I remember falling in love with computers in the first school I attended. Our teacher was amazing. They had started a computer club, and in that club we put together computers from scratch. Well not really completely from scratch but we put together cpu's, monitors, different pieces we needed. We loaded on the operating system, and took tape recorders to record our computer coding. We started to program computers. It was amazing, all the kids in this club and myself were just wowed at what computers could do. I remember starting to program first images and pictures, using a grid or graph to darken in pixels. We could create any image and then by changing those pixels, we could create movement of those images. We made some rudimentary games, and using computing and math some basic programs for basic calculation. We recorded everything on regular cassette tapes. We could share those and we even figured out how to share what we had recorded with each other via the modem from line to line. We had so many questions, but we could see how this technology could do so much for us. By the end of the year, we were ready planning what we wanted to do next with our new computing power. I almost wonder what might had happened if I had stayed in the club.
I ended up going to a new school the following year. At this new school, I joined the computer class so enthusiastic about all of these new possibilities. However, the teacher came in with a large book and slammed in on his desk. He proceeded to hand out large text books to each of us and asked us to begin reading. I was lost. I didn't understand any of it. It all seemed like nonsense, I didn't know when we would begin to actually program? I wanted to explore music, copying music, or making music on the computer. I saw potential for sharing games with other computers, I didn't even realize that our group may had stumbled on the concept of the internet though at the time we didn't realize it. But this teacher with a book demanding we took quizzes and then more reading. This completely killed any interest I had in computers. That was the end of my career in the computer sciences.
Years later, I received an opportunity to work for a computer program company that produced Bible software. We took digital books and changed it into computer language so that those books could be read on the computer. That old love began to be rekindled. I remembered that I loved computing. Seeing it combined with to the production of theological works, and Bibles, commentaries, and dictionaries, was all I needed. My passion was rekindled. That passion that was squelched was relit.
This is in essence what happens to the disciples as we meet them after the crucifixion of Jesus on a beach during Jesus' third appearance. It was on this beautiful scene on the beach, Jesus and these disciples gathered around a crackling fire. It was likely that Jesus would have taken stones and placed them around to create a kind of fire containment, the wood or charcoal would have been started in the middle, vs 9 says “they saw a charcoal fire there, with fish on it and bread.”
There were grills in the ancient times, (metal iron griddle) Jesus might have been using that or maybe direct cooking on the coals, but I imagine it being laid on a griddle or metal grate, or maybe even wooden spit. Jesus invites them to share this breakfast together. This whole event was really about sometime much more. In this experience, Jesus is actually reorienting the disciples after a very traumatic event. The crucifixion of Jesus was and is a traumatic event. Not only did the disciples lose Jesus, they were also in danger of being imprisoned and put to death themselves. So, those events left them shattered, and here we see Jesus reorienting his disciples after their ordeal. Jesus wanted them to get back in touch with what they loved, what they saw in Jesus in the first place, what excited them about ministry, why they decided to follow Jesus in at the beginning.
That morning had started like many of the mornings since Jesus' crucifixion for Peter. Besides the disorientation of having seen Jesus resurrected, Peter was still trying to make sense of it all. The disciples had been fishing all night. They just really didn't know what to do after that first Easter. “I am going fishing” was something he often said. This was Peter's trade after all, it was how he made his living before he had met Jesus. It hadn't been a good day, and they couldn't locate the fish. After a night of discouraging fishing just as the sun began to dawn, they saw the silhouette of a man standing on the shore watching them, and calling out asking “children, you don't have any fish do you?”
Peter might have been tempted to answer less than honestly! “Yes, we have fish, of course we do, they are under this tarp”. Peter and the disciples were experienced fishermen, this was their trade and their profession. It's potentially an embarrassing answer. Peter is full of frustration and discouragement.
But if Peter is anything, he is honest. “No, No, he pines", “we haven't caught anything”. He is always willing to face the situation as it is. But this is important, we have to be honest with ourselves. The voice calls out echoing across the calm breezeless glassy morning sea. “Cast the net to the other side of the boat and you will find some.” This is some de ja vu. Jesus had been preaching and teaching by the sea of Galilee, when he had heard that command to “let down your nets down on the other side for a catch”. Casting the net brought an instant pull. Mounds of fish flapping and splashing. Peter couldn't believe it, this was just like the first time that he had met someone, Jesus. Yes, that was Jesus there on the shore. He was calling to me again just as he had a few years ago the first time he had met him.
That first time, Peter had fallen to Jesus feet and asked him to leave him alone, “go away form me Lord, I am a sinful man!”
But Jesus would have none of that. Peter had becomes one of Jesus closest disciples, with him through thick and thin. That was until, until Peter had loudly, crassly, full of anger denounced knowing Jesus to all who accused him on the night of Jesus' betrayal. He had betrayed Jesus. He had betrayed his faith. He had turned his back on all he knew and believed. How could God ever call him to do the kind of work Jesus did, not after that night of betrayal.
Theologian Karl Barth wrote, “where the church ends, not by a human act but by a divine decree there is its beginning. When its unrighteousness is exposed there its righteousness dawns. The divine demolition of any church means that every church rises as sign posts, thresholds, and doors of hope.”
Peter was just devastated. He was so positive that his faith was strong, he was so sure that he wouldn't fail, but he betrayed Jesus. Some of us betray Jesus by our silence, some of us loudly like Peter. Some of us betray our neighbors, betray our principles, betray our conscience, convince ourselves that what we are doing is good, even though we see the bitter consequences of our actions. Seeing Jesus again however, and the message that Jesus sent to him, the message of those fish. Peter didn't have to be told twice. In the water Peter splashed, probably broke the record for the quickest swim to the shore.
As the light began to dawn on that morning on that beach, Jesus reminded Peter again that he is and always will be a beloved child of God. That his call isn't conditioned on his perfection. That he was always called just as God had made him. He knew that the other disciples would need Peter's leadership. Peter was always perfect in his imperfection. His one task was to feed and care for others, as Jesus had cared for him.
So, there they sat that morning on the beach. Peter's love rekindled once again. Jesus eating with his disciples is the same way we eat the eucharistic meal, with the risen Christ reminding us we are beloved children of God, and there is world that needs us badly.
Like Peter, we are invited to enter into the waters of baptism, to swim to shore and share a meal of love with Jesus and with his followers. Naked we are clothed, hungry we are fed, cold we are warmed by the fire, lonely we are brought into the family, guilt ridden we are forgiven, without hope we are enveloped in grace, broken we are restored, purposeless, we are given a vision, and our fire rekindled.
Jesus still calls to us on that shore, a blazing fire on the beach.
No comments:
Post a Comment