Third Easter
Luke 24: 13-35
An odd story, this lesson we have for today. A good story but odd. I always get caught up on the fact that these disciples walk along with Jesus for seven miles and don't seem to know it's Jesus. I can accept that as a nice literary device--heavens it's been used from Penelope not knowing Odysseus in Greek To Shakespeare's Rosalind disguised to Orlando in As You Like It to Peter Parker and Mary Ann in Spiderman and Catwoman. How stupid did Lois have to be not to know Clark Kent was Superman? But this lesson is more than a literary device and it should point to something less farcical and far more applicable to our own lives. Perhaps it is only too true that Jesus' walks with us all the time and we just don't see it.
Cleopas a follower we've never heard of or met before is walking away from Jerusalem. The only other reference to this individual is that one of the women with Mary at the cross was the wife of Clopas but the name is spelled differently. Perhaps Cleopas and his wife were the two disciples on the way to Emmaus. As they walk, they find they are in step with a fellow traveler who starts a conversation. The two are astounded that this stranger has no idea what's been going on in Jerusalem especially since he appears to have just come from there. What's interesting about their narration of the past events is that they include the part about the women going to the tomb and finding it not only empty but guarded by angels. And they even know that other disciples upon hearing the women's account went to the tomb and found it just as the women had said. This couple on the road had already heard the good news. There was no good reason for them to be so dejected--except that they didn't believe what they had heard. The women's tale, the disciples verification--well it was just too preposterous. They might want to believe but logic, reason, common sense; experience was all against buying into that unrealistic fantasy or as the gospel said "that idol tale. Jesus impatience with them is not disguised. "Oh how foolish you are and how slow of heart to believe....." How slow of heart.
Maybe the thing Jesus was trying to do was speed up their hearts. Maybe Jesus was trying to help them see that this moment of grace, this glorious inbreaking of wonder and life was not a head thing, a reason thing, an analytical proposition thing but a heart thing.
That was a hard sell for some people in Jesus world but I think it's even a harder sell in our world. We are as a society not known for leading with the heart. We're not known for allowing imagination to guide us. The facts are important. The analysis is important. Data and strategies are important. Problem solving is important. And that's not a bad thing--we build skyscrapers and roads, we isolate body proteins and cure disease, we plumb the depths of the universe and of the mind with the kind of knowledge that rests on the intellect of facts and data. Heaven forbid we should try to use imagination on a tax return.
But that is not all there is. The science fiction writer Ray Bradbury once said, "If we listened only to our intellect, we'd never fall in love. We'd never have a friendship. We'd never go into business because we'd be cynical." We could add countless things to his list: If we listened only to our intellect, we'd never paint a picture. We'd never write a poem. We'd probably not have children and we would certainly never believe in God.
If all we had was facts and data and knowledge just think for a moment how ludicrous it would be for you to be sitting here this morning. How irrational this whole religion thing is, how absurd. The first irrational belief is that there is a God. Philosophers have rationally tried to prove that one for millennia--and the very fact that they are still trying to do it witnesses to its futility. The second irrational belief is that that God loves us. The third that that God incarnated into a human being Jesus of Nazareth and then, the piesta resistance, that that Jesus rose from the dead. We're just like those two wayward followers on their way to Emmaus--our head knowledge will leave us there on the road.
Thank goodness for that head knowledge, that keeps us questing and questioning and restless thank God for that but thank God as well for letting us see beyond that.
Our story tells us Jesus opened the scriptures to them and then as they approached Emmaus our travelers invited Jesus to stay with them. As they sit to supper Jesus takes the bread blesses it and gives it to them and we are told, "Their eyes were opened and they recognized him."
Rationally speaking a meal is just an opportunity to put food in your stomach. We all need food to live so we need a vehicle to accomplish the consumption of calories--hence a meal. If that were the only purpose to a meal our technology would have allowed us to open and drink a can of Enfamil or someday just to take a pill. But no, that's not the only object to a meal. Around food, people talk, they laugh, they taste. A meal is a heart moment--an opportunity for surprise and delight.
In the breaking of the bread they recognized him. There isn't a scholar alive who disputes the fact that this Emmaus moment is a direct reference to our communal sharing of the Lord's Supper. We're on that Emmaus road until we kneel at this communion table and taste that wafer and hear those words "For the forgiveness of sin" and a whole new world is opened to us. Sometimes a meal is just a meal but sometimes our eyes are opened and we see a whole new world, a whole different world.
Sometimes the hunger offering is just the mechanical procedure of taking money from my wallet to pay for food for someone else--a nice humanistic gesture a rational act. But sometimes, when our eyes are opened, a hunger offering is the alliance we make with Jesus Christ as we take up arms against the powers of evil and death in the world. What appears to be five dollars floating on an endless sea of need is really a revolutionary act of solidarity with Jesus Christ to feed the hungry, clothe the naked and bind up the brokenhearted.
We can go through the motions or we can have our eyes opened.
I actually have two endings to this sermon because I wasn't sure until this moment whether I wanted to say this. It's an admission, a kind of confession and that's always a dangerous thing to do--but as I'm looking around I think I can trust you with it. I wasn't too keen on the idea of this fund appeal. My rational side said, this has to be done; this is the way to do it, this and so maximizes results, if we follow this program statistics say we'll get this result yadda yadda yadda. I was going along with my rational side without much real enthusiasm and you know how hard it is to pretend enthusiasm when it's not really there. Until, until last Thursday night. It was just a meeting--a planning meeting at that. About 20 people were there. A lot of people knew each other; some didn't so there were informal introductions and conversations. About ten after I started trying to get everybody's attention so we could start with prayer and even then it took two or three minutes. My rational side was saying "Ten minutes late getting started, ten minutes later getting out." But you know I almost hated to interrupt because everybody was having such a good time. Then each committee group gave their report on what they were doing and they had all taken their tasks seriously and had not just planned but had thought through with enthusiasm. This team is a very diverse group but I marveled the gifts and talents that were being put into play. My rational side noted we were done by ten to 8. Later I began to think about this group as a microcosm of the church. This meeting like the Christian ed meeting or the council My rational side was thinking--why are they doing this? My heart side was saying, they must think this is important, they must love this church, and they must really be committed to sharing the good news of this Jesus Christ with others. None of those feelings are rational. It began to work on me that maybe it's not so bad, every three years to take stock, be reminded of what this place is all about--about the warmth of the communion of saints gathered here, about the diverse gathering of gifts and talents to be used for the up building of the kingdom about our commitment to share the good news. Maybe we all need times when our eyes are opened.
Sometimes a building is just bricks and mortar, sometimes it's a church.
Sometimes a mortgage is just a mortgage, sometimes it's a commitment of faith in the future.
Sometimes a wafer is just 10 calories or it's the forgiveness of sins.
Sometimes Jesus is just a stranger walking with us and sometimes our eyes are opened.
Amen