Keep Your Eyes on the Prize, Hold On

I refuse to accept that “nothing will change” when it comes to the endless slaughter from gun violence. Folks have said that about Every.Single.Thing. that has ultimately changed over human history. God calls us to stay the course, to continue to act, continue to pray, continue to believe.

Acts 16:16-34

¹⁶One day, as we were going to the place of prayer, we met a slave girl who had a spirit of divination and brought her owners a great deal of money by fortune-telling. ¹⁷While she followed Paul and us, she would cry out, “These men are slaves of the Most High God, who proclaim to you a way of salvation.” ¹⁸She kept doing this for many days. But Paul, very much annoyed, turned and said to the spirit, “I order you in the name of Jesus Christ to come out of her.” And it came out that very hour. ¹⁹But when her owners saw that their hope of making money was gone, they seized Paul and Silas and dragged them into the marketplace before the authorities. ²⁰When they had brought them before the magistrates, they said, “These men are disturbing our city; they are Jews ²¹and are advocating customs that are not lawful for us as Romans to adopt or observe.” ²²The crowd joined in attacking them, and the magistrates had them stripped of their clothing and ordered them to be beaten with rods. ²³After they had given them a severe flogging, they threw them into prison and ordered the jailer to keep them securely. ²⁴Following these instructions, he put them in the innermost cell and fastened their feet in the stocks.

²⁵About midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, and the prisoners were listening to them. ²⁶Suddenly there was an earthquake, so violent that the foundations of the prison were shaken; and immediately all the doors were opened and everyone’s chains were unfastened. ²⁷When the jailer woke up and saw the prison doors wide open, he drew his sword and was about to kill himself, since he supposed that the prisoners had escaped. ²⁸But Paul shouted in a loud voice, “Do not harm yourself, for we are all here.” ²⁹The jailer called for lights, and rushing in, he fell down trembling before Paul and Silas. ³⁰Then he brought them outside and said, “Sirs, what must I do to be saved?” ³¹They answered, “Believe on the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved, you and your household.” ³²They spoke the word of the Lord to him and to all who were in his house. ³³At the same hour of the night he took them and washed their wounds; then he and his entire family were baptized without delay. ³⁴He brought them up into the house and set food before them; and he and his entire household rejoiced that he had become a believer in God.

Dear friends, grace to you and peace this day from God through Christ, who breaks open every prison door that keeps us chained and unable to act.  Amen.

Many of us are of an age that we remember the song “Keep Your Eyes on the Prize.” It was a stalwart of the Civil Rights movement. Popularized by Mahalia Jackson and others, the words “keep your eyes on the prize, hold on” were a reminder to the folks who marched and worked for human and civil rights that this is not an easy task; we must keep our eyes on the “prize” of those civil rights being codified into law. We must hold on.

The song is actually an adaptation of a song that emerged during the time of human enslavement in this country. It was originally called “Keep Your Hand on the Plow, Hold On.” And the lyrics went like this:

Heard the voice of Jesus say
Come unto me, I am the way.
Keep your hand on the plow, hold on.
When my way gets dark as night,
I know the Lord will be my light,
Keep your hand on the plow, hold on.

These words follow Luke 9:62, where Jesus says no one who puts a hand to the plow and looks back is fit for service in the Kingdom of God.

Anyone who knows gardening or farming knows that if you plow while moving forward and looking back, you will not have a straight line. You will be diverted from the task.

The song was adapted in the 1950s by activist Alice Wine for the Civil Rights movement. And today’s story in Acts of Paul and Silas provided a great model. Civil rights workers were familiar with the story of Paul and Silas.

The song we know now as “Keep Your Eyes on the Prize” has been recorded by many people over the years, including Bruce Springsteen.  Those lyrics go like this:

Paul and Silas bound in jail
Had no money for to go their bail
Keep your eyes on the prize, hold on.
Paul and Silas began to shout
The jail doors opened and they both walked out
Keep your eyes on the prize, hold on.

Keeping that song in mind, let’s turn back to the lesson from Acts.

Paul and Silas don’t really walk out – I imagine they’re as surprised as anyone.  But the jailer is so terrified the prisoners have escaped that he is about to die by suicide. In other words, he is resorting to violence.

Paul calls out to him “don’t hurt yourself, we’re all here.” And what to the jailer seems incomprehensible breaks through: the light of the gospel of Jesus.

In that light, the jailer and his family are turned from the violent oppression of others to the peaceful liberation of all.  It’s not hard to see how this story became central to the civil rights movement.  The oppressor becomes the ally. The chains are broken. The doors are flung open. God is on the loose.

None of it, of course, comes easily. Neither in Paul’s time nor in our own.

Keep your eyes on the prize, hold on.

I believe this is the call Jesus issues to us today. It is the same call issued to all who have struggled against the powers that be over all of time. That call is: don’t be afraid, and don’t give up.

Perhaps you, like me, thought that after the horrific school shooting at Sandy Hook back in 2012 something would SURELY be done about the epidemic of gun violence in this country.

Maybe you thought the same thing after the shooting at Mother Emanuel church in Charleston in 2015.

Or after the Pulse nightclub shooting in Orlando in 2016.

Or after the El Paso shooting in 2019 that left 23 dead and 23 wounded.

I could go on, but I might also say “what’s the point?  Nothing will change.”

But what I DO say today is, keep your eyes on the prize, friends.  Hold on. 

We’ve all heard the statistics, over and over.  Time after time.  The number of mass shootings per year in the US is far beyond ALL other industrialized countries.

We’ve also all heard the standard responses.  Impassioned op-eds in newspapers and other media.  Angry people from athletes to celebrities to everyday working folks.  Thoughts and prayers.  Candlelight vigils.  Politicians drawing lines in the sand and declaring the only solution is either more guns or no guns.

Friends, this is akin to plowing forward while looking backward.  We are being deluded into thinking this relative inaction is the only response possible.

Far too many people who have the ability to make real change, won’t say or do anything because they’ll lose their support – and probably the next election.

In other words: their hold on power is more important than the lives of children, and elderly people of color, and anyone who has died as the result of gun violence.

Jesus is so clear about how we might address this kind of thing when he confronts those who hold power in his day.  Note that he does not condemn them!  He calls them out on their sin and leaves the door open for their repentance and redemption.

This is what is missing from discussion in our day.  We’ve condemned first, with no room for redemption.  We’ve made our neighbor the enemy.  (I recall that Jesus was also clear on how to treat one’s enemy.)

Just to be clear: I have been a registered gun owner myself.  My son is an arms sergeant in the US Army.  I may be from California, but I’m not a ban-all-guns extremist either.

Because here’s the thing: by our utterly binary, my-way-or-the-highway approaches to polarizing issues, we’ve eclipsed not only our neighbor, but we’ve eclipsed God as well.  We’ve left no room for the Holy Spirit to do what she does best, which is to be a mighty wind dismantling our houses of cards and our egocentric ways of thinking.

The story from Acts we read today reminds us that the Spirit of God has ALWAYS been about that.  Her dismantling leads to the transformation and conversion of oppressor to ally.  We must not stand in the way.  BUT – we also must not stand around doing nothing, relying on the fallback of #thoughts&prayers.

God in Christ has sent us into this world to spread the gospel of love, not the false gospel of triumphalism, or the utter evil of violence, or the resigned surrender of inaction as the only answer.  The gospel of love is one that relies on the truth, as painful as it might be.  For it is the love of Christ that will sustain us in the dark times, AND give us strength to face the forces that we name in our baptismal rite as “all the forces of evil” that we know are in this world.

If we are followers of Jesus, how can we be silent when politicians take campaign donations from gun lobbyists that total in the several millions of dollars – and then see to it that no substantive or reasonable firearms legislation ever even reaches the floor?

If we are followers of Jesus, how can we be silent when efforts are made to shift the blame to anything else?  How can we be silent when the cry arises “it’s a mental health problem” and never say a word about how the vast majority of folks with mental health issues never pick up a weapon?  (Not to mention how that continues to stigmatize mental health issues.)

We are not called by Jesus to pick a side and fight to the death.  We are called to discern God’s peaceable realm through the reading of Scripture and our lived lives together.  And then we are called to do all that we are able to bring that peaceable realm to being.

Here is what I think we all (including me) forget sometimes: God’s peaceable realm is already breaking in to our world.  God is simply calling us to join in the transformation – whatever the cost.  (Perhaps the reality of that cost is why we want to forget it.)

But if we truly believe that God is still speaking, is still at work and on the loose in this world, then it will not matter whether we “win.”  What will matter is that we continue to call a thing what it is, and proclaim the gospel of love for all of creation.

When Jesus spoke truth in all the situations he encountered in his three short years of ministry, it was always at great personal risk.  In our own time, we know of brave people who have spoken truth to power at great personal risk.  That we might be called to such risk should make us pause.

In that pause, I am reminded of the Reverend Allen Boesak, the first Black South African clergyman to join the anti-apartheid movement there.  He did so, as you might imagine, at great personal risk.  When I heard him speak some years ago, he talked about our call to take risks for the sake of God’s love and justice made real in the world.  He said:

“I believe that when we face the Almighty, God will say to us: ‘where are your wounds? If you have no wounds, then tell me: was there nothing worth fighting for?’”

Reverend Boesak spoke from the place of sustained wounds, physical and otherwise.  When we join the struggle for what is right, there will be wounds.  But we can do all things through Christ who strengthens us, through Christ who stands ready to clean and bandage our wounds.

I want to share a version of the Lord’s Prayer that reminds us of the places we are called to go and the things we are called to do, for the sake of the world.

Our God, who art
right here
in Uvalde,
again,
after Buffalo,
after Sandy Hook,
after Virginia Tech,
after, after.
Hallowed be thy gunshot body.
Thy kingdom does not come today.
We give you this day our outrage
and our mourning.
Lead us not into the temptation of apathy
and resignation.
Deliver us from the evil of idolatrous prayers
prayed while children are given up
on altars built for guns.
For thine is the dying,
and ours is the doing.
And both of us meet in
the work of rising again.

Keep your eyes on the prize.  Hold on.

Amen.

A Bad Day Fishing…

…turned into a good day for seeing Jesus.

John 21:1-19

21After these things Jesus showed himself again to the disciples by the Sea of Tiberias; and he showed himself in this way. ²Gathered there together were Simon Peter, Thomas called the Twin, Nathanael of Cana in Galilee, the sons of Zebedee, and two others of his disciples. ³Simon Peter said to them, “I am going fishing.” They said to him, “We will go with you.” They went out and got into the boat, but that night they caught nothing. ⁴Just after daybreak, Jesus stood on the beach; but the disciples did not know that it was Jesus. ⁵Jesus said to them, “Children, you have no fish, have you?” They answered him, “No.” ⁶He said to them, “Cast the net to the right side of the boat, and you will find some.” So they cast it, and now they were not able to haul it in because there were so many fish. ⁷That disciple whom Jesus loved said to Peter, “It is the Lord!” When Simon Peter heard that it was the Lord, he put on some clothes, for he was naked, and jumped into the sea. ⁸But the other disciples came in the boat, dragging the net full of fish, for they were not far from the land, only about a hundred yards off. ⁹When they had gone ashore, they saw a charcoal fire there, with fish on it, and bread. ¹⁰Jesus said to them, “Bring some of the fish that you have just caught.” ¹¹So Simon Peter went aboard and hauled the net ashore, full of large fish, a hundred fifty-three of them; and though there were so many, the net was not torn. ¹²Jesus said to them, “Come and have breakfast.” Now none of the disciples dared to ask him, “Who are you?” because they knew it was the Lord. ¹³Jesus came and took the bread and gave it to them, and did the same with the fish. ¹⁴This was now the third time that Jesus appeared to the disciples after he was raised from the dead.

¹⁵When they had finished breakfast, Jesus said to Simon Peter, “Simon son of John, do you love me more than these?” He said to him, “Yes, Lord; you know that I love you.” Jesus said to him, “Feed my lambs.” ¹⁶A second time he said to him, “Simon son of John, do you love me?” He said to him, “Yes, Lord; you know that I love you.” Jesus said to him, “Tend my sheep.” ¹⁷He said to him the third time, “Simon son of John, do you love me?” Peter felt hurt because he said to him the third time, “Do you love me?” And he said to him, “Lord, you know everything; you know that I love you.” Jesus said to him, “Feed my sheep. ¹⁸Very truly, I tell you, when you were younger, you used to fasten your own belt and to go wherever you wished. But when you grow old, you will stretch out your hands, and someone else will fasten a belt around you and take you where you do not wish to go.” ¹⁹(He said this to indicate the kind of death by which he would glorify God.) After this he said to him, “Follow me.”

+++++++

Dear friends, grace to you and peace from our loving God through Christ, who feeds us and in turn, sends us to feed others.  Amen.

A colleague reminded me this week that in these stories we hear the first few Sundays after Easter, we must remember that the disciples are trying to process horrible trauma.

When we recognize this, we can better understand the choices they make and the things they say.  And so in today’s story, Peter and this particular group of disciples are exhibiting a very common response to trauma: they return to what is familiar.

They go fishing.

Of course, their “fishing” is not the recreational kind.  Even though Jesus has already told them “as the Father has sent me, so I send you” they are still trying to figure out what they’re going to eat, how they’re going to support themselves.

That’s another mark of trauma processing, finding something to keep you busy so you can avoid dealing directly with the trauma.

And then they spend the whole night fishing, and catch nothing.

Can you imagine what was going through their heads at that point?

They must have felt utterly, completely defeated.  Worthless.

And then some landlubber shows up and gives them unsolicited advice from the shore.  Yeah, that’s what we need.  Some guy who doesn’t fish, to tell us how to fish.

But I imagine they were tired enough at that point to just let the net down.

And THEN it became clear.  The disciple Jesus loved, whom we generally understand to be John, recognized that only Jesus had given them this advice before, with the same results.

More fish than they could believe.  Almost more than they could haul in – but they managed.  Apparently they even counted them.

Peter’s impulsiveness drives him to first put his robe back on, THEN jump in the water and swim to shore.  A bit odd, but there you go.

But what must he have thought, standing there on the beach, dripping wet and looking into the eyes of his Lord whom he denied three times?

Was he regretting that impulsiveness?  Because now, the shame of what he had done was likely taking center stage in his mind.

Thankfully, he was able to get busy hauling the net onshore from the boat.  And then Jesus says to them all, “come and have breakfast.”

Not a word about any of the things that have happened in the last few days.  Nothing about anyone’s denials.  Just words of welcome and hospitality.

It’s a scene with so many reminders: of the Last Supper, of the multiplying the fishes and loaves, and of Jesus washing their feet.

And ultimately it’s a scene of boundless and radical grace.  Of Christ meeting us in our places of trauma, our places of shame, our places of thinking we are falling short somehow – and him showing us nothing but generous love.

I think that is the real meaning of the number of fish.  Some sources tie that number to other meanings, but even 153 minnows is a LOT of fish!  Let’s say those were a species like widemouth bass, average size about 5 pounds.  Again – a LOT of fish.

God’s love for us is over-the-top generous, like this catch of fish.  More than is typical, reasonable, or expected.  And it’s given even when we might feel we don’t deserve it.

Because God does not operate in a transactional economy.  God doesn’t request payment in order to dispense God’s love.

In the story, Jesus knows the disciples are hungry, and no matter what he might have planned to say to them, their immediate need is to eat.  Jesus is a practical person; he knows that trying to have serious conversation on an empty stomach is a very bad idea!  But he also knows that the shepherd meets the needs of his flock before he meets his own needs.  Again, not a transactional economic model.

If anything, God’s economic model is backwards.  Upside down.  Not based on anything that makes sense in our modern world.

Jesus asks Peter three times if he loves him.  Traditionally, this is seen as Peter being absolved of his three denials.  But I wonder if what Jesus is doing is making sure that Peter understands, he is being entrusted with Jesus’ most valuable gift – his love.  For Jesus doesn’t follow Peter’s answers with anything like “well then why did you betray me?”

Rather, he implores Peter, “feed my sheep.”

In other words: pay it forward.

I don’t need retribution, says Jesus.  I desire reconciliation, and the best gift you could ever give me is to take all that I’ve given you and pay it forward.  To feed my sheep.  To guide them and empower them, the same as I have done for you.

You might call this a “crabgrass” economic model.

I’ve been pulling a lot of crabgrass out of my front garden recently, and the ability of that stuff to spread underground is staggering.

If God’s model of being in the world were one that only gave out love if we earned it, it would never spread.  We’d hoard it for ourselves.

But in the crabgrass economic model, God loves us WITHOUT anything on our part, and only asks that we pay it forward.  Spread it around.  Like crabgrass.

Think about the times when the church has had to be underground, LITERALLY like crabgrass.  It continued to spread!

It’s an economic model that doesn’t rely on being the center of attention, but rather finding the places where God’s love is needed, and being spreaders and givers of that love.

Jesus is honest with Peter about this model.  He warns him that it likely won’t end well.  And we see this today, don’t we?  The forces of evil continue to work against the forces of good.  Greed and pride and envy and all the rest – we see these on full display, leaving destruction in their wake, every day.

And yet, the love of God has continued to spread around the world.

Jesus comes to the beach, not to call back a straying disciple or to twist the knife about the threefold denial. He’s here to renew Peter’s calling. Because new challenges lie ahead. Vulnerable sheep can’t be helped by someone incapable of love.

God in Jesus comes to us now, today, to do the same.  To call us to renewal and love and new life in the resurrected Christ.  Not to layer more busy work onto our shoulders, but rather to invite us to seek new life in the same places – and in new ones.

To let down our nets on the other side of the boat, so that we might be reminded just how much God loves us.  And then, to get out of the boat.

Because new life awaits, and that love – like 153 fish – HAS to be shared.

Amen.