The Journey of Hope: Sermon for the Third Sunday in Easter A

The metaphor of “journey” is an important theme in Luke’s writings, and here we see the story of another journey. Our story today takes place on Easter Sunday. Two of the disciples—only one, Cleopas, is named-- were walking along a road, when suddenly a stranger begins to walk alongside them. It could be that this Cleopas is the Cleopas mentioned in the gospel of John (19:25). Some scholars interpret the pair to be Cleopas and his wife Mary. 

Typically, when I think about the Emmaus story, my attention gets attracted to the Eucharistic overtones: that Jesus suddenly is recognized by the disciples when he blesses, breaks, and shares the bread. But this year, as we are separated from each other, as we have been fasting together from Eucharist since March 15, that’s not what draws my attention. 

Instead, this year, what jumps out at me is one of the most honest, heart-breaking statements right there in the middle of the story—a throwaway line that we may have skipped over dozens of times. As Cleopas and Mary explain to this stranger who begins walking alongside them, seemingly unaware of what has transpired just three days before in Jerusalem, they admit “We had hoped” that Jesus would be the obvious solution to all their problems.

That idea of hopes seemingly being broken certainly resonates with me right now—and probably with many of us. We had certainly never thought, when this year began, that we would be living the life we are right now—one filled with wariness, and anxiety, and fear of illness. Just like those disciples, the journey we are taking right now is NOT the journey we had hoped to be taking. Some journeys are physical, and yet others are spiritual.

Physical journeys are often just about the destination; but spiritual journeys, or pilgrimages, are about the process of growth and movement, about walking with Jesus and being transformed, heart and soul. Some pilgrimages don’t even require us to leave home at all but instead to welcome the stranger. I was reminded of one such journey a few days ago, as I couldn’t sleep and was watching a movie that I hadn’t watched in a long time. 

In the film fable Chocolat, the people of a small, conservative village in France claim that they treasure “tranquility” – yet it is a tranquility that comes by rigidly enforcing predictability and conformity, a false “peace” that attempts to shun anyone who is different or an outsider.

One windy Sunday a woman and her daughter arrive, wearing matching red capes, and rent an abandoned shop and the apartment overhead. They open up a chocolate shop right across the village square from the village church, which scandalizes the mayor (also the count) of the town, since it is Lent, and he demands strict piety from everyone. Chocolate is decadent, pleasurable, even slightly addictive—and therefore dangerous.

The village’s young new priest, Pere Henri, has been there barely a month. The mayor, though a layman, writes his sermons for him each week, and they are heavy on the penitence and judgment. When the mayor learns that the young mother, named Vianne, refuses to attend Mass and that she has a child but has never married, he sets out to drive this woman out of business and thereby out of town. She is the complete opposite of his staid existence in every way. She claims to be from no particular place, but she and her daughter drift from place to place—with the wind.

Yet over the course of Lent’s 40 days, Vianne and her magical chocolate charms some of the people in the village—especially those who are themselves marginalized for one reason or another. She wins over her crotchety old landlady, estranged from her daughter and kept apart from her grandson; she offers refuge to an abused wife whose violent, alcoholic husband runs the local bar. She plans a festival with decadent treats for Easter Sunday, which further scandalizes those opposed to her freewheeling ways.

Matters are made worse for her when she befriends some seemingly disreputable river people who arrive in town. The mayor rails against these outsiders, and the violent bar owner sets their barges on fire right after a party that some of the townspeople attend, endangering dozens of lives, including Vianne’s young daughter. 

After this shock, Vianne gives up on ever being accepted and decides to leave, even though her daughter implores her to let them stay. But as she comes down to the kitchen, she sees members of the town helping to make the chocolate creations for her festival. She realizes that she has made an impact of the town for the better, and decides to stay.

The mayor sees these overtures to Vianne as a betrayal against him. Even as some of the other townspeople decide to welcome Vianne and the simple pleasures she represents and the kindness she brings into their lives, the mayor holds himself even further aloof and disapproving of her planned hijacking of Easter’s solemnities with her chocolate festival. On Holy Saturday evening, the mayor actually breaks into Vianne’s shop to destroy the chocolate confections she has prepared for her festival. He starts smashing Vianne’s delicate confections, but ends up tasting how delicious her chocolate is.

Suddenly, the rigid hold he has had on his sense of propriety and his pent-up misery breaks. He indulges in a fit of eating chocolate, weeping, until he eats himself into a stupor and falls asleep in the shop window. 

Vianne finds him there the next morning, sleeping among the wreckage on Easter morning, but rather than being angry, she covers for him, and a grudging respect begins to grow within the mayor’s heart at her kindness.

Meanwhile, across the village square, the Easter Mass starts, and the mayor has to admit to the young priest that he hasn’t written the sermon for him. As all the townspeople sit there in their Easter best, their young priest climbs into the pulpit, for once freed from being handed a sermon by the mayor, and speaks from his heart: 

“I'm not sure what the theme of my homily today ought to be. Do I want to speak of the miracle of Our Lord's divine transformation? Not really, no. I don't want to talk about His divinity. I'd rather talk about His humanity. I mean, you know, how He lived His life, here on Earth. His kindness, His tolerance... Listen, here's what I think. I think that we can't go around... measuring our goodness by what we don't do. By what we deny ourselves, what we resist, and who we exclude. I think... we've got to measure goodness by what we embrace, what we create... and who we include.” (1)

This is the message of hope and care for each other that is at the core of our common humanity and compassion. The mayor goes wrong when he thinks that the core of decency is a rigid adherence to propriety and humorless self-control. He has forgotten that the Jesus at the heart of Christianity was kind, compassionate, encouraging. Pere Henri’s Easter homily makes it clear that Vianne has taught the townspeople about how to live a more Jesus-shaped life—even though she herself may indeed be a skeptic. Or maybe she's just reflecting the fact that Jesus himself founded a movement, NOT a "Church." Even though she herself isn’t perfect.

We can’t look for Jesus among the perfect. We CAN look for Jesus among each other, and try to embody his radical goodness, embracing, caring, and inclusion. 

Last Sunday, we learned that Jesus can use even our doubts to inspire a deeper faith and witness. This week, perhaps we can learn that Jesus walks alongside us without us knowing it—each and every day. Even when hope is strained to the breaking point. As we see in the story of the Road to Emmaus, Jesus appears when we least expect him, and the comfort of this story is that he walks alongside us. He encourages us to tell our story and share our heartbreak and broken hopes. And he reveals himself to us in simple things. Teaching. Listening. Breaking bread together or making sure people are fed.

But we have to take the risk of asking him into our hearts, just as Cleopas and Mary asked him to stay with them in their home, even though he still seemed a stranger to them.

It’s all too easy during Easter to move to talking about Christ—the divine Son of God. But, as Pere Henri noted, we must never lose sight of Jesus being also fully human. If we open our minds to remember Jesus’s humanity, we may be surprised to notice that Jesus then appears to us in all sorts of ways. We can easily see Jesus in each doctor and nurse going to work each day tending to the sick, caring for those who are isolated the second they enter a hospital for whatever reason, in these times of pandemic in which we live. We can see Jesus in a child’s chalk drawing of hearts and rainbows on our daily walks, reminding us to keep our hopes alive, and of the innocent goodness that we might otherwise overlook.

The road to Emmaus is a road awash in heartbreak, in anxiety, in hopes that seem smashed to bits. It’s a reminder to us of the importance of understanding that Easter resurrection is not a singular moment in time. Not everyone learns of the Risen One at the same time.

Just like Cleopas and his wife, Jesus usually appears to us unrecognized. He is not who we have convinced ourselves that he is. He doesn’t come swooping out of the clouds with a flourish. Instead, what is the risen Savior doing on the evening of Resurrection Day? He’s taking a walk in the cool of the evening—which reminds me of the walks that Adam and Eve would take with God in the garden in the cool of the evening.(2) 

It’s true, for the last 6 weeks, we haven’t been able to sit down at table together, and share in the breaking of the bread that reminds us of Christ within us and among us, host and gift, reaching out to us in mystery. But here the Emmaus experience can be helpful to us in this hour. Even without the physical breaking of the bread and drinking of the cup, we can look at the Emmaus story and remember that Jesus is with us all along, calling us to an inward journey of transformation that fills us to the brim with love and kindness, and then spills over to remind us of the love we owe each other. Even if that means that the most hope-filled thing we can do is to say yes to the holy task of caring for each other by continuing to stay home for the sake of people we may never know we’ve helped by staying home.

The story of the Emmaus journey invites us to open our hearts to see God in unexpected places. Jesus walks alongside us, listening, loving, hearing our fears and our hopes mixed together. Even when we can’t gather around the altar together right now, we CAN invite Jesus to stay with us a while, just like Cleopas and Mary did. We can be fed by his kindness, his embrace of life, his inclusion—and make that part of our journey, too. The journey of hope, and compassion.

Amen.

Preached at the 10:30 am online service on Facebook Live due to the COVID-19 pandemic, from St. Martin's Episcopal Church.

Readings:
Acts 2:14a,36-41
Psalm 116:1-3, 10-17
1 Peter 1:17-23
Luke 24:13-35


Citations:
1) Chocolat (2000), based on the novel by Joanne Harris- screenplay by Robert Nelson Jacobs, directed by Lasse Hallstrom
2) Debie Thomas, "But We Had Hoped," at Journey With Jesus, April 20, 2020.