Homily Third Sunday of Easter - April 25, 2004

 

In his book First Things First:  to Live, To Learn, To Leave a Legacy, Roger Merrill tells of a businessman named Fred who was moving into a new house.  Fred decided to hire a friend of his to landscape his grounds.  This friend had a doctorate in horticulture.  She was extremely knowledgeable, extremely bright.

 

Well, Fred had a great vision for his grounds, but was very, very busy.  He traveled a lot, and so he kept emphasizing to his friend the need to create a garden in such a way that it would require very, very little maintenance on his part.  He said that automatic sprinklers were an absolute necessity, and he was always on the lookout for labor-saving devices and other ways of cutting time.  Finally, his friend said to him, “Fred, I can see what you’re saying but there’s one thing you need to deal with before we go any further.  If there is no gardener, Fred, there is no garden.”

 

We gather to celebrate the Third Sunday of Easter- We continue to revel in the fact of Jesus’ conquering of the forces of death, denial, hatred, fear.  There are some things that we need to notice as we worship this day.

 

Jesus – the newly risen One comes back after the horror of Holy Week – after the brutality of Good Friday – after the amazing rolling back the stone drama of Easter morning and only wants to know one thing:  “Do You Love Me?”.

We would imagine that the dialogue would be different and that the agenda would be more dramatic.

 Henri Nouwen in his work entitled Jesus, A Gospel, says:

 

Look at Jesus…The world had rejected him; he was crucified and then dismissed.  His love and words of love were refused by a world that preferred power, efficiency, order and control, to peace.  But there he was, appearing to his own, who had eyes to see, ears to hear and hearts to understand and welcome him.  As portrayed by the fourth evangelist, this rejected and wounded Jesus simply asked, “Do you love me?” He whose life was spent in communicating the unconditional love of God had only one question to ask,” Do you love me?”

 

Jesus didn’t ask, “How are you doing?”, “Are you following my ways?” “Are you checking on the orthodoxy of the other followers?” “Are your leaders or those who would be your leaders voting they way they should?”  He doesn’t ask “How many have you converted?” or “What results can you point to?”

 

He simply says, “Do you love me?”

 

And then of course he says “Feed my Sheep”. Jesus equated loving him with caring for the others – nurturing those in the midst of them – those Jesus had loved himself.

 

The utter simplicity of it all is striking for us. This risen Jesus’ big reappearance is to be standing on the beach and grilling some fish and just telling his friends that what they need to do is love and nurture.

 

Do you think that maybe we’ve missed the point 2000 years later? Could it be that we’ve complicated the message?

 

Kathleen Norris in her book Amazing Grace talks about her grandfather who had given up both alcohol and chewing tobacco when he became a Methodist but still kept a box of cigars in the house.  He didn’t dare smoke them – the lingering smell would have given him away as a sinner.  But he would chew on them as he worked on his sermons – he was a Methodist pastor in a small South Dakota town. He lived in fear of getting caught. He had been fired as a pastor in another church in West Virginia because he played hymns on the banjo with the youth group and had taught them to play dominoes.

 

But we don’t have to go to West Virginia and South Dakota Methodists to see a corruption of the simple beach scene we witness in the Gospel today. Our own church, and indeed all the other Christian Churches have spent so much time on maintaining power and deciding what the right type of clothing would be and how to discipline one another and how keep the faithful orthodox – true to the teachings of the Church – that we have to wonder what Jesus would say as he stood on our beach some eventual summer day.

 

Should Gay people have a place in the church? Or divorced people? Or the people who question the teachings of the Church?  Or the people who dare to think that women might have a stronger role – or indeed be ordained. Or could the addict who just can’t get over addiction or the renegade who has broken all the rules? Or can the bride get married in the Church if she isn’t registered? Or should the family who isn’t typical – single parents – same sex parents - Do they belong – do they fit – is it all for them.

 

And Jesus stands and simply says “Do you Love me?”  And if you do feed one another – but especially feed those who are most hungry.

 

We see John at Patmos again this week – John who spoke too loud and believed so strongly that they had to send him far away.   Elizabeth Schussler Fiorenza – a theologian and biblical scholar suggests that the central question posed to humankind by the visions of John on Patmos – what got him most in trouble perhaps – is “Who is the true Lord of this world?” The seer’s response to that question is unequivocal and graphically expressed in today’s second reading.  This world’s true Lord is not Rome nor Babylon or Washington, D.C. or any other empire; the true Lord of all the world is the Lamb who was slain, Jesus, who died and rose to life for our salvation.

 

Peter and the other disciple in the first reading knew this. And so they couldn’t keep quiet. Their vocabulary – their whole thought process was directed by the realization of Jesus’ invitation to simply love Him and feed his flock. And the result of that nurturing for them – the product of their loving was amazing.

 

Of course they knew – and we know that love always brings a task.  Peter and the rest knew the difficulty of not being able to contain themselves. But they also knew that Jesus was present in the task. Patricia Datchuck Sanchez, a scripture scholar suggests that something of the difficulty of that task is hinted at by the writer of the gospel who describes the struggle that Peter and company had in hauling their near-bursting nets to shore.  Yet, because the task had been commissioned by Jesus and orchestrated by grace, the net did not tear and none were lost.  In effect, the sheep were tended and the disciples’ love for Jesus was made real.

 

We celebrate this Easter time. We are to witness His life in our midst – his invitation to us made real. It is our task to wonder together how we can best love Him – how we can best feed his flock. It is our task to know and live devoted to this risen One – the real Lord of our Life.