Almost everybody I know has seen the movie Conclave.
The PBS Newshour reported Wednesday night a “Three thousand and two hundred percent ... massive increase in streaming viewership of the movie in the first week after Pope Francis' death.”1
It is as timely as tomorrow. Or to be more specific as timely as this Wednesday when Cardinals all across the world will give up their cell phones and laptops to be sequestered in the Vatican to determine who will be the next Pope.
It is pretty hard to escape the drama, the intrigue, and the speculation. Who will it be? A conservative in the mold of Pope Benedict or a progressive like Pope John Paul XXIII or Pope Francis? Will it be this guy or that guy? Guys are the only choice, don’t you know. The only thing that seems to be certain is that he who enters the conclave believing they will be the next Pope will emerge from the conclave a Cardinal.
It is a time of tension and uncertainty for the church. Will it move forward, backwards, or stay the same. It uncertain times there is always the temptation to retreat into the past and long for the way things were.
At breakfast in one of the scenes Cardinal Tedesco, an arch-conservative Italian traditionalist, complains to Cardinal Lawrence who as Dean is charged with organizing and facilitating the conclave, “Look around the room,” he says. “Over there are the Americans. Over there are the Europeans. In that corner are the Asians and in the other corner are the Africans. They are all clustered in their little groups, speaking their own languages. You know what’s different?” he asks. “In the old days we would all be speaking Latin.”
He wants to go back to the way things were and in times of uncertainty and don’t we all do that? There is always a desire to go back to the way things were before life got so confusing.
This is exactly where we find Peter and the other disciples. Some of them return to doing exactly the same thing they were doing before this Jesus guy came along and upended their regular, you can count upon it, everyday lifestyles.
“I’m going fishing,” Peter says and some of his friends go with him.
It sounds like a failed business venture. As the partners shut down their computers for the last time, they say to one another, “It was great while it lasted. We gave it our best shot. There’s nothing left to do but try to get our old jobs back.” But Peter’s effort to get back to his old job went from bad to worse. He and his friends spent the night fishing and caught nothing. Now he was a double failure; he had muffed it both as a disciple and as a fisherman.2
It is important to remember that one time in the not-too-distant past Peter was all bluster and bravado bragging on himself: “Even if everyone else deserts you, I will never desert you.”
Jesus replied, “I tell you the truth, Peter—this very night, before the rooster crows, you will deny three times that you even know me.”
“No!” Peter insisted. “Even if I have to die with you, I will never deny you!”3
Then he left the upper room and did just that. Not once, not twice, but three times this bellicose disciple denied ever knowing Jesus.
Brokenness and disappointment must have permeated the morning mist as the disciples peered over the side of their boat, gazed into their nets, and saw that they had come up empty. Their lives were falling apart.
It’s that way for us too. It comes in those moments when we have tried to make things better and have come up empty. When even “going fishing” doesn’t seem to be working and we may be tempted to ask ourselves who was I to believe that anything could change? Who was I to think I could make a difference? Who was I to think that it would be different this time?” When we begin to think that failure will be permanent and that it will never get any better than this, we scare ourselves stuck.4
It is then that Jesus appears to them but only as a figure on the beach. I think they didn’t recognize him because they were stuck, still staring at their empty nets and thinking about what failures they were. It is only when they wiped the sorrow from their eyes and looked up could they hear him say, in one of my favourite paraphrases: “Any fish, boys?”5
Then in almost a minute by minute, word for word, recreation of their original call in Saint Luke’s Gospel Jesus suggests that instead of being stuck they try another strategy. He merely suggests that they might be fishing in the wrong spot. He suggests that they move their nets to another spot and, wonder of wonders, they do!
Some people I know who love fishing tell me that this may be Jesus’ biggest post-resurrection miracle. Based on the premise that “you can always tell a fisherman, but you can’t tell them much” they contend that getting the disciples to listen and take his advice to move their nets was a huge miracle. To get seasoned fisherman to admit that they might have been wrong about anything and give into someone else’s idea is big stuff indeed.
When they do as their told and their nets are almost breaking someone calls out, “It is the Lord.” Pandemonium ensues as the weight of all the fish in the nets almost causes them to break. Peter is leaping through the water and the disciples are dragging their catch ashore.
If John’s account is to be believed, Peter still has things exactly backwards for he tells us. “When Simon Peter heard that it was the Lord, he put on his outer garment, for he had taken it off, and jumped into the sea.” 6
Anybody who has taken Red Cross lifesaving course knows that you don’t put on clothes before you dive into the water, you take your clothes off. As many as possible as quickly as possible so as not to be weighed down. It’s a good thing that Peter wasn’t trying to save Jesus but Jesus was saving him.
I love the scene. Jesus making breakfast. Commercials tell us that breakfast is the most important meal of the day but for the disciples, with Jesus as head chef, this was the most important meal of their lives.
The other disciples fade into the background as our focus is dawn to the conversation between Peter and Jesus.
What Jesus does not say to Peter is as important as what he does say. It would have been natural for him to refer to Peter’s spectacular failure, to ask for an apology, or at least to refer to the denial. I don’t think I could have resisted doing that. 7
Jesus only asks Peter if he loves him. Three times Jesus asks and three times Peter answers growing more and more exasperated each time until he finally responds. “Lord, you know everything; you know that I love you.”8
Three questions. Three answers. Three commissions. All still relevant.
I am sure it was no accident that Pope Francis chose this text from the gospels to serve as theme for the homily to be delivered at his funeral.
“We are enlightened and guided by this passage of the Gospel,” said Cardinal Giovanni Battista at the Holy Father’s funeral mass. ‘Feed my sheep’ will be the constant task of Peter and his successors, a service of love in the footsteps of Christ, our master and lord, who “came not to be served but to serve.”9
The risen Christ does not say to them on the beach that morning (or us this morning!) “I’m Jesus, raised from the dead.” He says, “I’m Jesus raised from the dead who has work for you to do.” He tells them to feed the ones for whom he cares.”10
Sometimes we forget that as did the Cardinals in the movie until they are reminded by the one Cardinal who may have been considered to be the least important in their midst.
Archbishop Vincent Benitez of Kabul, whom the pope named cardinal in pectore (literally “in the heart”) the previous year to keep his position unknown and him safe while he tended the small Christian community in Afghanistan. Benitez has served in some of the toughest outposts in Christendom earning his “red hat” in ways the other Cardinals could never imagine.
He watches the others try to out manoeuver each other in the pursuit of power and prestige. He watches them taking sides – traditionalist versus progressive. He watches them show concern for only themselves and their well-being and points out that they are speaking for only their side “instead of speaking for every man and woman.” entrusted to their care.
He concludes his little speech with what I think is exactly what Jesus was talking about when he charged his disciples with the task of feeding and caring for his sheep.
Benitez says: “The church is not tradition. The church is not the past. The church is what we do next.”
In times of transition we might want to look to the past. We may want to go back to a safe space. But, I think Cardinal Benitez is right. “The church is not tradition. The church is not the past. The church is what we do next.”
So as for me, I’m just going to follow Jesus, love Jesus, and trust Jesus for whatever is next.
_______________
1. Geoff Bennett and Jackson Hudgins, “‘Conclave’ Author Robert Harris on the Secretive Tradition of Selecting a New Pope,” PBS NewsHour, May 1, 2025, https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/conclave-author-robert-harris-on-the-secretive-tradition-of-selecting-a-new-pope.
2. James A Harnish, “Peter’s Familiar Story: John 21:1-19,” The Christian Century, April 6, 2010, https://www.christiancentury.org/article/2010-04/peters-familiar-story?
3. St. Matthew 26:33–35. (NLT) [NLT=The New Living Translation. (Carol Stream, IL:Tyndale House Publishers, 2015)
4.. Michael Bos. "Where Do I Go from Here?" Sermon, Sunday Morning Worship, Marble Collegiate Church, New York, New York, April 28, 2019.
5. Saint John 21:5. (TLB) [TLB=The Living Bible. (Carol Stream, IL:Tyndale House Publishers, 1971)]
6. St. John 21:7. (NRSV) [NRSV=The New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition]
7. John Buchanan, “Windblown,” The Christian Century, April 2, 2006, https://www.christiancentury.org/article/2006-05/windblown
8. St. John 21:17. (NRSV)
9. Cardinal Giovanni Battista, “Funeral Mass of Pope Francis: Homily by Cardinal Giovanni Battista ,” Catholic News Agency, April 26, 2025, https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/263695/pope-francis-funeral-full-text-of-homily-by-cardinal-re.
10. William H. Willimon, “With Jesus after Easter,” Pulpit Resource, Year C, 32, no. 2 (April 1, 2024): 21–24.
No comments:
Post a Comment