Orchard Ridge United Church of Christ

Preached on May 20th by the Rev. Winton Boyd
Text: John 21:15-19

I know the last snow storm we had occurred on April 11, because that was the day I drove to Chicago’s O’Hare airport to pick up guest pastor Joerg Utpatel. In the morning before leaving, I was cursing the skies and watching the heavy snow cause the lilies outside our kitchen window droop and in the process, crush our bird feeder.

Needless to say, our guest was surprised (I believe it was unseasonably warm in the 80’s when he left his hometown in northern Germany.) However, because he was here for almost a month, as we drove around Southwest Wisconsin, we kept watching the fields and trees. A little green here, a few buds there. A tulip here and a bit more green the next day. Finally, seemingly overnight – BOOM – the ash trees on Black Oak Drive where we live popped out and what had been an airy canopy of branches was suddenly a thick, brilliant green canopy of leaves.

Parker Palmer has written: “Though spring begins slowly and tentatively, it grows with a tenacity that never fails to touch me. The smallest and most tender shoots insist on having their way, coming up through the ground that looked, only a few weeks earlier, as if it would never grow anything again. The crocuses and snowdrops do not bloom for long. But their mere appearance, however brief, is always a harbinger of hope, and from those small beginnings, hope grows at a geometric rate. Late spring is…a great giveaway of blooming beyond necessity and reason – done, it would appear, for no reason other than the sheer joy of it. The gift of life has been given again, and nature, rather than hoarding it, gives it all away.”

In so many ways, the season of spring is one of both joy and abundance; hope and a sense of newness. After the long dormancy of late fall and winter, there is an exhilarating, almost overwhelming rush of LIFE and COLOR.

But it is a balancing act. Many observers of spring would say it is a season of paradox. With this new life there is also wildness and the threat of things growing out of control. No sooner have the trees filled out than do the dandelions start appearing. Green grass is great – Creeping Charlie, not so much. Garden flowers springing up on their own a delight, but we also need to protect against the influx of weeds and invasive species. We celebrate the new growth and its abundance – while trying to taming its wildness. Spring embodies this paradox of new and amazing growth and profound and almost out of control challenges.

It seems fitting that in the Northern Hemisphere, spring is also the season of Easter, the time between the death and resurrection of Jesus and the day of Pentecost.

Our text today is at the center of this fifty day Easter season. It is after the period of darkness and death, the empty tomb and scared followers; but before the amazing and overwhelming joy and abundance of Pentecost.

Like the season of Spring, Eastertide is marked by tender and fragile hope; and amazing and life changing strength.

At the heart of this paradoxical season is Peter. He is one of the key figures in the unfolding Easter drama – but he himself is a strange mix.
• He is the one who denies Jesus AND the one who pledges his love
• He is the one who runs away AND the one who preaches to thousands on Pentecost
• He is the one who argues over who is the greatest while Jesus is alive AND the one who is swept away by the Spirit on the day of Pentecost.
• He is one of the early church’s most faithful disciple and its strongest advocates; AND one of its most profound failures and arrogant leaders.

We COULD argue about which is the real Peter – which is the true disciple? Or, we can see that Peter resides in each one of us, and that each of us embodies paradox and contradiction.

One of my favorite authors as a young adult was Catholic priest Henri Nouwen. While he was Dutch born, Nouwen had an exquisite mastery of the English language, of the spiritual journey and the inward life of prayer. At the same time, Nouwen was a deeply troubled, some would say paranoid man who battled loneliness, depression, homosexuality and broken relationships all his life. Which was the real Nouwen – the masterful crafter of words and prayers and images – or the struggling human being. Of course, both were real. In fact, the contradictions of his life are part of what made him such a treasure. Without his personal struggles, his writing about faith would have lacked depth. Without his ability to probe the depths of the human soul, his quirky personality would have driven everyone away.

In some way, the story of Peter and the story of Henri Nouwen is repeated in all of us. There are many ways to think about the competing pressures of our lives:

• The need for solitude and the need for community; independence and interdependence.
• The reality of faith and the reality of doubt.
• Seeking to be good stewards of our wealth and blessings while also feeling like we never have quite enough.
• The call of social justice and the call of inward spirituality.
• The desire to be prophetic voices of hope and the desire to maintain and strengthen the institutions we believe in.
• Serving a God of love while struggling with deep anger at the world and some of its leaders.
• Trying to be people of peace in a society and world that is increasingly expressing itself through violence and oppression.
• Longing for a deep connection with the Spirit and other people of faith, but being too busy or scared or hurt to even answer our email, pray or reach out to those we love.
• Spending time in our own yards, gardens or farms enjoying the amazing beauty of God’s creation while knowing that much of the world does not have access to such beauty because of poverty, pollution, declining health or political upheaval.

One of the beautiful things about the gospel’s telling of the story of Peter is that Jesus inserts a simple question; “do you love me?” If so, feed my sheep. “In the midst of his swirling tensions and contradictions, Jesus seems to be saying, “remember love”.

But the love Jesus calls Peter to is not a naïve love.
A couple of years ago rediscovered a Canadian folk singer I had come to love in college but had, over the years, forgotten, Jesse Winchester. He wrote a beautiful love song that I often use in wedding services that speaks to the contradictions of our relationships.

If you love somebody, then that means you need somebody,
If you need somebody, That’s what makes you weak.
If you know your weak, and you know you need someone.
Oh it’s a funny thing, that’s what makes you strong.

And to trust somebody, is to be disappointed.
It’s never what you want, and it happens every time.
But if you’re the trusting kind, this don’t even cross your mind.
Oh its funny thing, that’s what makes you strong.

That’s what makes you strong, that’s what give you power; That’s what lets the meek sit beside the king
That’s what lets us smile in our final hour.
That’s what moves our souls and that’s what makes us sing.

Would Jesus like Peter to be ever faithful? Probably.
Would he like Peter to remember his every teaching? One would think so.
Is he naïve about what will really happen throughout Peter’s life? Absolutely not.

If the Jewish and Christian faith were about living life without contradictions and paradoxes, we would have a much thinner bible. We wouldn’t have story after story of strange, but oh so human leaders and disciples.

The journey from Easter to Pentecost is an amazing and powerful story of hope rising, life overcoming death, joy outlasting despair. But it is a journey dependent on the likes of Peter, and each one of us. It is a journey each one is invited to travel – not because we are perfect, not because we make sense, not because we have done good deeds. We are invited to walk this journey to learn love, to embrace life, to experience grace.

Into the wild and fragile hope of our lives – the Spirit calls us to love.

In the midst of contradictions, quandaries and paradox – God counsels grace and trust.

As we stand in the gaps between who we are – and who we are – the Spirit promises presence and abiding strength.

As we cherish the tulips and peony’s – may we remember love

As we ponder the dandelions, invasive weeds and out of control grass – may we remember joy
As we walk the tightrope between anger and hope – may the Spirit lead us with courage.
As we struggle to make sense of who we are today and where we want to be tomorrow – may the Spirit bless us with grace.