, African-American, Asian, Middle Eastern and Caucasian. They were all people who began the day Monday little knowing it would suddenly end their lives.
At the Virginia Tech memorial convocation last Tuesday evening, Professor and poet Nikki Giovanni said:
We are sad today, and we will be sad for quite a while. We are not moving on, we are embracing our mourning…. We do not understand this tragedy. We know we did nothing to deserve it, but neither does a child in Africa dying of AIDS, neither do the invisible children walking the night away to avoid being captured by the rogue army, neither does the baby elephant watching his community being devas-tated for ivory, neither does the Mexican child looking for fresh water, neither does the Appalachian infant killed in the middle of the night in his crib in the home his father built with his own hands being run over by a boulder because the land was destabilized. No one deserves a tragedy.
No, Professor Giovanni, “No one deserves a tragedy.” But now that this tragedy has been visited upon us, how shall we respond? As you can imagine there have been a number of folk advocating for stricter gun control legislation. And while I am sympathetic to that cause, I don’t think this is the time, yet. I find when I hear and read such these words they grate on me. I am concerned we not just move quickly from shock and grief to practical and political action. This is more appropriately a time for prayer and for tears. “The God that I worship is crying along with us,” said the Rev. Glenn Tyndall, the campus minister at Virginia Tech. “This is not what He in-tends as an abundant life for His children—to be mowed down in innocence by somebody that just went berserk.” In fact, the Rev. Karen Greenwaldt, the chief executive, of our United Methodist Board of Discipleship said, “We’ve been shocked into remembering our purpose as the body of Christ…. We are to be intercessors on behalf of the whole world. The highest calling at this time is to pray.” And pray we do, and we will.
We offer our prayers to the families and friends of those who died, those who were in-jured, and to the entire Virginia Tech community. We pray that the comforting presence of God will be felt in the midst of such deep heartache. As Jim Wallis of Sojourners affirms, “Sorrow can sometimes prove redemptive in ways no one could have imagined beforehand. It’s time to let sorrow do its reflective and redemptive work, to hold the hands that need to be held, to let our tears open our hearts to change those things that lead to such tragedy, and to trust our pain to the loving arms of God.”
Yes, Bishop Huie, Good Friday has indeed intruded and rained on the joy of our Easter season. But may I remind you that we are a resurrection people…an Easter people, my friends. And we know that the resurrected Christ will surely intrude on our sadness and lift us up with hope. “Blessed are you who weep now,” he said, “for you will laugh” (Luke 6:21b, NRSV).
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