In the Boat Part 2

 

Afterward, Jesus appeared again to his disciples by the Sea of Galilee. It happened this way: ² Simon Peter, Thomas, Nathanael from Cana in Galilee, the sons of Zebedee, and two other disciples were together.  “I’m going out to fish,” Simon Peter told them, and they said, “We’ll go with you.” So they went out and got into the boat, but that night they caught nothing.  John 21:1-3

 

Nothing, nada, zip, zilch, empty nets to match their empty hearts grieving the death of Jesus.  Remember that fishing was not just a vacation, but a vocation for disciples.  They were not amateurs; they knew what they were doing.  But even “experts” fail and falter, because we are all human-sized.  Even professionals strike out, miss free throws, make math errors, or can’t see what was coming next.  Even the best and brightest can be boneheaded at times.  I know that not every sermon I preach, morning meditation I write, or prayer I pray is gold.  God doesn’t ask for perfection but for practice and presence.  God pays attention to us and invites us to be awake and aware of God in our daily lives. 

 

Do you have a moment when you feel like your nets are empty?  Physically, emotionally, spiritually, relationally, in our country or world?  Empty nets where we keep turning to violence as a way of peace.  Empty nets of hate speech and belittling people.  Empty nets of churches seeing others as competition or constantly criticizing those people.  Empty nets of cynicism or denying/ delaying joy because it doesn’t seem trustworthy.  What empty nets are you finding as you are fishing from your sailboat this week?

 

I wonder, what did the disciples do as they waited?  I wish John had told us.  Did they play Skip-Bo or Solitaire?  Did they talk or just listen to God listening to them?  Did they sing hymns? If so, which ones?  Did they munch on trail mix or pace the length of the boat?  Did they mumble and grumble about how life was handing them lemons?  We don’t know.  But we do know, you know, what you do when you are waiting.  Waiting is a theme and thread not just in Advent but in these Easter-ing days right now too, as we approach Pentecost ~ the bursting and breaking in of the Spirit into our lives/church/world.  What are you waiting for?  Maybe the question about waiting has a connection to your thoughts above about empty nets?  Or maybe not.  Enter this scene.  Sit on the boat with the disciples.  And let your sacred imagination loose with what you are doing as you wait in these days.  Amen.

In the Boat Part 1

 

Afterward, Jesus appeared again to his disciples by the Sea of Galilee. It happened this way: ² Simon Peter, Thomas, Nathanael from Cana in Galilee, the sons of Zebedee, and two other disciples were together.  “I’m going out to fish,” Simon Peter told them, and they said, “We’ll go with you.” So they went out and got into the boat, but that night they caught nothing.  John 21:1-3

 

The above scene takes place at some undisclosed, undefined time after Jesus pulled a Casper the Friendly Ghost by bursting and breaking into the room where the disciples had gathered after Easter.  Even though the door was locked, Jesus was able to enter.  Wait, push pause on that detail.  Where is the door of your heart, soul, and/or life locked right now?  Maybe locked out of fear or frustration?  Maybe locked as a safety precaution, but somehow the monsters of anxiety and anger still find a way to get in?  Part of the mystery of Easter is that scars don’t define us, but the sacredness of Christ, who can find a way in, too.  Both scars and sacredness mix and mingle together.  Where and when have you felt Christ’s presence in the month since Easter?  Where and when has Christ burst and broken into your ordinary day without an appointment?  Where and when have you felt the sacred Easter-ing promise of God even in these days?

 

When Jesus enters, he isn’t disappointed or wagging his finger with blame or shame.  No.  Instead, Jesus breathes the breath of life, shows them his wounds (because Christ holds the brokenness of this world alongside the blessedness), and Jesus says, “Peace” or shalom or wholeness or alignment of your mind, heart, soul, life, actions, and way of being.  So much of my life can feel out of kilter and off the rails right now.  So much of life can feel like it is racing toward a cliff and like Wiley E. Coyote will zoom off into thin air only to hold up a “Yikes!” sign before crashing and crumbling to the canyon.  So much of life doesn’t go according to my plotting and planning; has God not seen the brilliant ideas I have?  Or maybe God has seen my idea and is rubbing God’s forehead thinking, “See what I put up with?!?” 

 

Even with all the exterior evidence of Jesus’ death and resurrection, the disciples still were not sure.  When we have questions, doubts, and are not one hundred percent certain/confident, we are in good company.  This is part of being a disciple!  I wonder if part of the reason the disciples decided to go fishing wasn’t that they were trying to escape, but to process all this mystery that made their minds, hearts, and souls feel like hamsters on a spinning wheel.  I wonder if the Sea of Galilee was a sacred place?  One of the ways we process grief is to go to ‘thin places’ where we previously spent time with our loved ones.  One of the ways we process grief is by sitting in the Memorial Garden, knowing that, in some way, God and our loved one are there.  Fishing might have been a prayer discipline, not a distraction for the disciples. 

 

Is there a ‘thin place’ where you commune with the holy?  Is there a sacred space where you feel God hovering and humming?  Can you find time in this season of Easter to go there and listen to God?  If you go, let me offer you an invitation to ponder: what does it mean to you to pay attention to God paying attention to you?  I know that is a bit of a riddle but sit with the holy wisdom.  God pays attention to you.  God’s gaze is directed at you.  God’s presence is wherever you are.  Let this sit with you as you guide your sailboat on the waters of life this week. Amen. 

Prayer

 

 

Yesterday I asked you to explore and experiment with your values ~ identifying the five to seven that make you, you!  If you struggled with that, let me ask a few questions ~ when have you felt most alive in your life?  Describe those moments.  When have you felt least fulfilled or even angry?  Describe that time.  Who inspires you, and is there a value on the list that you can pinpoint that is part of that individual?  Then what are you most proud of in your life?  What values made that moment possible?  Continue to reflect on the story beneath the story, because the molecules that make up the narratives you share (both aloud and in the quiet of your own mind) are your values colliding and combining within you and with the world around you. 

Values that Matter

 

So far this week, I have asked you to listen to the stories you tell about yourself to others and where you inherited that story from.  Today, I invite you to reflect on your values.  Read through the list below and circle the words that jump off the page.  Then go back and whittle down to five or seven that are the most important.  Remember, you don’t need to defend these ~ all these values are needed and necessary in the world.  But you are the only you in the world that can bring your particular values forward right now in your unique way.  Here is the list:

 

Authenticity                             Achievement                  Adventure

Authority                                 Autonomy                      Balance

Beauty                                     Boldness                        Compassion

Challenge                                 Citizenship                     Community

Competency                             Contribution                   Creativity

Curiosity                                 Determination                Fairness

Faith                                        Fame                              Friendships

Fun                                          Growth                          Happiness

Honesty                                   Humor                           Influence

Inner Harmony                         Justice                            Kindness

Knowledge                              Leadership                     Learning

Love                                        Loyalty                          Meaningful Work

Openness                                 Optimism                       Peace

Pleasure                                   Poise                              Popularity

Recognition                             Religion                         Reputation

Respect                                    Responsibility                Security

Self-Respect                             Service                           Spirituality

Stability                                   Success                          Status

Trustworthiness                       Wealth                           Wisdom

 

Hold these values as a gift of God’s presence in you.

Still Editing God

 

Yesterday, I invited you to pay attention to the story you tell others about yourself.  How did that go?  Honestly?  Maybe you were cautious about selecting your words ~ not wanting to boast/brag/berate yourself.  Maybe you held back, not wanting to bring your fully beloved and beautifully broken self out into the light.  Maybe you didn’t have the energy to do this because we all live in a world that is exhausted, underslept, overcaffeinated, and overwhelmed.  Today, consider the stories you heard from your parents growing up.  Were your parents optimistic, pessimistic, or a little of both?  What about your relatives?  I remember I would go to family reunions with kin who were farmers.  And there was always too much rain or not enough rain.  My uncle especially loved to use some “salty” language about his vegetable garden.   Consider what narratives you caught from culture?  You are a mixture of what you’ve absorbed from others and the conclusions you’ve come to in life through your experiences.  Continue today to listen to the story you tell yourself about yourself.  Do you use words that are biting and bitter?  Do you tell yourself that if only others would listen, the world would be a Willy Wonka chocolate factory of joy?  Keep listening to the stories that define you.  Do you ever feel like your stories sometimes confine you?  I know I do!  What threads/themes do you see woven in your life?  List those.  Is there a rhythm that has been pulsing, a beat that has been playing all along in your life?  Does your life have a theme song or a soundtrack?  Let’s keep listening to the story we tell and hold that in the story of Christ, whose resurrection love teaches/tells us that brokenness is never the last word and that God is still editing our lives.  Amen.

Put Down the Mask

 

Just as the season of Lent lingers, so does the season of exploring and experimenting with being an Easter-ing people.  Lent is forty days from Ash Wednesday to Easter Sunday (February 18-April 5 this year, not including Sundays.  If you are wondering why, it's because we live on the other side of the first Easter; so we do not count Sundays in Lent.  Every Sunday is supposed to be Easter Sunday, even in Lent.)  Lent lingers like a house guest that hasn’t caught on to the social cues that you’d like them to leave.  Even when you turn off the lights and start cleaning up the kitchen, Lent comes in and has the gall to start drying the dishes, patiently/persistently waiting for you to listen to your shy soul.  Lent prepares us to roll back the stones that block and barricade our lives.

 

We live in a culture where vulnerability is seen as a liability.  We deny and dismiss our own biases and brokenness.  We don’t like to admit that, like Lazarus, we are bound by the wounds and wants that keep us up at night.  And lest you think that you are beyond shadow boxing with yourself; lest you think that you have dealt with your own demons that make every day Halloween; I want to invite you this week to listen to the stories you tell about yourself to others.

 

Do you tell stories about how you have it all figured out, and people just need to listen to you?

Do you tell stories about how someone else has done you wrong, and your life is always singing the blues?

Do you tell stories about how you continue to succeed even when others are out to get you?

Do you tell stories about how you are such a bumbling, stumbling idiot that, amazingly, you can dress yourself?

Do you tell stories that cause you to puff out your chest or hang your head or maybe you find yourself on the sidelines silently praying that people will notice you, and at the same time hoping they don’t see you, because you don’t know what you’d say?

 

We are complex, contradictory, and compartmentalized people.  We often think that we should be further along than others in our comparison-addicted culture.  Then, in the stillness of the night, when all the words we say to someone else, or we replay the words we absorbed from others, we wrestle with our shadow. 

 

Easter lingers even longer than Lent.  Easter is fifty days.  Easter began a month ago and still has a month to go until Pentecost on May 24^th.  At the halfway point, can you and I listen to the words that fall from our lips and the ones that we think but don’t dare say aloud?  Sometimes we can put on the mask of kindness while in our minds we are fuming and frustrated.  Sometimes we let loose our tongue with anger and judgment, thinking we are prophetic or righteous.  Sometimes we don’t know what to think, say, or do, or be in this world today. 

 

Pause and breathe in.

 

You are the beloved of God.  Full stop.  Period.  This claim was affirmed at your baptism and can be celebrated with every splash in the ocean, washing of your hands, and sip of cool water as the weather turns warmer.

 

How might you live as God’s beloved Easter-ing person this week?  Let that question interrupt and intercede in your life this day and in the days to come.  Amen.