Do we consider ourselves a university church? This question, posed by the director of the Vinery program at our annual retreat, has been haunting me, in a good way. For those who don’t know, the Vinery works with congregations around the country who are near universities. Through the Vinery, we come together to explore how we can be better neighbors to the campus community. Deep listening sessions with our university neighbors are supposed to lead us toward purposeful design. Our Vinery Team is starting to dip our toes into the design phase. Maybe we’ll start a dialogue series with university faculty. Perhaps we’ll find a way to address food insecurity. Should we build a bike repair station? Offer pet blessings? Open our doors so students can study and hang out? All these ideas and more have popped up in our brainstorming. It could be that we will partner more closely with Neon in their ministry that centers queer and BIPOC leadership. We wonder if the MN Conference UCC is interested in collaborating. One thing we’re sure about—our design will incorporate more robust channels of communication with the university community.
Today’s story from the Gospel of John contains a number of quirky little details I don’t have time to explore. What was so special about the right side of the boat? Why did Peter put his outer garment back on before jumping into the sea? What’s the deal with 153 fish? It’s such an oddly specific number! Where did Jesus get his fish from? The ones he was cooking on the beach before they hauled in the big catch. I’m sorry to leave you hanging! I hope it’s not too distracting!
There are several other details I do want to focus on. First: the placement of this passage in John’s Gospel. Matthew, Mark, and Luke all have a story near the beginning in which Jesus walked beside the sea and called the fishermen to follow him. John instead locates this sea-side encounter at the very end of his Gospel. The disciples had already met the risen Jesus a couple of times. And yet, they remained paralyzed by fear and doubt. Jesus had breathed the Spirit onto them and sent them forth to love, heal, and serve the world just like he did, but instead they huddled together behind closed doors. Now, they’d abandoned the mission Jesus gave them entirely. They’d returned to something familiar, something they knew how to do: fishing.
Which brings us to details two and three: Jesus calling them “children” and the nets coming up empty all night long. These are hints, I think, that the fishermen were being asked to give discipleship one more chance. Jesus was calling them to be beginners and learners, to try again with this work that was unknown and frightening and full of risk and challenge. He wanted them to follow him into a new kind of life that can only begin as a second chance, after empire’s torturing, shaming, erasing and silencing, after the destruction of democracy, after the stoking of hatred for political and financial gain after the unbridled embrace of white supremacy. Resurrection life arises only after love seems to have failed and peaceful resistance has proven futile, only after our hopes have utterly collapsed.
Another set of details: the charcoal fire, the three repetitions in the dialogue with Peter, “do you love me?”; “feed my sheep.” On the night of Jesus’ arrest, as Peter warmed his hands at another charcoal fire, he denied Jesus three times. Peter of course became a legendary apostle and church leader. Here, with this probing, Jesus held him accountable for his unfaithfulness and at the same time and restored his integrity in the eyes of the community, giving him the third chance he needed to live up to his own deeply held values.
Underneath the details of our church’s Vinery work, there’s that fundamental question lingering. Do we consider ourselves a University church? Right now, honestly, I’d say, “No, we don’t.” And at the same time, I have a strong intuition that as we continue this work, we’ll be tugged toward “yes.” I think we’re being led by the Spirit to see ourselves differently. As a church more rooted in this sacred space, more attentive to this neighborhood, and more connected to the university community. And reconfiguring our self-understanding in this way is in fact a return to our roots; it is a re-telling of our origin story. Because one of our first meeting places was a university classroom. And for half a century we were home to a thriving campus ministry. And though I-35 cut us off from Dinkytown proper, we have always had lots and lots of students living all around us.
One final detail in today’s Gospel story brings us full circle. You see, the ending of John’s Gospel mirrors its beginning. In the opening chapters, Jesus turned water into wine so that an ordinary couple with limited resources could begin their marriage with joy and blessing. This act provided a sign that Jesus’ ministry would be all about unleashing divine abundance to build beloved community. And this final story, about a boat-sinking catch of fish, 153 of them, is a rearticulation of that promise. In the face of a death-dealing reign of fear and scarcity, we too are called to follow Jesus into our community, sharing God’s abundance and embracing a new kind of life together. Amen.