As Saul went along the Damascus Road (Acts 9) he was breathing
threats and murder against anyone connected to Jesus. But as he walked he was
struck down by a bright light and he heard a loud voice,
‘Saul, Saul.
Why do you persecute me?’ And Saul replied, ‘Who are you, Lord…’
There is no question that Saul was a driven man, his life’s work
was to wipe the memory of this break-away sect, from the face of the earth.
This was Saul, a man committed to the murder of Christians was now
confronted by the awful truth he had sought to bury. His old life was over, and it was time for changes in his
life. His life, even his name, would never be the same again.
Looking at the readings as a whole, they are all about vocation (ahem! two weeks before Vocation Sunday –
where they might have been a better fit)
Two of the readings that are oft quoted by ordinands as part of
their calling, discernment and formation as priests and deacons, the Acts
reading, about feeding lambs and sheep, and the conversion of Saul, all speak
directly of the God who calls.
This is the transforming power that God can exercise in the lives
of people. The transformation that calls people to radically evaluate what they
do or think or say, in the light of the presence of Jesus in their lives…listening
and responding to God.
God speaks in all kinds of ways to us – it may be in words that we
can clearly understand in our own minds, or it may be through the words of
others, or it may just be in the events of that day that are happening all around
us.
In today’s gospel reading (John 21:1-19), the risen Lord, the
Messiah, the Saviour of the world, is making breakfast for his disciples.
It’s an incredible account because of its simplicity. Jesus should
surely have been marching on the Temple, showing the wounds of crucifixion, and
just showing that he was alive to the authorities. Surely he should have been
strolling around the city of Jerusalem, with a smile of victory, approaching
all of those people who shouted for his death… Surely he should have just been
gloating in his triumph over death…
But maybe those would be our actions – Jesus had no such thoughts.
He bore no malice, no hatred, no resentment… There was no need for any revenge
or hostility. In his victory over death he had merely accomplished what he had
come to do, and now it was time for breakfast.
It’s a strange incident that is reported in the Acts of the
Apostles. Throughout the Bible
time and time again God is giving people second and third and fourth chances to
come back to him and enjoy a relationship. God gives us the freewill to make up
our own minds about where we put God in our lives. Painful as that answer may
be sometimes for God, he would have it no other way.
Jesus made those disciples breakfast because he still had
something to teach them. Three times he questioned an increasingly frustrated
Peter, ‘Do you love me ?’ Three times Peter said that he did – just as three
times he had rejected Jesus prior to the crucifixion. But whilst Jesus repeated
the question he also gave him something different each time as well. First
Jesus told Peter to ‘Feed my lambs’, then he said to ‘Tend my sheep’, and the
third time he told him to ‘Feed my sheep’.
I love this story of simplicity and friendship, because that’s
what it is. The Lord, the Son of
God with his friends, giving them the strength and belief they need to go into
the world themselves and ‘feed and tend the sheep’.
Sometimes, however, I wish God would zap some people, like he
zapped Saul, turning him into Paul.
However, I know that that isn’t the way that people can come to love and
trust God.
The real answer is for us to be with others, sharing the best God
has given us, as a testimony to what God has done for us.
We should never give up on God, because he never gives up on us.
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