St. Paul’s Church in
Bergen, Jersey City NJ
April 10, 2016
Year C: The Third
Sunday of Easter
Acts 9:1-20
Psalm 30
Revelation 5:11-14
John 21:1-19
The Unfinished Gospel
Alleluia!
Christ is risen!
The Lord is risen indeed! Alleluia!
If
you were here last Sunday you may remember that our focus was on the Apostle
Thomas – Thomas who was absent that first Easter night when the Risen Christ
appeared to his frightened and amazed disciples – the Risen Christ saying,
“Peace be with you” and breathing the Holy Spirit on his friends.
And,
in my sermon last week I wondered where Thomas was that night – maybe off
running an errand – or maybe angry, angry at God for letting this whole horror
happen, angry at Jesus for not stepping up and being the kind of messiah the
people wanted, angry at himself and his fellow disciples for their betrayal,
unfaithfulness, and cowardice.
Well,
wherever Thomas was, a week later he was back with the other disciples, back
with all his doubts, all of his “baggage.”
And
the Risen Christ appears again.
“Peace
be with you.”
And,
Thomas, he sees and he believes, saying more than he probably knew, “My Lord
and my God!”
Alleluia!
Christ is risen!
The Lord is risen indeed! Alleluia!
And,
then it seemed we had come to the end of our story, the end of the Gospel.
The
narrator writes, “Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of his
disciples, which are not written in this book. But these are written so that
you may come to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that
through believing you may have life in his name.”
Sounds
like that’s it – like the Gospel is finished, right?
But,
then…there’s more – the unfinished Gospel continues with what we heard today,
the 21st Chapter of the Gospel of John, which most scholars think
was added later, as a kind of epilogue.
It
seems that there was still some unfinished business – unfinished business
between Jesus and Peter.
I’ve
often thought that the disciples must have had some mixed feelings about the
Resurrection, at least at first.
After
all, they had pretty much all messed up. It must have been difficult to face
Jesus – hard for them all, but none more than Peter, the so-called “Rock,” who
had denied Jesus not once, not twice, but three times.
“Nope,
I don’t know the man.”
The
good news is that, despite that horrible betrayal, Jesus wasn’t finished with
Peter.
Jesus
and Peter still have some unfinished business.
So,
in the epilogue that we heard today, the Risen Christ appears once more to some
of the disciples, including Thomas, who it seems have gone back to their old
lives of fishing – fishing, this night anyway, with little success.
The
Risen Christ appears on the beach, gives some fishing advice that results in a
huge haul of big fish, and invites his friends to breakfast.
But
then the other disciples fade into the background and Jesus and Peter take up
their unfinished business.
Jesus
asks Peter, “Do you love me more than these?”
Jesus
asks Peter, “Do you love me?”
And,
a third time, Jesus asks Peter, “Do you love me?”
This
time, despite some bad, painful history, Peter rises to the challenge – his
three “yeses” erasing his earlier denials – Peter is now on the way to truly becoming
the Rock upon whom Christ will build his Church.
Alleluia!
Christ is risen!
The Lord is risen indeed! Alleluia!
Yes,
we had thought the Gospel was finished, but we were wrong.
The
Gospel is unfinished.
Christ
wasn’t finished with Peter who had denied him three times.
Christ
wasn’t finished with Thomas who had doubted the best news of all time.
Christ
wasn’t finished with Saul who became Paul, Paul who had violently persecuted
the early Church.
And,
Christ isn’t finished with us, either.
No
matter how many times we betray
Christ by denying to others that we know him, by not following his teachings to
love God and love one another, no matter how many times we betray him, Christ
is never finished with us.
No
matter how many times we doubt Christ
by living out in the world pretty much like everybody else, by living as if there
is no God, no matter how many times we doubt him, Christ is never
finished with us.
No
matter how many times we persecute
Christ by treating other people as less than God’s beloved children, by looking
the other way when we encounter people in need, no matter how many times we
persecute him, Christ is never finished with us.
Alleluia!
Christ is risen!
The Lord is risen indeed! Alleluia!
Christ
is never finished with us - and so the Gospel remains unfinished.
Just
like Thomas, Peter, and Paul and the holy women and men of every generation
we’re invited to add new verses to the unfinished Gospel.
As
Pope Francis said in his homily last Sunday, “We are called to become living
writers of the Gospel, heralds of the Good News to all men and women today.”
All
of us – very much including the doubters, deniers, and persecutors – all of us
are invited to add new verses to the unfinished Gospel – to add new verses by tending
and feeding the sheep – by welcoming every single person who walks through those
doors – to add new verses by giving away food at least as good as what we serve
ourselves and those we love – to add new verses by gathering at the Stone Soup
table and sharing our stories and listening to the stories of neighbors and
strangers – to walk down Bergen Avenue and at least try to see the panhandler
with glazed eyes as if he or she were Christ himself.
All
of us are invited to add new verses to the unfinished Gospel.
We’re
invited to add new verses by praying and working with our sister Episcopal churches
in Jersey City – no longer ignoring each other or competing with each other but
together adding new Gospel verses through our common witness.
And,
yes - you knew I was going to work this in somehow - we’re invited to add new verses
to the unfinished Gospel by uniting tomorrow night as Jersey City Together –
people from all over the city, from many different faith traditions and some
with no religious faith at all, together demanding better schools, safer
streets, and affordable housing – eager to work with our elected officials and
also quite willing to hold them accountable to the people they are meant to
serve.
All
of us are invited to add new verses to the unfinished Gospel.
Last
week, when Thomas saw the Risen Lord, it seemed like we had reached the end of
the Gospel.
But,
no, the Risen Christ had unfinished business with Peter, and with Paul, and
women and men through the centuries.
No matter what we do or don’t do, the
Risen Christ is never finished with any of us – always inviting us, us, right here and now, through our love
and service, to add new verses, beautiful new verses, to the unfinished Gospel.
Alleluia!
Christ is risen!
The Lord is risen indeed! Alleluia!
Amen.
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