April 21/22, 2007

(FOR-)GIVING GENEROUSLY
Two brothers always went fishing together. It started when they were little boys, and the thing was, the older brother always caught the fish. The younger boy never caught a thing. Always that way... when they were teenagers they fished together; the older brother caught his limit and then some, and the younger brother came home empty-handed. Now, give him credit as a kid; he never quit, just kept trying, but to no avail

They got to be adults, they got married, and their families always spent a week together Up North. Same thing; the two men out there on the water - the older one had a stringer full; little Bro got skunked again. Even his older brother's friends caught fish and he didn't!

Finally he'd had enough of this. He got up one morning about 4:00, careful not to wake anyone, put on his older brother's cap, wore his brother's jacket, got his brother's fishing tackle and rod, used his boat, even brought his brother's kind of sandwiches. [1]

He got on the water just at dawn. He cast his first line. Nothing happened. He cast again. Nothing. A third time. Still nothing. Then a fish poked its head above the water, surveyed the shoreline, and asked, "Hey, where's your brother?"

No, it's not much of a story, but we have our own fishing story this weekend - and it's an Easter fishing story. Problem is, we've been there, done that - as recently as February 3rd & 4th this year when I used St. Luke's version of The Classic Fishing Story of the Bible. Now, (you might say), What's the problem, Nate? That's never stopped you before from repeating yourself!

So... although we might come back to it briefly, I want to set aside the fish-tale and take a closer look at the 2nd scene and the 3rd scene in this story, look at what's going on, on the beach. Someone they don't recognize has started a fire there on the sand, and he's making toast and fish for breakfast. It's like my story - they've fished all night and got skunked; this "Stranger" on the shore already has fish in the pan! Well, by now they're recognizing him, and they're adding it up. In the gospels, the disciples (and some of them seasoned, professional fishermen) never seem to catch anything without Jesus' help.

Peter sees something else, and it puts a knot in the pit of his stomach. It's the fire, a charcoal fire, and suddenly it's like he's back standing by another charcoal fire. It's in the courtyard of the high priest's house, it's the night before Good Friday, Peter's in a crowd there, and someone recognizes him.

"Aren't you a follower of Jesus" - who's been captured and on trial? "Aren't you one of his disciples? Sure you are; I think I saw you with him earlier tonight. 'sides, your Northern accent gives you away. Yep, you're one of his."

"No. No! NO!" said Peter, and about that time a rooster woke up and crowed. And Jesus, being hustled handcuffed from one location to another, turned toward Peter and from across the courtyard, their eyes met.

A charcoal fire. There are only two times in the entire New Testament that the words "a charcoal fire" appear. Peter's stomach is in knots when he sees that fire again, and his throat is dry, and he'd probably rather be anywhere but on that beach. But Jesus won't let him go, and today's fishing story, this Easter-breakfast story, is the story not of revenge, not anger and reprisal, not even a story of deep regret, but forgiveness... forgiveness three times over. We could re-word this weekend's Habit of Faith theme in our church, "Giving Generously." Call it FORgiving generously.

On the day that news arrived in Washington DC that the Civil War was over, a crowd gathered at the White House and a military band played festive music. President Lincoln watched from the balcony of the White House, and quickly the crowd asked for a speech. He didn't say much. He spoke of the horrors of war. He talked about families getting back together. He spoke of a time of peace.

Then Lincoln said, "In a few moments I want the band to play again, and I'm going to tell them what to play." The band members, of course, got ready to play "The Battle Hymn of the Republic," which, as you know, was the theme song of the Northern states throughout the Civil War. But Abraham Lincoln stood victorious on the balcony and said, "The band will now play the song of the people we have called our enemy. They are not our enemies any longer. We are one people again. The band will play 'Dixie.'"

Historians say there was a long, awkward pause, and then the gathered crowds began to sing, softly, tentatively, at first, but it gathered voice, and it was, that night, a song of forgiveness and reconciliation. [2]

Go back to that charcoal fire on the shore of the lake early that morning sometime after Easter. Just as Jesus himself still carried the scars of crucifixion, even after Easter - that was, remember, the way Thomas had said he'd recognize the risen Jesus, the nail-prints - well, Peter was going to carry his denial in the courtyard for the rest of his life. Nothing was going to change or erase that history. His denial had the power to destroy Peter's life, to control his emotions and behavior and relationships, and drag him down, down, down until he drowned beneath his sin and guilt.

Jesus wouldn't let that happen. As he had done another time for Peter, Jesus saved him from that. Peter once had thought he could walk on water; remember that story? Then he got scared and he began to sink. There in the courtyard of the high priest, cocky, then scared again, Peter flat-out, down-right sank. Beside the lake, Jesus came to him and Jesus gave Peter back his life. "Feed my lambs, now; feed my sheep."

I think THAT was Peter's real Easter. Yes, he was one of the first to look into the empty tomb. Peter had seen Jesus himself on Easter morning and again that evening. Peter knew his Lord was living. But Peter truly realized what that could mean when Jesus caught his eye across that charcoal fire at breakfast and gave him back his life.

Forgiveness doesn't get rid of the past; it opens up the future. It doesn't erase mistakes or sins; it frees you from bondage to them. Instead of running from the past, you now have a power over your past that is truly beyond your own strength. [3]

"Do you love me?" Jesus asks us. "Lord," we have to say, "you... know... everything. And you know that I love you... in spite of what I've done." He says, "Then put what happened behind you, take up your life again, and do what I've commissioned you to do."

This lakeside story is in the Bible to tell us that one result of Jesus' resurrection is the renewal of your life. It's Jesus' own Habit of Faith, giving/FORgiving generously, and it results in a kind of multiplication - just as we explain this particular habit in our church: "an open-hearted and open-handed response to share with others as God has given to us."

On June 8, 1972 a young U.S. Army captain named John Plummer coordinated an air strike on a Vietnamese village named Trang Bang, after being assured that all civilians had been evacuated and only Viet Cong remained. South Vietnamese planes attacked the town with bombs and napalm.

The next morning, 30 miles away, Captain Plummer ate breakfast and opened his copy of "Stars and Stripes," the military newspaper. Immediately he saw the picture that AP photographer Nick Ut took the day before, and he thought, "Wow, that's terrible." Then he read the caption. Trang Bang.

The naked little 9-year-old girl is Kim Phuc. She and her family had been hiding in a pagoda when it was hit, and they ran into the street where the napalm got them. The photographer and other journalists poured water from their canteens onto her burns and then rushed her to a hospital.

John Plummer said, "My heart was wracked with guilt that it was I who was responsible for her injuries. It was I who had sent the bombs." Eventually he convinced himself that he had done what he could, but he couldn't escape the photo, since it won a Pulitzer Prize, appeared everywhere, and became one of the iconic images of the war. Plummer saw that photo repeatedly, and though he told almost no one of the incident, hardly a day passed without his thinking of that little girl.

The feelings of responsibility took a toll in his life. After leaving the Army he dropped out of his Methodist church. He became an alcoholic. He left his wife and four children. "I turned in to myself," he said. "I was not interested in anybody. I lived by myself and I drank all the time."

A few years later, however, he met his second wife Joanne and through her he somehow leveled off, returned to church, and then he felt a call into ministry and went into a seminary. He became the pastor of a little Methodist church in Virginia.



What happened next took place in 1996. John Plummer was on his couch one day, reading, when a TV news show showed the famous photo and announced that they would identify the little girl and where she now was living. Plummer tossed his book aside and turned up the sound.

She was in her 30s and had a home in Toronto, Ontario. She'd gone through a lot of plastic surgery, but she was healthy, had become a Christian, was married, and had a son. On Veterans Day in 1996 she would be a speaker at the Vietnam Memorial in Washington DC. Through Plummer's Army pilots' group and others, arrangements started to develop.

That day in Washington, Kim Phuc said to the audience, "I have suffered a lot from both physical and emotional pain. But even if I could talk face to face with the pilot who dropped the bombs, I would tell him, 'We cannot change history, but we should try to do good things for the present and for the future.'"

John Plummer was there that day, and moments later he was ushered through the crowd and approached Kim Phuc. "She stopped and turned around, and that was the moment that our eyes met," he said. "And all the things she wanted to say to me, and all the things I wanted to say to her, were said with our eyes.

"She held out her arms and I began to sob and I fell into her arms and we hugged and hugged. All I could say was, 'I'm sorry, I'm just so sorry.' And she kept saying, 'It's all right, I forgive, I forgive.'"

They had only about two minutes before the organizers and the media rushed her away to the next event. But John Plummer says about those moments, "I was floating. I was free. I was finally at peace." [4]

Nathan Castens
Chanhassen, Minnesota

[1] Thanks to Mark Trotter

[2] E-sermons; no attribution as to source

[3] Mark Trotter, "Looking Up the Downside," 4-17-83

[4] "A picture of forgiveness," Christian Century, February 19, 1997, and "Officer who ordered Vietnam bombing, victim reconciled," Star Tribune, November 11, 1997