Overheard John 17:6-19

As a young comedian, Bob Newhart was known for an act he did
that involved his audience overhearing one side of a telephone conversation
with a notable figure from history like Napolean or Abraham Lincoln.
Most people probably think he came up with that idea on his own,
though students of the Bible know better.
They know he stole it from John.
In the seventeenth chapter of his gospel John writes,
"After Jesus had spoken these words, he looked up to heaven and said..."
In essence, he began praying to God so that his disciples could overhear.
He might just as well have been talking to God on the telephone....

[Pick up telephone and dial]
Hello, Michael? Oh, sorry...Hi, Gabriel. Have you got a cold?...No, of course not...
I didn’t mean anything by it...(ASIDE - He’s SO sensitive...)
Yes, I’m sure I have no idea what kind of stress you’re under -
I mean, Heaven! Who’d a-thunk it?
Listen, is he in?...
I know he’s busy...
No, you can’t put an earthquake on hold, I realize that...
Just a few minutes, I promise...
Thank you, Gabriel. You take care...

Hello, Dad? DAD, COULD YOU TURN THE THUNDER DOWN...
Yes, that’s better.
Hi, sorry to bother you but I’ve got my disciples here...(ASIDE - Dad says "Hi.")
Listen, they’re a little anxious about my leaving them to come home...
After Passover...Of course you knew, I told you two weeks ago...
No, you don’t have to take the Stair Master out of my bedroom...
Well, I’m telling you now, OK?
(OUT OF DISCIPLES’ HEARING)
Hey, I’m calling because they’re having a hard time taking all this in
and I thought if they could overhear me talking to you
it might make them feel better...
Sure...Thanks.

(DISCIPLES AGAIN OVERHEARING)
Dad, I just wanted you to know that I’m really grateful for these disciples you gave me..
Ha, Ha, very funny...No, you GAVE them to me...I DO NOT owe you $50...
Yeah, you’re a real laugh-riot...
What about Mary Magdalene?...
SHE was part of the deal? You never told me...
You mean,,, we COULD have been married?...
Well, it’s a little too late for THAT don’t you think?

Anyway, I wanted you to know I’ve made your name known to them as best I can...
What name?
The usual. Yahweh, Jehovah, El Shaddai, Abba, Higher Power, Big’un...
No, I am NOT responsible for Papa-Doodle, James came up with THAT one!
I also wanted you to know that the words you gave me I’ve given them.
I’ve not held anything back from them...
Yes.. EVERYTHING...Well, no, not that...No, but I told them the important things.
OK. I’ll tell them. (ASIDE)
He wants me to make sure you know that "Money doesn’t grow on trees,"
and "Look people in the eye and don’t slouch."
and "Always check your oil when you stop for gas." Don’t ask.

Listen, Dad, I told them that you and I are very close
and that what’s mine is yours and what’s yours is mine.
My concern is that once I leave they’re going to be overwhelmed...
Well, they tend to get anxious if everything doesn’t fall into place right away
and they have this habit of thinking only what they can see or touch is real.
Frankly, they’re prone to push the panic button,
like the time I was taking a nap in the boat after a long day
AND THEY WOKE ME UP.

Anyhow, I’ve done my best to protect them from "The Man."
No...You know, "The Man."
It’s a figure of speech, OK? Yes, "The Man" can be a woman.
Look, I just want them to know that when I leave
they’ll still be protected from "The World."
No, not creation, THE WORLD...
No, I’m not criticizing...YES, you created a lovely universe...
I know you’ve caught a lot of flack for mosquitoes...
Well, you’ve gotta admit - malaria, West Nile virus
and what’s the deal with slugs? - NEVER MIND!

What I’m talking about are the forces in the world that can eat them alive...
No, not slugs, my disciples!...
The EVIL ONE is out there and she’s very clever.
Everybody tends to look for trouble out of the usual suspects,
and forget that the EVIL ONE’S favorite trick
is to distract us with criminals and miscreants
saving the most destructive assignments for ones we least expect.
Like the boss who humiliates her employees "for their own good."
Or those who market violence to children "just for entertainment,"
Or respected religious leaders who spew venom from pulpits
in the name of righteousness.
or, worse yet, turn worship into a three-ring circus
and make your kingdom sound like an all-you-can-eat buffet.

Dad, these people I care about are going to be assaulted by those
who will act like friends but twist our words to get them all confused.
And they’ll face others who won’t even try to disguise their contempt.
You’ve got to protect them from that!

But you know as well as I do that you not only have to protect them
from the EVIL ONE out there,
you’ve got to protect them from the EVIL ONE in here, too -
you’ve got to protect them from themselves...
You know what I mean.
At first they’ll need to be protected from the pain and disappointment
of feeling like they’re spinning their wheels and getting nowhere.
They’ll face all kind of obstacles and start to doubt themselves.
But eventually they’ll start to have some successes.
After all, they ARE hand picked. You did call them to this task.
But sometimes people need to be protected from themselves when they succeed
more than when they fail.

At first they’ll be grateful and give you the credit,
but pretty soon they’ll start imagining that they’ve EARNED their success,
that grace has nothing to do with it.
They’ll forget all the people who have gone before them and sacrificed for them
just so they can be where they are.
When they really get strong they’ll begin to imagine that their way of doing things
is the ONLY way and they’ll start trying to force others to do it THEIR way.
They’ll become cynical, but they’ll say they’re just being REALISTIC.
They’ll use their power to manipulate others.
They’ll convince themselves that the end justifies any means
and they’ll say all the right words in public but in secret do whatever it takes
to hold onto power.

No, I know it doesn’t HAVE to be that way.
But they do need your protection.
What?...No...You don’t need to take them OUT of the world.
You said yourself it’s a good world. It’s beautiful, in fact,
and I don’t want them to be quitters!
I haven’t put up with John’s cooking and Nathaniel’s stupid jokes for three years now
just to have them cut and run when it gets tough....
I just want you to watch over them,
help them carry on what we’ve started...
The Holy Spirit? Pentecost? That could work.
That sounds like a plan. Great! I’ll tell them. Thanks.

One more thing, Dad.
I know I don’t have to tell you that we’ve invested a great deal in these people.
But one thing - don’t hover...
I know, I asked you to protect them,
but you know how that makes ME feel when you hover.
They know the truth. They’ve got the faith.
With a little help now and then, a nudge or two,
I predict they’ll be OK.

Listen, I’d better go.
I’ll see you in a few weeks, OK?
No, I don’t have a job lined up, yet. I thought I’d do some traveling.
But I’m going to need a vacation...
Dad, you’re breaking up...I can’t hear you...Bye, Dad.

Just for Fun John 15:9-17, Acts 10:44-48

Most children are nothing if not inventive.
For example, a child can make most anything into a ball.
In Mexico, children will play soccer with anything that can be kicked.
When I was growing up we played basketball.

I remember when I was in the eighth grade.
My friends and I would hurry through lunch so we could be among the first ten
to get out on the black top and play basketball for half an hour.
Somebody would be designated to sneak his empty milk carton
past the lunchroom monitor
and once we got out we would fill it with gravel and fold over the top.
This was our ball.
Then the first ten out who wanted to play
got to choose up sides for the first game of a single elimination tournament.
As long as you kept winning you kept playing.
Lose and you’d sit down to wait, hoping for another turn before the bell rang.
You know what happened.

You saw it growing up. Maybe you lived it.
The best athletes were chosen rapidly.
The least accomplished were chosen last.
The desperate hope of all of us who took our basketball seriously
was that the really bad athletes wouldn’t even try.
There was enough honor among us to acknowledge the right of anyone
who was among the first ten out to be considered for one of the first two teams.
But that didn’t stop us from rolling our eyes or groaning loudly
if somebody like Randy or Jack stepped up to be chosen.
They weren’t any good.
Everybody knew it.
THEY knew it!
Why couldn’t they just face facts and sit and watch
and not mess things up for the rest of us?

Looking back, I think, WOW - what courage it took for those guys
to stand up among the ten and demand to be chosen,
ESPECIALLY when they knew they weren’t athletic or coordinated.
Randy was likely as not to throw the "ball" to someone on the other team,
and if Jack got it, he would just freeze and get swarmed by the defense.
But every now and then they stood up to play, not content to sit on the sidelines,
defiantly deaf to our groans and blind to our sneers.
Where did they get that courage to say, "I’m as worthy of playing the game
as anybody out here."
Where did they get the wisdom to know that our attitude toward them
was OUR problem and not theirs?

I almost got up the courage to ask them at our 30th high school reunion,
but they seemed to be having so much fun and I still feel ashamed enough
that I didn’t want to stir the pot of eighth grade stupidity.
Jack made a killing in the Real Estate market
and now runs a bed and breakfast with his partner down in Jacksonville, Florida.
Randy designs home interiors and moved back to Gastonia to nurse his sister
before she died of cancer.
I’m guessing neither one of them is, to this day, any good
at putting a milk carton full of rocks through a playground basketball hoop.
I’m also guessing neither one of them cares.

What once seemed so critical, so vital to my identity, my value as a human being
now doesn’t even register as a single blip on the radar.
I thought scoring the most points was the goal.
How much more fun we all would have had
if we had understood that the more worthy goal was simply to enjoy the game.

That’s a pretty foreign concept these days, playing for the joy of it
instead of winning at all costs.
We used to view an emerging ability to cooperate with others
as a sign of developmental maturity in our children,
but now many see it as a weakness
compared to the kid who’s got the drive to be first.
We used to admire a competitor for stopping to help another
but now that’s seen as the mark of a chump.
It’s gotten ugly.
One soccer league had to suspend the time honored practice
of players shaking hands after the game
because fights were breaking out and that was the coaches!

It was either baseball great Leo Durocher or football legend Vince Lombardy
who said, "Show me a GOOD loser and I’ll show you a LOSER,"
This attitude must have worked for them on one level
because their success landed each of them in the Hall of Fame.
But that kind of thinking is exactly what has corrupted our culture
and taken the joy out of life.

Think about what it says.
First it says that everything is a competition,
nothing can be done WITHOUT there being winners and losers.
There are no moral victories,
there’s no honor in battling hard and calling a draw,
there’s no value in even doing something that DOESN’T have winners and losers.
Second, it says that if you do compete and you fall short
you HAVE to sulk and pout and swear revenge,
you have to hate yourself and feel humiliated and cover your head with a towel.
If you don’t, it makes you a loser.
If you get any satisfaction out of playing well regardless of the final score,
or if you can see your opponent as only an opponent and not your sworn enemy,
then you just don’t have what it takes to be a REAL champion!
Poppycock!

How did we get to the place where ruthlessness in sports or business or politics or religion
is a thing to be admired rather than exposed and exorcized?
How did civilization come to evolve backwards
so that sacrificing one’s own gain for the sake of another
or reaching out to lend a helping hand
or working to make sure that everyone gets some of what they want
is seen as a weakness?
Some would say it really is worse now than it used to be.
Others would say it’s always been this way,
we’ve just stopped being hypocritical about it.

In teaching his disciples what it means to BE his disciples
Jesus underscored the fact that life is not a competition.
God’s favor is not something to be earned or won,
and joy cannot be achieved by gaining some kind of advantage.
Instead, Jesus’ disciples are chosen not by their point production but by grace.
And Jesus’ disciples are the beneficiaries of his great sacrifice on their behalf.
There is no contest to be won,
no opponent to be mastered,
no reason to humiliate your competition so as to make yourself look good.
In fact, making everything a competition obscures the gift.
Dividing the world into teammates and opponents only diminishes the joy.
And joy is the goal.
Not pleasure, not satisfaction, not even happiness, but joy.
It begins when you begin to fathom what God has done for you.
It moves toward completion when you begin to dream of what you can do for others.

I want to tell you about a place of joy right here in Nelson County.
I’ve not been there yet, but I’ve heard about it.
Ten years ago Emma Vaughan decided that there were children
in the Massie’s Mill area of the county who needed something to do in the summer
other than sit around home watching television.
These are children whose parents can’t afford to send them to camp.

Miss Emma, along with her husband and a few friends from church
pooled their resources and offered their time
and invited children to come to the Massie’s Mill Recreation Center
to spend the day.
They went from day to day at first, gathering at the end of each day
to talk about what had gone well and what flopped.
In the Summer of 2004 they had nearly 50 children, infants to age 15,
each weekday for eight weeks.

Last summer they didn’t have the day camp. Miss Emma took ill and died.
But this year her daughter and others have rallied
to try to carry on Miss Emma’s work. 50 children have already signed up.
Another blow is that their primary benefactor also died last year
so they are simply stepping out in faith that the money will be there when needed.
Kathy Croll and I attended an organizational meeting of volunteers this past Thursday.
Lynn Grosz, the cooperative extension agent in charge of 4-H
is helping to recruit volunteers and provide resources.
At what is now officially known as Emma’s Day Camp
they’re looking for volunteers to come on a daily basis,
but they’re also looking for volunteers to come in once or twice and teach a skill
or get together an plan some kind of event.
Maybe some of you are interested.
They’re also looking for financial assistance.
We’re going to look at the church budget to see what we can do.

The point is that Emma Vaughan’s friends are not wealthy,
nor are they connected with people in high places,
nor are they looking to get awards or pad resumes.
On the big playground of life
In a culture in which there are no GOOD losers,
they wouldn’t be the first ones chosen. They might not get chosen at all.
But that doesn’t seem to phase them.
In the spirit of Randy and Jack they stand up to play anyway
because they know that out of pure love
God has chosen them to be Jesus’ friends.
And as Jesus’ friends they can’t help but reach out to others.
They’re not playing to win.
They’re playing just for fun. And for joy.

Abiding John 15:1-8, Acts 8:26-40

Abiding
John 15:1-8
Acts 8:26-40

I don’t say this enough, but I’m glad I’m not God.
I’m glad I’m not God because as sure as I’m standing here I would mess it up.
I get cross if somebody changes lanes in front of me
without using a turn signal!
Just think of what I might do if I had omnipotent powers
and I saw thousands of children starving in Haiti while political factions
waste precious resources fighting amongst themselves,
Or what if I had lightening bolts at my fingertips
and a tornado or two holstered on my hips
and I saw somebody cruelly teasing a mentally retarded man.
I couldn’t do it.
I couldn’t resist the temptation to blast SOMEBODY into next week.

Let’s all pause a moment and breathe a sigh of relief that I’m NOT God
but let’s also realize that because we ALL come at life
from a limited, somewhat twisted, ill-informed perspective
not one of us could do the job – not well.
In fact, even when we simply set out to interpret
what seems on the surface a very straightforward Bible passage
we have to first admit the serious handicap of being human and not divine.

Take the first verses of John 15 for example.
It starts out with an image that would be very familiar to John’s original audience
and it’s one that’s quite familiar to this congregation
made up, as we are, of master gardeners and residents of Virginia wine country.
The image is of a vine grower, a grape farmer
whose task it is to get the best from his vineyard, to make it bear fruit
and WE know what it means to bear fruit, right?
it means to be PRODUCTIVE.
It means to compete vigorously in the marketplace,
to maximize efficiency,
to refuse to settle for second best.
Sure, there will be times when it seems the only fruit you can put out there is a lemon,
but, gosh darn it, that’s when you need to make lemonade!

Of course we also know what it means to cut away, to prune,
to get rid of UNPRODUCTIVE vines
Each of us can conjure up in our mind’s eye
a poster child for fruitlessness.
We’ve each got someone in mind who epitomizes waste:
wasted efforts, wasted time, even wasted space.
It’s all about efficiency,
the right use of limited resources.
We know about fruitfulness and we know about barrenness
and with the shears in our hands we could get it done!
We could whip any vineyard our ours into shape like nobody’s business.

Sure we COULD do it,
the trouble is that what we would end up with in our vineyard
would be far different from God’s.
We’re human beings, remember?
With foggy insight, limited foresight,
and, even with 20/20 hindsight we're not very good at learning our lessons,
not very good at exercising patience,
not the kind of patience it takes to tend God’s vineyard.

Where we go wrong is in forgetting that, in God’s vineyard resources AREN’T limited
Efficiency is NOT the primary consideration,
Abiding is.
Instead of putting all the focus on production,
instead of couching everything in terms of reward and punishment,
success and failure,
Jesus reminds us that in God’s vineyard the MOST important thing
is simply to to remain, to abide, to stay connected.
The Master Vine Grower is the one, who, in the end,
is responsible for the ultimate overall health of the vineyard.
Our job is NOT to sort, to snip, to judge the relative value of any branch.
Our job is simply to hold on to Jesus for all we’re worth
and to hold on to each other as well.

It’s Mother’s Day so it seems only right to confess
that mother’s seem to consider this truth more often than fathers.
We fathers tend to take the role of efficiency experts in the family.
If there is a family get-together planned and grown children are traveling from afar
It’s the father who spends time plotting out the shortest route for everyone.
It’s the father who considers whether the old hot water heater is going to be able
to give a hot shower on demand if everybody stays in the same place.
But the mother, she doesn’t care about that stuff.
She may plan out some meals, do the grocery shopping,
but that’s not chief on her agenda.
All she cares about is that everyone is together again.

Let’s face it, if you and I were in charge of the vineyard
we’d have it staked in rows and free of anything that didn’t look like it belonged.
We’d prune it passionately and quickly lose patience
with any vine that didn’t produce.
"It’s wasting space," we’d yell to our helper,
"Yank it up and put in something that’s going to pay off."

But thankfully, we’re not in charge. God is.
And instead of putting all the focus on production,
instead of couching everything in terms of reward and punishment,
success and failure,
Jesus reminds us that in God’s vineyard the MOST important thing
is simply to abide, to remain, to stay connected.

Some of you may see that as an awfully lax view of discipleship,
a shirking of Christian duty,
a convenient excuse to indulge in an "anything goes" corruption of the faith.
but you’d be wrong.
The truth is, it’s us trying to do God’s job that’s the corruption.
It’s us assuming that we know what’s best for God’s vineyard
that is the height of arrogance.
Anybody can judge.
Any group can divide itself into little subsets of like-minded robots
setting up and jealously guarding rigid group standards of behavior and doctrine.
That’s a cake walk.

It’s staying connected that’s hard,
especially in this toxic culture of television’s barking heads
and editorial page sniping that try to divide us into polarized camps.
It’s having the strength to keep in touch that’s a struggle
in the face of right wing evangelicals and liberal activists
who loudly pit themselves against one another.

ABIDE in me, Jesus said. Abide in ME.
Keep the branches connected to the vine,
and stay connected to one another.
Belief will come. Behavior will come.
Not out of fear of failure, not out of concern over being cut due to lack of performance,
but as the natural outgrowth of deep love.

The remarkable thing is that it’s this passion to stay connected at all costs
that allows for unprecedented freedom to bear fruit in surprising ways -
in organic, unscripted, Spirit-led ways.
Philip found that out.
He was a Jew from a Galilean fishing village
and he was nudged by the God’s Spirit to engage with an Ethiopian court official
who happened also to be a eunuch.
I suppose there could be two people more different from one another,
but it’s hard to imagine.

After Jesus’ death those disciples who had been so close to Jesus,
could have become an insulated group.
Out of fear or misguided loyalty,
they could have set up a lot of rules, put up assorted roadblocks
to keep people out.
It would have made sense,
given the hostile environment in which they found themselves.
Except that they had already seen with their own eyes
that they really had no control over the movement of God’s Spirit.

They had been in Jerusalem when the Spirit was poured out on thousands at Pentecost
and unless they were going to deny their own experience
there was no other option for them
but to realize that they were on a beautiful, wild, bucking bronco
and all they could do was hold on for dear life –
stay connected. Abide. Remain in Jesus, their Risen Lord.

So Philip followed the Spirit’ leading when he could have said "No."
He could have argued that it would have been an inefficient expenditure of energy
given the fact the he, an olive skinned Galilean country boy
had nothing in common with a brown-skinned, African, government man.
Fortunately, Philip knew that it wasn’t his job to prune the vineyard.
He’d apparently been listening on the day when Jesus talked to them
about the Vineyard Owner being in charge.
He remembered Jesus’ admonition to simply abide.

So he engaged the stranger.
And God used Philip’s connection with Jesus and with his fellow disciples
as the raw material from which to forge a new connection with the Ethiopian.
Philip gave no final exam, not even a pop quiz as a final test of worthiness.
In fact it was the Ethiopian who asked the question.
"What is to prevent me from being baptized?" he asked.
You and I could think of a hundred things
To his credit, Philip knew he wasn’t God.
He was just a conduit, at best a coupling hitch, nothing more.
"What is to prevent me from being baptized," the Ethiopian asked?
"Nothing," Philip replied, "Absolutely nothing."

Imitation of Christ John 21:1-19

The streets of Old Jerusalem are narrow and most are lined with shops of all kinds
There are vendors of jewelry right next to bakeries,
purveyors of T-shirts alongside sellers of exotic spices.
I prided myself on being immune to the shop keeper’s pitch
UNTIL I passed a shop with big stacks of leather sandals
and a sign that said, "Jesus Sandals."
Since there were some nice ones right out in front that looked big enough
to float down the Mississippi,
I imagined they might even have a pair in back that would fit me.
I thought it might be a good investment for children’s moments or Vacation Bible School.
I could see myself walking into a Sunday school class, bathrobe cinched,
staff in hand, and all the six-year-olds marveling
at the authenticity of my Jesus sandals.
But, in the end, I passed.

Part of the allure, of course, of being able to tour Israel
is the opportunity to walk where Jesus walked,
to see the hills that he saw,
to float on the same Sea of Galilee on which he floated.
In fact, the boat we rode across the Sea of Galilee was billed as a "Jesus Boat"
and purported to be a replica of the kind of ship Jesus might have sailed
on one of his several trips across the water.
At each stop along the way, especially around the Sea of Galilee,
I would usually follow a little ritual - I would find a place to sit, squint my eyes
and imagine the scenery around me as it might have looked to Jesus.

This was especially true at a place on the North East shore
where there’s a little chapel called "The Church of the Primacy of St. Peter."
This chapel is built in the location identified by ancient tradition
as the spot where the Risen Lord met Peter and the others for breakfast.
Actually, it’s built across a rock outcropping that serves as an altar inside the church
and, outside the church, has been worn smooth by countless pilgrims
who have touched and rubbed it.

I found that if I crouched, keeping the church just out of the field of vision on my left side
and then looked out across the water toward the distant shore
I could imagine the whole scenario without interference.
I could imagine the seven disciples including Peter
casting out and dragging in their nets all night long catching nothing.

I could imagine that at daybreak anyone standing on shore would be backlit
by the glowing Eastern sky
rendering it impossible to make out anything but a silhouette of that person.
The figure on shore calls out the standard greeting, "Catch anything?"
which the frustrated disciples answer, "No...not a thing."
So the dark figure suggests, "Why don’t you try the other side?"

Now, before I saw the Sea of Galilee I had always taken at face value
that Jesus’ suggestion to fish on the right side followed by a huge haul of fish
was nothing less than another of Jesus divine miracles.
Commentators, in fact, often refer to it as the "miraculous catch of fish."
And it’s because of this miracle, they say,
that Peter recognizes the stranger as Jesus.
But after seeing the Sea of Galilee, I understand this scene differently.
We were told by the skipper of the Jesus Boat
that the Sea of Galilee has some of the finest fishing
of anywhere in the world. It’s loaded with fish.
It’s not unusual to see a flock of gulls hovering just above a spot in the water
feeding on a large school of fish swimming by.

I wonder if the large catch of one hundred fifty-three fish
wasn’t so much a miracle as it was the result of a change in approach.
The disciples had been fishing all night, we’re told.
casting out, and drawing in, casting out, and drawing in.
Had they only been fishing from the left side of the boat all night?
It’s possible. I’ve done it. You’ve done it.
You set out to accomplish a task - catch some fish, fix the computer,
get your husband to change an annoying habit.
You tackle the problem the best you know how and at first you have no success.
So, what do you do? Do you change your approach? Come at it a different way?
No, you try again using the same tactics, only this time you try a little harder.
When it still doesn’t work do you blame your solution?
No, of course not! You blame the problem!
The reason you don’t get the results you want is not because your methods have failed, It’s because the fish or the computer or your husband isn’t cooperating!

Alcoholics Anonymous has a saying that the definition of insanity
is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result.
I wonder if maybe the disciples weren’t acting a little insane during their night of fishing.
After all, they had a right.
Think of the whirlwind of emotions they’d been through in the previous month -
the triumphal entry into Jerusalem,
Jesus’ arrest, conviction, crucifixion, entombment.
Then, on Easter morning an empty tomb,
and then, even more amazing, the Risen Jesus standing there among them.

They’d gone to Galilee because that’s where Jesus said he’d meet them,
but I’m guessing they went fishing to clear their heads,
to find some comfort amid all the craziness in something familiar and routine,
maybe earn a little money, after all, a man’s gotta eat!
So set out in the evening when the fishing should be best
and, choosing to begin on the left, they cast out and draw in - but there’s no fish.
Again, they cast out, draw In - but no fish.
AGAIN, CAST OUT, DRAW IN - NO FISH!
AGAIN, CAST OUT, DRAW IN - NO FISH!!
AGAIN, CAST OUT, DRAW IN - NO FISH!!!
On and on, through the night - aching, tired, dripping with sweat
until interrupted in their insanity by a lone figure on the beach.
"Hey, Catch anything?"
"Who is that? Can you see who that is?" "No, not a thing."
"Why don’t you cast to the RIGHT side of the boat. There’s a school right there.
Don’t you see the gulls?"

No, they didn’t see the gulls. All of their attention was focused on the LEFT side.
They do as he says, they change to the right side,
and, whaddyaknow, they catch some fish.
It’s Peter who finally puts it together - the familiar voice, the recognizable posture,
the intimate knowledge of local fishing..."It is the Lord!"

What follows is a very poignant scene of gentle confrontation
as Jesus recommissions Peter as a disciple.
Most everyone who reflects on this encounter sees the awkward
three-fold repetition of Jesus’ question "Do you love me"
as an opportunity for redemption;
one chance for Peter to declare his love for each time he denied Jesus.

And Jesus makes it clear that while the hostile environment still persists
it will continue to be dangerous for Peter to be his disciple,
that, in fact, Peter will likely face his own form of crucifixion because of it.
But, in the end it comes down to Jesus offering Peter the same simple invitation
he had offered three years before, "Follow me."

There is no question in my mind that as we read this story,
our Risen Lord is offering us the same invitation to follow.
But it occurs to me that growing up as a Christian in the South
has predisposed me to a type of insanity when it comes to my attempts
to follow Jesus.
I don’t mean to suggest here that Southerners are any more warped than anyone else, we just have our own particular form of insanity.

When I was seventeen I was spending the summer after my senior year in high school
as a Boy Scout camp counselor.
I was a waterfront instructor and it was my job before camp opened
to clean up a twenty foot sailboat the camp owned.
In the tiny cabin of that boat I found a waterlogged copy of a spiritual classic,
The Imitation of Christ by Thomas a’ Kempis, a German monk of the 15th century.
It really was too waterlogged to read, but still I took it as a sign
that what I really needed was to get serious about being a disciple.

Like the title said, I needed to imitate Jesus,
and, as a Southern boy growing up in the Bible belt I knew what that meant -
It meant that I needed to read my Bible more
and I should try to think about girls less.
It meant I should quit telling dirty jokes
and I should try to get others around me to do the same.
For three weeks or so, I’m sure I was insufferable
until my resolve wavered and I relaxed back into my sinful self.
I felt guilty, but I’m sure my fellow counselors were grateful.

Even though I went to seminary
and my ability to think theologically has become more sophisticated
I still, on some level, practice a type of insanity when it comes trying to follow Jesus.
I still have in my head that being a disciple means trying harder to be better,
that it means adopting a certain vocabulary or style,
that, in essence, it means putting on Jesus' Sandals and cinching up my bathrobe.
It’s insanity because for nearly fifty years now I’ve tried to do that and I’ve failed.
I keep fishing on the left side of the boat thinking THIS time it’ll take,
THIS time I’ll be able to settle into a way of thinking and being
that will fit what I’ve grown up with as a child of the Bible belt.

I keep imagining that I’ll be able to travel comfortably in religious circles
and not feel like an imposter,
that certain words or phrases will come easily to my lips
and certain dark thoughts will magically evaporate.
But there’s someone on the shore who keeps calling to me, "Try the OTHER side!"
And there’s Jesus talking to Peter saying - what? -
Read the Bible more? Watch your language?
No, he’s saying "Feed my lambs, tend my sheep."

I think what Jesus is saying here is "Be my apprentice. Learn from me."
And what is it that Jesus is good at? What does he have to teach?
He’s good at one thing - living in God’s kingdom
and doing what he can to help others live in God’s kingdom.
What does that mean?
Just this.
As we read the gospel accounts and see how Jesus lived his life,
we find that
1. in the kingdom of God all creation is God’s gift
and worthy of respect and protection.
2. All people are God’s children and worthy of being viewed first and foremost
in that light, no matter what secondary characteristics may define them.
3. In the kingdom of God no one is an isolated individual, but part of God’s family, and
4. In God’s kingdom the weaker members of the family are due more attention and help.

When he calls us to follow, Jesus isn’t asking us to become the moral police,
He’s not asking us to wish each other a "Blessed day."
He’s asking us to be his student, to learn from our mistakes,
to grow in grace as one sinner among others.
He’s asking us to take up the challenge to be signs of hope to those who have lost hope,
to take a risk for love’s sake.
STOP THE INSANITY!
Try something different.
There’s no need to buy new sandals. The shoes you have are just fine.

Watchtower Mary John 20:1-18, Isaiah 55:6-11

I grew up knowing her only as Magdalene,
but her full name is Mary Magdalene Monroe.
She’s my Father’s first cousin, now in her nineties
and, though very frail, still possesses a sharp wit.

Magdalene was married to Arch Monroe
and she and Arch raised two sons, both retired engineers
and a daughter, a Presbyterian minister.
Magadalene is a great story teller.
Her funniest tales are of her attempts as a young mother
to keep up with her two rambunctious boys.
Her parenting philosophy seems to be
that the best way to keep her boys out of trouble
was to keep them off balance - to surprise them every now and then.

For example, when they were pre-teens her sons liked to jump out of the barn loft
into the hay wagon even though she told them it was too dangerous.
They kept doing it, though, until finally she made them a proposition.
She said, "If I jump out of the loft into that old hay wagon,
will you promise never to do it again?"
With the arrogance of youth they readily agreed thinking she was much too old,
that she’d never do it.
She DID do it, though, and reflecting back she said,
"I never did tell them I nearly broke my wrist on the side of that old wagon!"
Her eyes twinkle when she tells of the time
that she got her teenaged son, himself a new driver, to teach her to drive.
She admits she nearly ran them both into the chicken coop,
but she earned his respect.

Magdalene is, in my opinion, a fine example of a woman of independent spirit
who dealt with the constraints imposed upon women of her time and place
by walking a fine line - doing what was expected of her
but doing it in her own way, with her own twist.
In that regard, she has served her Biblical namesake well.

I grew up like most of you, probably,
hearing that Jesus’ friend, Mary Magdalene, was a prostitute,
damaged goods, in other words.
I’m not sure I knew what a prostitute was until I was a teenager,
but I knew it had to do with the darkest sin imaginable.
My Sunday school teacher would speak her name in hushed tones with a knowing look
and the image that would come to me was a woman I used to see in a diner
my father would take me to sometimes for breakfast.
This woman was of indeterminate age, she might have been the owner.
Whoever she was, she was a fixture at one of the back tables
always smoking one cigarette after another.
She had taut, leathery skin and big hair, dyed red and sprayed hard into place.
She wore heavy makeup -
red, red lipstick and thin eyebrows penciled in perfect arches
making her look perpetually surprised.

My image may have been imperfect, but one thing I knew for sure.
I knew Mary Magdalene was one lucky woman
to be allowed anywhere near the delicate, holy Jesus
who gazed down benevolently from our classroom walls.
It wasn’t until I was in seminary that I learned it was Jesus who was the lucky one.

What I discovered is that the identification of Mary Magdalene as a prostitute
is not biblical, but traces back to an Easter sermon in the 5th century
by Pope Gregory the Great.
I don’t know what he was "great" at, but it wasn’t biblical interpretation,
because he took great liberties with the biblical text,
connecting Mary Magdalene with the unnamed woman taken in adultery
and saved from stoning by Jesus.
Gregory also seems to have confused her with Mary, sister to Martha and Lazarus,
who, we’re told in John’s gospel, anointed Jesus’ feet with costly ointment
and then undertook the very intimate act of letting down her hair
and using her hair to wipe the excess ointment from Jesus’ feet.
In Gregory’s opinion, Mary Magdalene represented
all that was seductive, sexual, and otherwise dangerous in women.
(Calling, Dr. Freud!)
It didn’t seem to matter to Il Papa
that the only time Mary Magdalene is mentioned by name in the Bible
apart from her presence at Jesus’ crucifixion
and as a witness to the resurrection is in Luke, chapter 8

In Luke 8, Mary Magdalene, is identified as one of several women
who traveled with Jesus and his disciples and
"provided for them out of their resources."
In other words, these women bankrolled Jesus’ ministry.
It does say that Jesus had exorcized seven demons from Mary,
but it makes no mention that this had anything to do with sexual impropriety.
She is, in fact, one of "many women" attracted to Jesus’ teaching
and that she contributes to his ministry
only serves to highlight her gratitude and generosity, not her sinfulness.
If Pope Gregory the Not-So-Great was quick to put down Mary Magdalene

as the poster child for sexual indiscretion,
then more recent tendencies have been to go to the opposite extreme
and elevate her status to one of superiority among of Jesus’ disciples.
More than a few people have read the Davinci Code by Dan Brown,
soon to be a major motion picture starring Tom Hanks.
The plot of this book and the topic of much speculation
is that Jesus and Mary Magdalene were really husband and wife.
Not only that, they had children together
and Jesus’ bloodline has survived down through the years.
This shocking "truth" is something the Roman Catholic church
has tried desperately to keep under wraps, even by violent means,
because if it every got out, the Church would be shaken to it’s foundation.

It’s an interesting plot, but by Dan Brown’s own admission pure fiction.
I’m not sure I understand what would be so earth shaking about it
even if it WAS true.
But even scholars who recognize the plot of the Davinici Code as pure fiction,
have sought to elevate Mary Magdalene’s role as a disciple,
to erase the undeserved smear on her good name and give her the credit she’s due
They do this in order to claim
a more central place for women in the foundation of the church.
And also, I suppose, of presenting a different view of Jesus.

But no one can change the fact that when it comes to Jesus’ personal relationships
the Bible is largely silent.
Jesus may have been married,
but it’s a stretch to claim, as some do, that he definitely WAS married
just because most all Jewish men WERE married in his day.
It’s also a stretch to say he WASN’T married
just because he led a life of poverty and couldn’t have easily supported a family.
And, regardless of our love of gossip,
There is simply no evidence to suggest
that Mary Magdalene and Jesus were sexually involved.
What we do know, is that Mary was a faithful friend to Jesus.
He had, in some way, profoundly changed her life
and she courageously stayed near him even when others fled in fear.

"Magdalene" was not Mary’s last name as I always imagined growing up.
It was a title, really, a designation of where she came from
that helped distinguish her from other Marys.
It was as if someone were to call me David the Gastonian
to distinguish me from the David the Lynchburger.
Mary was from a town on the shore of the Sea of Galilee called Magdala,
a fishing village known for its fine boat building.
Magdala was at the crossroads of the major Roman trade route called the Via Maris
and there must have been a watchtower there for soldiers guarding the route
because "Magdala" comes from the Hebrew word "Migdol" meaning "Tower."
They called her Mary Magdalene to distinguish her from other Mary’s.
In effect, it was like a nickname, "Watchtower Mary."
Maybe that’s all we need to know about her.
Watchtower Mary.
A fitting name for a remarkable woman
even if we stick only to the scant biblical witness that we have.

John, in his gospel, is the one who speaks most favorably of her.
Whereas in the other gospels she is one of three women who were first to the tomb
that Easter morning,
In John’s gospel it’s Watchtower Mary alone who comes even before dawn.
She gets to the tomb where Jesus was laid and finds the heavy stone rolled back,
the tomb wide open.
What does she do? She does what it is her place to do. She’s a woman, after all.
She doesn’t take initiative
She doesn’t investigate.
She doesn’t take inventory of the tombs contents.
Instead, she runs quickly to tell the men, Peter and the "disciple whom Jesus loved,"
dutifully reporting to them that Jesus’ body has been stolen.
The men come and do their thing.
THEY investigate. THEY take inventory.
THEY formulate theories and go back home to talk about it further.

But Mary doesn’t go home. Instead she lives up to her name. She stands watch.
She’s not allowed to be part of the problem solving team. That’s Peter’s job.
She’s not allowed to take the lead, to give orders, to mount a search.
She’s a woman, after all, who must deal with the constraints
imposed upon women of her time and place
She walks a fine line - doing what is expected of her
but doing it in her own way, with her own twist.

At first she thinks he’s the gardener
but he only needs to speak her name and she knows the truth.
"Mary," he says. "Rabbouni," she replies.
And forever they are linked.
To try to claim without evidence that she was his wife only serves to diminish her
as though only as his wife could she be at all important to the story.
To speculate about their physical relationship
is to spiral off into tawdry gossip that only cheapens the depth of what they shared.
No.

What’s important in the end is that she was true to herself, to her commitment.
Long before, her life had been changed by Jesus,
He had helped her reset her compass, regain her bearings, find her purpose.
All she could do, all she NEED do, was live up to her name.
Magdalene. Mary of Magdala. Watchtower Mary.