So we, the descendants of the first disciples, are to go fishing for people. I’ve been fishing enough to know that before we get started, we had better pack some tasty bait. No point fishing without bait. The bait Jesus seems to be offering on today’s Gospel is, “Repent! For the kingdom of heaven has come near!” I’m not sure that those who are unfamiliar with our story would find this to be tasty bait. It sounds so fleeting, almost like a heavenly “drive-by.” What’s the good news in that?
Some who grapple with this question have come up with this answer: When Jesus came near, he brought a perfect example of how to live this life. He was a kind of ideal model or manual for living. I am hoping that there is more to it than that. Here’s why. I own this manual (hold up) called “Home Improvement 1-2-3.” Now if possessing a manual could provide salvation, that would mean that my home would be completely free of any need for household repairs, right!? I can see from the grin on your faces that you know what I am about to reveal. My home is anything but free from need for household repairs!! Some of you smart folk are saying to yourselves, “Kathleen! You have to open the manual and use it for it to be of any help.” But here’s the further revelation. I have opened it and used it, and that usually makes matters worse! There must be some better bait in this Gospel than the prospect that Jesus is a manual for the perfect life.
This week while I was struggling with this Gospel, I resorted to one of my favorite aids. I came to this stained glass window of Peter and Paul to see if they could help. Peter knew a lot about both kinds of fishing. I won’t pretend that I heard either of them speaking out loud. But somehow, a story … a story from Peter or about Peter, was imparted to me. It is not a story recorded in Scripture, but it rings so true to all that is recorded in Scripture that I am compelled to share it. It may just capture the tasty bait in Jesus’ proclamation that, “the kingdom of heaven has come near.”
The story concerns that difficult time between the crucifixion and the resurrection. Peter dreaded going back to the upper room to see the other disciples. The big braggart who swore he would never desert Jesus had within a matter of hours denied three times ever having known him. How was he to face the others? There was one disciple in particular he dreaded making eye contact with. Most of them, like Peter, succumbed to fear and hid. But tradition records that John found his way to the foot of the cross with some of the women who followed Jesus. How could Peter meet John’s eyes? He dreaded the moment. But he couldn’t imagine going back to Galilee and what he would say to people there either, so he returned to his community in the upper room.
When he did so, he experienced something beyond his wildest imagining. As his eyes met those of John, he did not feel condemnation. Instead, he felt a compelling invitation to embrace. And as he fell into that embrace, an amazing confluence of feelings enfolded him. His foibles, his stumbles, his shortcomings, none of them felt like the cause of embarrassment, or fear, or anxiety. They suddenly felt like soil for seeds of fraternity, fellowship, and empathy. They felt like the bond of shared human experience. And he felt in John’s embrace that somehow, the mind’s eye possessed by God at the time of Peter’s birth, full of love and hope, had been lent to John. Does this sound too grace filled to be possible for any human being? It was. It wasn’t John’s doing. Jesus love was passing through John. At the foot of the cross, the kingdom of heaven had come so near to John that he could not help but breath it in. It had become his life force. He had taken on the mind of Christ.
If this is possible for us, then there is indeed tasty bait in the proclamation that the kingdom of heaven has come near. Is it? It happened for John at the foot of the cross. The amazing gift of death is that it brings life into focus; it takes us to the essence of life; it forces us to shed everything that isn’t important. Many of you have been present for the death of someone dear to you. You know that when that experience is fresh, it is impossible to hold on to any resentment. No one in the twin towers on September 11, 2001 made a cell call or sent a last e-mail to pursue an old resentment. The final cell calls and e-mails of that day all reached out to say, “I love you” to someone.
If that is our experience around death, think how much more profound it was for John at the cross. The God who was creative enough to envision us, courageous enough to act on the vision, and generous enough to share freedom of choice with us, was loving enough to choose the cross. Why? God chose the cross to express full fellowship with us, to fully partake of all the choices ensuing from creation, to declare that God is with us in all we experience in this life. When the kingdom of heaven came that near to John, he could not help but breath it in.
Lent (Coming in only 10 days!) is the church’s annual gift to help the kingdom of heaven come nearer to us in this same way. It offers us ways to join John at the foot of the cross. Every Friday evening during Lent, we walk the Stations of the Cross here in the cathedral at 7:00 PM. Folks have asked me, “Why do you dwell on such dark events? Why not skip all that and rush to the good news of Easter?” Come and see what is to be gained by walking the way of the cross. Let the kingdom of heaven come near for you as it did for John. May it come so near that you cannot help but breath it in.