THE PARISH OF ST PAUL’S,
PARKHURST
SERMON – 10 APRIL 2016
Readings: Acts 9:
1-6; Psalm 30; John 21: 1-19
What
an intriguing portion of Scripture John chapter 21 is! Most theologians these
day agree that this chapter is an appendix to the original text of John’s
Gospel. Rebecca S. Chopp says “A paradigm shift in theology must support this
very important claim – that there is a new way of reflection, a new procedure
of interpretation, a new orientation of knowledge … [liminal] theology
interprets, interrupts and transforms …”
Actually,
this viewpoint makes a lot of sense. Just listen to the last 2 verses of John
chapter 20, and ask yourself if this doesn’t sound like a conclusion to a text:
“And so there were many other signs that
Jesus did in the presence of his disciples, which are not written down on this
scroll. But these things are written so that you may have faith that Jesus is
the Messiah, the Son of God, and that through your faith you may have life in
his name.” [Nicholas King’s translation]
So,
what do you think, does it sound like an ending? I think it does!
WHO
then wrote chapter 21 and WHY?
Apparently,
according to a number of theologians, whilst John chapters 1 through to 20 may
well have been written by the “Beloved Disciple”, which in this case is
identified as the Apostle John himself, chapter 21 appears to have been written
much later … probably between 90 and 100 CE … by which stage all the original
apostles who had seen the incarnate Son of God were all dead – hence the
posthumous details given of St Peter’s manner of death in our reading today in
verses 18 and 19:
“Jesus said to Peter, “I tell you the
truth, when you were younger, you dressed yourself and went where you wanted
and walked where you liked; but when you grow old you will stretch out your
hands and some one else will dress you and take you where you do not want to
go.” In these words he indicated the kind of death by which Peter would give
glory to God.”
It
is commonly believed that John chapter 21 was written by the Johannine
community – in other words, a faith community or little church that was planted
in Ephesus by John himself, and which continued to meet in all faithfulness
even when John was in exile on the island of Patmos where he later died.
They
seem to have used as their primary Christian Scripture text John’s version of
the Gospel of Jesus. What this seems to indicate is that John chapters 1 to 20
revolve around Jesus and the first generation of disciples, whereas chapter 21
is very much in response to second generation Christianity AND BEYOND, even up
to today.
Even
the apparent conclusion of chapter 21 appears to be “open ended” … a kind of
indication that this is still on-going:
Verse 25: “There is much else that Jesus did; if it
were written down in detail, I do not suppose the world itself would hold all
the books that would be written.”
What is still going on? We are still actualizing the glorified Jesus every
time we proclaim: “It is the Lord!” It is not always as simple as it sounds
because, even in our reading for today, we are told that this the third time these particular disciples
are seeing the same Risen Lord Jesus and
yet they struggle to recognize him until “the Beloved Disciple”
identifies Jesus and then Peter acts out of a loving heart by jumping into the
water and wading through this shallow part of the sea to reach Jesus on the
beach.
Like
all of John’s Gospel, we can’t just take things at face value; we need to be
intention about discovering meanings within meanings.
As
usual, even in today’s short portion of verses 1 to 19 of chapter 21, this
passage is so dense that I propose that we examine simply one aspect of many –
like liminal space; unfinished business; Jesus’ words: “Follow me”; the meaning
of the numbers; the Eucharistic overtones … etc. We are going to stick with the
first one: LIMINALITY.
Within
the text itself liminality refers to “threshold” times and spaces – the
in-between / the “already” and the “not yet” …
For
example:
(1) “Early in the morning” (verse 4), or as some texts
call it “dawn” – that is, the night is over but it is not quite day-time yet;
(2) “the sea and the shore” – a meeting point … sometimes
when the tide goes out, then part of the sea becomes the shore, and when the
tide comes in, the shore becomes the sea;
(3) Jesus’ resurrected body, no longer earthbound, but not
yet ascended.
Increasingly,
for me, LIMINALITY seems to carry with it also God’ dynamism of ongoing creative evolution. Which, in turn (if we
believe that Jesus is a Living Word to the church throughout the ages) means
that God fully intends for us consistently to develop our God-concept and to
grow and expand in awareness of our context, so that we can interpret our
Scriptures and faith in the light of growing scientific, biological, mathematical,
technological and other realities. For example:, cloning; genomics (genetic
engineering); 3D printing; laboratory-grown organs and even perhaps as has been
mooted, simulated human beings, by 2040.
When we, as church, hold firmly onto old
models of being church, our “spiritual hands” close into “fists” and we close
ourselves off from receiving the new creation that God desires to gift to us
when we are willing to live in the certainty of God’s love for us as well as
the uncertainty of liminal space.
Some
of the signs of a liminal space faith community and faith person are:
* We no longer
need to tell people “what” to think, but rather
“how” to think;
* There is not so much a change of style of liturgy, but
instead an invitation to enhance
creativity, metaphor, symbolism … and let relevant, authentic substance of the
content of sermons, prayers, discussions etc be offered;
* Allowing
spaciousness of attitude for original thought,
genuine empowerment, interdependence,
personal congruence; encouraging bigness of heart and minds, for real change that
values mutual benefit over individual reward;
* We no longer
legislate God, but rather offer God in the
context of endeavouring to understand the
world’s mind.
* As church in
the 21st century, recognizing more and more
that the entire globe (if not the
universe) is in that obviously evolving space of liminality.
One
of the greatest gifts we are consistently called into and that Jesus challenges
Peter to return to, through the three-fold question: “Do you love me?” is the
whole issue of RELATIONALITY
Dairmuid
O’Murchu describes this so powerfully in his book Poverty, Celibacy and
Obedience: he writes “We come into being because of a relational matrix and
that is open to several different levels of understanding: scientifically,
biologically, socially and theologically. The
purpose of our existence is to enhance and advance life’s capacity to relate
… we need to redirect our creative energies to … a mutually creative engagement
with our relational God in a relational universe.”
In
conclusion, John Shea says “As long as the stories of person and God remain
exclusive accounts of separated entities, reality is inevitably split and all
energies are spent on building bridges over gulfs that do not exist, rather
than exploring relationship which do
exist.”
AMEN
The
Venerable Michelle Pilet
Rector
of St Paul’s Anglican Church, Parkhurst
Archdeacon:
Region 6 Diocese of Johannesburg.
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