Father Tim Lemlin
I can recall that the only thing my Mom was really concerned about when I went somewhere was that I had on clean underwear and clean socks. I was on the way home from fishing one day when I lost my balance while riding my bike and fell. The fall wasn't dramatic or traumatic until I noticed that a hook on the lure I had been using was now attached to my thumb. The local fire station produced a tool to cut the barb but the hook section remained in my thumb. A phone call got me a ride home to make sure that "my underwear and socks were clean" and then it was off to the emergency room.
After his resurrection Jesus has a delightful habit (that doesn't usually feel delightful at the time) of showing up where people would rather not be seen or met. He meets the women who are upset and crying not only because of Jesus' death but now his body is no longer in the tomb. He meets Mary Magdalene in a similar situation. He walks with two disciples who are making their way to Emmaus. He shows up unexpectedly and inexplicably in the midst of the disciples gathered fearfully and mournfully in a non-descript room. He comes again when Thomas, who had been absent on the first occasion, is now present. Embarrassed and dumbfounded Thomas suddenly realizes that he has forgotten to change his underwear and socks!
Today's gospel story is another example of Jesus meeting some of his disciples when and where they don't expect to meet him. Peter and the others have returned to the familiar to alleviate some of the tension. They go fishing. Jesus greets them from the shore. It is John, the one whom Jesus loves, who first recognizes him. It is Peter, who is caught in his soiled underwear and must throw on his outerwear that first moves to be with him.
It seems ironic that God meets us when our lives feel most out of control (when we forget to change our underwear and don't want to be met). These can be moments when we suddenly become aware that we are living and acting in a way in which we never thought possible (positively or negatively). We become aware that we are free of a hurt that we have been nursing for years, a fear that held us captive, or a resentment that we thought would never disappear. This meeting can also take place when we are struggling to maintain control of our lives by trying to change a life situation or change another person. These can also be moments when we are maneuvering, planning and striving to put ourselves into a place where we are liked, accepted, and esteemed because of our achievements, and we fail.
Jesus doesn't try to control Peter or the other disciples. He doesn't demand or even expect that they change. The experience that is pivotal in Jesus' life is the experience that he now offers to Peter. It is the experience of love freely given - non-solicited, non-earned love.
We as humans are fundamentally relational. Communion - union with - is essential to our human nature. Our greatest fear therefore is to be abandoned - to be left alone. The path to true communion ironically is through our fear of being rejected. It is a path that requires us to lose what we feel to be our relationship with another, with ourselves, or with God, to feel alone, in order to find a truer relationship with another, with ourselves and with God. It is a process of losing and finding that is repeated many times in our lives. It is also a process that we greatly resist and try to control because it causes us great pain each time we travel this path. We don't want to meet God here.
Our efforts to control our life situations by controlling others ironically isolates us, although it feels like we are free of pain and suffering when we are controlling. Our efforts to control our lives prevent us from knowing who we truly are because we are too busy trying to make ourselves into something that we already are. Just as Jesus did, we need to pass through what we believe to be our life and fall uncontrollably into our life (who we really are). That which feels like communion, when we create it, is in truth isolation, and that which feels like isolation (being out of control) is ironically the doorway to true communion.
