Hello friends,
This is Mark Gladman,
Also known as Brother Frederick James,
Your friendly neighbourhood monk in dogs.
Welcome back,
To the way home.
We're getting pretty close to the end of the series now and obviously by now you would have started to see some things about the way home.
That it's not.
The drama-filled journey that we might have imagined.
We saw the prodigal son just turn around,
The shepherd goes looking,
The two disciples walk down a road.
Peter sits beside a fire.
Thirsty person comes to the water,
Zacchaeus climbs a tree,
All the way through scripture we see God meeting people in ordinary places.
Today we're actually going to go back one of those stories.
We're going to go back to John chapter 21.
And we're going to see Peter again.
We've already encountered Peter beside the fire.
And we heard Jesus ask Peter,
Do you love me?
And we reflected on that restoration.
But today,
I'm going to have us hone in on some things about that same story.
Because after all of the stuff,
The resurrection,
The betrayal,
The appearances,
The questions,
The forgiveness,
What does Jesus do?
And I might have mentioned it last time,
This is one of the things about it that makes it one of my favorite chapters.
In fact,
My favorite chapter in all of the Gospels.
I mean,
John's my favorite Gospel.
Chapter 21 is my favorite chapter.
And one of the things that I see here that I just love what we see about Jesus in this chapter is that he makes breakfast for Peter and the other disciples.
There's fish,
There's bread,
There's a charcoal fire.
Just a beautiful morning.
Cooking breakfast beside the sea.
I think it's just one of the most beautiful images of what home should be like that we see in the Gospels.
It's ordinary.
It's not even technically a religious experience.
It's just breakfast with Jesus.
And so I want to think about the idea today that maybe Coming home to God eventually means we discover that God is simply waiting for us in the ordinary stuff.
So today we're going to go back to the shore,
But this time we're not going to be focusing on Peter's failure.
We're going to sit beside the fire,
And we're going to eat,
And we're going to listen,
And we're going to consider what it means to discover God waiting for us in ordinary life.
To take a nice slow deep breath in.
And out.
Let yourself be fully here.
Even already imagine the scene and place yourself there in preparation for reflecting today.
As we pray together.
God,
Meet us in the ordinary things,
The mornings,
The meals,
In work,
Conversations,
In the tiredness,
In the friendship,
In the noise and in the silence.
Help us see that you're here.
In those types of places.
Teaches to notice you beside the fire at breakfast on the shore.
Those spaces and places where life unfolds every day.
Amen.
Now we won't be reading excerpts from the chapter today,
But I will be sharing some verses from it as we go.
But the story is quite long and well worth sitting with.
In fact,
If you do Lectio with John 21,
I guarantee you'll be there for days,
Maybe even weeks.
So the disciples have gone fishing because they don't know what else to do.
And They fish through the night,
Catch nothing,
And in the morning they see Jesus standing on the beach.
They don't recognize that it's Jesus.
And he calls out to them,
Cast the net to the right side of the boat.
And you'll find some and they do.
And suddenly there's so many fish that they can't haul the net in.
And then one of the disciples says,
It's the Lord.
Peter jumps in the water.
And when they reach the shore,
They see the charcoal fire where there's fish and bread.
And Jesus says,
Come and have breakfast.
Now imagine that moment the disciples have lived through.
Some of the most.
Incredible scenes you could ever imagine living through.
I had the mail.
I had the Garden of Gethsemane.
The arrest,
The trial,
The crucifixion,
And then the resurrection stories and they've seen him alive.
They still don't fully get what's happening and now they're fishing.
And what's important about the fact that they're fishing.
Is that they've gone back to work,
Back to the boats,
Back to the lake,
Back to the rhythms that they knew before everything changed.
And I'm wondering whether this is the sort of thing we do after we have those profound Let's call them life-jarring,
Both in the positive and the negative,
Life-jarring experiences.
We tend to revert.
And go back to what we know,
To ordinary life.
You know,
We come back from a retreat,
And it was a wonderful retreat.
We've had a beautiful experience of prayer,
And we encounter God,
We make a decision,
And we experience some sort of healing of our soul,
And we come back,
And then Monday comes,
The alarm goes off,
And everything is as it was before.
The dishes need washing,
The children need feeling,
Work needs doing,
The emails and the bills kick in.
Life continues and sometimes we just go,
Where did God go?
And John 21 gives us the answer.
God is standing on the shore.
And what's really interesting is there's a detail in the story that John wants us to see.
The disciples don't recognize Jesus straight away.
God can be present.
Without being recognized.
I mean,
The risen Jesus is standing right there and they don't know who he is,
Which is what the people on the road to Emmaus experience too,
Right?
And so maybe this is true of our lives as well,
That God might already be present in the moments that seem completely ordinary.
You know,
Sitting down for a cup of coffee,
Going for a walk,
Meeting a stranger,
Eating a meal,
Watching the sunrise,
Engaging in a conversation,
Maybe even having a conversation that's a difficult one with someone.
You know,
The moments of laughter,
The moments of silence.
Those times when we're sitting there looking or watching something that's just amazing.
And Jesus might simply be standing on the shore.
And so the question is,
What if God's already here?
So let's take a moment,
Look around the space where you are,
Notice the ordinary things.
The chair beneath you,
The air around you,
The sounds in the distance,
Your own breathing,
Your body,
The light.
God is here.
So just sit with that for a moment and just allow that possibility that God is here.
And then Jesus says,
Come and have breakfast.
Eat,
Rest,
Be together.
There's a beautiful incarnational vibe about this.
A bodily experience.
Jesus obviously cares about their hearts,
Yes,
Their spirits,
Yes,
Their souls,
Yes,
Their minds,
Yes,
But he's cooked them breakfast.
So he also cares about their bodies,
About their hunger,
About food.
And the friendship that comes as they sit there together,
Again.
God cares about ordinary human beings.
Life which is important at this point in the story because this is post-resurrection.
So the resurrection.
Doesn't pull the mind of Jesus,
The mind of God.
Away from.
Physicality in the physical world.
You might have met people who've seemed to emphasize the superior importance of the spiritual or the inner life,
Not taking away its importance.
But to think that it's superior or more important is to miss the point.
In the letter of James,
Chapter 2,
He speaks to this directly.
It's as if you meet someone who's in need and you simply say,
God bless you,
Be at peace.
Then you haven't fulfilled what you're meant to fulfill.
You must feed,
Help,
Whatever it is that person,
If you're going to be whole about it.
And so what the resurrection seems to have done here for Jesus is brought him deeper into.
The physical world.
There's bread and there's fish and there's fire and water and tired disciples and morning light.
And there's God.
And we sometimes,
I think,
Imagine holiness as this.
You know,
Perfect prayer or mystical experience or retreat or pilgrimage or monastery or church.
Or sacred space.
But John 21 gives us another picture of this.
Holiness can look like breakfast.
Holiness can look like preparing food for someone.
Holiness can look like sitting quietly with a friend around the fire.
Holiness can look like doing your work with attention,
Like washing the dishes,
Like noticing someone who's lonely or stopping long enough to enjoy the morning.
The problem is that we haven't learned how to notice.
So imagine yourself sitting beside Jesus.
There's bread,
Fish,
Fire's warm,
Sea's calm.
And Jesus just says to you,
Come and have breakfast.
Imagine accepting the invitation.
Sit down.
Eat.
Receive.
Just breakfast.
There's another really important detail here that,
Again,
When someone writes it in,
It's probably worth taking a look.
The disciples have worked all night and they've caught nothing.
Now,
Again,
There's something familiar in that for all of us,
I think.
We work and we try and we plan and sometimes despite everything we do,
Nothing happens.
The nets remain empty,
Right?
We know,
We all know that feeling.
You gave something,
Everything you had,
And it didn't work.
You tried to fix the relationship,
Tried to change something,
Tried to make a difference,
Tried to pray or understand,
And the net came up empty.
But what's interesting is that Jesus doesn't condemn the disciples.
For having an empty net.
For fishing all night.
And getting nothing.
He simply meets them there where they're at.
So bring to mind one of your own empty nets,
Something that you've worked at that hasn't produced what you hoped,
Something where you feel tired,
Maybe,
Or where you've begun to wonder whether your efforts actually matter at all.
And as you do,
Just hold it before God and say,
This net is empty.
And imagine Jesus standing there on the shore.
And there's no disappointment and no impatience,
Just 100% presence.
And what's interesting is Jesus tells them to throw the net in again.
And they do.
And when they do,
Suddenly there's abundance.
But what's important to notice here is that the disciples just responded to Jesus' instruction,
To an invitation.
Why don't you throw your nets on the other side?
They didn't have to do anything per se.
They couldn't make the fish jump in the nets.
All they had to do was throw their net back in.
And maybe sometimes our spiritual lives are less about trying harder and more about listening differently.
Perhaps we need to ask,
Where is Jesus inviting me to cast the net?
Maybe we need to ask,
Where is life?
Where is God already moving?
Where is this invitation?
And where is the possibility?
And so maybe God's not asking you to change everything.
Maybe it's just one small focus,
One small noticing,
One small point of your attention.
Call someone,
Rest,
Forgive,
Go outside,
Listen,
Cook,
Pray,
Apologize,
Start again,
Stop,
Say thank you,
Eat breakfast with someone.
Sometimes I think the way home is actually lots of little steps and each one of those steps is just one little invitation.
To do something.
And then there's PETA.
After breakfast as we heard last time,
Jesus turns towards Peter,
And we've already reflected on the conversation.
Three questions,
Three affirmations,
Three opportunities for Peter to say yes,
Right?
But notice what came just before that.
There was food,
There was friendship,
And there was presence.
So Jesus didn't just ride up into Peter's grill and find out what the heck's going on.
Nor did he just simply have the conversation before there was the food.
And this is worth remembering.
I think sometimes.
.
.
There are moments when we try to solve ourselves,
When what we really need is nourishment.
We try and be better people,
Better leaders.
Better parents,
Better friends.
But maybe Jesus is saying,
Right now what you need to do is come and eat.
Receive my life.
Before you try and give yours away.
And this is one of the most beautiful rhythms of the spiritual life and it's an important rhythm because I think it's a rhythm we all struggle with,
To receive first.
Receive and then do.
So receive love first and then do.
Love others,
Receive mercy,
Then show mercy,
Receive grace,
Then offer grace,
Receive the bread and then become the bread giver.
For others.
Have to understand.
That we can't continually pour ourselves out without returning to the source and even Jesus.
Invites the exhausted disciples to come and eat.
And rest.
And so the question to ask is what do you need to receive right now?
What do you need from God today?
Is it rest or forgiveness?
Is it encouragement or love?
Do you need patience or courage?
Maybe you need permission.
Permission to stop,
Permission to go.
Let's take a moment to sit with this question.
What do you need to receive?
And as you offer that up.
.
.
Simply make yourself available to receive it.
So this has got me wondering whether we've been thinking about home in the wrong way.
We imagine home as the place we have to get back to.
All right,
So it is a place,
It's a time,
It's a version of ourselves.
But I'm wondering more and more now if home is more a relationship.
That home is a place,
Yes,
But it's a place where we're known,
Where we can.
.
.
Stop trying to be and just be where we can eat and rest and be ourselves.
Where someone's prepared something for us.
And maybe this is what Jesus is offering the disciples on the shore.
A place of belonging.
So imagine the shore again,
The night's over.
The sun's rising,
The water becomes brighter,
The nets have been pulled onto the beach,
There's fire burning.
Jesus is there,
All the disciples are tired,
But they're together.
And there's food.
Nothing seems to have been resolved yet.
The future's still uncertain.
The world's still broken.
The disciples still have a lot to learn.
But for this moment,
They're home.
And just stay in this moment for a moment.
Don't rush away from the scene.
Stay beside the fire.
Feel the warmth.
Hear the water.
Notice the morning light.
Smell the smoke.
Taste the bread.
And hear Jesus say,
And have breakfast.
Maybe that's all the prayer you need today.
Now,
As we've worked through the series,
We've been talking about return,
But I think.
We're discovering.
That God doesn't wait for us at the end of the journey,
That we somehow encounter God along the way.
In the field,
On the road,
Beside the water,
At the fire,
In the tree,
At the table,
And now on the shore.
And so the way home.
Not so much.
About getting somewhere as it is learning to recognize the One who's already with us.
So as we bring this meditation to an end today.
Try not to rush into the next thing if you can.
One thing today.
Your coffee,
Your meal,
A shower,
A walk,
Your drive,
Your commute.
The moment you open your computer,
A pause,
Just for 10 seconds,
It doesn't matter.
And just say,
You are here.
Nothing more than that,
Just you are here,
God is here,
And you are there too in that moment.
An ordinary moment.
Where you can meet.
So before we finish,
One last time to the shore,
Working all night,
Empty net,
Tired,
Disappointment and then you see him.
Jesus,
Standing beside the fire.
He looks at you and says,
Come.
He walked towards him.
He smiles.
There's bread and food and warmth.
And the simple words.
Come and have breakfast.
Sit down,
Receive and stay because this is home and you are home.
Thank you God for meeting us on the shore.
For meeting us when our nets are empty.
When we're tired.
In the ordinary things.
Teach us to recognise you in the meals we share,
The people we meet,
The work we do.
The silence we enter and the world around us when we're exhausted.
Remind us to receive.
Remind us to listen when our impulse is to act.
When we're searching for something.
Remind us that you may already be standing right beside us.
And when you invite us,
Come and have breakfast.
Give us the grace to stop,
To sit down,
And receive.
And may grace,
Peace and love be with you and remain with you today and always.
Thanks for being with me today.
As you go into your day.
That phrase,
Come and have breakfast,
Hold it.
And see what it does for you as you go through the day.
Sometimes I think,
The God that we're seeking.
Is more often than not standing beside us right there in the ordinary moments of life,
Just waiting for us to notice.
And so really the way home could be as simple as sitting down beside the fire and having breakfast.
Until tomorrow.
Bye for now.
