A Lectionary Reflection for the people of Thankful Memorial Episcopal Church for worship from home, April 18, 2021 Year B, 3 Easter

Acts 3:12-19
Psalm 4
1 John 3:1-7
Luke 24: 36b-48

In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.

Although I am the Palestinian in the family, my husband Ben is the one who makes most of the Arabic cuisine in our household.  A lot of the things he cooks come from Middle Eastern cookbooks my mom has gotten him over the years.  But a couple of dishes are classic hand-me-downs that he picked up from our Arab family and friends.  And, in my mind, the best of them all is the broiled fish Ben makes.  I like this meal because it’s delicious.  But I really love it because every time we eat it, it brings to mind the clear memory I have of my beloved grandmother and Ben working together in our kitchen in our first home in Sewanee as Grandma showed him how to cook this particular dish.  Even now, I can hear my grandmother’s light laughter over the deeper tones of Ben’s British accent as they discussed the catfish and oil, the tahini sauce served alongside; I can smell the cut lemon waiting on the table. 

“While in their joy [the disciples] were disbelieving and still wondering, [Jesus] said to them, ‘Have you anything here to eat?’  They gave him a piece of broiled fish, and he took it and ate it in their presence.”

Perhaps it is simple sentiment, but I like to imagine that the bit of broiled fish that Jesus ate that Easter day was the same recipe for broiled fish that my grandmother taught Ben.  As I picture the scene, a number of Jesus’ friends have gathered around the table for the evening meal.  Early that morning, the women went to Jesus’ tomb and found it empty.  They reported what they saw and heard to the other disciples and Peter ran to see the empty tomb himself.  So already, Jesus’ friends are wondering, questioning, doubting and hoping.  Perhaps the same women who had been to the tomb that morning spent the afternoon together in the kitchen just as my grandmother and Ben did, seasoning the fish and broiling it, preparing the tahini sauce, warming the bread, cutting the lemons, all the while, whispering and wondering – maybe even laughing together – over the incredible possibilities of the meaning of the empty tomb. 

And then the friends sit down at the table to enjoy the meal of broiled fish.  Half way through, two more friends show up, folks who were supposed to be in Emmaus by now.  Indeed, they had made it to that other town but, having met the risen Lord on the road and known him in the breaking of the bread, they turned around and ran back to Jerusalem, to interrupt this meal with their own story of wonder.  And just as dinner is ending, as the last few bites are taken and only a few bits are left over on the table, suddenly, there he is among them – Jesus resurrected. 

His appearance is so sudden, so unexpected – despite the empty tomb, despite the Emmaus story – that the disciples are in shock.  Even as they look at him, standing there before them, even as they reach out to touch his wounds, they cannot believe: “While in their joy, they were disbelieving and still wondering.” 

And Jesus sees his friends’ amazed faces and the remains of dinner on the table and he asks them: “Have you anything here to eat?”  And they take a look around and I imagine that they must have seen the leftovers, the chunks of half-eaten pita, the empty crusts of the squeezed-out lemons, a few bits of that flavorful broiled fish, and they give a piece of it to Jesus and he eats it. 

And that bit of fish brings everything into focus, makes everything real.  And as suddenly as Jesus appeared among them, so just as suddenly, he brings them back to the here and now with the practical things of life: the fish and the oil, the lemons and the plates, his wounds and his words, and the work of witnessing that lies ahead. 

It is so easy, at times, to get lost in the idea of things: to get caught up in the mystery of resurrection, or in the overwhelm we feel when we are beset by hardships, or in the shock that the “changes and chances” of life often bring upon us.  We can spend so much energy seeking some larger meaning or pattern, grasping in vain at that which cannot be understood.  We can exhaust ourselves striving for that which is not within our power to achieve. 

“No one who abides in [Christ] sins,” says the first letter of John.  “No one who sins has either seen him or known him.”  The implication of these words is staggering.  How can we ever achieve such sinlessness?  How can we ever become as righteous as Jesus, and thereby prove to ourselves, to the world, to God, that we abide in Christ? 

But what if we just stopped trying so hard? In that same letter, the author of first John reminds us, in the simplest language, “Beloved, we are God’s children now.”  Now, right now, in and through the resurrection of Christ Jesus, we are already God’s sons and daughters, inheritors of Jesus’ righteousness and welcome participants in God’s work of salvation in the world. 

What if, in the midst of our worry or wonder or fear or shock or doubt or disbelief, we paid attention to what was right before us, the practical furniture of our lives, the every-day equivalents of that bit of fish that brings us back to the here and now.  Perhaps if we looked up from our own concerns, we would discover the risen Lord standing in our midst.  Maybe if we ceased striving so hard to achieve our own salvation, we would find that we have been invited to God’s table and the feast is already set before us. 

“Beloved, we are God’s children now.”  This is our starting place and our foundation.  This truth of our belovedness as children of God right now is where we can come back to when we get overwhelmed by all the other things.  This is our bit of broiled fish: the reminder that though much may confuse or astound us in our lives lived as disciples of the risen Christ, our joy and our work are all wrapped up together in the simple acts of sharing and eating and laughing and seeing and knowing each other just as we are.  All that is left for us to do is to partake in the feast and to invite others: “Come, taste and see.”  Amen.