Easter 3A
April 30, 2017
Luke 24:13-35
Christ is risen! He is risen indeed! Grace to you and
peace from God our Father and our Risen Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen.
This week on
NPR I heard about a new program here in Rochester called “ROCovery Fitness.”
They describe themselves this way: “ROCovery Fitness is a supportive community
of physically active individuals brought together by sober living, committed to
creating an environment of healing recovery. Members, friends, and families are
empowered to discover their inner strength and confidence through adventure,
fun, and camaraderie.” Pretty cool approach to recovery from substance abuse.
Tomorrow is their ribbon-cutting ceremony. The part of the show I caught, as I
drove from one appointment to another, was the part where the two people
describing and pitching the program were sharing their own recovery stories. They
talked about how, while the physical activity is certainly a part of the
healing process, perhaps the larger part of the healing is that these
activities take place among a community that allows the space to share their
stories with one another. Telling and claiming your story, they said, is in
fact an essential component on the road to recovery.
This
shouldn’t be news to us – after all, that is the premise of such familiar groups
as AA, as well. The healing and recovery process of that program, too, is based
on sharing and claiming stories. Once you have claimed a story – especially the
most difficult stories of our lives, those stories you may rather just stuff,
deep into a hole and never face again – once you’ve claimed it, it no longer
has a grip on you.
Addiction/recovery
stories are certainly like this. But lots of other experiences are that way, as
well: in particular, our grief stories. Grief can come into our lives in any
number of ways, even beyond the death of a loved one. The loss of a job – even
a positive loss like retirement – could mean a part of your identity is gone,
or at least that it is expressed differently. The loss of a faculty such as
sight or hearing or other physical capabilities means you function in the world
differently, and maybe miss out on things you used to love. The loss of your
driver’s license means the loss of your independence. The loss of a meaningful
relationship – to divorce, or relocation, or just a different direction in life
– means the loss of companionship. Really, any sort of change can result in
grief, because any time something changes, you have lost something, even
something that was important to you.
One of the
most frequently occurring sorts of grief comes in the form of unmet
expectations. You have every hope and expectation that something will go a certain
way and then WOOP – the rug is pulled out from under you, and everything you
thought you knew is no longer the case. This sort of grief is well captured in
those words of the disciples on the road to Emmaus: “we had hoped.” I have
heard people say that these are the three saddest words in the Bible. “We had
hoped…” but our hopes were shattered. We had hoped Jesus would be the one to
redeem Israel. We had hoped our prayers would be answered. We had hoped our
waiting was over. It might as well also be, “We had hoped our son would come
home.” “We had hoped the doctors could save her.” “We had hoped the new job
would work out.” “We had hoped we could save our marriage.” We had hoped. True
sorrow. True grief – so great, in fact, that, just like Mary Magdalene in the
garden earlier that morning, they don’t even recognize their dear friend and
teacher when he comes to walk beside them.
This is
where the healing power of story-telling comes in. How straightforward it would
have been for Jesus to say, “Ta-da! Guys, I’m Jesus! You thought I was dead,
and I’m not! Fooled you!” But while this would have effectively communicated
the truth, it would not have addressed their pain and grief, and would not have
brought healing. So instead, Jesus invites them to share their story: “What
things?” he asks. What is it that has made you so sad? What is troubling you?
And Cleopas and his friend tell their story – about their heartache over Jesus’
death, and their dashed hopes about who Jesus would be for Israel, and for
them, and their confusion about the women’s story from that morning.
And in naming and claiming their
grief, the healing can begin.
 |
| Christ and his disciples on the road to Emmaus, Jan Wildens http://diglib.library.vanderbilt.edu/act-imagelink.pl?RC=55031 |
Theirs isn’t
the only story told in this text, of course. In response to their story, Jesus
also shares his – that is, the story of salvation history – as he talks to them
on the road and he opens to them the scriptures. And finally, he reenacts the
story that would reveal to them exactly who he is, as he takes bread, gives
thanks, breaks it, and gives it to them to eat. As they recall the last time
this happened – on the night in which he was betrayed, when he took bread,
broke it, and told them, “This is my body, given for you,” – they realize that
what they had dubbed an “idle tale” from the women at the tomb was actually the
truth: Jesus was alive. He was alive, and he was still their companion, still
healing them, still opening to them the scriptures, still warming their hearts
with his divine wisdom, still giving himself for them.
They had not
seen him when they still walked in their grief. All that way, he walked with
them to Emmaus, and they had not recognized him. They were too absorbed in
their own sense of loss. That’s how it is, isn’t it, when we are grieving – we
cannot see the forest for the trees, we cannot notice things right before us,
we can only see our pain. Even when God is right there beside us, as a
companion offering us a safe space for telling our story and finding healing,
we are kept from recognizing him because of our grief.
And yet, God
is there. As difficult as it can be in the moment of heartbreaking loss, even
as impossible as it may be to find God within those devastating words, “We had
hoped…” – God is there, drawing us
out, healing us, asking us, “What things… are on your heart? What things… are
troubling you? What things… are holding you back from enjoying the new life I
have promised, indeed that I have given?”
God is
there, a companion on whatever journey we face. God is made known to us along
our way in the reading and study of Scripture. God is made known to us in the
breaking of bread, when we come forward to receive this sacrament and hear once
again the story of salvation, and those words, “Given for you.”
And God is continually made known to
us whenever we share our story, and whenever we look back over that story to
see where and how God acted within it. As we share our stories, may we also
learn to see how God used that experience to guide us out of our grief and
toward transformation and new life.
Let us pray… Companion God, when we are lost in our grief, we don’t always recognize
you walking beside us. As you draw us out to share our stories and open our
aching hearts, open also our eyes to recognize you in the Word, in the breaking
of bread, and all along our way. In the name of the Father and the Son and the
Holy Spirit. Amen.
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