Sermon

April 6, 2008
(Third Sunday of Easter)

The Road to Emmaus

by The Rev. Canon Susan Sommer

Acts 2:14a,36-41  •  Psalm 116:1-3, 10-17  •  1 Peter 1:17-23  •  Luke 24:13-35
(From The Lectionary Page)

One of the things I discovered when I went to Israel with some clergy colleagues some years ago is that biblical geography is a tricky proposition. Wherever we went, our guide would tell us that a particular site was the VERY PLACE in which some Scriptural event happened. Perhaps to counteract such blind biblical literalism, or perhaps out of a mischievous spirit which he usually kept well under wraps, my then-bishop – Frank Griswold – would quietly proceed to share the latest in scriptural scholarship and archeological evidence to each of our guide’s theories. One such place to get demythologized for us was Emmaus. Frank pointed out that no map of historical Israel shows a town called Emmaus anywhere within a seven to ten mile radius of Jerusalem. There simply is no credible archaeological evidence that any such town ever existed.

And yet, I can tell you that I have journeyed to Emmaus.

And, I daresay, so have many of you.

Frederick Buechner, in his book The Magnificent Defeat, claims that Emmaus can well be understood as a state of mind. “Emmaus,” he writes, “is where we go when life gets to be too much for us...the place we go to escape. Emmaus is wherever we throw up our hands and say, ‘to heck with it.’ Emmaus is where we go when we realize that humankind’s noblest ideas have always in time been twisted out of shape by selfish men for selfish ends.”

Cleopas and his traveling companion were certainly on their way to that kind of Emmaus. Luke implies that these two people were followers of Jesus -- not part of the inner circle of twelve, but part of the larger body of faithful who followed Jesus and who expected him to be the Messiah in the culturally understood sense. They believed Jesus to be a prophet, mighty in deed and word, the one they hoped would redeem Israel from foreign domination. But instead, he was condemned to death and crucified. That wasn’t what happened to Moses. That wasn’t what happened to Elijah. And it sure as heck wasn’t what happened to the great King David. God had clearly been on their side, and by his mighty hand, the people of Israel prevailed. As for Jesus of Nazareth...well, close but no cigar. They should have known it was too good to be true. In the vastness of their history, there was precious little evidence that Israel would ever be anything but the vassal state of some other powerful nation. As for the wild story by some of the women that the tomb was empty – yeah, well, don’t even go there.

Oh yeah. They were definitely on their way to Emmaus.

But look what happened. Jesus appeared to them. And more, he spoke to their hearts, reinterpreting the events surrounding his death from a different theological vantage point. This was more than divine spin-doctoring. This was the stuff of transformation.

And it is an important story for us to hear on the third Sunday of Easter. The lilies are faded by now, and boy is that a metaphor. The situation in the Middle East is no closer to resolution. Election year rhetoric is already inspiring cynicism in much of the voting public. Despite your best efforts, your kid is still flunking out of school; the new job you hoped for slipped through your fingers; your spouse is suffering from a chronic illness and there doesn’t seem to be any hope for a cure; another month has gone by and you’re still not pregnant; your brother just can’t seem to pull his life together and kick his alcohol problem once and for all. A beloved family member just died way too young. We may well have evidence of the empty tomb of Christ, but the reality that informs our consciousness all too often is the emptiness within ourselves. Given this reality, despair and cynicism often displace faith and hope. And we find ourselves on the road to Emmaus.

But the powerful, transformative, Easter truth is that precisely when our hearts are most torn open Christ is most likely to speak to us, though we may not recognize him at the time. We can be assured that he remains faithful even when we do not. You’ll notice that the faith of the two companions was not a pre-requisite for Christ’s appearing. We don’t encounter the Risen Christ because we have pulled ourselves up by our own bootstraps. Christ does not come among us on the condition that we first exhibit newness of life. Instead, Christ comes among us, and confers newness of life.

And even when we don’t get it...even when we are bound and determined to journey to Emmaus...God is still able to wrest victory from defeat. “Was it not necessary that the Messiah should suffer these things and then enter into his glory?” Jesus asked them rhetorically. Fearful, threatened, powerful leaders conspired to put Jesus to death and God was able to take that wayward, faithless act and redeem it not only for his beloved Son but for all of humanity. And if that was true for Judas and Pilate and Caiaphas and Peter, then it is true for us as well. God is able to use us, not just in those fleeting moments when we are in synch with God but in all those times when we are not. And so we can be assured that there is no place of darkness, no despair, no death-filled tomb that God cannot redeem.

And THAT is the miracle of the resurrection in our lives. A miracle which we celebrate every Sunday in the Eucharist. Isn’t it interesting that Cleopas and his friend finally recognized Christ in their midst when he took bread, blessed it, broke it, and gave it to them. This was more than just a mnemonic reminder of the Last Supper. This was the outward and visible sign of the truth of God’s Holy Scripture. That new life is brought forth from death, that God brings something out of nothing, that in his body broken and his blood poured out, God in Christ brings transformation to his beloved children.

And all we have to do to participate in the resurrection life is to reach out our hands. 

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The Lord is Risen Indeed

by The Rev. Carol Sanford, Priest Associate

Alleluia! Christ is risen! [The Lord is risen indeed! Alleluia!]

Nicely done! All good Episcopalians know the proper response to the Easter acclamation. It’s so wonderful, let’s do it again: Alleluia! Christ is risen! [The Lord is risen indeed! Alleluia!]

Now, let’s pause for a moment and consider what we just said. We know the words, we sing the songs, we light the Paschal candle, but how many of us can really put our minds around that which we proclaim?  Do we really comprehend, or even believe in the Resurrection?

And how can we look at the world around us, and at our own pain, and then gather here to insist that the world is saved from sin and death? Clearly people are still dying and clearly sin runs rampant. How can we say that Christ is risen and that we are freed?

Most of us, over a Christian lifetime, have varying ways of understanding, or trying to understand, the Resurrection of our Lord. One good starting place is to ask ourselves, “What is the source of our information?”

As the Church, of course, we hearken first to voices from the far distant past. Tonight, we heard one particular story from the gospel of John, one specific telling of an encounter with Jesus after his death. The story is usually referred to as the Road to Emmaus, but Jesus is actually recognized after the disciples have left the road and settled in for the evening. Once more, darkness is approaching, but a surprising new light is revealed.

As Luke [24.35] tells it, “[Jesus was] made known to them in the breaking of the bread.”  I get chills when I hear this phrase. It is simple, familiar, and, quite obviously, impossible. We are so accustomed to hearing it that we may, on the one hand, not even notice how astounding it is. On the other hand, it may be so outrageous, that we have no way to relate to it at all.

Let’s try a basic exercise. This is an approach that I find helpful in bridging the culture gap between our lives and the words of Holy Scripture. The idea is to find a way of translating something of the impact of a story into our own time and place.

So: let’s say that next week we are gathered for the 5:00 p.m. service, when one among us falls to the floor in distress. Someone calls 911, but it is too late and we sadly witness the lifeless form being carried from the nave on a stretcher. Later that week, many of us attend the funeral. Some of us may be confused at how such a tragedy could strike in church, and we notice some of our old fears arising about whether or not God really exists, or what it means to be saved, or what happens when we die.

As if all this were not disturbing enough, a few days later we hear the rumor that one of our deacons claims to have talked with the person who died!  Either this is a very unfunny practical joke or our deacon clearly has become tragically unhinged. We’re not sure which is the worse alternative.

And then…and then…we gather the following week for the 5:00 pm service. There is a new face in the pews and some of us welcome the stranger to the Cathedral. The visitor asks what we’re all whispering about and someone informs them about the errant deacon. The stranger wonders how we can assume ill of the deacon when we have, in fact, come to the service to proclaim the resurrection and to thank God for our new and risen life in Christ. Many of us are taken aback and some of us are offended.

Then the service begins. As the Peace is exchanged, the stranger in our midst begins to seem familiar. As we go to the altar rail for Communion, many of us recognize the face of our friend and companion who died just a week before. By the time the service ends, we are standing in astonishment, looking fully at the person whose death we all witnessed and whose funeral we attended, here, in this very room.

Think about it. Think about funerals you have attended. Now picture those persons coming in the side door of the church right now. When I picture the many whom I love but see no longer coming toward me, I can imagine that my joy at such a happening might overcome any fear that I might have. I can imagine that my relief at seeing them again could propel me past any petty concerns about my own comfort or advantage in life, and that I would cry tears of joy and relief at our reunion. I can imagine the sense of grateful awe I would have to see demonstrated before me that our Christian hope and proclamation are true, that, in Christ, life is changed, not ended. Surely I would be transformed.

The disciples most certainly were transformed; something profound had happened in their lives, something pushed them past their fear of the authorities and relieved them for a time of their petty rivalries. Somehow, sin and death no longer had dominion over them.

Now, here is the key: the story is still happening. It is happening here tonight. Disciples are encountering the risen Christ and are being transformed, and death and sin are shown up in all their shabby weakness in the face of everlasting Life. The ancient story gives us the framework, but our own experience of life here, together, in this very place, confirms for us the truth. Christ is risen indeed.

This Sunday we collect our Emmaus offerings, monies that will be used to support the Millennium Development Goals.  Throughout the world, Anglicans and others are coming together in a common effort to eradicate poverty, hunger, homelessness, thirst, and ethnic- and gender-based violence against bodies, minds and hearts. This effort is just one of many that go against every self-centered fear and sinful outcome of fear that humans experience. Surely we should hoard our resources and shield ourselves from awareness or care for those in any need or trouble. But Christ is risen and we know him in the breaking, and the sharing, of the bread.

Our hearts and our pocketbooks and our time management calendars are broken open and shared, as well, as we come together in Christ to care for one another, friend and stranger alike. It is often painful and frustrating and even annoying to be reminded of the difficulties of our world, and we get tired of the Church prompting us to reprioritize our time or money or effort or, at the very least, our compassionate awareness.

The curious thing is that we keep showing up! We may have our private doubts and our own methods of interpretation, but here we are again, one more time, proclaiming in word and in deed, that Christ is Risen.

There is either something profoundly wrong with us and our countless companions now and throughout the ages, or else there is something profoundly right.

How do we know that this story, the story of the Resurrection and the appearance on the road to Emmaus, is a story that tells the truth? Why do we gather around this ridiculously impossible gospel again this year? Are we all just delusional?

I believe we are here for the same reason that the followers of Jesus, scattered and in hiding after his death, so quickly re-formed and solidified and went out to carry the news to others, at risk of their lives. I believe we are still here, 2000 years later, because he is still made known to us in the breaking of the bread. Once more, tonight, in this very place, life springs forth after death; we see the green blade rising from the fallen grain.

It’s one of those things that we cannot explain to others, because it is something that is of experience, not intellect. Christ is made know to us in the breaking of the bread and we are transformed and, through us, the world is transformed. That is our most precious blessing and our heaviest responsibility and our greatest joy.

The Lord is risen indeed. Alleluia!

© Grace and Holy Trinity Cathedral