Third Sunday in Easter
Year A, RCL
March 6, 2008
All Saints’, Bentonville
Gospel:
Luke 24:13-35
That very day, the first day of the week, two of the disciples were going to a village called Emmaus, about seven miles from Jerusalem, and talking with each other about all these things that had happened. While they were talking and discussing, Jesus himself came near and went with them, but their eyes were kept from recognizing him. And he said to them, "What are you discussing with each other while you walk along?" They stood still, looking sad. Then one of them, whose name was Cleopas, answered him, "Are you the only stranger in Jerusalem who does not know the things that have taken place there in these days?" He asked them, "What things?" They replied, "The things about Jesus of Nazareth, who was a prophet mighty in deed and word before God and all the people, and how our chief priests and leaders handed him over to be condemned to death and crucified him. But we had hoped that he was the one to redeem Israel. Yes, and besides all this, it is now the third day since these things took place. Moreover, some women of our group astounded us. They were at the tomb early this morning, and when they did not find his body there, they came back and told us that they had indeed seen a vision of angels who said that he was alive. Some of those who were with us went to the tomb and found it just as the women had said; but they did not see him." Then he said to them, "Oh, how foolish you are, and how slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have declared! Was it not necessary that the Messiah should suffer these things and then enter into his glory?" Then beginning with Moses and all the prophets, he interpreted to them the things about himself in all the scriptures. As they came near the village to which they were going, he walked ahead as if he were going on. But they urged him strongly, saying, "Stay with us, because it is almost evening and the day is now nearly over." So he went in to stay with them. When he was at the table with them, he took bread, blessed and broke it, and gave it to them. Then their eyes were opened, and they recognized him; and he vanished from their sight. They said to each other, "Were not our hearts burning within us while he was talking to us on the road, while he was opening the scriptures to us?" That same hour they got up and returned to Jerusalem; and they found the eleven and their companions gathered together. They were saying, "The Lord has risen indeed, and he has appeared to Simon!" Then they told what had happened on the road, and how he had been made known to them in the breaking of the bread.
I visited the County jail last week, and spoke with a young man who was passing his endless days reading Cormac McCarthy’s Border Trilogy: All the Pretty Horses, The Crossing, and Cities of the Plain – as well as my favorite, The Road. It’s no mystery why these books would appeal to a boy behind bars. They all speak of freedom, the freedom of the road, the place where the unlikely encounter is expected. We all love a road trip, but when you are 16 and you have lost your freedom, the road looks like salvation.
The particular road trip we just read about, the Road to Emmaus has a mystical quality. Most remember it as the journey on which Cleopas and the other disciple encountered the risen Christ. I’m all for those larger than life experiences, those supernatural encounters with the Divine that leave “our hearts burning” and proclaiming “the Lord has truly risen”. But what I’d really like to see is for our encounter with the risen Lord to become an everyday occurrence. I’d like for the road to Emmaus to be as well traveled, as the road to Gravette or Pea Ridge.
This story of the Road to Emmaus is rich with symbolism. The powerful metaphor of the journey, the encounter with a stranger who turns out to be the Christ, the breaking of bread – a foretaste of our Eucharistic feast. This week I was struggling with a way of acknowledging all those elements in the story – each seemed vital to our understanding of this road trip, when a small gift arrived in my inbox. It was another story, written by Emma, the seven year old daughter of a dear friend who attended our wedding last year. It wasn’t quite a road to Emmaus story, but the road… to Emma was a road replete with one eye-opener after another. She wrote: Did you know that Arkansas is over 10 hours away from Austin? Cool, huh? We went to Arkansas for a wedding -- my moms old running buddy Mr. Roger, and the person he got married to, named Ms. Cindee. She let me wear lipstick for the wedding. Bentonville is where Walmart is. We saw Sam Walton’s grave. He started Walmart. Bentonville is also very close to Missouri so we went to Missouri like about 5 times (Macadoodles).
We went on a hike, and we took the dog Tyke and Mr. Rogers son, Mr. Nate. We saw a rabbit on the hike in the woods on a summer day.
But when we got back to Austin, bad news happend. Mr. Rogers dad died a few months later. Sad, huh?
And now here we are, sitting at the computer, typing away about our trip to Arkansas. Cool, huh?
The road, to Emma, as it is for most 7 year olds, is a place of wide-eyed expectation. In return for her attentiveness, she was rewarded with a glimpse of life as it is – filled with friendship and love, celebration, huge success and the grave, rabbits and old dogs and lipstick for the first time. And she discovered that deep sorrow and great joy live can live peaceably, side by side.
On the Road to Emmaus we find an ordinary meeting with a stranger who turns out to be the Christ. An offer of simple hospitality, that turns into a revelation. A routine breaking of bread that becomes a Eucharist they would never forget.
Luke tells us that at the moment when Jesus sat at the table to eat, took bread, said a blessing, broke it and gave it to them, the disciples’ eyes were opened. Their eyes were opened as wide as a seven-year olds’. And they knew they had gazed on the risen Christ. They were fully conscious, alive.
.
We are all on the road to Emmaus. We are all at different parts of the journey, but at the meal we pause from our travels and come together. And our eyes are opened to who we are as a community, to the reality of the body of Christ.
Remember that Luke is speaking to a generation of Christians who had not known Jesus first hand. Luke wanted to assure these Jesus followers, who had not actually seen Jesus, that they weren’t “second hand Christians.” They needed the physicality of the Eucharist to know Christ, to experience him. As Fred Cradduck has written, “the living Christ is both the key to our understanding scriptures and the very present Lord who is revealed to us in the breaking of bread. His presence at the table makes all believers first generation Christians and every meeting place Emmaus.”
The Eucharist isn’t about eating dead flesh. It’s about experiencing a fully present, in the moment Christ, commemorating a time when Christ’s living presence was made known to his followers, and their eyes were opened.
What would it be like if every meal we ate was a Eucharist? What would it be like to live a life so fully, that no morsel of food, no exchange of pleasantries, was done mindlessly? What if our eyes always remained opened?
I think that is what Christ offered to his disciples. He knew how to live a fully conscious life. And in the presence of a person of such awareness, hearts burn. They so experienced life in Jesus presence, at that moment, that the practice of blessing bread, breaking it, and passing it around, is still with us.
I like the term “recollection”. A form of the word is used in all the great mystical traditions – Christian, Buddhist, Muslim…to denote a moment of consciousness, complete awareness. The gift that Jesus offered his disciples, in the breaking of bread.
This moment we will share, in communion, we do “in remembrance” of Christ. It is not done, however, simply so that we recall an historical event. The remembrance is more of a recollection, an opportunity to re-experience the moment of complete awakening that Jesus followers knew when they were in his physical presence.
There is another important aspect of this gospel reading that we can’t ignore. Hospitality. We can’t ignore that in offering hospitality to a stranger, the lives of Cleopas and the other disciple were transformed. As the day ended and it grew dark, they said, “Stay with us,” even before they understood who they were offering a bed.
Our food is meant to be shared. The table is symbolic of our desire to share what we have with the stranger. Today, on the third Sunday in Easter, this table is arrayed with fine linens and silver, but it really not much different than the worn wooden table you will find in the kitchen. The table where packages of food are assembled to pass out to the hungry folks who come by the food bank every Wednesday afternoon.
And this finely arrayed table is not so very different from the dozen tables collected in the parish hall. Those tables are a place to practice the hospitality that Jesus taught us and that we commemorate each Sunday.
Our outreach begins with those who find their way to us. Jesus is made known in the breaking of the bread during Eucharist. But Jesus is also made known to us in the breaking of bread that takes place at the food bank and during coffee hour. The teaching of Emmaus is clear. When a stranger appears, and breaks bread with us, it’s probably Jesus.
.