Texts: John 21:1-19, Acts 9:1-20

This morning I want to treat a series of encounters, disturbing encounters. Each has its own context and meaning. There may or may not be some common thread that runs through them all. I will confess that this is an attempt to preach with the Bible in one hand and the newspaper in the other.

This is one of those days when the lectionary offers a rich array of texts from which to choose. Psalm 30 urges us to “Sing praises to the Lord, O you faithful ones, and give thanks to [God’s] holy name. For [God’s] anger is but a moment; [God’s] favor is for a lifetime. Weeping may linger for the night, but joy comes with the morning.” A beloved word full of hope and joy. The passage from The Revelation to John contains the words that Handel used as the penultimate chorus of Messiah, “Worthy is the Lamb that was slaughtered to receive power and wealth and wisdom and might and honor and glory and blessing.” In John’s gospel we have the touching tale of Jesus and his disciples on the shore of the Galilean Sea one morning after the Resurrection. And the reading from the Acts of the Apostles is the writer’s account of the dramatic conversion of Paul on the Road to Damascus. Heady stuff indeed.

From these I have chosen to pull out three crucial encounters with Christ in John and Acts. In the first, the disciples have left the locked room in Jerusalem and returned to the familiar environs of Galilee. They have gone back to what they know so well – fishing. The first part of the chapter tells how they have toiled all night and caught nothing when a stranger appears in the mist on the shoreline and tells them to cast their nets again. They are overwhelmed by their enormous catch. Suddenly the enigmatic “disciple whom Jesus loved” recognizes him, calling out, “It is the Lord.” Peter, ever impetuous, is in the water and swimming for shore before the reality sinks in for the others.

After Jesus has fed them breakfast, the writer recounts a disturbing encounter between Jesus and Peter. “Peter, do you love me?” “Yes, Lord; you know that I love you.” “Feed my lambs.” This exchange is repeated twice more until Peter says, in pain and frustration, “Lord, you know everything; you know that I love you.” It seems to me that this disturbing encounter, deeply painful for poor Peter is also a story of reconciliation between Jesus and Peter. Though this is not the first time Peter has seen Jesus since his Resurrection, I imagine it is the first time they have had a chance to talk. In my mind’s eye, Jesus pulls Peter aside after breakfast and says, “Let’s take a little walk up the beach.” Peter has been dreading this moment. He knows that Jesus knows that, despite his brave protestations of loyalty, he had not only not been there for Jesus during the time of trial, he had actually denied even knowing him, denied him with a curse. Peter must have been torn between the joy and excitement of having Jesus alive and around and his own deep seated guilt for his shameful behavior. Would there be forgiveness? Could their special bond be restored? He had been agonizing over this encounter for weeks now, dreading it and wanting it to be over.

There is no account of Jesus condemning Peter or his behavior, no account of Jesus shaming Peter before the others. In fact, I wonder if, at this point, the others even knew what Peter was carrying around in his guilty conscience and troubled heart. “When he needed me most, I wasn’t there. When I had the chance to speak up, I lied to save my own pathetic skin. How can he ever forgive me?” Peter waits in vain for Christ’s castigation; it never comes. Jesus doesn’t even mention Peter’s past failure. What he wants to know is where Peter is now? “Are you ready Peter, ready to step up, to take the responsibilities that lay ahead for you? Peter, I need to know if I can trust you with what matters so much to me – these precious ones who have left all to follow me, these children of God who so desperately need someone to care for them and to lead them along the way. Can you do it, Peter? Will you do it? Can I count on you?”

In this disturbing encounter, the conversation does not play out in any way that Peter imagined it might. He is expecting harsh words from Jesus; he is expecting to be called out like a child for his wretched behavior. He is not expecting Jesus to treat him with this sort of respectful expectation that hopes Peter can and will measure up to his high calling. This disturbing encounter makes all the difference for Peter. There is no room to hide childishly behind his childish expectations; the offer is made to grow up and be all that he can be, even if it costs him his life. Peter sees life and its possibilities through Jesus’ eyes in ways that totally transform him from being a bragging coward and a terrified turncoat to being the leader of the movement that Jesus had always envisioned he would be.

The second disturbing encounter is one of the most dramatic in the Bible. We know that Saul of Tarsus had been among those terrorizing the Jesus movement within the Judaism of his time. The writer of Acts identifies him as the young man who held the coats while the mob stoned Stephen. Now we find him, “still breathing threats and murder against the disciples of the Lord” on his way to Damascus in search of “any who belonged to the Way” so “he might bring them bound to Jerusalem.” The next thing he knows, a blinding light has knocked him to the ground and challenged him, “Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?” “Who are you, Lord?” he asks in shocked amazement. “I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting” is the reply. Blinded by the light and stunned by the news, he is taken by the hand and led on to Damascus.

What is he to make of this experience? He had been so sure of himself, so full of righteous indignation against this upstart group who were undermining his traditional faith. He had been a fierce proponent of the status quo, commissioned by the high priests themselves to carry out his work of persecuting the people of the Way. Now that Jesus had so dramatically gotten his attention, he was not sure where to turn, but he must have had some sense that his life would never be the same again. All he can do is sit sightless, waiting for the fulfillment of the promise that he will be told “what he is to do.”

Meanwhile the faithful and self-effacing Ananias is minding his own business when he has his own disturbing encounter. “Ananias.” “Yes, Lord.” “Get up and go to the street called Straight and…look for a man from Tarsus called Saul.” Already, Ananias is forming his argument. “Did I hear right, Lord? You want me to speak to whom? Saul of Tarsus. Umm…Lord I have heard from many about this man, how much evil he has done to your saints in Jerusalem; and here he has authority from the chief priests to bind all who invoke your name.” Now you can imagine Ananias is not exactly thrilled with the assignment he is being given, and he joins that long line of faithful followers who try to talk God out of God’s plan for his life. His expectation and fear seem to him, quite legitimately, to be for his own life and well being. And, as many before him, he follows his resistance by doing faithfully what is asked of him.

There is a double transformation in the disturbing encounters of this chapter in Acts. Not only does Ananias find his way to fulfilling God’s high calling, but, through Ananias’s faithfulness, Saul finds his way to God. Neither travels the expected path; neither anticipated the way the path would take them. Saul started out breathing threats and murder and ends up being baptized; Ananias started out in fear and trembling and becomes an instrument of God’s redeeming love.

It seems to me that one thing these powerful stories have in common is the way in which transformation of human life is so likely to come on the heels of a disturbing encounter. In each of these old stories, the disturbing encounter led directly to a beneficial result. Now these were the texts for this week and this is pretty much the way I imagined this sermon unfolding. But there were some other disturbing encounters this week in our own setting that deserve comment and cannot be so easily summed up.

One is the disturbing encounter between a troubled young man and his university community that eventuated in 33 senseless deaths and the disruption of life at that great university. Is there any transformation that can come from this terrible tragedy? Of course, it is still too soon to say any definitive word. We may never know what terrible demons eroded this young man’s soul and caused him to explode in such a horrifying way. We have some inkling that ridicule and racism may have been factors in his self destruction. We do know that too easy access to guns and ammunition play a role in his ultimate act of terror. We know that the richness of life was impoverished by the loss of the victims of his shooting rampage. We know that families are devastated and communities are in mourning.

If there is a redeeming or transforming word here, might it be to follow faithfully the same Jesus who urged Peter to feed the sheep, who called Paul to spread good news, who challenged Ananias to be an agent of healing, not just for any old man on the street but for one of the most hated enemies he could imagine? There are people at Virginia Tech, in Blacksburg and beyond who need a word of compassion and comfort, who need to find some good news in the midst of tragedy, who need to find love in places it seems impossible to find love.

The other disturbing encounter I had this week was with a headline in USA Today that caught my eye as I crossed the hotel lobby: “Trauma Severe for Iraqi Children.” The article goes on to tell about a survey of 2500 Iraqi elementary school children in which the findings indicate that 70% of them “suffer symptoms of trauma-related stress such as bed wetting and stuttering.” The author of the study says, “The fighting is happening in the streets in front of our houses and schools. This is very difficult for the children to adapt to.” The article goes on to say that “Many Iraqi children have to pass dead bodies on the street on the way to school in the morning…Others have seen relatives killed or have been injured in mortar or bomb attacks.” Psychiatrist Said Al-Hashimi says, “Some of these children are suffering one trauma after another, and it’s severely damaging their development. We’re not certain what will become of the next generation, even if there is peace one day (USA Today, Monday, April 16, 2007, p. 1.)

I don’t know if these news reports are equally disturbing to you, but it seems to me we live in a culture of fear and culture of violence. There are many ways we can justify this reality economically, socially and culturally, I suppose. But I can’t help but wonder what kind of disturbing encounter we might have with Jesus around any role we might play in accepting and even encouraging such realities. Maybe he would come to some of us, not scolding us as we were expecting, but saying simply “Do you love me? Then tend my lambs and feed my sheep.” Maybe some of us would need to be knocked to the ground and blinded to the conventional wisdom and the status quo we hold on to so steadfastly so he could have our undivided attention long enough for us to see that his way is a much different and demanding way than we had imagined. Maybe he will come challenging us to love our enemies, doing good to those who would persecute us and say false things about us because we love and follow him.

Maybe this is all too far fetched and rambling, but it is what has come from my own disturbing encounters with the Bible and the news media this week. For good or ill, I offer my reflections and invite you to reflect with me on how we might better commit ourselves to the Way and walk that way together as God’s children and Christ’s disciples. The encounters that entails may be disturbing but the promise of transformation, and of the coming culture of God, in which we will study war no more, in which children will live in safety, in which both love and resources will be shared equitably and abundantly throughout the earth, will make those disturbing encounters worth every risk. Perhaps then joy will come with the morning and spread all over the earth.