The Gospel appointed for today (from the Twenty-first Chapter of John) is a curious and puzzling thing.  The portion of John’s Gospel which precedes this chapter has us in Jerusalem where Jesus has made two resurrection appearances to the disciples within the course of a week.  . . . But today we find ourselves in Galilee by the Sea of Tiberias, . . . the Eleven aren’t together, . . . and everyone is behaving, . . . well, oddly.  The text seems out of place.  And in the strange world of Biblical Textual Criticism, this out-of-placeness suggests that what has just been read to you is actually the first Resurrection appearance of Jesus to His disciples, in spite of John’s protest that it is the third.  Because, you see, in the Gospels of Mark and Matthew, . . . the angel at the empty tomb tells Mary Magdalene that the Risen Jesus goes before her and the other disciples to Galilee and that they will see Him there.  . . . And today you have heard how it happened.

    After the dismal death of Jesus and the insult which was added to injury by the inexplicably empty tomb, . . . so that the disciples are even robbed of the remains of their martyred hero, . . . the sturdy Peter shrugs his shoulders and says, “Well, I guess it’s back to catching fish for a living.”  And, because they have become close friends over the past several years, a few of the other disciples decide to become partners with Peter, and off they go to Galilee.  Having acquired a boat, the seven former disciples work off their grief by exhausting themselves with a full night’s fishing.  And by morning . . . they have nothing to show for it.  And then a man appears on the beach and makes friendly small talk with them.  He tells Peter and his crew that they will take a tidy catch if they cast the net on the “right” side of the boat.  So, with a half-hearted “what’ve we go to loose” attitude, the disciples humor the likable landsman, who doesn’t know his port from his starboard, and they do what they are told, and . . . shazam(!) the Risen Jesus brings His disciples to life!  Like the scales which were to fall from Paul’s eyes, John looks at Peter and says “It’s the Lord!”  What we see has never been seen before, and because of it nothing will ever be the same again:  Christ is risen!  Nothing is the same.  The ordinary, conventional, human rules don’t apply any more.  Christ is risen!  Nothing is as it was; for, Jesus is not dead like men say that He should be:  He is risen!  Therefore we are risen!

    Peter and his companions will return to Jerusalem and gather together the rest of the Eleven.  Jesus will appear to all of them together.  And none of them will ever again return to their former pursuits, because Christ is risen(!) . . . and nothing is or ever will be the same.  We, the beloved of Jesus, are not called upon to perpetuate or bless the old life -- the life of sin and death:  the life that is lived by everyone around us who is dying.  Authentic Life has come to us, and called us to participate in its authenticity.  We are called into Life in Christ Jesus; for, Christ is risen!  . . . Therefore, the risen Jesus speaks to His beloved with the authority of the Living God, and, as the incident with the miraculous catch of fish in the Sea of Tiberias is intended to teach us, . . . we must listen -- we must listen for Jesus speaking to us, and we must listen to Jesus.  Because only as the consequence of our listening to Jesus . . . will we ever have the good we seek.  Only by listening to Jesus and obeying His Word can we attain the good we desire.  . . . But more than that; . . . not only do we receive good from our obedience to Christ’s Word, . . . but He has ordained that we should be agents of good by our obedience to His Word.  That’s what the story of Saul is all about.

    For, you see, there is Saul on his way to Damascus, breathing threats and murder against the disciples of the Lord (as Saint Luke so eloquently puts it), . . . there is Saul on the way to Damascus when suddenly the Risen and Ascended Jesus speaks to him.  . . . Jesus speaks to Saul and tells him the truth about himself; . . . and, having seen the Truth, . . . Saul is confounded; . . . he is unable to distinguish light from dark; discern right from wrong; . . . he is unable to know friend from enemy.  It is as if Saul has been struck blind.  . . . And so, rather than coming to Damascus with fearsome authority . . . Saul is led into Damascus by the hand . . . very subdued.  . . . And Jesus sends His Church to Saul’s assistance.  Jesus speaks to Ananias and sends him to Saul so that Saul might see and speak with Jesus in the person His Church, . . . in the person of one of the very men Saul had come to destroy.  . . . And Ananias listens to Jesus, and he goes to Saul and speaks the Truth to him . . . so that Saul begins to understand and actually see the reality of God’s ineffable mercy and love:

And . . . something like scales fell from his eyes and he regained his sight.  Then he rose and was baptized, and took food and was strengthened.

. . . and Saul became Paul.  . . . Do you see?  . . . Jesus is the Truth Who gloriously confounds the enemies of God, . . . and then He sends us out to help them; . . . the Risen Lord reveals to the world its blindness . . . and sends the Church out to heal it.

    . . . Now, suppose Ananias, instead of giving himself over to devout prayer and listening for the voice of Jesus as he went about his business; . . . suppose Ananias became distracted with worry that Saul was coming to Damascus to put the Church out of business and that the Lord God Almighty was doing nothing about it; . . . suppose Ananias decides that what God (by His inactivity) . . . what God really wants is for Ananias to use his common sense and power of Christian love to reason with Saul.  And suppose it was Ananias who met Saul on the road to Damascus instead of Jesus, telling him, “Now, look, Saul, you misunderstand us.  That hothead Stephen misrepresented the Way to you and to all the Sanhedrin.  The Way of Christ is a way of inclusivity(!); . . . Jesus, Who is dead, showed us how to embrace one another with pure affection, . . . and His words live in our hearts as if He were still alive to encourage us.  The Way of Jesus is a way of harmony; we embrace your beliefs and bless them because they agree with ours.”  . . . And suppose Saul had struck a deal with Ananias to end the Church’s persecution in exchange for an official policy of inclusivity preached by a memorable but thoroughly dead Jesus.

    I suppose that if that had happened Saul would have continued on as a very pious and self-satisfied Pharisee, Ananias would have become a renowned Teacher of the New Way, . . . and you and I would be gathered here to determine the will of the gods by examining pigeon entrails, . . . which might suggest to some of you that follow Church News; . . . which might suggest a description of the present state of the House of Bishops and the General Convention of the Episcopal Church (with some notable exceptions).

    And so, it is important for us to listen to Jesus instead of our own disordered thoughts or the disorder of others.  It is important for us to listen to the counsel of Holy Scripture which exhorts us to imitate the stability of those sturdy fishermen who remained accessible to the voice of Jesus; . . . the counsel of Holy Scripture is that we be devout in our prayer and simple in our living so that, like the real Ananias, when Jesus speaks we will hear His voice, . . . because Christ is risen . . . and the House of Bishops is not the Church; . . . the General Convention is not the Church; . . . you are the Church.  And it is your duty neither to listen to the inventions of confused men and women who presume upon God’s mercy . . . nor to resist them; . . . it is your duty to neither follow Bishop Bena into the Anglican Province of Nigeria nor Mr. Herzog into Roman Catholicism; . . . it is your duty to listen to the Risen and Living Jesus, Who sends you out from here to show prelates and paupers that ordinary, conventional human rules don’t apply any more; . . . it is your duty to touch the world around you with the Life of Jesus, Who comes to you in this place to greet you and to touch you and to feed you; . . . it is your duty to touch the world with the Life of Jesus which He renews in you at this Altar in order for you to heal the world’s blindness . . . so that it can see . . . and be baptized . . . and feed on Christ and be strengthened.  For,

worthy is . . . [Jesus, the Lamb Who] wast slain, and by [His] blood didst ransom men for God from every tribe and tongue and people and nation, and hast made them a kingdom and priests to our God

    When I was a child I used to watch all those wonderful cowboy movies on TV.  . . . I would don my Hopalong Cassidy hat and holster and sit astride the arm of my father’s easy chair and vow to fight badness with a horse and a gun.  . . . But here we are before our heavenly Father’s altar.  And He isn’t calling us to fight badness at all.  He is simply asking us to listen to Jesus.  Because, by listening to Jesus, not only will the good we seek be fulfilled by obeying His Word, . . . but we shall become His agents of good:  . . . a kingdom of priests.  . . . All my old cowboy heroes are dead, . . . but Jesus? . . . Jesus lives!  Listen to Him.  Alleluia!