John 21:1-17
My maternal grandmother was a wonderful and difficult woman. She could be sweet and kind and loving. And she could be cantankerous, domineering, and demanding. I have several childhood memories of my mother in tears after my grandmother had raked her over the coals for this, that, or the other thing. It was always the worst when we went to Canada. My family has a cabin there, and we were expected to spend our vacation there every summer with my grandparents. It was wonderful for my father as a fisherman, and wonderful for us kids, with the fishing and swimming and berry-picking. It was not so wonderful for my mom because it meant two weeks of living in a three-room cabin with her mother, who judged everything from how she was raising her children to how she washed the dishes.
One summer my grandmother was in a particularly bad space. Her anxiety was running high, and it made her short-tempered. My sister’s fiancé had joined us, and that extra person just put Grandma over the edge. At the last minute we got an opportunity to drive an RV, which we thought would be great because it would provide extra sleep space and reduce the crowd in the cabin. But that was not what Grandma had planned, and even though it should have been a good thing, the surprise completely unnerved her. It was not. the way. she planned it!
I may not have all the details of this story right, but the way I remember it, most of us were down on the dock one evening—probably avoiding the cabin and the wrath of Thelma. The adults were rocking in those old metal rockers, the kids lounging around with our feet in the water, when the cabin door opened and Grandma came stomping down the hill. She stomped through the boathouse and out to the dock, put her hands on her hips and proclaimed, “I’m just gonna’ get in the boat!” Well, I’d never seen my grandpa move so fast. He was out of his chair and helping her onto the boat as if he’d been waiting his whole life to perform that very duty.
To this day I have no idea why she wanted to get in the boat. She didn’t go anywhere. Maybe she wanted to imagine driving off into the sunset. Maybe she thought that the gentle rocking of the boat might calm her spirit. Maybe she wanted to be part of the gathering but couldn’t bring herself to fully join. I don’t know. But in my family, we’ve joked about that line for years. Whenever one of us is pretending to be mad, we’ll announce “I’m just gonna’ get in the boat!”
Biblical scholars debate why Peter went fishing after the resurrection of Christ. I can’t help but think it was some version of “I’m just gonna’ get in the boat!” because things did not turn out the way he planned it. Remember, throughout the Gospels, Peter is portrayed as bold and impetuous. He tried to walk on water. He suggested building a shrine at the transfiguration, when he would have done better to keep his mouth shut. When Jesus wanted to wash his feet, he protested “No! You’re the Master; you can’t wash my feet.” But then when Jesus responded, “Unless I wash your feet, you will have no part in me,” Peter replied, “Then wash my hands and my head, too!” He was an all-or-nothing kind of guy. He went to extremes. He did the same thing when he said he would follow Jesus anywhere. Jesus told him: Where I’m going, you can’t follow. Peter declared, “Lord, not only would I follow you, but I would lay down my life for you!” That’s when Jesus predicted: “Before the rooster crows, you will deny me three times.” And he did. While sitting by a fire outside the court, he denied that he even knew Jesus.
Can you imagine? After all his promises, after all his rash claims of “Oh, I would die for you, Lord!” he couldn’t even tell the truth to people gathered around a fire. “You have to believe that it was eating Peter alive. . . . It might have been one thing if Jesus had stayed in the tomb. Peter would have had to live with himself for denying his friend and teacher at the moment when Jesus needed him the most. He would have hated himself for it for the rest of his days. But then Jesus rose from the dead, and he had to actually look Jesus in the eye again.”[1]
According to the Gospel of John, at this point in our story Jesus had already appeared to the disciples twice. But we have no story of an encounter between Jesus and Peter personally. Thomas is the one who gets the personal contact, not Peter. So Peter must have still been carrying the guilt and shame of his denial. Plus, Jesus had risen; but he didn’t seem to be sticking around much. He made these appearances and then disappeared again. What were the disciples supposed to do? Wait in the upper room?
So Peter got in the boat. Maybe he wanted to imagine sailing off into the sunset. Maybe he thought that the rocking of the boat might calm his spirit. Maybe he wanted to get back to something he knew, something that just might go the way he planned it.
But it didn’t. They’d been out fishing all night and caught nothing. They were coming back in with empty nets when some guy called to them from the shore, telling them to cast their nets on the right side of the boat. After getting skunked, the fishermen I know would not like to be told, “Oh, you should’ve done it this way!” Why would they listen to some guy who doesn’t even have a boat? But they did, and it wasn’t until their bountiful catch that one of the disciples recognized Jesus. Somehow the abundance made them see. The one who turned water into the best wine, the one who multiplied the bread and fish, the one who took their sorry little lives and made them rich . . . only he could have caused this kind of abundance. The other disciple says, “Peter! It’s the Lord!”
And that’s when we find out that Peter was fishing naked. The text says, “When Simon Peter heard that it was the Lord, he put on some clothes, for he was naked, and jumped into the sea.” Laborers in the first century would not have had many sets of clothes. So they did not work in their outer clothes or cloaks, for they did not want to get them dirty or wet. Plus they were kind of billowy for hard labor. So Peter might have been fishing naked because he didn’t want to work in his clothes, or more likely, he might have been fishing in his undergarments, which was common for laborers. So the real question isn’t why Peter was fishing naked, but why he put clothes on just to jump in the water! I mean, I’m guessing after traveling together for the last few years, it wouldn’t have been the first time Jesus saw one of his disciples either unclothed or under-clothed. So it doesn’t make sense. Why would you put on clothes to jump in the water?
I think it’s because Peter couldn’t face Jesus naked. Oh, he was eager to be with Jesus—otherwise he would have just stayed on the boat until it got to shore. He wanted to see Jesus . . . he just didn’t want Jesus to see him. He was already feeling vulnerable. He was already feeling exposed. He was already feeling like Jesus could see right through him. He needed every bit of protection gathered around him. So it’s like “Jesus!” [arms wide] “Hi.” [arms closed].
It didn’t work. Oh, he may have felt better, with his dripping cloak gathered tightly around him, but Jesus still saw his soul. And offered a way back in. Three times Jesus asked Peter to declare his love. Three times . . . not to punish him or shame him, but to counteract the three denials. He gave Peter three chances to reaffirm his love, and then told him that the way to prove it was through service: feed my lambs, tend my sheep.
I’ve done the same with God. “God, I love you!” [arms wide] “Oh, don’t look.” [arms closed]
I’d rather keep some parts of me hidden. And it didn’t work any better for me than it did for Peter.
Fortunately, it doesn’t need to. We mess up sometimes. Big time, sometimes. We break promises and we break hearts and we break faith. We hold onto grudges and we hold onto bad choices because we can’t admit we’re wrong. Whatever we’ve done, however much we fail, in spite of our shortcomings and sins, in spite of what we have done and what we have left undone, God meet us where we are. God still offers us a way back in, a way back home.
I read a story this week about a woman whose mother-in-law gave her a gift on her wedding day. She opened the gift to find a chipped mug with a red cardinal on it. Then her mother-in-law told her the story.
When the groom was twelve years old, he participated in a school fundraiser selling cookie dough or wrapping paper or whatever it was that year. Not only did he participate, but he turned out to be quite a salesman, selling the most of any child in his school. He of course won a special prize, and he was so proud of the prize because he was going to give it to his mom as a gift: a set of six mugs with cardinals. She picked him up from school the day he received his reward, and he was so excited and he went running out to the car … and he tripped. Five of the six mugs broke. Just one survived, with a chip. Of course, the mother kept it all those years because that’s what mothers do with gifts of love. And on her son’s wedding day she gave it to his wife. And she said: “He isn’t perfect. Love him anyway.”[2]
That’s what God says when God looks at me: She isn’t perfect. I love her anyway. And that’s what God says to us about those around us: They’re not perfect. Love them anyway. Forgive them. Forgive yourself. Feed my sheep.
[1] Morley, Rick. “All the Way: A Reflection on John 21.” www.rickmorley.com
[2] Austin Crenshaw Shelley. “Living by the Word” March 22, 2016. Christian Century.