There is an ancient folktale about a tiger that is brought up with a herd of goats. From the day his eyes opened all he saw was a goat's life, so it became his style of life, too. The tiger munched grass with the rest, butted heads with the younger goats for recreation, and learned to bleat in an odd sort of way a sound that resembled, or so he thought, a goat's voice. Once in a while there was a nagging voice inside him that said, " You don't belong to this life!" But always, he put it aside as fantasy, some disturbing intrusion from the world of dreams. If his present life didn't satisfy him, he just marked it off as the discontent that always hovers around the edges of any lifestyle. So, he, a tiger, stayed with the goat's way of life because he believed that was the way life had to be. Then one day a tiger came into the clearing. He was all tiger, having grown up knowing who he was. He looked into the clearing and spotted the goats. He roared the earth-shaking roar of his species, bounded out and made his kill. The goats fled in terror. But the tiger who had grown up with them stopped. He wanted to stay. The roar from the edge of the forest had stirred some lost memory deep inside of him. He flexed his automatic reflex to the challenge from the forest edge.
The tiger at the edge had awakened in him a life he had never known but for which he had been created. And so it was that the disciples after the resurrection went back to Galilee. The 21st chapter of John really forms a sort of epilogue to the resurrection story, but an important one. It's as if the writer has something very important to add to the story and, after what seems like the ending of the Gospel of John in the 20th chapter, appears to start a whole new story.
And what do those disciples do back in Galilee? Well, it appears that they aren't sure what it is they are supposed to be doing. Jesus sent them there, but now they seem lost, again, without his presence and guidance. So, they go fishing; they go back to the ordinary routines of their lives. And what happens? Verse three tells us: "that night they caught nothing."
Then, from the edge of the shore line, a voice calls to them to cast their nets on the other side of their boat. Scripture doesn't tell us why they listen to that voice. Maybe it had a familiar ring of authority to it. Maybe they were willing to try anything new to catch some fish. We just don't know, but we do know the result: a huge, huge catch of fish. And then they know the voice: "It is the Lord!"
You see, these disciples are like us in our endeavors to do things our way and on our own. They had gone from the joy of resurrection back to the ordinariness of their lives, and nothing had changed very much. They had been called to a new life from the edge of humanity by a voice that empowered them and gave them a new way of doing things. But they chose, instead, to be like the tiger who thought he was a goat. And it was the voice from the shore that called them, again, to the new life -- a life in which fishing (that metaphor for evangelism) is successful because it listens to and is responsive to the one who calls us to the task.
In his book, Remember Who You Are, William H. Willimon of Duke University says that he recalls one thing his mother always told him whenever he left the house to go on a date during his high school days. As he left the house, she would stand at the front door and call after him, "Will, don't forget who you are."
We know what Mom Willimon meant, don't we? She didn't think Will was in danger of forgetting his name and street address. But she knew that, alone on a date, or in the midst of some party, or while joined by friends, he might forget who he was. She knew that sometimes all of us are tempted to answer to some alien name and to be who we are not. "Don't forget who you are," was the maternal benediction.
The disciples that morning as they fished without success were called from the shore by one who was calling them back to who they were. They were his children. They were his with a mission to do. And that mission would not and could not be successful without his guidance and presence.
These post-resurrection stories of Jesus which we focus on this week after Easter help remind us of who we are. They help validate the stories of the resurrection for the early Christian community, to be sure. But they serve to do much more than that. These stories help remind us. Sure, Easter has come and gone. The resurrection was celebrated with the proper pomp and spirit. But now what? Well, we listen to the voice from the shore urging us to be about his business. That's a good reminder for our community as well as for those first disciples.
Don't you see? These Easter stories give the Christian community stories to share. And those stories remind us of who is our focus and what is our mission. They tell us of Jesus' continual call to his people to serve him by pulling people into community in his name. And we do that by sharing the stories of resurrection which we know and have experienced.
Don't you see? We can never go back to the ordinary once we have heard that voice from the shore. We have been captured by a person who loves us and won't let us go. We have been captured by a story so powerful that we have been changed by its telling. And now, we must tell that story. And we dare never make it boring!
Robert McAfee Brown, professor of theology and ethics at the Pacific School of Religion, said it better than I can in his book, Creative Dislocation -- The Movement of Grace. He writes: Our faith does not come to us initially as theology, and particularly not as "systematic theology," but as story. Tell me about God: "Well, once upon a time there was a garden ..." Tell me about Jesus: "Well, once upon a time a little boy was born in a smelly stable in Bethlehem ..." Tell me about salvation: "Well, when this same boy grew up, he loved people so much that the rulers began to be frightened of him, and you know what they did? ..." Tell me about the church, "Well, there were a great many people who worked together: Mary and Priscilla and Martin Luther and Martin Luther King, Jr., and John and Sister Teresa, and you know what they did? ..."1
Don't forget who you are! We are the ones named and claimed in the baptismal waters. We are Christ's people. People of the resurrection. People who fish for a living among one another. People who have a story to share and a faith to proclaim. That's who we are. The voice from the water's edge called them out of the ordinariness of their lives, to a new life and a new mission. The church of today needs to hear and heed that same voice. And notice what Jesus did when they got to shore? He fed them. It was a meal of thanksgiving in fellowship with Christ. It is a meal we enjoy when we gather around bread and wine. It is a meal for nourishment and hope. It is a meal that fills us with love and forgiveness and strength -- for going from here to tell the most important story any person ever needs to hear. Can you hear that call to a new life? Amen.
1. Robert McAfee Brown, Creative Dislocation -- The Movement of Grace, (Nashville, Abingdon Press, 1980), pp. 130-131. "