Sermons:
______________________________________________________________
Sheep Don’t Eat Fish
A sermon based on John 21:1-19
by Rev. Randy Quinn
Several
years ago now, Ronda and I took a short vacation in Washington, DC where we have
some family friends. Larry and Eleanor served as wonderful hosts for us, giving
us guided tours of the area and taking us to their favorite restaurants.
One day we went to visit their
daughter in a suburb of Washington. On the way, we drove along what was
obviously a new freeway.
Larry explained that it wasn't
really new; it had been expanded and had only recently been reopened to
traffic. He went on to explain that the purpose of the expansion was to add an
“HOV Lane”, you know, one of those carpool lanes for "high occupancy vehicles."
That's when I noticed the signs.
The diamonds were painted on the
roadway with that paint they use that raises them; but they were covered over
with black paint. There were also signs on the median that were covered over
with black cloth.
Larry explained that because the
construction had taken so long, drivers ran a protest of the HOV lanes and
ignored it. So many people ignored the HOV signs, in fact, the state patrol
couldn't enforce it. So they covered the signs.
I was reminded of those signs this
week when I read about Peter.
Peter had been one of the first
disciples (Jn. 1:35-42). He was, by most accounts, the leader among the twelve.
Jesus had called him "Peter", the Rock, because of his insight into who Jesus
was (Mt. 16:13-19). But Peter was also the one who would specifically deny
Jesus (Jn. 18:15-18, 25-27).
On Easter Sunday, Peter comes to
believe in the resurrection; but here he is, some time later, returning to what
had been familiar: fishing.
Had he covered over the signs of
Christ in his life?
Had Jesus made no impact on him?
Did the resurrection mean nothing?
After a certain period of time,
Peter seems to return to 'life as usual.'
Three years with Jesus had made no
apparent difference in his life. He goes back to fishing, the very thing he had
been doing when Jesus called him to follow him the first time (Mt. 4:18-19).
I suspect we're all a little like
that, though, so I shouldn't give Peter such a hard time. After any
life-changing event, we are all tempted to go back to our normal routines. It's
safer. It's familiar.
What's new may be exciting, but
it's also frightening.
We do that when we go to classes
and learn new ways of doing old things, for instance. We come back all excited
and then find it so difficult to employ what we learned that we return to our
old habits.
On more than one occasion, I’ve
heard new mothers talking about going back to work within a month of giving
birth. They see no reason to change what they had been doing just because there
was a baby in the house! (They learn later how difficult it really is to
maintain a good balance between work and home.)
Unfortunately for most people
becoming a Christian, or being a Christian, generally has little impact upon our
lives. There isn't much difference between how we live and how our neighbor
lives. We try to be good. We try to be honest. We try to care for each
other. We even try to be generous.
But
statistically, surveyors cannot tell the difference between people who go to
church in our society and those who don’t. We all experience the same
likelihood of [continue]
|
