ALL SAINTS MARGARET STREET
Sermon preached by Fr. Gerald Beauchamp at the Parish Mass at St John's Wood Parish Church on the Third Sunday of Easter, 18th April 2010
Readings: Acts 9. 1-6; John 21. 1-19
In one of his poems TS Elliott says
We only live, only suspire
Consumed by either fire or fire.
For me, these words resonate with the imagery of the final chapters of John's Gospel. In the passion and resurrection narratives we have two fires. This morning we heard of the second fire. The disciples are fishing. From the beach they are summoned by an apparent stranger. When they land there is a charcoal fire burning. Breakfast is ready. To understand this second fire we have to understand the first fire.
The first fire was the fire that was burning at the house of the high priest when Jesus was arrested. We're told in John 18 that the slaves and the police had made a charcoal fire because it was cold, and they were standing around warming themselves. It was a cold night: a night made more bitter by the events that were unfolding: a darkness that was sucking in more and more people, clouding the judgement of even Christ's closest followers.
Jesus had been arrested in the garden; betrayed by Judas; led away by the temple police. Peter then had put up a bit of a fight: cut off the ear of a slave but rebuked by Jesus. Now Peter was at the house of Caiaphas. We can imagine him cut to the quick. He was unsure what to do next. He withdraws but hangs around - sort of there but not there. Jesus is taken to the high priest's courtyard. Peter stays outside the gate. He's desperate to know what will happen. But he doesn't want to get too close in case. If things get nasty he may be implicated. He's hovering. He won't sit at the front. (Peter is the first Anglican. Members of the Church of England hardly ever sit at the front.).
But Peter is drawn in. He's invited to enter through the gate. The woman guarding the gate said "You are not also one of this man's disciples, are you?" He said, "I am not." Later, like a moth too near the flame Peter is spotted again in the firelight. Peter thought that he could warm himself incognito: but not so. Some of those standing around think that they recognise him. "You are not also one of his disciples, are you?" He denied it and said, "I am not." One of the slaves of the high priest, a relative of the man whose ear Peter had cut off, (he should know) [he] asked (him) "Did I not see you with him in the garden with him?" Again Peter denied it, and at that moment the cock crowed.
The rest is history: the scourging, the cross, the shame; the tomb. That was the end of Jesus. The authorities had ganged up on him. Judas had betrayed him. The disciples had run away from him. The crowd had bayed for his blood. Peter had denied him and himself. There was not just one murderer of Jesus of Nazareth. There was a plethora of people and circumstances that had conspired against him. It's a vision of Original Sin. No one was to blame and everyone was to blame. It was darkness visible. No wonder, it seems Peter gave up. He went back to a past, pre-Jesus. He went back home to Galilee. He went back to his old job. He went fishing.
And yet ... and yet ... the dying of the light to use Dylan Thomas's phrase is not the end of the story. There's something deep within us as human beings that rebels against the notion that death especially a bad death is the end of everything. What about justice? Does the past mean nothing? What's the future to be?
So we come to this morning's second fire: the charcoal brazier and the figure standing beside it. This is not the usual happy ending. The resurrection admits to no easy analysis. Here as elsewhere Jesus isn't recognised at first but he's no ghost. He calls: calls across the waves. He feeds: feeds from a fire. And he questions: he questions three times just like Peter was questioned three times at the house of the high priest. This time the questioning is much more intimate. It's not about something extrinsic Are you a disciple? but something intrinsic Do you love me?
Here we have to grapple a bit with the text. John was writing in Greek. Jesus spoke Aramaic. We don't know if the wordplay that John uses in the Greek is what the risen Christ may or may not have used in this encounter. The issue is about the word 'love'. The Greeks are more sophisticated than we English-speakers. There are four words in Greek for love. There's eros which gives us the English word 'erotic': love as attraction. There's agape, a word rarely used in Classical Greek but taken up by the Christians especially St Paul to mean love as self-giving or self-sacrificing. And there's philio now sadly debased in words like 'paedophilia' but philio was simply love as friendship (a love that I hope most of us enjoy). We need our friends. Earlier in John's Gospel Jesus said to his disciples I call you friends.
In the exchange between Jesus and Peter, Jesus asks Peter three times Do you love me? but the word for 'love' keeps changing. The first time Jesus said to Simon Peter, 'Simon son of John, do you love me? Here the word used isagape. (Peter) said to him, 'Yes, Lord; you know that I love you. Here the word used is philio. A second time he said to him, 'Simon son of John, do you love me (agape). He said to him, 'Yes, Lord; you know that I love you (philio). Jesus said to Peter a third time 'Simon son of John, do you love me? This time Jesus uses the word philio. Peter feels hurt to be questioned thus but asserts again that he does indeed love Jesus. Again he uses the word philio.
How much weight can we put on this wordplay? I'll stick my neck out and say 'A lot.' In this exchange we see something fundamental to our faith: our faith in the incarnation; our faith in the God who draws supremely close to humanity; our faith that in Jesus the man, God is truly and fully among us. In the words bandied backwards and forwards between Jesus and Peter, Jesus finally uses Peter's word for 'love'.
At this point it is too much for Peter to take in the depth and meaning of the love of God shown in Christ. Philio is as far as he can get. Not that he would stay there. As Jesus foretells But when you grow old (Peter), 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. This is usually interpreted as foreshadowing the crucifixion that Peter himself was to suffer as claimed by tradition. Agape only comes in the fullness of time.
TS Elliott wrote.
We only live, only suspire Consumed by either fire or fire.
So which fire will it be for us? The fire in the house of the high priest? The fire haunted by lack of commitment? The fire crackling with fear? The fire of denial? Or will it be the fire of the lakeshore? The fire of resurrection dawn. The fire that feeds us. The fire from which we breakfast. The fire that breaks our fast (the starvation of sin) and feasts us on life in all its fullness. Which fire will consume us? There's only one fire that will prepare us for the great fire to come: the fire that will come at Pentecost.
Amen