Eugene Peterson on the Commercialization of the Church

"Worship is also continuously at risk, but with worship the danger is commodification, being debased into a commodity for consumers who are shopping for the best buy in God or the latest in spiritual fashions. But the moment that God or the things of God are packaged and then advertised as programs or principles or satisfaction, we are depersonalized, diminishing our capacity to love. There is not much chance of growing to the measure of the stature of Christ in a place of worship that markets goods and services stamped with a God logo. The very place and time given us to cultivate conditions congenial for acquiring an understanding of and companionship in the practice of love is no longer available.
"The extensive commodification of worship in America has marginalized far too many churches as orienting centers for how to live a more effective life for God. What the secular culture has done to love by romanticizing it into fornication and the practice of adultery, the ecclesial culture has done by promoting ways of worship calculated to appeal to consumer tastes in which love is redefined as 'Oh, I like that,' or 'I have to have that,' or negatively as 'I don't get anything out of that.'"
-Eugene Peterson, Practice Resurrection, pg 219-20

John 21:1-25; Romans 8:31-39

I was a gymnast when I was growing up. I spent a considerable amount of time each week with a group of other girls and coaches in a gym practicing routines, learning new skills, and drilling basics. Other than school, gymnastics was my life. By the time I left the sport, I had been competing for years, spending 16-20 hours a week in the gym. Then, when I was 16, I was done, and I had to figure out what my life looked like now. What should I do with my time now? The life that I had known, the familiar routines, were gone, and I had to figure out how my time and energy would be spent now.

This week is the first Sunday after Easter, and we find the disciples in much the same place. Last Friday, we mourned. Friday brought grief and fear. Then, on Easter morning, the grief was wiped away. Jesus wasn’t dead, like we thought. He is risen; he’s alive. But he is no longer present in our midst, and we aren’t quite sure what life looks like now for us. What do we do now that we aren’t following Jesus throughout the countryside, watching him perform miracles and listening to his teaching? A week after Easter, we are in the place of the first disciples. What does life look like with a risen Jesus?

Read with me John 21:1-14.

¹ Después de esto Jesús se apareció de nuevo a sus discípulos, junto al lago de Tiberíades.^[a] Sucedió de esta manera:² Estaban juntos Simón Pedro, Tomás (al que apodaban el Gemelo^[b]), Natanael, el de Caná de Galilea, los hijos de Zebedeo, y otros dos discípulos.
³ —Me voy a pescar —dijo Simón Pedro.

—Nos vamos contigo —contestaron ellos.

Salieron, pues, de allí y se embarcaron, pero esa noche no pescaron nada.
⁴ Al despuntar el alba Jesús se hizo presente en la orilla, pero los discípulos no se dieron cuenta de que era él.
⁵ —Muchachos, ¿no tienen algo de comer? —les preguntó Jesús.

—No —respondieron ellos.
⁶ —Tiren la red a la derecha de la barca, y pescarán algo.

Así lo hicieron, y era tal la cantidad de pescados que ya no podían sacar la red.
⁷ —¡Es el Señor! —dijo a Pedro el discípulo a quien Jesús amaba.

Tan pronto como Simón Pedro le oyó decir: «Es el Señor», se puso la ropa, pues estaba semidesnudo, y se tiró al agua.⁸ Los otros discípulos lo siguieron en la barca, arrastrando la red llena de pescados, pues estaban a escasos cien metros^[c] de la orilla.⁹ Al desembarcar, vieron unas brasas con un pescado encima, y un pan.
¹⁰ —Traigan algunos de los pescados que acaban de sacar —les dijo Jesús.
¹¹ Simón Pedro subió a bordo y arrastró hasta la orilla la red, la cual estaba llena de pescados de buen tamaño. Eran ciento cincuenta y tres, pero a pesar de ser tantos la red no se rompió.
¹² —Vengan a desayunar —les dijo Jesús.

Ninguno de los discípulos se atrevía a preguntarle: «¿Quién eres tú?», porque sabían que era el Señor.¹³ Jesús se acercó, tomó el pan y se lo dio a ellos, e hizo lo mismo con el pescado.¹⁴ Ésta fue la tercera vez que Jesús se apareció a sus discípulos después de haber *resucitado.

The disciples are gathered, knowing that Jesus has risen, but probably still a little lost as to what his resurrection means for them. They had left everything to follow Jesus, and now the disciples don’t have a teacher to follow throughout Palestine. They are a little aimless, but it is in their aimlessness that Jesus reveals himself to them. They are waiting in Galilee, and Peter decides to go fishing.

And it is at the end of a long and disappointing night that Jesus chooses to reveal himself. The disciples have toiled all night to catch fish, and they have gained nothing. At daybreak, “Jesus stood on the shore, but the disciples did not realize that it was Jesus. He called out to them, ‘Lads, haven’t you any fish?’ ‘No.’ They replied. He said, throw your net on the right side of the boat, and you will find some. The disciples get more than they bargained for when they drop that net. They have a net bursting with fish. And the Beloved Disciple gets it. He exclaims, “It is the Lord!” The Beloved Disciple has the eyes to see Jesus even through his loss, toil, and disappointment. He offers a testimony to what he sees, telling the others that Jesus is standing on the shore, and as a result, leading them to Jesus.

It is here, in the midst of the disciples’ uncertainty, that Jesus shows them what it means for them to live after the resurrection. Jesus promises the disciples that he will reveal himself to others. Peter hauls in a net full of fish, is asked if he loves Jesus more than he loves fishing, and he gets told to care for God’s sheep instead of those fish. Jesus has called Peter to be a fisher of people, and the catch is large. That morning Jesus brought fish up to the boat, but the disciples had to follow his instructions to cast in their net and then work to bring the fish to Jesus on the shore. Jesus works through the disciples, and the disciples follow Jesus. And they see a huge blessing, a huge harvest coming out of a night of disappointment.

Living in the resurrection means following the instructions of Jesus. The disciples didn’t recognize Jesus standing on the shore, but they followed his instructions anyway. When Jesus told them to throw their nets back into the water, they obeyed, and their obedience allowed them to see Jesus perform a miracle and reveal his presence on the shore. Sometimes we don’t recognize Jesus around us. Life is chaotic, difficult, busy, and sometimes discouraging. We can lose sight of Jesus and not realize that he’s standing right before us. But, he has given us his teachings, and we are to obey them, even when we can’t see God. We love God with our heart, soul, mind, and strength, and we love our neighbors as ourselves. We care for the broken and discouraged. Then, we see Jesus work miracles in our day too, in the lives of those around us and in our own lives. For the disciples, Resurrection life is a life of obedience and seeing Jesus revealed to us.

Resurrection life is also a life of proclaiming Jesus’ presence when our eyes are opened to him standing before us. For the Beloved Disciple, resurrection life means exclaiming, “It is the Lord!” when the nets fill with fish. Not all of the disciples had the eyes to see Jesus standing on the shore. They were astounded by the catch of fish, but the miracle wasn’t enough for them to catch on. For the Beloved Disciple it was, and his job was to proclaim to others what had been revealed to him. That’s our job too, in the resurrection life. It is our job to proclaim God’s presence when he shows himself to us, so we can help others recognize God in their midst as well.

Finally, Resurrection Life is inviting outsiders into our midst. The disciples gather on the shore for the third “communion” meal in John’s gospel. But this isn’t the communion meal from the upper room, enclosed from the community by walls and locked doors. This communion meal is out in the open, surrounded by outsiders, and it includes an expectation that the disciples will serve those outside, drawing in that huge catch of fish. They have food enough for everyone present, and Peter is told just after this to feed Jesus’ lambs. The disciples are to go to others.

We see here the communion meal of a church that is continually going outside its own walls because they realize that Jesus cannot be kept inside those walls. They have seen Jesus walk right through the walls to meet them inside, and now they have seen Jesus leave those walls behind to meet them on the Sea of Galilee. Jesus is already out in the community, and just as he drew the fish to the boat, he draws people to himself so that Peter (and the other disciples too) can feed his sheep.

Resurrection Life means that we are to take the communion meal out into the world, surrounded by people who are not normally part of our community, and we are expected to serve out in the open. We are seeing, again, that Jesus can’t be kept locked inside walls, either the literal walls of our churches and homes, or the invisible walls of our communities and hearts. Jesus is going out into the neighborhoods, calling people to himself, and waiting for us to proclaim that “It is the Lord” to those who cannot recognize him.

Let us take communion here this morning, as a community that lives the Resurrection Life, obeying Jesus’ teachings, proclaiming his presence, and then taking his communion and his love out into all the world, loving those Jesus already loves. Amen.