As a young child I participated in a few plays in our local young children’s theater. Saturday mornings my mom would take me to the Indian Harbor Beach Civic Center across from the library and, with other children, I would take on characters, learn lines, practice blocking and vocalization, and usually run around annoyingly when it wasn’t my turn on stage. The second show I was a part of with the Junior Theater Workshop was a junior version of the Shakespeare play, A Midsummer Night’s Dream. The dialogue and script were all in the original Elizabethan language; it was simply trimmed down for length to make it manageable for a cast ranging from about age 9-15.
Unlike in our previous show, The Wizard of Oz, I didn’t know any of the characters in A Midsummer Night’s Dream. I didn’t know what part to hope for or be disappointed about when the cast list was posted after auditions, but I was pretty certain I was not happy about being picked for Puck, a fairy who would have to have her hair sprayed green for the show.
I didn’t know what I didn’t know at first.
However, once I realized I had the last lines of the play, things perked up. That seemed a little more interesting to me – even if I had to spray my hair green. Once the whole show was over and the mixed up love stories were straightened out, no thanks to the fairies involved, my character, Puck, would come out in front of the curtain and deliver what I was assured was a somewhat famous final speech:
If we shadows have offended,
Think but this, and all is mended,
That you have but slumber’d here
While these visions did appear.
And this weak and idle theme,
No more yielding but a dream,
Gentles, do not reprehend:
if you pardon, we will mend:
He wraps it all up. One final word to the audience to send them off with an explanation of what they have just witnessed – in the case of this play, Puck says, if you’re offended, just think of it all as a dream and all will be well.
The gospel according to John ends up with a little wrap up story as well. We might think of this as an extra scene in front of the curtain, or maybe a bonus at the end of the credits of a movie if we stick around long enough to see what’s there. The screen brightens again after it’s been dark with the scrolling names and copyright information. “Three weeks later…” it says. (I don’t know if it’s three weeks; I’m just making that up.)
“After these things Jesus showed himself again to the disciples….”
The characters in the epilogue are Simon Peter and Thomas, Nathanael as well. The sons of Zebedee are around, but only mentioned that way, not even by their own names, and then two others who aren’t identified any way, except one as the disciple whom Jesus loved. It’s interesting to ponder why these three are mentioned by name. Peter, of course, gets the bulk of the action and the lines. But it seems as if the author wants to bring back to mind few different stories from the gospel by focusing in on these three disciples.
Simon Peter, of course, is the star of a number of famous scenes, but maybe the one most commonly thought of in reference to this story are his three denials of Jesus right before the crucifixion that are mirrored in the three opportunities Peter has to declare his love for Jesus here after the resurrection. But, among other gospel stories, Peter also plays an important role in the John’s version of the Last Supper. John’s version doesn’t focus at all really on the breaking of the bread or the sharing of the cup that we remember in the Lord’s Supper, but instead it highlights Jesus washing his disciples’ feet, starting with Peter who resisted the blessing at first.
Thomas has a few appearances in the gospel, from when he encouraged all the disciples to go with Jesus when Mary and Martha summoned him to the tomb of their brother, Lazarus, to when he asked the question “Lord… how can we know the way?” when Jesus promises his followers a room in the dwelling place of God, and then finally, of course, when he was absent from Jesus’ first appearance to the disciples after his resurrection and he could not believe what he missed.
Nathanael is the curious one in this story, though, because he has the smallest part in the rest of the gospel. But we know what all the acting instructors tell budding thespians, “There are no small parts, only small actors.” The only time Nathanael is mentioned by name or has a conversation with Jesus is way back in the very first chapter of this gospel, when Jesus is calling his disciples to his side.
Nathanael is skeptical at first, of his friend Philip’s witness. He has told Nathanael all about this one who he has found who he is sure is the one “about whom Moses in the law and also the prophets wrote.” Nathanael is doubtful anything good can come out Nazareth, but when Jesus seems to know more about Nathanael than should be expected, Nathanael exclaims, “Rabbi, you are the Son of God! You are the King of Israel!” He’s the first person besides John the Baptist who makes any such claim about Jesus! He sees so much more, so much sooner than all the rest, this Nathanael who shows up in the beginning and the end… which might just actually be another beginning.
So, after the empty tomb, after the two visits of the resurrected Jesus to the disciples in Jerusalem, here are his disciples, back in Galilee. (The Sea of Tiberias is just another name for the Sea of Galilee.) And back in Galilee, Peter is going fishing again. That’s what he was doing, the other three gospels tells us, the first time he met Jesus, and now, after there resurrection he’s back at it again. Not much seems to have changed. After everything they’ve seen, after everything they’ve witnessed – the marks of the nails in Jesus’ hands, marks that prove he who was dead is now alive – they are back in a familiar place, performing familiar routines, running into familiar frustrations. The fish aren’t biting.
A stranger on the shoreline tells them to throw the nets on the right side of the boat and there they’ll find some fish. “Oh sure, why didn’t *we* think of that?” I can hear them mumbling. But they do it. And it works. Of course it works, we know, because we know it’s Jesus.
And what unfolds is a story that is exactly what we should expect. It is John’s gospel in a nutshell:
Peter gets excited again and makes an impulsive decision (as he does). He throws on his cloak, jumps in the water, and swims back to shore.
The haul of fish is counted – one hundred fifty-three of them. An abundance so large they would need to be worried that the nets might tear. An abundance reminiscent of the abundant wine at the wedding in Nathanael’s hometown and the abundant life Jesus promised them.
Jesus hosts a meal for them from the provisions they supply – fish and bread as he did when there were masses to feed on a mountain overlooking this exact same sea.
He shows them he is actually who he always was – just as he did in the upper room when he breathed his spirit upon them and showed them the signs on his body.
And he finishes by inviting them, one last time, “Follow me.” The same words he said when he called them to his side when he was living. The same words he used to invite them into discipleship when it all began. “Follow me.”
Jesus invites his disciples to follow him into a new beginning – a new kind of discipleship. This one doesn’t take them out of the lives they have known, but asks them to be his people in their daily living – while they’re fishing, while they’re eating with friends, family, and neighbors, while they’re living and growing old. He asks them to feed his lambs, tend his sheep, feed his sheep on his behalf. With the love they have for him, he wants them to take care of others.
I think this is extremely important. This is the very last thing the editor of John’s gospel chose to include in their telling of the good news of Jesus –
- in the gospel that starts with a prologue telling us “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God…”
- in the gospel that starts by telling us that “the Word became flesh and lived among us.”
- in the gospel that starts by telling us that this the one who has made known to us God and that he is full of grace and truth.
This is the very last thing Jesus tells us in this gospel; we follow him by feeding his lambs, tending his sheep, feeding his sheep.
He didn’t tell us to get the doctrine all exactly right. He didn’t tell us pray a specific prayer or recite an ancient creed. He didn’t tell us to write all the rules and break ourselves trying to follow them. He didn’t tell us to build big buildings and amass great wealth. He didn’t tell us to do any number of things the church and Jesus’ followers have sometimes been distracted by for the last 2,000 years of Christian history.
He told us to feed his lambs, tend his sheep, feed his sheep, and by doing that we follow him.
How we do that may look different for each of us, but at the core of our calling, at the core of our discipleship, at the core of the work of the church, his body is this command to care for those around us – to care for the young and inexperienced, to feed those who are hungry and who have no place at a table, to nourish the elderly and the vulnerable. This is our new life because of the resurrection – a life that exists not for our own blessing and benefit, but a life that is lived for others. This, above all else, is what it means to follow the resurrected Jesus.
