Surrounded by farm fields and airport runways and state highways, Redbud Valley was an area that was unspoiled, except for a few small trails, probably first laid down by the native wildlife-- deer and coyotes and foxes.
Butterflies like the ones that we just looked at in the children's message energetically flitted from blossom to blossom on the flowers that dotted the forest floor in sunny patches. Birdsongs of dozens of kinds echoed overhead in the treetops and the understory.
Even though I was in a crowd of kids and leaders traipsing single file through the woods, I was drawn so deeply into the beauty of the place that I also found myself thinking deep thoughts about nature, humanity, and our relationship between the two. To this day I have found that, often when a problem seems intractable, or if I just can't figure something out, it's a sign that I should get up and take a walk.
That's what I think these two disciples that we hear of in our gospel today might be doing. I wonder if they're not trying to walk off their grief and confusion over the events of the past three days. And as they were walking along, suddenly a stranger comes alongside them and ask them why they are so visibly upset and troubled as they walk. Now it might be helpful to understand that Emmaus was a place that was known for its resistance to Roman rule, it kind of birthplace of rebellion--and we remember that many of the people who had followed Jesus, possibly including judas who betrayed him, had expected Jesus to become a warrior king and physically expel the Romans from their oppression of the people of Israel and Palestine. So perhaps these two disciples are thinking about their disappointed partisan hopes, emphatically crushed as they watched Jesus be tortured and executed by the Roman Empire just three days prior.
Many of us might wonder why and all the stories that we've heard so far of Jesus after his resurrection, people cannot recognize him, or refuse to believe he is who he is unless they see the marks of the nails and the spear on his body. Surely, many of us might think, if Jesus walked up in front of us, we would know it.
But I think today's story, and all the other ones of encountering the resurrected Jesus before his ascension that we hear during the great 50 days of Easter, are actually meant to comfort and encourage us. Because after all if even the disciples who had known Jesus in flesh and blood have a hard time recognizing him beyond the cross and the tomb, that might help explain why we also fail to see Jesus in our everyday lives.
I wonder if all of those disciples who saw Jesus on the first Day of Resurrection had a hard time recognizing him because they had a hard time casting away their expectation of what THEY wanted Jesus to be. And if you listen to the way that Jesus is aligned by some to issues about which he said absolutely nothing, we know that we constantly walk in danger of doing the same thing ourselves. It’s so tempting to want a Jesus who confirms all of your own prejudices, rather than recognize a Jesus who calls us to be changed and transformed by following him, as hard as that may be. Sometimes we want a fossilized Jesus, one preserved in the amber of books and pages and verses, and resist the idea that Jesus could still be walking among us, transformed by resurrection—and calling us, too, to embrace resurrection and be ourselves transformed.
Because, as Christians, we proclaim exactly that: that Jesus is alive and present in the world and in our own lives right here right now. We just have a hard time recognizing him. Because I am convinced that sometimes he appears in guises that we do not expect--the same as those two disciples walking along the road did not expect to see the risen Jesus suddenly hove into view and start explaining scripture to them so powerfully that it made their hearts burn.
Where do we see and recognize Jesus today?
But it doesn't have to be as earth shaking as that example. Jesus can appear before us and the woman who offers water and food to a stranded traveler. Jesus can appear before us in the person who helps acclimate refugees to the new life after they have fled all that they have loved and known to the violence war or natural disaster. Jesus can appear to us in the teacher who stays after school for hours each week on their own time to make sure that their students learn how to bake, like my sister does for her students.
And then it can be even more simple than that. Look back at this story and step back from it for a second. Can you see the shape of the liturgy and the story that we heard in Luke's gospel?
Disciples are walking along a road, weighed down by their thoughts. In answer to the pressures of their lives, to the situation that they are currently in, they hear the reading of the scriptures and have them explained so that they can see themselves and their situation in those precious words. They then joined together around a common table. And when the bread is broken, then especially, Jesus makes himself known to us, as our collect at the beginning of worship says, “He made himself known in the breaking of the bread.”
Nothing fancy. But nothing that we should ever take for granted. Each time we gather around this table, for strength as well as solace, out of a sense of need, perhaps, but always joined to our obligation to others, to the command for us to go and do likewise, we encounter Jesus as both host and guest, calling us to follow in his footsteps, to share the gospel with those we meet, and to offer spiritual encouragement and nourishment to those that we encounter after we leave these doors.
I imagined what their thoughts would be in a poem that I wrote earlier this week, entitled “We Had Hoped:
We had hoped
that he would redeem Israel,
make Israel great again, a power among powers.
We had hoped
that he would cleanse us of sin
without changing us too much--
that he would keep out of politics,
hate all the people we do,
and keep us comfortable in our prejudices.
But instead,
he appears to us as a stranger,
slightly shiny around the edges,
but a stranger
making our hearts burn,
setting us aflame
for the love of the world
including all those we render invisible,
powerless,
voiceless,
and excluded from the table.
In the breaking of the bread,
he is at once revealed and vanishes,
lightning crashes at our feet
and rolls away the stone of our hearts.
He vanishes into those he renders visible
by his companionship and kinship,
and bids us welcome all to the table
where he is at once both host and guest.
This is the eternal life he gives:
to be his hands
pierced yet restored
that break bread
and hearts
open
tenderly
on the way to Emmaus
and beyond.
Amen.
Preached at the 10:30 am service on April 23, 2023 at St. Martin's Episcopal Church, Ellisville MO.
Readings:
I imagined what their thoughts would be in a poem that I wrote earlier this week, entitled “We Had Hoped:
We had hoped
that he would redeem Israel,
make Israel great again, a power among powers.
We had hoped
that he would cleanse us of sin
without changing us too much--
that he would keep out of politics,
hate all the people we do,
and keep us comfortable in our prejudices.
But instead,
he appears to us as a stranger,
slightly shiny around the edges,
but a stranger
making our hearts burn,
setting us aflame
for the love of the world
including all those we render invisible,
powerless,
voiceless,
and excluded from the table.
In the breaking of the bread,
he is at once revealed and vanishes,
lightning crashes at our feet
and rolls away the stone of our hearts.
He vanishes into those he renders visible
by his companionship and kinship,
and bids us welcome all to the table
where he is at once both host and guest.
This is the eternal life he gives:
to be his hands
pierced yet restored
that break bread
and hearts
open
tenderly
on the way to Emmaus
and beyond.
Amen.
Preached at the 10:30 am service on April 23, 2023 at St. Martin's Episcopal Church, Ellisville MO.
Readings:
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