Where we once hoped to walk on water, now we dive in

 Scripture: John 21:1-19

This is one of my favorite readings in all of scripture for several reasons not least of which is the fact that Jesus has just appeared to the disciples after the resurrection while they were locked in a room and immediately after he leaves, Peter looks around, stretches, and says, “I think I’m going to go fishing.”

That is a vibe I can get behind.

But this is more than an excuse for church folks to head to the lake, though I will certainly take it. This is a transformational moment in the life of Peter—from the disciple who denied Jesus three times to the man given a chance to affirm Jesus three times by the end of the chapter—and so it is also a seminal moment in the life of all those who follow. After all, Peter is the rock on which the church is to be built.

And why not, Peter? He is the one who leads the disciples out of the house—from the locked room where they waited in fear, not believing Mary Magdalene until Jesus stood before them in the flesh, showed them his wounds, and breathed on them with the Holy Spirit. The scene cuts and it is Peter who leads the disciples out of the room and on to the fishing boat. Peter takes the first step. Now, he doesn’t catch anything (which is also relatable), but perhaps he intuits that outside is where Jesus will meet them. They can no longer stay in a locked room. After all, the Gospel is written on the trees and on the waters if only they have the courage to leave the room—to go outside like we live at camp where scripture was written and meant to be the read, outside like the unroofed book that reveals Christ to us. Sometimes, Christ comes on the shore telling the disciples to cast to the other side of the boat, and sometimes Christ comes to us at camp when our inhibitions are cast aside and we let go of our fears.

When Peter and the disciples meet Jesus after that night of fishing, he famously tells them to throw their nets on the other side of the boat. When they do, according to John, they catch 153 fish—a very specific and strangely non-round number which has been theorized to represent all the known species of fish in that time period. Clearly, the disciples are about to go fishing in a variety of places, casting nets for people who were once far outside of the tradition. Jesus calls them as Jews not only to minister to Jews but to Gentiles, to sinners, to Romans, and to generally smelly people. Peter and the disciples fishing quickly becomes a parable of evangelism. Jesus shows them that the world is indeed about to change.

Which leads us to that splendid scene on the shore of the Sea of Galilee when Jesus pulls Peter aside after breakfast and asks him three times “Do you love me?” as if to reverse the curse of Peter’s denial. For every denial there is an affirmation. Do you love me? Yes? Feed my lambs. Three times. Do you love me? Yes? Tend my sheep. And once the curse is broken, then Jesus finally leaves Peter with a brief allegory about what lies ahead. Peter who was once young—Peter who once tried to walk on water—Peter who just a few minutes ago stopped his naked fishing, put on clothes, and jumped into the water when Jesus appeared on the shore (I simply cannot let that detail pass without comment)—that Peter has a different destiny ahead, one marked by his ultimate obedience to death. Yes, the path of discipleship leads toward death, because on the other side of the empty tomb, death has no power any longer.

I cannot read the ending to this passage without thinking of Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s book, The Cost of Discipleship, in which he says, “When Christ calls a man, he bids him come and die.” The call of discipleship has been this way for Peter all along—a call to come and die—but for a long while he was understandably afraid to follow it. He was willing to follow Christ if it meant he might remember how to walk on water, but once he began to sink, he doubted that Jesus could actually be lord over death. So it is with all who try to earn our way into the faith—trying to walk on water when we should be jumping in. But because of the resurrection, denial is not the end of the story! None of us follow the road to the cross—all of us get off somewhere, hedging our bets, afraid to leap, unable to give away everything, unwilling to turn our backs on our family and those we love. The Gospel is full of stories of disciples half-discipling, and of course they do! We all do! Because Jesus Christ doesn’t demand something hard; he demands something impossible.

So all of us find ourselves like Peter, looking at the risen Christ in the clear knowledge that we have failed to live up to the standard of the faith that Christ demands, but here is where Peter is remarkable: He accepts that he is not enough, and he understands that Christ nonetheless makes him enough. And when given the chance, he begins walking the road of the cross again, this time having met the risen Lord on a fishing trip. Finally, he stops trying to walk on water and instead he jumps straight in—it’s the absolute perfect image of baptism. Once he was trying to avoid getting wet, now he puts on his clothes and dives into the deep. When Christ calls a man, he bids him come and die. And for Peter, it takes the crucifixion and the resurrection to get him there.

Peter is a great reminder that it is never too late to orient ourselves to following after Christ. In fact, if the one thing Christ is calling us to do is to die, then all of us are on the right track—some of us will just get there with a little more kicking and screaming.

In the meantime, maybe it would do to spend a little more time fishing. At camp, this is what we do—not so much fishing fishing—but what is fishing, really? It is plumbing the depths in search of something hidden, a glistening treasure largely invisible to us on the surface. It is exploring God’s creation further and deeper in. The fishing trip is a metaphor for a whole array of activities that invite children and those with a childlike spirit alike to be curious about the world God has given us and our place in it, seeking in wonder after all the surprising places where God might show up.

Some of us would do well to go fishing more often. And for you it might be taking a walk, or tilling a garden, or sitting on a beach, or riding a bike with your kids. You know you. One of the spiritual practices that I try to follow is to get outside for at least an hour every day, and it’s hard—even working in outdoor ministry, even when I’m kind of the boss and can set my own schedule. It’s hard because every time I pick up that fishing rod I think about the hundred other things I could be doing and each seems incredibly important. We define ourselves by our busy-ness, by our importance, by our need to appear indispensable, and yet, every time I approach the water, or lace up my shoes and go for a run, I find that I understand things a little deeper than I did before. God meets me out there when I drop the need to look important. People who feel important are tailor-made for the world that defines us by our busy-ness, but those same folks inevitably lock themselves in a room out of fear when the resurrection is happening all around them.

So, here’s my advice to you, courtesy of Peter: Get out of your head and get outside. God meets us there—sometimes on the Sea of Galilee, sometimes at Ewalu Bible Camp, sometimes on the farm, or in the garden, or in a park. God meets us out there because we are built to live outdoors where we smell whiffs of the garden from which we are descendants. And when God meets us out there, it is not with the self-help messaging of the day. God doesn’t make you a better you. Rather, God bids us come and die. And if we are like Peter, and we have been through fear and grief and loss, this is the sweetest relief. Because death is the thing we fear most, so if God invites us in even there, then what more could we possibly fear?

I want to close today talking a bit about the “meta” (as the kids say) of this scene on the shore. This is truly an astonishing capstone to the Gospels. There are echoes here of Jesus’ original calling of the disciples, as well as the feeding of the five thousand, walking on water, the calming of the storm, and Peter’s three-fold denial; and this scene also sets the stage for the mission of the early church. And it accomplishes all this with a silly little story about fish. Don’t undersell the importance of seemingly mundane joys in life. The kingdom of heaven is built upon the simplest things—bread and fish, sitting in a boat, talking with friends, laughing and smiles. This past week I came across a journal I wrote in 2006, which captured a trip with my college choir to Tanzania. The journal concluded with an entry on the very last page from my first day ever working at Camp Lutherhaven in June 2006. I read the final entry, and I was a little disappointed. I had hoped I had written much more about camp 16 years ago—that I had continued journaling into the summer—but then I realized why I never did: I simply lived it. With a community of friends doing simple things—often paddling boats across a lake, meeting Jesus in one another.

The kingdom of God is not so far ahead of us. It is right there, and occasionally, like Peter, we need the reminder. Yes, the end of things is coming. Yes, the cross reminds us we are called to die. But in the meantime, there are fish to catch, simple pleasures, and friends to share in it all. After I read that journal, I scanned through my phone for the number of a once-close friend who appeared on many of the pages and with whom I haven’t talked in years. I texted her a hello, and a how are you doing, and what followed was a 10-minute conversation that made both of us smile. Simple things—like water lapping against the boat where we once hoped to walk on water and now realize that God only wants us to dive in, waiting for us with a fish on the fire.