Delivered on Sunday 21 May 2006 in St George's Chapel, Windsor

Ezekiel 47:1-12 and John 21:1-19

They say, "There's a fine line between fishing and standing around on the shore like an idiot". I agree with them. Every summer holiday I follow a finely honed routine. Rising early on the first morning I sit outside with an array of lines, beads, hooks, spoons, feathers and leads and make up traces for the afternoon. When the boys start fighting I pack them into the car and we go off in search of bait; finding ragworm is nearly as hard as finding fish, so we typically take the lazy way out and buy some at a small village several miles away. Then, finally, with a car heaving under the weight of rods, boots and all kinds of paraphernalia, we set off. The girls are pleased to see us go. Long since, they learned: "Give a man a fish and he eats for a day. Teach him how to fish and you get rid of him for the weekend." So off we go. On arrival at last year's successful stretch of beach we unload the car. The rain will inevitably begin to fall and, as sure as eggs are eggs, a sea breeze will slowly turn into a gale, making it practically impossible to cast out more than a few yards. But there we will stand, hour after hour; the boys will be convinced that every tidal motion is the sign of an enormous cod. I will run around in a demented state trying to keep three rods in play, without losing either one of the rods or one of the children to the fast incoming tide. And we will catch nothing. Nonetheless, come this year's summer holiday we will follow the same routine. And if things follow their normal course, there will be an afternoon when we three intrepid hunters will arrive back to the house with a catch - a single plaice that will have to be ritually eaten with great pride, after which a proper meal will have to be prepared. That plaice, I reckon, will have cost in excess of £20. They are right, there's a fine line...

Now, given that Peter and his friends had been fishing all night, he too must have been wondering about the fine line. But that story had a different - if not slightly curious - ending. Following Jesus instruction to cast out the other side of the boat, the disciples had made a great haul of fish. And here the text is very exact. If this catch had been made off the Irish shores we would simply recorded that there were hundreds of fish, but no, this text is very precise: "Simon Peter went aboard and hauled the net ashore, full of large fish, a hundred and fifty-three of them". Why is the number so precise? After all this is the record of John and we have to realise that John doesn't tell you things unless there's a reason. There's a reason why this catch is one hundred and fifty-three fish, but what is it? Jerome in his commentary on Ezekiel reckoned that one hundred and fifty-three was the number of species of fish recorded by various Greek zoologists. His friend Augustine, sharp as ever, saw that one hundred and fifty-three is the sum of all consecutive digits from one to seventeen. And seventeen is important because, in itself, it is the sum of ten and seven, two of the most important numbers in ancient Judaism. By taking this line of investigation we can credit Augustine with the inauguration of what we now call gematria, a study of the way numbers were used as a code. In the ancient world gematria was a common pastime. In Pompeii you can still read that wonderful piece of graffiti: 'I love the girl whose name is 545'. In the bible the most famous example is 666 which just might be Nero Caesar written in Hebrew letters and converted into numbers. If we pursue this kind of investigation then it is possible - just possible - that one hundred and fifty-three refers to the passage we heard from Ezekiel. There we heard that in the new age 'people will stand fishing beside the sea from En-gedi to En-eglaim; and - believe it or not - if you convert the Hebrew letters of En-gedi to numbers they become seventeen and those of En-eglaim they become one hundred and fifty-three.

But what should we make of all this? In my view these are all speculative answers to a definite question. The number one hundred and fifty-three certainly does have a meaning but we cannot be exactly sure what it is. We can, perhaps, satisfy ourselves with a more general answer: the catch of fish represents the breadth, maybe even the universality, of the Christian mission. There is something here, then, about the vastness of the Christian project. To learn more we are going to have to move from fish to sheep.

After the resurrected Jesus had broken the bread and fish and given it to the disciples he began a conversation with Peter. 'Simon', he asked, 'do you love me more than these?' Peter replied, 'Yes, Lord; you know that I love you'. Jesus said, 'Feed my lambs'. Then he asked him the same question again. Peter again answered and Jesus said, 'Feed my sheep'. And a third time Peter was asked the very same question, and again Peter answered 'you know that I love you'; and Jesus said 'Feed my sheep'. Three times the one who had described himself as the good shepherd instructs Peter: 'Feed my sheep'.

These accounts of fish and sheep belong together. That's important because John often has a different way of telling a story; he often takes a different angle, or emphasizes something different to the other gospel writers. In Luke's gospel for example after the great catch of fish Peter is told 'From now on you will be catching people'. In other words, Luke emphasizes the Church's mission to all people to the ends of the earth. And given our own little investigation of the catch of one hundred and fifty-three fish in John, we might be tempted to follow Luke's line. But the emphasis in John is different. Jesus clearly instructs Peter to 'Feed my sheep'. The vastness of the Church may indeed be represented by the catch of fish but throughout John's account the point of central importance is the unity of the Church, held together by each individual's intimate relationship to the good shepherd himself. The emphasis is not on mission to the ends of the earth but caring for, feeding the members of the Church, as it spreads universally across the earth.

But there is also another 'emphasis' difference to attend to: in Matthew's gospel Jesus hands Peter the keys of the Kingdom and once again we might be tempted to follow the thought that Peter has a very special place in John's gospel also. We might be tempted to see Peter as a model for official Church leadership and therefore to think that all this business of feeding the Church is the responsibility of priests and bishops. But we would be wrong to do so. In John's gospel there is nothing about Church structure or governance; on all that kind of thing, unlike Paul's letters, it is strangely silent. For in John the Church is the community of Jesus' friends. They know him because he has revealed to them everything he heard from the Father; they continue the work and mission of Jesus; the world is as hostile to them as it was to him. It could be said, then, that the whole body of the disciples symbolizes the church but if one disciple stands out from all the others - it is not Peter - it is beloved disciple. It is he who sits next to Jesus at the Last Supper; it is he to whom Jesus entrusts his own mother; it is he who first believes upon seeing the empty tomb. He gets the point long before the other disciples. He is miles ahead of Peter. And it is he who is the model of the future disciple which is why he bears no name. Disciples like him, are loved by Jesus, they are the church. John's account is therefore more personal, more direct, more intimate.

Having waded through all those fish and sheep it comes down to this, on the last Sunday of Easter. The resurrected Lord is speaking to you, the contemporary disciple: 'Do you love me?'; 'Feed my sheep'; 'Follow me'.