Stuffed Quahogs
John 21:1-17
Rev. Dr. Deborah L. Clark
April 16, 2017
Stuffed Quahogs? I’m not sure I’d ever had them before. I am sure I had never had them at a reception following a Memorial Service. But there they were on the long buffet table in Edwards Hall after Paul Tocci’s Memorial Service—two giant aluminum pans filled with large clam-like shells, each stuffed to the brim with an intriguing breaded mix. I didn’t actually know what they were.
Curious, I took one and then filled my plate with more typical reception fare—cheese, fruit and finger sandwiches. I ate in reverse order—all the familiar foods first, finally pulling my plastic fork out of my pocket and dipping gingerly into the stuffing. It was tasty.
I maneuvered my way through the crowds, back to the table for another. Jimmy, Paul’s brother, was standing nearby. “These are delicious,” I said. “What are they?”
“Stuffed Quahogs,” he answered with pride. “I dug them myself.”
“You dug them yourself?” It was that bitter cold weekend in March. I couldn’t imagine being out on the beach.
“Yeah,” he replied. “Paul loved quahogs. He and I used to go out and dig them whenever he’d come down to the cape. And he loved them stuffed. So I decided to make them for today.” He paused. “I knew he would like that.”
“Wasn’t it awfully cold out on the beach?”
“It was,” he admitted. Then his face brightened. “Pastor, I have to tell you what happened.”
“What?” I was intrigued.
“Well, first of all, I had been out there for more than an hour and I was getting nothing. I’ve done this hundreds of times and I’ve always gotten plenty. The wind was howling; it was really cold on the beach. And I really wanted to make the stuffed quahogs for Paul.
“Finally, I looked up at the sky, at the sun, and I said, ‘Lord, I know you’re there and I know Paul is there with you. Please can you help me?”
And then he looked back down. He pulled the rake through the sand and unearthed six quahogs. He pulled it again, and again and again. Before long, he had a half-bushel of quahogs. He went home and went to work, this time in the kitchen. He brought over 200 stuffed quahogs to the reception to honor his brother. It was his labor of love.
As Jimmy talked, I thought of today’s gospel story. The smell of the sea, the grief, the desperate feeling of failing, the surprise, and finally, the feast.
Later in the reception, I circled back around to Jimmy. I thanked him for sharing his story with me. And then I said, “You know, there’s a Bible story that’s a lot like what you just told me.”
He didn’t know, but when I started to talk about the fishing and Peter’s leaping into the water and the bonfire on the beach, his eyes lit up in recognition. He could hear his own story in the biblical story. He could claim the holiness of his experience in a new way.
When I called Jimmy last week to ask for permission to talk about his experience, it was clear he had been thinking about the connections between the quahogs and the biblical story. He had powerful insights into their meaning.
Jimmy’s afternoon on the beach offered him confirmation of what he already believed: his brother Paul is with God. Paul is alive and with us, although in a different way than we might wish. Death could not destroy the bond between brothers who loved each other.
The assurance that there is life after death is like the tip of an iceberg—a truth that invites us into an even deeper truth. Easter is not just about what happens when we die; it is about what give us meaning while we live. It is about the eternal, all-encompassing power of love.
It was love that led Jimmy to want to make stuffed quahogs to honor his brother. It was love that kept him out there raking when common sense said it was time to give up. It was, inexplicably and even miraculously, some weaving together of Paul’s love for his brother and God’s love for all God’s beloved that responded when Jimmy called out for help.
It was love—God’s love made known in human love—that inspired Jesus’ ministry of healing and gathering outcasts and proclaiming hope. It was love that gave him strength to face the cross, love that brought the women to the tomb to anoint Jesus’ body. It was the power of love at work in the resurrection—love that could not be destroyed, not even by betrayal and hatred, suffering and death.
What the disciples experienced on that boat and on that beach by the Sea of Galilee was the power of love—love calling them out of despair, love feeding them with bread and fish, hope and community. What Jimmy experienced on that cold, windy beach in Mashpee was the power of love—love calling him from his grief, love feeding him with quahogs and comfort. God’s love is more powerful than loss, despair and death.
In our phone call, Jimmy shared another insight about his experience. “I had gotten all caught up in trying to get those quahogs,” he admitted. “I was all stressed out.” He wanted desperately to do something—to create something good and meaningful in the face of this terrible loss. He was trying as hard as he possibly could. Finally, he said, “I just let go. And that is when it happened.”
What actually happened? Did God magically manifest quahogs where none had been before? Did God guide Jimmy’s rake to where the quahogs were already present? Or somehow in the letting go, was Jimmy blessed with a fresh perspective, a broader vision that opened him to a new approach to the quahogs?
I don’t know the answer to those questions. It is tempting to take Jimmy’s story as evidence that, if we pray hard enough, God will give us whatever we ask–whether it is quahogs or something else. If that was the case, Jimmy would not have been digging for quahogs for his brother’s memorial service; he would have been digging for quahogs with his brother.
I invite you to resist that temptation. Instead hear this as a story about how we are partners with God in God’s promise of new life. We try to do it ourselves–raking and raking until the wind chills us to the bone. Hard as we try, we cannot bring hope into being solely through our own effort. God is the source of life and new life. We need God—to guide our rakes, to help us shift our perspective, to pull us out of despair.
“How many times,” Jimmy mused in our phone call, “do you look up into the sun like that?” It’s a good question. We can’t spend our lives gazing up at the sky, or we would never accomplish anything. Too often, though, we become so focused searching for the elusive quahogs hiding in the sand that we don’t look up at all. To be part of the Easter story, to be part of God’s gift of new life, we need to look up—to acknowledge our need, to ask for God’s help, to seek a presence beyond ourselves, to pray for perspective. When we dare let go, we open ourselves to God’s gift of new life.
The story doesn’t end there. It continues, for Jimmy, in the kitchen. After the amazing miracle of finding the quahogs, because of the wondrous gift of grace he had received, Jimmy had a lot of work to do. I can’t imagine how many hours he spent in that kitchen–shucking the quahogs, tearing up the bread, mixing what I imagine were massive amounts of stuffing to put into hundreds of shells.
The gospel story continues on the beach, after breakfast is over. Do you love me? Jesus asks Peter three times. Three times Peter answers yes. Three times Jesus replies with some version of “Feed my sheep.”
The story doesn’t end with the miracle of the quahogs or the overflowing fishnet. The story doesn’t end with Christ’s resurrection, with the triumph of God’s love. That is just the beginning. The story continues in the kitchen making stuffed quahogs, out in the field feeding the sheep.
The rest of the Easter story is our response. The story continues at the store as we buy underwear for Worcester Fellowship. It continues in the mosaic-making room, as we create a multi-faith expression of beauty and welcome. It continues on the street corner where we hold signs, on the phone as we check in with a neighbor, at the computer as we write a letter to the editor, in the garden and in our Sunday School classrooms and in our homes.
Giant pans of stuffed quahogs. A breakfast of bread and fish and challenge on the beach. Hope is alive! Christ is risen!
God’s love is more powerful than loss, despair and even death. We open ourselves to God’s gift of new life when we dare to let go, when we remember to look up. The Easter story is still being written; the next chapter is your response. Alleluia! Amen.