This month marks the two year anniversary of the 2018 brutal crackdown against nationwide anti-government protests in Nicaragua.  Since 2018, thousands of people have fled Nicaragua, and now, along with other Central American countries, Nicaragua is facing the global coronavirus pandemic. 

Several years ago, prior to the 2018 violent crackdown, while on an immersion trip with Cantera in Nicaragua, I distinctly remember one particular day, when we were visiting the Mateare municipality of Managua.   Like many areas in Nicaragua, Mateare faces the challenge of sustaining food production resulting in part from droughts and disasters such as earthquakes.  At the youth center in Mateare, I was stuck by the joyful creativity, humble hospitality and authentic vitality of this vulnerable community.  After visiting with the youth and adults at the center, we all had the opportunity to walk through the Mateare municipality itself.  Led by the youth, we strolled through the community getting a rather intimate glimpse of the homes and lives of the people, as we headed down to the shores of Lake Managua.

I remember being told that fishing out of the lake carried a risk factor due to the contamination by pollution.  I also recall hearing that this risk is overlooked by many, since the fish from the lake provided some assistance to the scarcity of food in the area.  As we stood on the shore of the quite beautiful lake, there were young men drumming on a great sounding instrument that echoed in the air around us.  I wondered if the drumming was enjoyment, frustration, sorrow, joy, or perhaps all of these combined.  It struck me as beautiful, yet haunting.

In John’s Gospel (JN 21: 1-14), we have the description of what must have been a type of déjà vu experience for the disciples.  Just as when many of them received their first calling from Jesus while fishing, the disciples are gathered again, this time at the Sea of Tiberias.  Peter, Thomas, Zebedees sons, and several others decide to go fishing.  As in the earlier episode when they were first called by Jesus, here again they caught nothing all night while on the boat fishing.

“When it was already dawn, Jesus was standing on the shore; but the disciples did not realize it was Jesus.”

The story continues with Jesus, still unrecognized by the disciples, instructing them to cast their nets on the right side of the boat so that they would find something.  Of course, when they follow these instructions, they catch so many fish that they are initially unable to pull the fish in to the shore.  However, when they recognize that it is Jesus on the shore, they all jump in the water and the sheer excitement at seeing Jesus allows them to pull the almost breaking net full of fish onto the shore. 

Once they get to the shore, they see that Jesus has prepared a charcoal fire upon which he is cooking fish and bread.  Then he says to them bring some of the fish you just caught.  After they get some of the fish from the overwhelming abundant catch and combine these fish with the ones Jesus has already been cooking on the shore, they have breakfast together.

Although the fishing theme from the first call to discipleship is reprised here in this story, it strikes me more how in this story, Jesus already has some food for them, on the shore, yet tells them to come and bring some of the fish that they just caught to combine with the ones that he is already preparing.  What could this being saying about scarcity and the possibility for abundance, and even more importantly, how abundance materializes?

Again, it appears that the confusion and fright concerning the death of Jesus and the empty tomb has driven the disciples back into old ways of operation – fishing for life on a sea of uncertainty.  They left the shoreline of  the still unclear Easter newness, and return to emptiness characterized by scarcity and the inability to catch something. The brink of uncertain newness always seems to manifest confusion, feelings of isolation and even emptiness?  The question that arises is how do we respond or address this sense of being on the brink of something strange, uncertain and fearful?

We talk sometimes about people on the margins of our societies, cultures, and world.  Sometimes we do so with contempt and sometimes perhaps with questioning compassion.  But what is a margin?  And WHO exactly is on or in the margins?  Do margins simply demarcate distinctions in landscape, economy, and culture?  If so, they always run the risk of growing fences or walls of exclusion – socially, politically, religiously, quite literally!  In this marginalization, there is an exclusion for those on BOTH (or all) sides of the barrier whether realized or not! 

What if we look at a margin more like a shoreline, which does delineate where the sea ends and the land begins, but in a way that holds them in distinction through their relationship to each other – without contempt or exclusion.   Could the shoreline or shore be a place of recognition and appreciation –  the recognition of the power of connection to overcome scarcity and the appreciation of abundance as flowing from interacting with this inter-connectivity?  This is the combined meal on the beach provided by Jesus and the disciples.  Your fish and my fish… what you have caught to bring along with what I have to bring! 

This type of breakfast wherein we break the fast of scarcity by engaging abundance is living in our world today.  In the midst of the sickness, death and isolation related to the pandemic, people are finding ways to support one another in so many different ways: making masks to share, providing meals to the first responders and frontline medical persons treating the sick, and so many other ways yet to surface.  In a way, this pandemic has brought us all to the same shore of humanity.  And yet there is always the choice – the illusion of scarcity or the promise of abundance.  Will we fully participate in Easter Breakfast on the same shore?  If so, how?

Cantera Stone is a quarried, volcanic rock with properties that are unique and offer color, texture, durability, and a softness that allows for detailed carving and cutting. Cantera comes in a myriad of natural colors and tones, and its texture is truly beautiful. It sports unique inclusions and color flecks, making its authenticity easy to see, and gives a natural, eternal feel. Cantera is durable, and has stood for centuries in many cathedrals, haciendas and other buildings throughout Latin America.

Peace

Thomas

(written April 9, 2016)