Two weeks ago at the Cathedral, by the light of the great Easter candle, we rejoiced as a group of people of all ages took a new step and were confirmed in their faith , and with them renewed our baptismal vows as Bishop Christopher asked us all
Do you turn to
Christ?
It feels like a really straightforward question, to which we can respond with joy.
Of course we turn to Christ. We want to live his way, - with lives shaped by love and the grace of God, though sometimes making that turn feels more weighty than others, if we've been struggling with life and faith - as I think everyone does from time to time. But still, we know the drill. Turning, repenting, changing our focus should be a daily activity for us- and it’s demonstrated in our readings by both Peter and Saul/Paul.
Saul would seem, at first glance, to have little to repent
of.
He’s a Pharisee, and a good one at that. Dedicated in his
observance, and burning with the kind of zeal that might just give zeal a bad
name. He is, if you like, a fundamentalist Jew, intent on stamping out this
strange cult of The Way, that challenges the faith of his fathers..
But as he heads on his way, with single-minded
devotion, he is literally stopped in his tracks.
Why?
Because he meets with Jesus, un-looked for and unwelcome,
and his world is turned upside down. The route of tradition, safe, sure,
established beyond any doubt is suddenly shown to be leading to a dead end…
Saul needs to repent, to do a U turn. This might be a
moment of total devastation. He has staked his all on something, devoted
himself to a world-view that is contradicted in an instant.
Everything that he had thought and believed suddenly
unravels before his blinded eyes. He was as wrong as it was possible to be! The
unconscionable had happened: God had raised Jesus from the dead, and that meant
that Jesus was God’s Messiah! The resurrection – the hope of Israel – had begun
… with the very man the religious leaders had had put to death. And, scandal of
scandals, on a cross!
You have to feel sorry for Saul.
At that moment, all he understands about God and God’s
ways is in tatters. Everything that he has been and done has been wrong. He’s
been waging a holy war – and he’s been on the wrong side!
Imagine that the belief that you hold most dear, the
conviction about which you are most passionate is suddenly revealed as a
colossal error. Imagine having to eat your words, reverse your arguments. It’s not an inviting prospect is it,- and
something that, in human terms, we find very hard to do.
But fortunately for Saul, he is overtaken not by a
compelling argument but by the presence of Christ. Suddenly he is relying not
on the guarantees provided by letters from the Sanhedrin, but on the grace of
God….
He realises that he was wrong, that he had persecuted the
very God he sought to serve; but he discovers something even more important
than his own errors.
He discovers the power of God’s grace, that changes
everything.
Beside that, everything that went before is
inconsequential, simply never mentioned again. There is no lecture on the
substance of persecution. Saul is not asked to apologise, forced to abase
himself before the throne of glory. Rather he is given the opportunity to
recognise Truth and respond to truth
“Who are you, Lord”.
Even as he seems to wonder, he already knows the answer to
his question, and it is that answer, that recognition, which alters the whole
course of his life.
In our baptism service, having asked the candidates to
turn to Christ, the next question is whether they submit to Christ as Lord.
That’s a radical act. It means that in every decision, at each and every moment
of the day, we are trying to put God’s agenda first. It means that the turn
around is played out again and again and again…Who are you, Lord.
I recognise you and place you in control of my whole life from now on.
I've just come home from a wonderful conference with the charismatic catholic Anglicans of On Fire Mission, a group of friends and pilgrims whose gathering sustains and encourages me every year. One thing we were reflecting on together was the way in which we are, wonderfully, family with EVERYONE who can say with heart and soul "Jesus is Lord"....That beside that yardstick any other worries about doctrinal differences, or preferences in worship styles should pale into insignificance. If you and I can both say "Jesus is Lord" - we're family.
You, and me - and Saul too, in this moment when his old world crumbles, but a new work begins.
“But get up and enter the city, and you will be told what you are to do” (Acts 19:6). What Saul will come to understand – perhaps more keenly than anyone else – is that the new world brought about by the resurrection is a world of grace. This is a world constituted by the Good News that God’s salvation includes those who are least worthy,- persecutors, bombers, self-obsessed politicians - the whole kit and caboodle.
And he, Saul, believes that he is the
unworthiest of all. Yet grace means that a former persecutor still has a part to
play. He is not condemned for his past. Instead, he is told how to begin
something new- and given a new identity, as Paul the apostle.
Amazing grace!
Of course, the reality for us as we strive to live out our baptisms is an experience of regular disillusion and failure. As I declaimed my faith with joy on Easter day, I know that I meant everything I said...but I know too that in just a few hours I’d slipped a good long way from that peak of fervent aspiration.
Enter Peter,- my hero in faith….quick to get things wrong…
feeling, speaking, acting first, reflecting afterwards. Oh goodness, we have a lot in common!
Unlike Saul, he is surely in no doubt about the need to
repent. He has been doing little else since the small hours of Good Friday. On
one level, his feelings are a normal reaction to bereavement. After a death,
survivors are gripped by all sorts of feelings, - grief, of course, relief
possibly, but often guilt as well, no matter how unjustified, unreasonable or
downright silly. My father was unable to eat at all in the last 2 weeks of his
life – but after his death I berated myself with distressing regularity for
some months because I had not, as I’d promised, made him some of the cheese
scones he so much enjoyed.
I
would have loved to have been able to put the clock back…to cut short the exam
revision and do some baking instead.
It
felt as if that would have made all the difference to my ability to cope with
his death.
It
wouldn’t have, of course…but grief is rarely rooted in common sense and guilt
is so often part of the package.
Feelings rise in a tide that can threaten to engulf us even after what would seem to be a “Good death”. There are often unresolved issues, words unspoken and deeds regretted, so it's small wonder that we’re prone to thinking
“If only I could have him back, just for long
enough to put things right – then I’d be able to move on”
Just
one more chance….
Usually,
those guilty feelings are simply our reaction to our own survival in a world
which someone beloved has left…but occasionally, there are real grounds for
contrition.
And
we can’t put the clock back. There
are no more chances.
We
can repent as much as we like but we can’t
hear the words of forgiveness we seek from the lips that we long for. And
that’s hard, very hard.
But of course, it was different for Peter, wasn’t it? He had a genuine reason to beat himself up – reason enough to wallow in misery till the end of his days. So we find him days, a week perhaps after that fateful Passover weekend, mired in guilt and regret. He longs to put the clock back – but since he can’t, he decides to pretend that the whole Jesus event, this wonderfully exciting chapter of his life, never really happened.
It’s easy to imagine the disciples, sitting round in a dispirited huddle until suddenly Peter takes the initiative. “Right. That’s it. The past is over. He’s not coming back. – so let’s get on with our real lives. I’m going fishing…”
The wheel has come full circle. Peter is heading back to
the beginning. He had been called away from his accustomed business but now
that his dreams have been shown to be delusions, where else can he go but back
to the boats? Fishing is in his blood. It’s who he is. Peter the fisherman,
back at his nets.
And the others join him. The comfort of familiar things, familiar places….Again, quite a common reaction to grief. Let's pretend nothing has changed. Only even this comfort is denied the disciples…for a long cold night out on the lake nets precisely nothing.
If Peter needed any confirmation that the world has gone awry, this must surely have provided it. He can’t even make it as a fisherman any longer. Deep gloom.
And then, as in each of the resurrection appearances, Jesus is there, changing everything. First, he recognises their situation. “You have no fish, have you?” Then he offers them a remedy. “Put your net out on the other side. Change direction yourselves. It will make all the difference.”
Another U turn….and a fruitful one. We, and they, have been here before but this time, having learned their lesson three years earlier, the disciples take his advice without demur, and are duly rewarded, not just with a bumper catch but with the sight of the One they most long to see. But everything has changed after the resurrection – even Jesus! There’s something unrecognisably different about him. And so it’s as though he appears for the first time again. This is a new commissioning to a new ministry…
Here’s
Peter, trapped between love and loyalty. It’s his love that makes him respond
as he does,- impulsively leaping out of the boat to reach his Master as fast as
he can. He’s always loved Jesus like that .But being ruled by his feelings he
was also particularly vulnerable to his fears…It was those fears that spoke in
the courtyard as he denied his Lord, and
his own love for Jesus. Can you imagine the inner turmoil he’s been
wrestling with? Not only did Jesus die, but he died believing (as far as Peter
was concerned) that Peter did not love him.
If ever there was someone who needed to hear words of absolution, it’s Peter and in this new world of restoration and second chances Jesus offers him the chance to take back those words he wishes he had never said.
Three
times he asks the question that has been tormenting Peter:
“Do
you love me?”
Three
denials balanced by three chances to
affirm his love afresh, three opportunities for forgiveness.
In human terms, forgiveness is one thing but trust in quite another. After we’ve been let down, disappointed in a significant way, we may strive to forgive but the reality for most of us is that a shadow of mistrust and anxiety clouds the relationship from then on. We may manage to get along on a superficial basis, but we’re unlikely to make ourselves truly vulnerable to someone who has let us down…
But with Jesus, things are rather different. Peter is not just told “There there, it doesn’t matter” He is confirmed in his vocation as the rock on which the church will be built. He’s not to be a fisherman but a shepherd.
A
new identity for him, as for Saul (turned from persecutor to apostle).A new
certainty, for all of them, that they are now heading in the right direction,
following the One who is way, truth and light.
To encounter the risen Christ is to be challenged, challenged and changed. He forces us to reflect on our own direction, our practice of life and faith. Perhaps like Saul we’re side-tracked by legalism or by the fine print of observance, and have missed the living reality of Christ staring us in the face? Maybe we’re so intent on getting it “right” that we have forgotten why “it” exists at all?
Perhaps
we’re conscious of failures and shortcomings, of lacking the courage of our
convictions, of putting safety before radical love, and so hang back, reluctant to ask Jesus for help in moving onwards. But the message of
Resurrection is that transformation is possible, if we can accept it.
I'm afraid we are pretty much bound to fail from time to time - , gloriously, ignobly, repeatedly.
But
thanks to the transforming power of the resurrection, we mustn’t give up. Not even on ourselves.
Even if you're feeling stuck - in life or in faith...Jesus has something for you to do in the new world of resurrection, with hope restored and new life brimming over.
And he's asking just one question...a question that has the power to shape everything for us.
Do you love me?
And so by the grace of God we find ourselves at Eastertide gazing in wonder at a world made new, a world of grace and Life and Light.,a place of transformation. Easter Sunday is not just the first day of a new week: it is the dawn of a new creation and things can never be the same again.
And,
in the light of that new dawn, Jesus invites us to come and eat with him. Right here and right now.
Thanks
be to God!
….