Preacher: Rev. Jenn Hosler

Scripture: John 21:1-19

Our scripture today is one of my favorite passages in the Bible. I’ll talk more about how and why it is meaningful, but the short answer is because, in John 21, we have resurrected Jesus cooking breakfast. 

Who here regularly eats breakfast? (no judgment if you don’t) Who here loves breakfast? What is your favorite breakfast food? I really love breakfast. I love crunchy cereal with cold milk. I love plain yogurt with fruit and granola. I recently had a conversation with a friend who counted one of the U.S. culinary highpoints as the diversity of egg sandwiches, to which I agree. I love eggs, egg sandwiches, bacon, hash browns, and more. Breakfast for supper has been a staple for my whole life. There is something deeply comforting to me about all breakfast foods. 

The past few years, I have had some breaks from my favorite breakfast foods and switched to either overnight oats or oatmeal, for health reasons. I realized I needed more healthy protein than what my breakfast cereal was providing. 

We talk about food that nourishes, and we also talk about nourishing our souls and our spirits. Last weekend, I spent most of my Saturday in my garden. I had bought some new plants and mulch and set about tinkering, planting with my little assistant gardener. Spending the day outside, with my kiddo, with plants, in the dirt – it was exactly what my heart needed. It was restorative and it filled me up. Hiking along the Potomac regularly fills me up. This weekend, I also attended a conference that filled me up – sharing space and being in community with over 2000 Jewish Voice for Peace members, talking and skilling up and strategizing and singing and welcoming Shabbat together. I reconnected with comrades and friends from across the country and also around the DMV. I deepened relationships and also met new folks too, finding shared ground in our commitments to liberation and Palestine and also delighting in learning about our differences. These are some things that recently nourished my soul and filled me up. 

I’d like you each to take a few moments to consider, what nourishes your soul? What “fills you up,” so to speak? 

In today’s passage, one of just three resurrection passages in John, we see Jesus showing up in time of great grief, transition, hope, and transformation. It is a time of both deep uncertainty, fear, and perhaps also tentative and transformational hope.

Let’s recap the past few weeks as we have walked through the gospel of John. Easter Sunday, we looked at the early morning passage with Mary Magdalene, who went to the tomb while it was still dark, found it empty, raced to the other disciples, everyone was perplexed, and tried to find where Jesus’ body had been taken. Unbeknownst to her, Mary encounters two angels in the tomb but is so consumed by her grief that she doesn’t register their identities and even turns around, mistaking the resurrected Jesus for a gardener. Jesus calls Mary by name – and then she realizes who he is and what God has done. 

Last week, Dana walked us through the fears that the disciples had after the news of Jesus’ empty tomb had spread. The male disciples didn’t believe the testimony of the women, it seems, and they were also fearful of attack, surveillance, and persecution. The disciples met within locked doors but the doors were not a barrier for Jesus. Jesus passes the peace, “Peace be with you!” and he must do it two times before the disciples realize it is truly Jesus. Jesus commissions the disciples, “I send you out like the Father sent me.” Then Jesus breathes on them, saying, “Receive the Holy Spirit.” Thomas misses out on this resurrection appearance but Jesus is willing to come again, to help the One who did not see and did not believe. Thomas missed out but Jesus doesn’t leave Thomas behind. The disciples are left with this news, this commissioning, this power, this authority to forgive sins, knowing that the resurrected Jesus can find them within their locked doors. 

We enter the scene in John 21 and it is unclear how much time has elapsed. Has it been a few days? A week? More? We don’t know. What we do know is, despite Jesus’ breathing on them and talking with them, the disciples aren’t really clear what to do next. They are by the Sea of Galilee. Simon Peter announces, “I am going fishing.” He knows fishing. Other disciples agree and come with him into the boat: Thomas, Nathanael of Cana, the two sons of Zebedee, and two other disciples. These fishers catch nothing throughout the night.  

The sun breaks over the horizon and someone is on the shoreline. A voice of someone on the shore calls out, “Children, have you caught any fish?”  The reply is brief, “No.” I imagine they may have been a bit annoyed. The voice calls out again, “Cast your net out on the right side of the boat and you will find some.” The disciples probably figure they don’t have anything to lose, and they do it. Suddenly, the nets are overwhelmed with fish. One of the sons of Zebedee, the disciple whom Jesus loved, says, “It is the Lord!” Hearing this, Simon Peter puts on a garment and dives into the sea, heading to shore.  The other disciples stay with the boat, bringing it and the fish to shore. 

The disciples join Simon Peter on shore and find a charcoal fire with fish on it and bread. Jesus has breakfast started. Jesus says, “Bring some of the fish that you just caught.” Simon Peter goes back to the boat, hauls the net in, and counts 153 fish. There were so many fish but the nets didn’t break. 

Jesus calls out, “Come and have breakfast!” Jesus breaks the bread and the fish. The gospel writer John says that the disciples didn’t need to ask, “Who is this?” They knew the answer: this is Jesus. 

After breakfast, Jesus has a back and forth with Simon Peter. Jesus says, “Simon son of John, do you love me more than these?” Simon Peter replies, “Yes, Lord; you know that I love you.” Jesus says to him, “Feed my lambs.” 

A second time Jesus says to him, “Simon son of John, do you love me?” He said to him, “Yes, Lord; you know that I love you.” Jesus says to him, “Tend my sheep.” 

Jesus says to Simon Peter a third time, “Simon son of John, do you love me?” Peter feels hurt because he said to him the third time, “Do you love me?” And he replies to Jesus, “Lord, you know everything; you know that I love you.” Jesus says to him, “Feed my sheep.” Jesus explains that Simon Peter will end up risking everything for Jesus.  After this he says to him, “Follow me.”

I love this text so much that I could sit with it for a while. Yet four things stand out from today’s text that I wanted to highlight today. 

First, we see the disciples being together in grief and making space for that grief.  I don’t know what was going through Peter’s mind, but Peter needed to go fishing. The others didn’t let him go alone. Perhaps Peter was confused about what to do and was falling back into what he knew best or did before Jesus. It is highly likely that Peter loved being on the water and fishing was an act that could be therapeutic and calming, while also providing a source of income for the beloved community that was still figuring out what to do in this bewildering resurrection reality. The beloved community around Simon Peter didn’t let him go fishing alone. The disciples were together in grief and making space for that grief – space that didn’t necessarily involve typical grief rituals or processing. 

Second, sometimes it is okay to initially gravitate to what you know best, during uncertainty, transition, and grief. The disciples had received revelation about the resurrected Jesus. They were surprised by Jesus in a locked room! Yet Simon Peter still gravitated back to what he knew best, what was known. Even when surprised by Jesus’ resurrected bodily presence, Simon Peter doesn’t seem to have a clear path or call. The lesson here could be that, even when faced with the resurrected Jesus, we might need several more prompts and nudges to get us on the path God has for us. At the same time, perhaps there is a lesson that it is okay to gently walk into a safe space, to follow what you know most well and be open to meeting Jesus, to hearing a stranger calling to us from the shore.  We do see, time and again throughout scripture, that God shows up or meets people in unexpected places.  

Third, we see people hearing Jesus’ voice, being cared for, and being surprised by God’s abundance. At first, Jesus is an anonymous figure on the shore. The disciples recognize Jesus when they discover miraculous abundance of overflowing nets. Like the wedding in Cana, which was Jesus’ first miracle, God provides more than enough (153 fish, to be precise). In the gospel of John, the Messiah’s presence is one where needs are met abundantly, where joy and community are present, where there is ample wine at the end of the wedding part or when the nets are overflowing with 153 fish. 

Not only does Jesus provide the fish, but Jesus himself is actively cooking the bread and the fish on the shore, inviting the disciples to a post-resurrection holy communion. Perhaps our post-church potlucks or our queer brunch potlucks fit most perfectly into this beautiful example. 

As I mentioned, I am pretty into breakfast. When I imagine Jesus cooking breakfast for me in a confused and bewildering time, it just seems like the most soul comforting and spiritually nourishing thing, like a soul hug just thinking about it. There is a holiness here in food with friends and Jesus, where we are caring for each other’s basic needs in God’s beloved community, and in doing so, we are surprised by God’s abundance. 

Fourth and finally, this passage ends with this conversation between Jesus and Simion Peter, with Jesus calling Peter back into God’s holy work. According to commentators, it wouldn’t have been lost on the readers that Jesus is standing around a charcoal fire. The last charcoal fire we see in the gospel of John is in John 18, after Jesus was arrested and Peter had followed to the courtyard of the high priest. People were warming themselves around a charcoal fire and, three separate times, Peter was asked if he was one of Jesus’ disciples. Each time, Peter denies Jesus. 

Peter is struck by grief here, that Jesus asks him three different times if Peter loves him. Each time Peter answers in the affirmative, Jesus responds with an instruction: “Feed my lambs. Tend my sheep. Feed my sheep.” I imagine that Peter was already dealing with deep shame and grief over his denials. It is important to note here that Jesus doesn’t ignore Peter’s failure but calls him back into Jesus’ work of proclaiming, healing, reconciling, liberating, and welcoming all into God’s beloved community. I went to a workshop at the JVP conference on Friday about navigating conflict in movement and activist spaces in times of great crisis and stress. It was refreshing to hear other spaces talking about disrupting cultural tendencies around conflict and gossip and providing feedback and modeling the liberating communities we are working for. Like Jesus called Peter back into the work, we too can work to call each other in, healing harm and grief and shame when repair work is needed.  

I want to make some time for us to process or share together and I have some questions. 

1. How do we build relationships where we make space for grief together, where we accompany each other even when we don’t exactly know what we are doing? How do we not let each other go fishing alone? What can that look like?  
2. When do we need to slip back into what we know, find a safe healing space that will help us hear the voice of Jesus or watch for God’s abundance?
   1. Where do you need God’s abundance right now? 
3. How do we continue to grow in caring for each other’s needs as a beloved community, cultivating these beautiful spaces like breakfast with Jesus on the beach or queer potlucks? What else are you yearning for our community to practice?
4. How can we grow in calling each other in, and doing the repair work that we need to do with one another in beloved community?  

Benediction (credit to Victoria Emily Jones at Art and Theology for highlighting it)

Just as day was breaking, Jesus stood on the shore;
yet the disciples did not know that it was Jesus. (John 21:4)

Lap lulled by lifeless waters,
ill-cast nets bearing no weight,
the fishermen see against
charcoal dawn
the lone figure of the Lord—
come to draw them in again,
and launch them out.

This poem is No. XXXII from 33: Reflections on the Gospel of Saint John by Andrew Roycroft (Baltimore: Square Halo Books, 2022).