Sermon - Six impossible things before breakfast

Breakfast at Dawn, Mike Moyers, 2012

A sermon preached at St George’s Bloomsbury on Sunday 1st May and at St Stephen Walbrook on Thursday 5th May (Year C, Easter 3) based on readings from Acts 9.1-6 and John 21.1-19.

"Alice laughed: "There's no use trying," she said; "one can't believe impossible things." "I daresay you haven't had much practice," said the Queen. "When I was younger, I always did it for half an hour a day. Why, sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast."

 A quote from Lewis Carroll’s “Through the Looking Glass”.  

 

The appearance of Jesus cooking breakfast for the disciples on the beach - and his revelation to St Paul on the road to Damascus - are fantastic accounts of the resurrected Christ. But, like Alice in Wonderland, we can find it almost impossible to believe the truth of the resurrection. We need practice. 

 

Each of us will become aware of the presence of God in unique circumstances. Perhaps some of us have already done so. As we heard earlier at Choral Classics, Handel experienced a vision of God after he had finished composing the Hallelujah Chorus. My own encounter sounds rather more mundane than those in our readings, but even so, trying to put it into words (let alone music!) has been difficult. Placing our own experience - no matter how mundane - between the lines of the Epilogue to John’s Gospel can help us to believe what at first seems almost unbelievable; to recognise: “It is the Lord”. 

 

So I invite you to follow me, as we use this text to practice believing six impossible things before breakfast - with Jesus, on the beach. 

 

 

Some years ago I was helping to get a church ready for a special anniversary service. I had been dusting behind the altar, where there was a beautiful mosaic of The Last Supper. (A man not just of the cloth but of the jey cloth!) I had stood there many times before when leading tours of the church - showing visitors the detail of mosaic up close. But this time, it was very different.

 

Suddenly, I felt as though I had stepped beneath a waterfall of emotion. Surrounded by an overwhelming sense of belonging, of acceptance, joy, satisfaction and contentment and all at the same time.

 

After a long night on the Sea of Tiberius - one of many unsuccessful fishing trips, the disciples heard a man shout from the shore. “Cast your net on the right side” he said “and you will find some.” The catch was so great that it was difficult to haul it in. So many fish of different types and sizes caught all at the same time, yet the net did not tear. 

 

It was at that point that the Beloved Disciple declared;

 

“It is the Lord” 

 

It is the Lord who was recognised by that spontaneous, plentiful catch. His presence felt in an all-encompassing waterfall of emotion. Through an abundance of grace. 

 

 

I decided that the closest word I could find to describe what I had felt was love; but I was reluctant to use the term because the feeling was so different to the love I thought I had ever felt before and far more powerful than anything I thought I had the capacity to give - or that I deserved to receive. 

 

As I stood under this torrent of love, I felt the different threads of my life being gathered together. The few threads I had neatly resolved and tied up. The threads I had left dangling, half-finished and the majority that had become tangled together. I realised that each of the threads of my life were held by the source of that love. Even the knotted ones.

 

Three times Jesus asks Simon Peter if he loves him. Three times he declares he does so. 

 

“It is the Lord” who is recognised through love. 

 

Like Simon Peter we need to practice saying it, meaning it, giving and receiving it. A love that transforms our understanding.  A love that is dynamic and active - a love that has a purpose. 

 

Many see the threefold affirmation of Peter’s love for Jesus as an echo of his three denials of Him in the courtyard of the High Priests house. Perhaps his conversation with Jesus on the beach captures the moment at which Peter began to see the threads of his life coming together; the good and the not so good, all equally blessed; held in love? 

 

This process of reconciliation is not just between Jesus and Peter but extends more widely. These threads connect us all. Every time Peter affirms his love for Jesus, he is given a command to share this love with others. In his case, to feed and tend the flock. 

 

It is the Lord who is recognised through discipleship - the expression of our love for others. A love that draws together the different parts of our lives and that reconciles us to each other and to God. 

 

 

Standing at the mosaic of the Last Supper I was struck by the beauty of the image. The detail of each of the individual elements and the completeness of the whole, revealing something of the beauty revealed in the sacrament itself. 

 

Jesus called the disciples to breakfast. He had made a fire on the beach, there was fish and bread. None of the disciples needed to ask him who he was - they knew once he broke the bread.  

 

It is the Lord who is recognised through word and sacrament. Through the breaking of bread and in the act of coming together to share it. 

 

 

It took several months for me to pluck up the courage to tell anyone else about what had happened. My revelation - my disclosure - felt nearly as powerful as the experience itself; this feeling of peace, of contentment, remained with me. 

 

As we see in the case of St Paul - who on the road to Damascus was not just converted but commissioned to bring the Good News to the Gentiles and in the case of Peter, who was sent to feed and tend to the followers of The Way, it is the Lord who is not only recognised through the revelation of his presence, but in in our active response to his call. 

 

Reading our own stories between the lines of the gospel can help us to declare “It is the Lord”. 

 

To recognise Him in the abundance of his grace.

To experience Him in the receiving and giving of love.

To encounter Him through our discipleship. 

To be strengthened by Him as he reconciles our lives to each other and to God.

To be sustained by Him in word and sacrament, and 

to be transformed by Him when we respond to his call.

 

And to believe these six - perhaps not quite so impossible - things as we accept his invitation to follow him now, to his table.

 

Amen.


Image : Breakfast at Dawn, Mike Moyers, 2012