Sermon by Rev Sydney Maitland for Sunday 4 May 2025.
The Miraculous Draught of Fishes by Jacopo Bassano, 1510–1592 (Source)
• First Reading: Acts 9: 1-20 (Saul’s conversion)
• Second Reading: Revelation 5: 11-14 (‘Worthy is the Lamb, who was slain, to receive power and wealth and wisdom and strength and honour and glory and praise!’)
• Gospel: John 21: 1-19 (Jesus and the miraculous catch of fish)
This is a strange time. Yesterday the bishops of the SEC consecrated Nicholas Bundock to be our bishop. Meanwhile the cardinals of the RC church are contemplating who might lead it as Pope and in the Church of England they are also pondering an appointment to the See of Canterbury.
There is a sense of change in the air – a sense of challenge but also a set of urgent questions: What is the church for? Who sets its agenda? What are its priorities and how are they to be expressed and put into effect?
If all this were easy, then there would be no questions to answer. Yet this is not quite the case and the demands of our society and its media are not always the same as the demands of the gospel of Jesus Christ.
So: who to choose, how to set the priorities, and communicate and implement them?
Now have a look at our lessons on the conversion of St Paul and the reinstatement of St Peter. See how they are placed on either side of a picture of the worship of heaven.
Both Peter and Paul were compromised to some extent. Paul might be zealous for the law of Israel and Peter for the gospel of Jesus Christ but both were flawed.
A modern selection committee might reject them out of hand. What would happen if their misdeeds and failures got into the social media? If the press got hold of the stories? Just wait for the satirists and commentators to get to work. Their sheer joy in exposing the hypocrisy and double-dealing of these so-called leaders would fuel a power station for a year.
There would be awards, promotions, public acclaim for such fearless reporting.
But then Jesus could see all of this for Himself. He knew exactly whom He was dealing with, and all their failures and compromises. All the points where their inner enthusiasms had become misdirected and misapplied.
But for all of that, He also saw Paul’s learning and dedication, his rigorous study of the law and his inner awareness of where it did and did not serve as was intended. Paul could see quite well where the human element had come in and how it could and did undermine the holy intent and purpose of the Law of Moses.
And equally, Peter could be impulsive, emotional, even self-defeating. But he could skipper a fishing boat in rough waters, he could take the risks involved in shooting out and recovering the fishing nets and was astute enough to be able to sell his catch and yet pay the bills involved in running a commercial fishing boat.
So yes, Jesus knew what He was about in selecting and authorizing His servants, and in giving them not just the insight into the depths of the gospel message, but the personal authority in proclaiming it.
But there is something else here. Our lessons place a picture of the worship of heaven between these two accounts of the selection and reaffirmation of Peter and Paul.
This is an image of the pure and uncompromised joy of the worship of heaven. It is the worship of the whole of heaven – well, of the 100 million present on that occasion.
It is a worship centered on the throne of God and on the Lamb of God next to it. It is a cry of total exultation. It is defined by what is before the worshippers – and not on what is behind them.
Whatever the stories of the souls worshipping God, they had been cleansed, reclothed, renewed, re-purposed and re-energized. They were defined by the person of God whom they were worshipping rather than by personal agendas or memories of hurt or failure or of other personal issues.
Whatever issues of personal identity, personal failure, whatever the memories of hurt and rejection and humiliation, they were all now focused on the worship of God and of the Lamb of God – Jesus Christ Himself.
For His is the definition of who we are and what we are to become. It is He who leads us into Christian service and who empowers us as we go into it.
He is the One who directs us and leads us, who inspires us and informs us. It is His ministry that we are engaged in and not our own sense of what the church should be doing, or how we should be meeting the demands of society and its social and broadcast media.
As we look around us there are plenty of issues to take up. The abuse of human personality in all its forms; the corruption of every aspect of beauty and joy that we can imagine; the undermining and destruction of every human relationship and potential that can exist in human society.
There is definitely no shortage of issues for us to address. But the question is: which of these is the Lord wanting us to pursue?
When dying on the cross, Jesus was taking the personal blame for every human impulse, every appetite, every emotional drive, every moral compromise that is in any way a departure from the personal holiness and glory of God.
This is not just the big sins: it is all of them. It is a matter of fact rather than of degree. Nothing was left out.
But He was there so that we also might be part of that great company of praise in heaven: animated not by our sins and memories but empowered by His mercy.
And accordingly, all who are called into the service of His gospel are fit for it – whether they feel like it or not – and He indeed will ensure that they are equipped by the Holy Spirit for the purpose.
