Life between two fires
Week of Sunday April 10 - Easter Two
Bible: John 21:1-19
...
Very 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.’
Out of the mouth of Jesus and away from the Gospel of John, this little verse is a sharp summation of what we learn about life as we grow older. As we take it back to the alternative ending of John's gospel, what does it say to our life of faith?
When I first read the Gospel of John, before I had any critical tools, I read Chapter 20:30-31
Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not written in this book. 31But these are written so that you may come to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that through believing you may have life in his name.
and, as an avid reader, knew I had come to the end of the book. But then… more! Raymond Brown, (The Gospel According to John x111 – xx1 pp1078) with most commentators, concludes that Chapter 21 was another resurrection appearance story known to John's author. It's an independent ending, so that we could almost read John like one of those "choose your own ending" books!
Chapter 21 is not merely an afterthought that John felt he needed to tack on somewhere; it is an alternative ending: it is connected to the main body of the gospel by a charcoal fire and the number three. In the night, as all is being lost, Peter stands for us all at someone's charcoal fire and denies Jesus three times. In the dawn of a new day, Peter stands at Jesus' charcoal fire and reaffirms his faith three times; indeed, he is forgiven and given a task, three times: feed my lambs, tend my sheep, feed my sheep.
The number three matches and reverses the three fold denial; it rhymes rhetorically with the 3 days in the tomb, and it is the threefold repetition of an solemn oath or charge before witnesses. (Brown pp 1112)
The text clearly means us to refer back to the previous chapters. (13:21ff) In the conversation on the beach
Peter turned and saw the disciple whom Jesus loved following them; he was the one who had reclined next to Jesus at the supper and had said, ‘Lord, who is it that is going to betray you?’
In that chapter Jesus said, "Where I am going, you cannot come … (13:36) Where I am going, you cannot follow me now; but you will follow afterwards." In his naivety, Peter had said, "Lord, why can I not follow you now? I will lay down my life for you." And Jesus told him the truth of our human frailty. "Will you lay down your life for me? Very truly, I tell you, before the cock crows, you will have denied me three times."
The irony of Peter's question— he asks the disciple whom Jesus loved to ask it, and it is repeated so we don’t miss it— is not subtle. There comes an age when we know that our shortcomings in faith have been denials, and that our denials have been betrayals. Judas has already gone out into night, and Peter will soon follow, seeking some warmth from the darkness at a fire.
T.S. Eliot in “Little Gidding” said that we will be consumed by either fire or fire. The two charcoals fires in John show us the two fires: the sacrificial fires, or the fire of the Spirit of reconciliation and forgiveness, which is the Spirit of the resurrection. One is the fire of the Apocalypse, and the other is the fire of the Kingdom coming. (Bailie)
And the fire of apocalypse destroys. It's significant that in the wider tradition, Judas kills himself. But neither can Peter avoid fire.
Very 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.
We forever live between two fires, and one of them will have us. And as much as we long for the fire of the Spirit of resurrection, our frail self defaults to the 'safe' fire at the beginning of the night.
And our older selves find our hands are bound. We are not in control. There is no getting out of life, only a going on from one beach fire to the next with an awful lot of fishing in unsafe, unknowable night and, sometimes, unexpected breakfasts… or a giving in to the fire of human failure which sacrifices and betrays life.
The grace is that we can live until the morning. We can live the long nights and even the tired mornings when there seems to be no welcoming fire upon the beach. It is likely John uses the poem to refer to the crucifixion death of Peter. But the poem is about the life giving death of all of us who follow. In the binding and taking where I do not wish to go, when I am pulled away from the safe little fires someone has constructed to me, I am finding new life, new fires, on the beach of the morning. We are taken toward the fire of resurrection.
I look at the fires where I once stood, and I look at fires to which people beckon me, and I am glad I am being dragged somewhere else.
Andrew Prior
Direct Biblical quotations in this page are taken from The New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright 1989, Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved. Please note that references to Wikipedia and other websites are intended to provide extra information for folk who don't have easy access to commentaries or a library. Wikipedia is never more than an introductory tool, and certainly not the last word in matters biblical!
