"Naked Revelation", May 29, 2011

John 21:1-9
Acts 17:22-34
When Simon Peter heard that it was the LORD, he PUT ON SOME CLOTHES for he was NAKED, and jumped into the sea. There are portions of the Scriptures which make reason self-apparent, Noah saw that it had rained for 40 Nights and 40 Days, so prayed! Jesus looked out upon the crowds and saw that they were hungry so fed them. But this, this is idiotic! Any parent who has taken a toddler to Diaper-Dippers in the Pool knows that once cloth gets wet it sinks like a stone. High school swimmers shave their leg and arm hair, even their heads, to have less friction and absorbency in the water. So why What is the Scriptures trying to tell us, that Simon Peter heard that it was the LORD, he PUT ON SOME CLOTHES for he was NAKED, in order to swim to shore?

The other parts of this narrative seem to follow such clear logic and reason. Days after the resurrection, Simon Peter was feeling depressed and despondent, so wanted something familiar, a place to think, and he went fishing. Understanding that Peter was depressed and despondent, the other disciples did not allow him to go alone but said “We are going too.” How often, when someone dies, we all rally round, we are there for the burial and the weeks immediately after, but we cannot live in that hyper-vigilance forever, and it is at those times, when after the resurrection has happened that life and faith and all relationships become hard.

There was a family, whose husband/father died, and afterward the wife and her adult daughter were out to dinner, when the mother looked around and declared “I can tell every person in this restaurant, by whether they are married or dating!” The daughter was slightly embarrassed, but also curious, and asked “How?” To which her mother said, “Those who are dating are asking questions and talking together, the married couples are silent.” and after a pause, she said “I miss sharing the silence with your father.”

Being stripped down for work, catching nothing and having Jesus declare “Throw your nets on the other side”, even coming ashore to have Jesus walk along beside Peter saying “Feed my sheep”, all is reasonable and follows logic, so why, why when Simon Peter heard that it was the LORD, did he PUT ON SOME CLOTHES for he was NAKED to jump into the Sea? Why not Skinnydip, and swim to shore? There must be something about putting on clothes to swim we do not yet understand.

Leaving Peter naked in the boat, or clothed and swimming to shore,... We turn to Paul, who at this point in Acts has made his way to Athens, to the Areopagus, the center of Logic and Reason, of Socrates and Plato and Philosophy.Throughout human history, there has been a dichotomy, between thought and spirit, between philosophy and religion, between what can be proven by logic and reason, and by what defies logic and must be accepted on faith, adhered to as Covenant or LAW. Typical of discussions of Religion and Politics, Paul quickly gets into a series of arguments. Being a people who love debate, they have Paul come to the Square, where he can explain himself and this new means of knowing.

So often today, we begin as adversaries, with a binomial understanding that the answer must be either 1 or Zero, Democrat or Republican, Conservative or Liberal. There is no middle ground, no grey area, all who are not for us, must surely be against us, we know one another's trigger and immediately go for the jugular. Yet this is not where Paul begins. In trying to meet people where they are, he starts out, “I perceive you are a people who are SEARCHING for MEANING, for UNDERSTANDING.” As I wandered about, I saw idols to everything in your creation, statues to the Greek Gods and statues to the Gods of Rome, to Music, to Love, to Art, to War, to Medicine, even a Statue to the Unknown. He identifies with the Athenians in their quest to understand, to believe and know with certainty and where that certainty is limited to believe in what is beyond our grasp. Are there any among us who have never stood in awe of what is beyond our ability to control? How a newborn infant has cuticles and eye lashes? How from the moment of their birth they know their mother's and father's voices, and how amidst of crowd, a parent can identify their own child's cry? Have you never sat in the presence of one who is dying, and known the peace and wonder of that acceptance. Not the warring struggle against entering into that long goodnight, but the peace of the ages, the comfort of knowing you are part of something far larger than yourself, part of all creation.

Paul's argument then shifts from Searching and Seeking after what is beyond our grasp, to what is known all around us. As powerful as are the greatest armies of war, there is a greater destructive force in Earthquake, Fire and Tornado. Have you ever waded into the waters and realized how small we are, how insignificant? How alive the water of moving creek-bed and lake, even the smell of living earth? Have you ever walked in the woods and in that absolute quiet, known you were not alone? Have you stared up at the heavens losing track of the sheer number of stars, each a universe unto itself? Have you seen a comet, or a storm of dying stars? Have you witnessed the divinity of a rainbow, or the aurora borealis dance in the northern sky?

Having met the philosophers of Greece in Seeking and Searching after what is beyond knowing; having shared in what we do know and the divinity of life all around us; Paul ratchets the argument one deeper. For while the three year old may be able to tell us the mystery that “God is in The Rainbow”; or the hunter may be able to identify with God's Sanctuary that is a mountaintop; Christian faith is about more than what we feel, see and hear and touch and taste; more than what human minds can ever know or reason to be unknowable; Christian Faith is grounded in the reality that the Creator and Judge, this unknowable GOD loves us, loves us so much as to become one with us in life and death, demonstrating that death does not part us from God, not ever. At this point, many scoffed, because faith is illogical and unreasonable. But where he did not convince all the world, Paul's witness, his own story of having been a thug, a gang member who terrorized and beat those who stood up to him, who one day was brought to his knees by the love of God, his blindness, his weakness, his vulnerability became Paul's greatest strength of faith, his story touched the lives of individual believers.

Maybe that is it! NOT that Simon Peter PUT ON SOME CLOTHES to jump into the Sea, but that finally Simon Peter who always leapt at having the answer who wanted to demonstrate his knowledge and his wisdom, and his control, in that morning after a long night of catching nothing, FINALLY saw what ADAM and EVE had first witnessed, that in their humanity, in their sin, they were NAKED before the LORD. Before he could stand before the Lord, before he could leap to swim to get to him, Peter KNEW HE WAS NAKED and put on some clothes.

Why the number 153 FISH? Some scholars claim there is relevance in abstract numerology. That if you multiply 15 times 10 and cube the number, numbers which added together equal 153, but given these mathematic formula you arrive at the number of days until the end of time. But then you would also need to add the 5 fish caught in Peter's clothing that represent another five months or else the date would be in error!

When Simon Peter reached the shore, Jesus had a charcoal fire burning. When we were younger, we would go swimming and afterward, chilled to the bone would stand beside a roaring fire to dry out the cold wetness. Have you ever? And the warmth of the fire, the crackling and popping of the flames, the smell of smoke reminds you of other fires. The last time, Simon Peter was recorded as being beside a fire was the night of Jesus' arrest, as first one, then another and finally a third asked: “Did you know him? Are you one of them? Are you one of his disciples because you are a Galilean?” and Peter had denied Jesus three times. Walking along the shore, clothed in heavy wet coverings, as Jesus asked of Peter three times “Do You LOVE Me?” is re-enactment of the worst sins of his life, but it is no longer the isolation and loneliness of night, it is the dawn and this time, three times, he gets it right!
Sometimes in order to witness a revelation, the truth must be naked right before our eyes. To some it will appear as non-sense, defying their binary sense of either you are a 1 or a Zero. To some the revelation will be illogical. Some will try to dress it up and hide the truth. But in our experiences, in our relationships of life, we know more than SEARCHING, and more even than the divinity of RAINBOWS, we know the FORGIVENESS and love of God.

There is a Post-Script in the Gospel of John, a PS. After covering himself, after swimming to shore, after standing beside the fire, after Jesus asking for his Confession of Faith Three Times, Simon Peter looks over his shoulder and asks “So what about him?” Peter, like Jesus, and Stephen, and so many others, died as Martyrs, dying for what they believed in. What about those who simply Love, and live their faith without dying for it? To which, Jesus responds “What is that to you? Follow me!” I have to believe that there are those who by their death witness what they believed. Soldiers on the battle field. Politicians who gave their life to public service. The women and men who brought down the plane in a field rather than allowing a fourth target to be taken by terrorists. Martin Luther King Jr. There are also among us, those who by the living of their lives have demonstrated what it is to live what we believe. I fondly recall my father describing the Ordained ministry, as a vocation where you work every holiday and weekend, and get phone calls at home, there is no such thing as a day-off. But that at weddings and births and deaths, we are privileged to be there. I would add to this, and to Paul's testimony to Illogic at the Areopagus, that faith can be standing alone when people call you all manner of different names, when they sue you, and when you have to stand alone even against those whom you have called friend; but that at times we are able to see the lost come home, the prodigal return, and we create a new relationship in the silence of being together, feeding the lambs.