We’re not the same people anymore. After
- Grief
- Trauma
- Shifts in our world views
- Eye-opening revelations
We’re not the same people.
After families we love or groups we cherish or movements we believe in are
shattered, we’re not the same. And we may not know what to do with ourselves.
Trying to recreate what has been known is easier that imagining what might yet be.
So if we can, we try to go back to what we know. Back to familiar turf, until we process and integrate the shocks to our system. Home, friends, family, known routines help us feel secure. Safe.
The disciples knew about upheaved lives. And eye-opening revelations. They had journeyed through Jesus’ astonishing teaching and miracles, borne witness to the fear and violence of the crucifixion, and had seen the risen Christ.
In the gospel of John:
–Mary Magdalene sees Jesus in the garden
–Jesus visits the disciples in a locked room, and breathes peace upon them.
–Jesus visits again, and invites Thomas to examine his wounds.
And now, some of the disciples have left Jerusalem and returned to Galilee. Back to home, family, friends, familiar surroundings and known routines.
“Guess I’ll just go fishing,” says Peter.
“Guess we’ll go along,” say the others.
They go back to things as they knew them. If we can, that’s our default behavior.
And how did that work out?
Peter and the others pulled up empty nets. In the dark. Over and over.
Their attempt to re-create and re-inhabit the past was fruitless.
As dawn approaches, a stranger on the shore yells: “How’s it going, kids?”
Not so well.
Hey, try this. Try the other side.
And there’s a huge haul of fish.
The disciples listened to the stranger, the new, the unexpected word and abundance was revealed. Hope returned. New possibilities emerged.
And then the resurrected Christ was revealed. They saw that the stranger, the man on the lakeshore was Jesus.
Peter plunges into the water, leaving the others with some extra work getting the boat and its haul in. Jesus is there, ready to cook them breakfast. Fish and bread. But it sounds like they may not have actually talked very much over the meal. The final conversation in the gospel of John comes after what we’ve heard today.
Perhaps, finally, the disciples understood that there was no going back to the old normal. They weren’t the same people that used to fish and hang out.
None of us have experienced the magnitude of trauma or immediacy of resurrection witnessed by the first disciples. Still, we know about:
–life turned upside down by illness, unemployment, divorce
–family and friends threatened by homelessness, violence, and hate
–loss and grief from death, accidents, aging
And, I hope, we also experience
–joy
–deep love
–new insights, fresh calls
–glimpses of resurrection
We also know the desire to get back to “normal:”
–that’s the longing we hear in many voices after more than two years of Covid
–that’s a factor in the fearful political divides of our nation: some want to stick to what has been known (poverty, militarism, hierarchy, prejudice, the Newtonian world of cause and effect) and resist imagining other possibilities.
Our desire for familiarity and routines drives us back to work only a couple days after a funeral, compels us to declare that everything is OK no matter how upset we are, leads us into denial, encourages us to wish what ‘the church’ once was. We like to stick with what we know. Like the disciples. Even when we have seen resurrection.
Connecting to the familiar has its uses, of course. It helps keep us stable while we absorb and process the earthquakes of our lives, the events and experiences that change us. But we’re not the same people anymore after great loss or great joy or revelation.
After a while we will find ourselves putting our nets into the water and coming up empty. There isn’t any life or abundance left in what has been known in the past.
At that point, it’s important to listen to the voice of a stranger asking us to try something different. To realize that the one we don’t recognize may have wisdom and grace for us. To acknowledge that unsolicited words may carry joyful possibilities and abundance.
The resurrected Christ appears as unfamiliar. The disciples often failed to recognize him at first. So I imagine that we are the same. And we might also be casting our nets over and over in the effort to stick to what we know.
But we are no longer the same people we were. We are people of resurrection. People of hope and joy. People re-forming ourselves in the image of Christ, whoever we are. And so, whatever sea of uncertainty we might be moving upon, may we also listen. Listen for the voice of the Beloved and Compassionate one asking how we’re doing, and calling us to new ways….
For Christ awaits us on the shore, ready to warm us and feed us and reveal again the ways of resurrection.
~Rev. Ruth Moerdyk
Scripture: John 21:1-14