There is a question that gets tossed out every so often
when one of us cooks the meal whether it’s a roll and sausage for breakfast or
something that follows a recipe for dinner. “Does it taste grudged?” – as if
the attitude behind the cooking somehow weeps into the meal itself. It is
always said in jest because neither of us resents cooking something for the
other. When neither of us feels like cooking there is a selection of take-away
leaflets in the drawer.
After the big catch of fish, Peter jumping out of the
boat to swim to Jesus on the shore but before the conversation of love, Jesus
asks for some of the fish from the haul to all to the meal. There is already
fish baking on the coals and plenty of bread but Jesus still asks for some of
the fish.
Jesus had every justification to be miffed at Peter and
the rest of the disciples. They had let him down badly. The last few days
before the crucifixion had been one disappointment after another. They had
fallen asleep when Jesus had asked them to pray with Him in Gethsemane. When he
was arrested they had scattered in fright. Peter followed at a distance but
later denied that he even knew Jesus. When it came to eh examination at the end
of a three year course, they failed miserably.
Jesus on seeing his disciples with down-cast shoulders
could have smirked a little – but He didn’t. He could have kept quiet – but he
didn’t. He could have withheld the word that would have brought them abundance –
but he didn’t. He could have dipped every word he spoke in “grudge” – but he
didn’t. He wasn’t a less-happy-with-them Jesus. He wasn’t anything other than
the Jesus they had followed for three years. He wasn’t a different Jesus –
harsher somehow, frowning more than he used to, a Jesus without the usual
smile. He was their Jesus.
And he asked for a fish to add to the ones he already
had. He didn’t say, “It’s OK, I have it covered. I can make breakfast for you
all by myself.” He didn’t ask the disciples as they ate breakfast whether it
tasted grudged or not.
I know how I tend to treat people who have disappointed
me. Mostly it’s the silent treatment, the withdrawal of fellowship at least for
a while. There’s a lot of internal mumbling going on, a polishing up of
resentments, the building of a wall, the constant replay of events with the
assurance that I am in the right and they-deserve-every-bad-thing-that’s-coming-their-way
attitude. I’m human.
The way that we deal with the people who disappoint us
can sometimes be the way we think that God deals with us. It is because we are
human that we mess up. We should mess up less as our friendship with God
deepens – but messing up happens.
The way that Jesus dealt with his disciples that morning
tells me so much about how God deals with me. All the “could-haves” that Jesus could have
done but didn’t do – God doesn’t do them either. There is no smirking at my failures.
There’s no closing down of His word. No closing the door of the throne room.
Just as Jesus called the men in the boat friends, God doesn’t cross me off the
friends list. We never get to be defriended.
I suppose that any messing up we do makes it hard
sometimes to come into God’s presence. We feel as Isaiah did when he found himself
in God’s throne room:-
“Woe
to me!” I cried. “I am ruined! For I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among
a people of unclean lips, and my eyes have seen the King, the Lord Almighty.” Isaiah 6:5
God’s grace is there for moments like that. Isaiah wasn’t
kicked out of the throne room. He was cleansed and commissioned for a renewed
calling.
Because I have been treated with such grace by God I am
able to show that same grace to other. Maybe I don’t want to, but that doesn’t
mean that I can’t. It is certainly not an easy thing to ask or do, but that
doesn’t mean that I can’t.
Grace or grudge? We get to choose. Choose grace.
No comments:
Post a Comment