April 26, 2020 (pandemic)
Luke 24:13-35
INTRODUCTION
Today’s readings are a nice follow-up to last week’s readings. First, our lesson from Acts is, in fact, the conclusion of Peter’s sermon of which we heard the beginning last week. Peter, it turns out, the guy who is too quick to speak and frequently puts his foot in his mouth (I really relate to Peter in this way!), is quite a persuasive orator. As a result of his powerful Pentecost sermon, 3000 people are baptized. Woosh!
And our Gospel reading offers us another story about what happened on that first night after the resurrection. Remember last week, we heard John’s version of what happened, that Jesus appeared to the fearful disciples in the locked upper room and breathed his Holy Spirit on them and gave them his peace. Luke tells a different story, about Jesus appearing to two disciples (apart from the 12) as they walk the road to the nearby town of Emmaus. It’s a very different sort of appearance from John’s, but has some very wonderful things to speak to us in these times, not the least of which is the disciples’ observation that their hearts “burned within them” as Jesus opened the scriptures to them. So, as you listen, notice where Christ is warming your heart this day. What stirs you? What is speaking to you in a way you need to hear? Let’s listen.
[READ]
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and our Risen Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.
I love the Road to Emmaus story. I can never remember which year is shows up in the lectionary, and so I am always pleasantly surprised when I see it. “Ah! Yay!” I think. “This story preaches itself. Love this one.” But this year when I read it, it’s like cringe after cringe. Two people walking together and a stranger joins them. Nope, that can’t happen. Traveling to a different town – that’s a no-no. Staying in a hotel? I don’t think so. And finally, the real clincher, Jesus is finally made known to them in the breaking of bread. In a time when we cannot share in the Holy Supper, this feels like a real gut punch. In my previous call, we only had communion every other week, but if this text happened to fall on a week we didn’t have communion, I insisted we break the pattern and have it anyway – how can you hear this story and then not have communion? It’s where Christ is made known to us, in the breaking of bread!
Ah, well, those were different times, huh? But as has happened so many times during this pandemic, the different circumstances and the lack of so much of what is familiar has required that we not try to fit whatever shaped peg this is into a round hole, but rather, change the way we look at things entirely. And in doing that, I have consistently found, well, new life. New insights. Different perspectives and deeper understanding. And this story is no different. So here are some important things I notice in this story, that I think can be useful to us in this time.
First, that Jesus invites them to voice their sadness, to tell their story. I talked a bit about this in my Facebook Live post on Wednesday, so I won’t elaborate much on this one, but just to say this: there is healing to be found in telling our story of pain. Doesn’t it seem strange that Jesus asks them what they’re talking about, and when they mention “these things” that happened – happened to Jesus, the guy they are (unknowingly) talking to! – Jesus doesn’t just jump in and say, “Oh, dude, no worries! It’s me! I’m here, and I’m alive! Forget about it!” Instead, he invites them to go ahead and tell the story he already knows all too well: “What things?” he says. Because he knows the importance of voicing your pain, your fear, your unmet hopes, your grief, your loss. “But we had hoped he was the one,” they say. And Jesus doesn’t stop them from telling it – instead, he meets them, and walks with them, in that pain.
The next thing I notice anew this time around, is how long the disciples walk and talk to this guy, Jesus himself, without recognizing that it is him. Oh man, do I resonate with this one! How many God sightings do I completely miss on any given day, in any given hour! Maybe it is because I am looking at my phone, or tending to my kids. Or maybe it is like with these two disciples, that I miss it because I just have too much on my mind. I’m preoccupied with my grief, or my anxiety, or my uncertainty about the future, and I miss that Jesus is walking right beside me the whole time.
A part of my bedtime routine with my kids is to do FAITH5 – you may remember this from Lent last year. FAITH5 is a short devotion you can do with your family or a friend, where you first share highs and lows from your day, then read something from the Bible, then talk about how that scripture speaks to your highs and lows, then pray for each other (thanking God for the highs and asking God’s presence in the lows), and then bless each other. I sheepishly admit that normally, we skip the Bible part of this. Our bedtime routine has gotten so long, something had to go. Well this week, I put it back in, deciding that all week we would focus on that verse from last week’s Gospel about Jesus saying, “Peace be with you” to the fearful disciples, three times. So each night, I asked them, “How do Jesus’ words, ‘Peace be with you,’ speak to your highs and lows?” I’ve been amazed how my 3 and 4yo seemed to grasp this. They seemed to really get how Jesus might have been right with them in their lows, how they needed some Jesus peace during that frustrating episode in their day. Sure enough, through this simple exercise, those moment when we were intentionally aware and looking, we all saw clearly in hindsight how Jesus was walking right beside us in the highs and the lows of our day.
And that, finally, leads me to the last thing I notice: that although yes, Christ is finally made known to them in the breaking of bread, the disciples immediately recognize that this is not, actually, the first time they realized it was Jesus. They just hadn’t been equipped to name it that way before. Now in hindsight they recognize, “Wait, were not our hearts burning within us… while he was opening the scriptures to us?” It is so easy for us (it is for me, anyway) to grieve that we cannot take communion right now as we worship virtually, and that even when we come back together, communion can only be administered and received with an abundance of caution. I’m tempted to get stuck there, on the part of the journey where I do not notice Jesus right beside me. But the disciples’ realization at that moment of bread-breaking is to our benefit: “Were not our hearts burning within us, did we not know something amazing was happening, as we found ourselves immersed in the holy Word?”
And is this not the case also for us?
You see, communion is not the only means of grace, not the only way by which Christ becomes present and known to us. Christ becomes known to us in baptism, for which we gave thanks this morning, and will do each week throughout the Easter season. Christ becomes known to us in our study of scripture, when we read it and look for the ways it speaks to us in our highs and our lows each day, when we notice that it may even speak to us differently today from yesterday from tomorrow, depending on how, exactly, we need God to be present for us at any given moment. And you know, Christ is, still, revealed to us in the breaking of bread – any bread, not just the communion bread. As my family prays at mealtimes, “Come, Lord Jesus, be our guest.” Come to our table every day, for every meal, not just in the one holy meal. Give us daily bread, indeed be our daily bread every day, providing us with just exactly what we need for sustenance, from one fuzzy, nondescript day to the next. Be revealed to us in the breaking of bread.
I dearly look forward, my friends, to the time when we will share in that holy meal once again. Until that time, I pray that Christ will be made known to you in the abundance of ways that God can and does: in water, in word, in whatever community you can find, in daily bread. Come, Lord Jesus, be our guest, and let all these gifts to us be blest.
Let us pray… Christ on the roadway, you walk with us in our grief and loss, in our highs and our lows. Open our eyes to see you. Open our hearts to know you. Open our ears to hear your words of grace, so that we would know we are never without you. In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.
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