Third Sunday of Easter Year C
Lectionary citations
Acts 9:1-6, (7-20)
Psalm 30
Revelation 5:11-14
John 21:1-19
Additional reflection for the Third Sunday of Easter available in Sermon Seeds Year C from The Pilgrim Press.
Worship resources for the Third Sunday of Easter Year C can be found at Worship Ways.
Note: We continue our special Mission 4/1 Earth series of preaching reflections on the lectionary texts for the Easter season, written by professors at our United Church of Christ seminaries. Weekly Seeds Bible studies for these weeks will be adapted from these reflections and available each week at http://www.ucc.org/feed-your-spirit/weekly-seeds/ (also by free email subscription).
Sermon Seeds
Reflection:
Professor Laurel Koepf Taylor
Eden Theological Seminary
How is God made known in your life? Throughout both testaments, God communicates in a variety of ways. We know that the Bible tells us of revelation through dreams and visions, through prophets and sacred texts. Yet all too often we forget that the Bible also attests to the natural world as a source of divine encounter. The Psalms describe creation's active participation in divine praise. The book of Deuteronomy calls elements of nature as witnesses in the covenant between God and humankind in 30:19-20. The prophets, particularly the book of Joel, describe the land's role in expressing divine pleasure with its inhabitants as well as displeasure when its inhabitants do not respect God and one another. In this way, God's creation is one of the most tangible ways in which humanity, both in the world of the Bible and today, can experience the divine.
In reading these texts, we should remember the ancient context out of which our sacred texts arise. The ancient agricultural economy necessitated ongoing interaction with plants and animals for survival. The precarious climate of the Levant (modern day Israel/Palestine) made weather patterns highly significant events for food cultivation. The necessity of human and animal labor, as well as the thriving of plant life, made fertility and reproduction urgent. Each of these elements of creation contributes still to human thriving, but often remains beyond our awareness for those with careers outside of agriculture. In the biblical world, however, the connection between God's creation and sustenance is visceral. It is a daily interaction with God and with the divine role in creating and sustaining life. Within the world of the Bible, the Creator communicates through creation.
When we hold the ongoing theme of revelation through creation in our awareness as we read, it is easier to note its presence where it is less obvious, as in today's Gospel lesson from the book of John. In this narrative, we see the familiar post-resurrection theme in which the disciples do not recognize Jesus. Indeed, the resurrection narrative in the previous chapter of John's Gospel features Mary Magdalene's encounter with the risen Christ, in which she believes him to be a gardener until he speaks to her. Looking beyond its immediate literary context, John 21:1-19 bears striking similarities to the Road to Emmaus narrative in Luke 24:13-35. Each features a small gathering of disciples and takes place soon after the resurrection event within the narrative. Each text also ends with Jesus and the disciples sharing a meal. These disciples encounter but do not recognize Jesus until he has performed a particular action, but the actions he performs so as to reveal his identity differ in the two narratives, highlighting nuances in the meanings of the two texts. Whereas Jesus' breaking and blessing bread opens the disciples' eyes in the Lukan post-resurrection encounter, Jesus' relationship with and resultant knowledge of the behavior of fish makes his identity known to his disciples in the Johannine narrative. When he tells the disciples to cast their net on the right side in 21:6, they do not yet know who he is. His own words and actions do not reveal his identity as the breaking and blessing of bread did in Luke 24. Rather, the fish, by filling the net in uncanny numbers, reveal Christ's presence to the disciples. Only then do they recognize him. Only after they have recognized him does he break bread with them.
John's Gospel, widely recognized to be the latest of the four, responds to the Synoptics in its telling of events. It highlights the fish and their action rather than Jesus' act of blessing and breaking bread. Knowing the theology of the Gospel of John, this is certainly not a valuing of fish over Christ, but is instead a narrative emphasis upon creation and Jesus' close relationship to it as an identifying characteristic. John's version of the post-resurrection encounter in which the disciples do not recognize Jesus also repurposes the miraculous catch of fish that launches his ministry in Luke 5:1-11. The author of the Gospel makes the miraculous catch a feature of a resurrection appearance rather than a call for disciples to follow the embodied Christ. In doing so, the relationship between Jesus and the natural world becomes the way in which disciples past and present recognize the resurrected Christ. It communicates that Christ is in relationship with creation, that the Jesus who walked and worked many years ago, but who is alive and acting today is made known through the natural world that surrounds us all.
The relationship between Jesus and nature that we see exhibited in John 21 highlights the significance of Jesus' command in verses 15-17 to "feed my lambs." It is important enough to ask three times, "Do you love me," and upon receiving an affirmative response insist upon care for those Christ cares for. They are "lambs," animals who are both a part of and as vulnerable as creation itself. We know that many people among us are vulnerable, but the natural metaphor, immediately following the revelation of the resurrected Christ through nature, serves as a reminder that all creation is vulnerable and in need of our care. John's Jesus goes on to remind the disciples that those who are powerful now will not always be so, "When you were younger, you used to fasten your own belt and to go wherever you wished. But when you grow old, you will stretch out your hands, and someone else will fasten a belt around you and take you where you do not wish to go." The universal experience of vulnerability at one time or another motivates our care for others when we are in the position to do so, and for creation at all times.
It is no wonder then that we know Jesus as the Lamb. It is no wonder that the book of Revelation, which comes to us from the same Johannine community, describes "every creature in heaven and on earth and under the earth and in the sea" (v. 13) singing to the Lamb as a powerful affirmation. These texts communicate that Jesus continues the longstanding biblical tradition of a close divine relationship with creation. They act as powerful reminders that we are but one element of God's created world, and as invitations to enter into relationship with God and with the resurrected Christ through our care for the natural world. If we wish to serve God, we must feed the lambs among us. We must serve one another. Jesus' closeness to creation reminds us that "one another" cannot be limited to humankind. If we are to follow in Christ's example, we too must be in relationship with "every creature in heaven and on earth and under the earth and in the sea."
Our guest writer this week for Mission 4/1 Earth:
The Rev. Dr. Laurel Koepf Taylor is Assistant Professor of Old Testament at Eden Theological Seminary and an ordained minister in the United Church of Christ. She received both her M.Div. and PhD from Union Theological Seminary in New York. Dr. Koepf Taylor's research focuses on the necessity of children for survival in the biblical world, as well as in the contemporary congregation. Her book on this topic, Give me Children or I Shall Die: Children and Survival in Biblical Literature, is forthcoming this fall from Fortress Press.
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Lectionary texts
Acts 9:1-6, (7-20)
Meanwhile Saul, still breathing threats and murder against the disciples of the Lord, went to the high priest and asked him for letters to the synagogues at Damascus, so that if he found any who belonged to the Way, men or women, he might bring them bound to Jerusalem. Now as he was going along and approaching Damascus, suddenly a light from heaven flashed around him. He fell to the ground and heard a voice saying to him, "Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?" He asked, "Who are you, Lord?" The reply came, "I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting. But get up and enter the city, and you will be told what you are to do."
[The men who were traveling with him stood speechless because they heard the voice but saw no one. Saul got up from the ground, and though his eyes were open, he could see nothing; so they led him by the hand and brought him into Damascus. For three days he was without sight, and neither ate nor drank.
Now there was a disciple in Damascus named Ananias. The Lord said to him in a vision, "Ananias." He answered, "Here I am, Lord." The Lord said to him, "Get up and go to the street called Straight, and at the house of Judas look for a man of Tarsus named Saul. At this moment he is praying, and he has seen in a vision a man named Ananias come in and lay his hands on him so that he might regain his sight." But Ananias answered, "Lord, I have heard from many about this man, how much evil he has done to your saints in Jerusalem; and here he has authority from the chief priests to bind all who invoke your name." But the Lord said to him, "Go, for he is an instrument whom I have chosen to bring my name before Gentiles and kings and before the people of Israel; I myself will show him how much he must suffer for the sake of my name." So Ananias went and entered the house. He laid his hands on Saul and said, "Brother Saul, the Lord Jesus, who appeared to you on your way here, has sent me so that you may regain your sight and be filled with the Holy Spirit." And immediately something like scales fell from his eyes, and his sight was restored. Then he got up and was baptized, and after taking some food, he regained his strength. For several days he was with the disciples in Damascus, and immediately he began to proclaim Jesus in the synagogues, saying, "He is the Son of God."]
Psalm 30
I will extol you, O God,
for you have drawn me up,
and did not let my foes rejoice over me.
O God my God, I cried to you for help,
and you have healed me.
O God, you brought up my soul from Sheol,
restored me to life
from among those gone down to the Pit.
Sing praises to God, O you God's faithful ones,
and give thanks to God's holy name.
For God's anger is but for a moment;
God's favor is for a lifetime.
Weeping may linger for the night,
but joy comes with the morning.
As for me, I said in my prosperity,
"I shall never be moved."
By your favor, O God,
you had established me as a strong mountain;
you hid your face; I was dismayed.
To you, O God, I cried,
and to you I made supplication:
"What profit is there in my death,
if I go down to the Pit?
Will the dust praise you?
Will it tell of your faithfulness?
"Hear, O God, and be gracious to me!
O God, be my helper!"
You have turned my mourning into dancing;
you have taken off my sackcloth
and clothed me with joy,
so that my soul may praise you
and not be silent.
O God my God, I will give thanks
to you forever.
Revelation 5:11-14
Then I looked, and I heard the voice of many angels surrounding the throne and the living creatures and the elders;
they numbered myriads of myriads and thousands of thousands, singing with full voice,
"Worthy is the Lamb that was slaughtered
to receive power and wealth and wisdom and might
and honor and glory and blessing!"
Then I heard every creature in heaven and on earth and under the earth and in the sea,
and all that is in them, singing,
"To the one seated on the throne and to the Lamb
be blessing and honor and glory
and might forever and ever!"
And the four living creatures said, "Amen!" And the elders fell down and worshiped.
John 21:1-19
After these things Jesus showed himself again to the disciples by the Sea of Tiberias; and he showed himself in this way. Gathered there together were Simon Peter, Thomas called the Twin, Nathanael of Cana in Galilee, the sons of Zebedee, and two others of his disciples. Simon Peter said to them, "I am going fishing." They said to him, "We will go with you." They went out and got into the boat, but that night they caught nothing.
Just after daybreak, Jesus stood on the beach; but the disciples did not know that it was Jesus. Jesus said to them, "Children, you have no fish, have you?" They answered him, "No." He said to them, "Cast the net to the right side of the boat, and you will find some." So they cast it, and now they were not able to haul it in because there were so many fish. That disciple whom Jesus loved said to Peter, "It is the Lord!" When Simon Peter heard that it was the Lord, he put on some clothes, for he was naked, and jumped into the sea. But the other disciples came in the boat, dragging the net full of fish, for they were not far from the land, only about a hundred yards off.
When they had gone ashore, they saw a charcoal fire there, with fish on it, and bread. Jesus said to them, "Bring some of the fish that you have just caught." So Simon Peter went aboard and hauled the net ashore, full of large fish, a hundred fifty-three of them; and though there were so many, the net was not torn. Jesus said to them, "Come and have breakfast." Now none of the disciples dared to ask him, "Who are you?" because they knew it was the Lord. Jesus came and took the bread and gave it to them, and did the same with the fish. This was now the third time that Jesus appeared to the disciples after he was raised from the dead.
When they had finished breakfast, Jesus said to Simon Peter, "Simon son of John, do you love me more than these?" He said to him, "Yes, Lord; you know that I love you." Jesus said to him, "Feed my lambs." A second time he said to him, "Simon son of John, do you love me?" He said to him, "Yes, Lord; you know that I love you." Jesus said to him, "Tend my sheep." He said to him the third time, "Simon son of John, do you love me?" Peter felt hurt because he said to him the third time, "Do you love me?" And he said to him, "Lord, you know everything; you know that I love you." Jesus said to him, "Feed my sheep. Very truly, I tell you, when you were younger, you used to fasten your own belt and to go wherever you wished. But when you grow old, you will stretch out your hands, and someone else will fasten a belt around you and take you where you do not wish to go." (He said this to indicate the kind of death by which he would glorify God.) After this he said to him, "Follow me."
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Liturgical notes on the Readings
In ecumenical liturgical practice, there are normally three readings and one psalm at each Sunday service, in this order:
First Reading: Hebrew Scripture
Response: Psalm (or Canticle) from the Bible
Second Reading: Epistle (or Acts or Revelation)
Third Reading: Gospel
The first two lessons are normally read by laypeople, the Gospel by a Minister of the Word or a layperson. In Roman Catholic, Anglican and liturgical Protestant churches, it is uncommon for an ordained minister to read all of the lessons.
The psalm is not a reading but a congregational response following the lesson from Hebrew Scripture: it is normally sung with a refrain or recited by the congregation as poetry. Occasionally, a canticle is appointed in place of a psalm; it is sung or recited in the same way. The New Century Hymnal provides a complete liturgical psalter with refrains and music.
A hymn may be sung as an introduction to the proclamation of the Gospel.
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