Tailored Exclusively for You!

 

Text:  John 21:1-19

Theme:  "Tailored Exclusively for You!"

Third Sunday of Easter

April 14, 2013

FIRST PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH

Denton, Texas

Rev. Paul R. Dunklau

 

+In the Name of Jesus+

 

Afterward Jesus appeared again to his disciples, by the Sea of Galilee.^[a] It happened this way: ² Simon Peter, Thomas (also known as Didymus^[b]), Nathanael from Cana in Galilee, the sons of Zebedee, and two other disciples were together. ³ “I’m going out to fish,” Simon Peter told them, and they said, “We’ll go with you.” So they went out and got into the boat, but that night they caught nothing.

⁴ Early in the morning, Jesus stood on the shore, but the disciples did not realize that it was Jesus.

⁵ He called out to them, “Friends, haven’t you any fish?”

“No,” they answered.

⁶ He said, “Throw your net on the right side of the boat and you will find some.” When they did, they were unable to haul the net in because of the large number of fish.

⁷ Then the disciple whom Jesus loved said to Peter, “It is the Lord!” As soon as Simon Peter heard him say, “It is the Lord,” he wrapped his outer garment around him (for he had taken it off) and jumped into the water. ⁸ The other disciples followed in the boat, towing the net full of fish, for they were not far from shore, about a hundred yards.^{[c] 9} When they landed, they saw a fire of burning coals there with fish on it, and some bread.

¹⁰ Jesus said to them, “Bring some of the fish you have just caught.” ¹¹ So Simon Peter climbed back into the boat and dragged the net ashore. It was full of large fish, 153, but even with so many the net was not torn. ¹² Jesus said to them, “Come and have breakfast.” None of the disciples dared ask him, “Who are you?” They knew it was the Lord. ¹³ Jesus came, took the bread and gave it to them, and did the same with the fish. ¹⁴ This was now the third time Jesus appeared to his disciples after he was raised from the dead.

¹⁵ When they had finished eating, Jesus said to Simon Peter, “Simon son of John, do you love me more than these?”

“Yes, Lord,” he said, “you know that I love you.”

Jesus said, “Feed my lambs.”

¹⁶ Again Jesus said, “Simon son of John, do you love me?”

He answered, “Yes, Lord, you know that I love you.”

Jesus said, “Take care of my sheep.”

¹⁷ The third time he said to him, “Simon son of John, do you love me?”

Peter was hurt because Jesus asked him the third time, “Do you love me?” He said, “Lord, you know all things; you know that I love you.”

Jesus said, “Feed my sheep. ¹⁸ Very truly I tell you, when you were younger you dressed yourself and went where you wanted; but when you are old you will stretch out your hands, and someone else will dress you and lead you where you do not want to go.” ¹⁹ Jesus said this to indicate the kind of death by which Peter would glorify God. Then he said to him, “Follow me!”

 

Looking back over the sermons and homilies I've delivered from this pulpit for over two and half years, I find them to be lengthy -- and 3.5 out of 5 messages, in retrospect, seem boring. The other 1.5 are pretty good -- if I do say so myself!  Yet I have to accept the fact that I don't have the energy or the spiritual, mental, technical, or rhetorical skills to hold an audience in rapt attention for forty five minutes straight.   Sometimes I can't even find the main point that I've tried to make in any given message.    I want to change that.  As a result, maybe we'll get out of here a little bit earlier, and you'll have something a little more memorable to take with you.

 

Today's main point is this -- and only this:  God's grace and love is tailor-made exclusively for you.  I'll repeat that:  God's grace and love is tailor-made exclusively for you.  You're not a robot; you're not a widget; you're not a pawn on someone else's chess board. You're not just a nameless face among the seven billion some odd other people on this planet. You're not just another motorist given to road rage because someone in front of you is texting when the light turns green.  You are more -- so much more -- than what your Social Security number says about you.  You are worth more -- infinitely more! -- than what your tax return might declare.  You are you, and you are unique down to the very strands of your DNA.  The Scripture says that we are "fearfully and wonderfully made" and that we were "knitted together" in our mother's womb.  I find it fascinating that DNA strands, under a microscope, look like knitting.  Isn't that something?

 

Yes, the grace and love of God is tailor-made exclusively for you, and that means that there is no "one size fits all" Christianity.  Why?  Because people are different -- vastly different.  For example:  Matthew the tax collector, one of the disciples of Jesus, was a far different man than, say, Simon the Zealot, another disciple.  Politically, they were worlds apart.  One was a committed liberal.  The other was a diehard conservative.  But the grace and love of God was tailor-made for each of them uniquely.  Yes, Jesus spoke to large crowds and fed thousands of people at once.  But more and more I'm drawn to just Jesus and one person:  Jesus and the woman at the well, Jesus and the rich young ruler, Jesus and the blind man, Jesus and Nicodemus at night (one on one and mano a' mano!), Jesus and the Syro-Phoenician demoniac, Jesus and the widow at Nain.  In each example, the grace and love of God was tailor-made for one person and one at a time.

 

This isn't to say that we don't have things in common.  We do.  What we have in common, among other things, are as follows:  we all are in possession of a body, a mind, and a spirit.  You don't necessarily need a church to nourish an strengthen the body.  A good diet and exercise, generally speaking, will take care of that.  You don't necessarily need a church to  challenge and expand your mind.  I have at least twelve different books on my kindle that I hope to read.  I don't need church for that.  I just need my kindle and some time.

 

But what about the spirit or soul?  Who or what will care for that soul of yours, that spirit of yours that is so up on one day and down the next?    People sometimes say  "Keep your spirits up!"  Well, who does that?  How do you do that?
Who or what will care for that spirit and soul that is so powerful and yet so fragile at the same time?  What about that spirit and soul that seems to have a sense -- an inkling, if you will -- of eternity within it? 

 

In the last week or so, three famous people have died.  Lady Thatcher, a prime minister of Great Britain, passed away.  Annette Funicello, from the original Mickey Mouse Club, died.  And then there was Roger Ebert -- a famous film critic.  In his last days, if newspaper accounts are accurate, he talked about his life that was lived between what he called "two oblivions".  He came from "oblivion" when he was born, and, in death, he would return there.  Oblivion.

 

With all due respect to the massive talents of Roger Ebert, I don't think the idea of oblivion lifts my spirit.  I don't know about you and your soul, but me and my soul rages against this notion of "oblivion".  There just has to be more to this life than oblivion before and oblivion when it's all over. 

 

Enter the resurrection of Jesus Christ!  He rose not just in spirit or as some sort of zombie.  He rose bodily from the grave.  So often we just read the words without letting them sink in.  Let them sink in now:  "We believe in the Holy Ghost, the holy catholic church, the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and the life everlasting!

 

What comes with the body -- resurrected or not?  That's right.  A mind and a spirit.  God's grace and love covers the whole of you, the very all of you:  body, mind, and soul.

 

Best of all, that grace and love is tailored exclusively for you.  Today's readings -- from the book of Acts and then from John's Gospel -- told us the story of Peter and Paul. 

 

Begin with Peter.  He was the outspoken, gregarious, lead disciple of Jesus Christ.  He didn't want Jesus to die on the cross, and Jesus replied with "Get behind me Satan."  He pledged that he would never deny Christ, but he did three times when the pressure was at his highest.  Then, when he remembered that Jesus predicted his denials, this big, burly professional fisherman left the scene and cried his eyes out.  He denied Christ three times, but Jesus would not deny Peter.  Three times he asks Peter:  "Do you love?"  Peter says yes three times.  Jesus says, each time, "feed my sheep."  This big, burly professional fisherman went on to do just that.

 

Then there's the apostle Paul.  We heard about him in the Acts reading.  He wasn't a fisherman, and he certainly wasn't a follower of Jesus.  Before he was named Paul, he was named Saul and he was a Pharisee -- and well-educated and extremely devout religious man.  He was so devout, in fact, that he violently persecuted this new band of people who followed Jesus Christ.  But, as with Peter, God's love was tailor-made exclusively for Paul.  He was struck down, dramatically, on the Damascus road.  The voice of Jesus came to him:  "Saul, Saul, why dost thou persecute me?" And, long story short, from that time on he would persecute the church no longer.  He began to proclaim the very faith he had once tried to destroy! 

 

Sometimes the grace and love of God works slowly over time -- as it did with Peter.  Sometimes it comes on dramatically -- as it did with Paul.  My point is that it was tailor-made for both of them.  It met them where they were in life.  It changed them and it continued to work with them.

 

It is the same grace and love, dare I say, that has worked, is working, and will continue to work for you too! 

 

The problem, though, is that we tend to forget this -- or devote only an hour to it on Sunday.  But what if, during the other one hundred sixty seven hours of the week, that we actually believed that God's grace and love is tailor-made exclusively for us?  

 

Why, that could be a game changer!  Why, we might be able to say for ourselves what Paul said to the Romans:  "we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose."   And "I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers,  neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord."

 

What more is there to say than that this grace and love is tailor-made for you?  That, after all, is the main point.  Amen.