Fishing & Acceptance
Easter 3; Annual Parochial Church Meeting.“Jesus said to them, "Come and have breakfast"”. John 21.12
I grew up on the river and the sea. Fishing was part of what you did as a boy. I remember going ‘treading’ in the shallow waters of the river at low tide. Flat fish would lightly bury themselves in the sand and as you walked slowly along, you trod on them; they wriggled; you resisted the temptation to jump off; you had in your hand a spear made of a six inch nail that had been filed into a crude barb and stuck in an old broom handle; you pushed it between your toes, and spiked the fish, hoiking it up and adding the flapping flounder to an old wire coat hanger stuck round your waist. I never liked this, or any other kind of fishing, but it was what we did.
Why is fishing a predominantly male occupation do you think? Perhaps it is because it’s a form of bonding, hunter gathering, that doesn’t involve much communication. You’re doing something together, or alone, but you can be lost in your own world of thoughts. You don’t have to say much.
The disciples had been through a bewildering week – the last supper, betrayal, denial, desertion, torture, death, and resurrection. Here was a turning point in history; pivotal events for the entire human race; the known world turned upside down by the appearances of the risen Christ.
And how does this group of seven men react? They go fishing!
Something to do together, while they struggle with their own thoughts and what the risen Jesus has already said to them. Their hearts are not really in it. They potter about all night and catch nothing. Then as day is breaking, a stranger on the shore calls out to them. ‘Try on the right hand side of the boat.’ Why not give it a go? They catch 153 large fish, scripture tells us.
There are many chapters in many books devoted to interpreting the number 153. It’s a triangular number – ie it is the sum of the numbers from 1 to 17. It is one of the few numbers where the sum of the cubes of the digits comes to the number itself. (1 cubed + 5 cubed + 3 cubed = 153). It’s part of the fraction 265/153 which is nearest to the square root of three, and interestingly known by the Greeks 3 centuries before Christ as “the measure of the fish”. And the church fathers have variously interpreted it as the numbers of nations, the numbers of species of fish, combinations of 12 and 3 for the trinity and so on and so forth…
I think it means that they counted them and there were 153 - no more than that! They wanted to tell the story right when they got home.
But fishing and the fish and number of fish and the breakfast are not really the point of this last chapter of the Fourth Gospel. It’s about the extraordinariness of ordinary life. It’s about how love and acceptance can change our perception of the world and those round about us; can transform ordinary life. It’s about recognising Jesus in places we least expect to find him, not least in the ordinariness of life.
If you read on through the closing verses of this Gospel, you see there are still petty jealousies among the disciples; John tagging along behind Peter so as not to miss out on anything; Peter miffed that even although he’s to be leader of the pack, John is still Jesus’ best friend, the one he asked to look after his mother as he was dying on the cross a few days ago.
And Jesus is still trying to bash it into their thick heads before he leaves them, that he loves and accepts them, despite their obtuseness, their denial, their doubting. And because he, God, accepts them, then they must accept and love one another. As he had said only a few days earlier in the upper room at the supper: “a new commandment I give to you: love one another, as I have loved you. By this, people will know that you are my disciples.”
It is still the hardest commandment for those of us who follow Christ to obey, and often that is because we still find it so difficult to grasp that we are truly loved and accepted by God. In punishing ourselves, we usually end up by punishing those we live and work with as well.
Paul is converted and chosen (in today’s epistle) as the first missionary to us gentiles, not because he is lovable, or clever or good, but because he is accepted and loved by God. This is what motivates his Christian zeal in the years to come. He regards himself as the chief of sinners, yet saved by grace.
Peter and Paul will both follow their Lord through the coming turbulent years to their own martyr’s death, and all because they loved him who first loved them.
As we come to this table, this altar, this breakfast with the Lord; and as we come to our parochial church meeting with one another; we come accepting one another, loving one another, despite our obtuseness, our denial, our doubts – because he accepts and loves us.
But not only does he love and accept us, he wants us to know, like Peter in today’s Gospel, that he trusts us to get on with the work of the Kingdom.
I’m reminded of the particularly saintly churchwarden who on a gloriously sunny Easter Sunday headed straight for the grumpiest PCC member during the peace. She knew he was a keen gardener, and so beamed at him and said: “May the sunshine of the Lord shine always up your path.” To which he replied: “And also up yours!”
PCC meetings are times when we can not only demonstrate our love and acceptance of one another – warts and all, but a time when we can move forward with the mission Christ has entrusted to us: to feed his sheep, to continue his work of building loving and accepting communities, nurturing and welcoming all.
As we enjoy fellowship with our Lord round this altar, so we must look for his presence in the ordinary business of our lives and of our church, whenever we sit together. For his invitation to be at the centre of our community is always there. However unworthy we feel, love bids us welcome. (George Herbert's communion motet - Love bade me welcome.)
“Jesus said to them, "Come and have breakfast"”. John 21.12
