Emmaus
Emmaus
Luke 24:13-35
Here’s the truth, as I see it. Jesus didn’t come to show us how to get into heaven or stay out of hell. Jesus came to show us how to live, how to live a meaningful, faithful, caring, loving life. We can live that love, in part, because God loves us first. Then, if we can accept that love, God invites us to be transformed, “Now, get over yourself and get on with the business of loving that person in need who is standing right there in front of you.” Jesus’ best days were spent not eradicating poverty or hunger or loneliness from the face of the earth. Rather, Jesus healed the world, one person at a time. We are called to join him in that work.
What Jesus knew was that even when we want to join him, things get in our way. Sometimes, the powers that be are threatened if we care for the people they don’t care for: someone who is gay or lesbian or transgendered; someone who is mentally ill and kind of scary; someone who is an outsider for some other reason. Jesus tells us to start at the margins of society with the overlooked and the ignored. Jesus gets in trouble for caring for them. Sooner or later, we kind of know we will, too.
Sometimes, what blocks us from joining Jesus in the work of loving the person in front of us are our our biases and prejudices. We make assumptions about the person in front of us because of their accent or the color of their skin or their gender or their attitude. Somehow, these people make us uncomfortable and that makes us feel like there is something wrong with them. The thought that our discomfort might be a comment on what’s wrong with us just never really comes to mind. Honestly, once I’m clear on who makes me uncomfortable in this world, it won’t take me long to find plenty of other people who share my discomfort, who will join me in thinking, “Well, at least we aren’t like them. At least we don’t have to care about them. God couldn’t possibly love them.”
Just a quick reminder here. Jesus told us that the commandment to love God and love our neighbors as ourselves was the summary of the law. When asked who was our neighbor, Jesus told a story about a good Samaritan, with Samaritans being the group of people whom everyone loved to hate. The implication is that everyone—absolutely everyone—is a child of God and worthy not only of God’s love but our love, no matter how much you dislike them, no matter how sure you are that God must dislike them, too.
The other factor that the Gospels acknowledge is that no one, not even the disciples who had all sorts of extra time with Jesus, no one is going to follower Christ without failing spectacularly. We have to be willing to be uncomfortable. We have to learn and grow. We have to forgive and seek forgiveness. We have to realize that any human being, put under enough pressure, will crack. As we saw last week, when Jesus wasn’t who Judas thought Jesus should be, Judas betrayed him. When the disciples were overwhelmed with stress, they failed to stay awake with Jesus and comfort him. When Jesus was arrested, they ran for their lives. (We all struggle mightily when our lives are on the line.) The women, the only ones to make it to the foot of the cross and all the way to the empty tomb, peek into the empty tomb, are told the good news that Jesus has risen, and are utterly terrified. Everyone fails. The question is, “How long will it take you to dust yourself off and start loving again?” The good news is that God just loves us anyway, good days or bad.
The Gospels tell us that for a brief period of time after Jesus’ death and resurrection, the risen Jesus appeared to some people. For the most part, these appearances were to the women and to the disciples—central people in his ministry and central people in the beginning generations of the church. The women are distraught. Jesus comes to comfort them. The disciples are ashamed and terrified and cowering in a locked room. Jesus, having once come to them in a storm on the Sea of Galilee, now comes to them in their distress again, walking through locked doors to get to them. He comes, not to tee them up or chew them out but to forgive them, to offer them peace and challenge them to get back to work.
The most unusual of the appearances by the risen Jesus is his appearance to the two people walking home from Jerusalem after the Passover festival. These two people are walking home to Emmaus. (It’s possible that they were even a husband and a wife walking to their house.) What matters is that they are heartbroken over what unfolded in Jerusalem. They had heard about Jesus and had hoped that he was going to be the one to restore the nation of Israel. (Understand here…these people’s dreams were Judas’s dream—just without the betrayal attached.) As they walk along and talk about everything, a stranger appears whom we are told is the risen Jesus. They have no idea. They fold him into the conversation, treating him like a person of value instead of just a stranger. (They are living in Christ’s way with the risen Christ.) After they share what they are talking about with this stranger, he shares a different view of what’s taken place. (Basically, Jesus says, Scripture was being fulfilled the whole time.) He tells them what they don’t want to hear and they consider it. (They are living in Christ’s way with the risen Christ.) Ultimately, as the day begins to give way to night, they invite the stranger to their home to share a meal. (They are living in Christ’s way with the risen Christ.)
At this point, some really powerful truths have been put in front of us. First of all, following Jesus is not just the business of those who spent time with him, in person. I’ll bet for a while it was a little like all those people who tell us that they were at Woodstock which couldn’t possibly be true unless there were six million people there. After Jesus died, everyone was probably assuring each other, “Oh sure…I was there and I heard him preach. I saw him heal a blind guy.” Eventually, though, all those people had to be dying out. What happens when there are no eye witnesses left? It’s important to know that the risen Jesus showed up for people he never met because 2000 years of follower like us have never had that chance.
The second important point for us is that even these people who were given this gift of time with the risen Jesus struggled to recognize him. However, without knowing who they were walking with, they lived their faith. Let’s review…they lived their faith first by welcoming a stranger. They didn’t ignore him. They didn’t just fear him. They engaged with him and treated him as a worthy human being. Presumably, if we have any hope of meeting the risen Christ in our lives, that hope will rest first in how we treat each person whom we meet, moment to moment, day in and day out. Do we connect? Do we engage? Do we care?
The second thing that these two people are willing to do is pour their hearts out. They are doing this with each other before the risen Jesus ever shows up. This is part of why I think this might be a married couple. As a guy, I’m thinking that if a guy is pouring out his heart with anyone, it would most likely be a woman, especially if that woman is his wife. If this is a story of two guys pouring their hearts out to one another, well, that might be just as much of a miracle as the risen Christ appearing. Even then, they would have at least known each other. It’s an entirely different thing to pour your heart out to a stranger.
Here’s the third thing: these two people actually listen to the stranger, too—even when he thinks differently than they think. It’s one thing to be open to telling people your opinion. It’s quite another thing to be open to what a stranger has to say and to actually listen to their perspective. This is an amazing moment, but it’s still not enough for them to recognize Jesus. This is a point for every pastor who thinks that our job isn’t so much to care for people and inspire them to be caring people as it is just to tell them what to think. Presumably, Jesus was a pretty spectacular teacher. Yet, even after their own private tutorial with the risen Jesus, they don’t throw up their hands and yell, “Is that you, Jesus?” They are willing to be open, themselves. They are open to a stranger and what he has to say. Again, though, none of that is enough.
Consider what’s unfolding in this way. When it comes to faith, what matters is what you do, not what you think. What have they done? They’ve welcomed a stranger. Later Paul will remind people to be kind to strangers because in doing so, some have entertained angels among them. On the road to Emmaus, these two people have not only welcomed a stranger but welcomed Jesus, himself. Then, they do the thing that Jesus always loved: they go the extra mile. They extend the kindness shown to a whole new level.
It’s one thing if you notice someone in need and you roll down your window and hand them some cash. That’s a loving thing to do! It’s another thing if you notice someone in need and you invite them into your car and ask where they need to go: “I’m going there, too. Let’s go together!” Still, it’s a whole new level of care and love to look a stranger in the eye and say, “It’s getting dark. I bet you’re hungry. Come home with us and have a bite to eat.” There is a lot of assumed risk in that choice. I have always imagined the risen Jesus just standing in that moment and smiling. I bet he thought to himself, “How is it that these people who just met me are inviting me to dinner and my disciples are back, cowering in that room and checking the locks every five minutes?”
Jesus goes home with them. There were a thousand reasons not to invite the stranger in and they invited him anyway. He comes into their home and sits down at their table. Before they eat, he takes the bread and blesses it and breaks it. (Wouldn’t you have liked to have been there to hear that prayer?) Instantly, the stranger is gone. Just as fast, the two people realize that they had been in the presence of the risen Christ: “Were not our hearts burning within us?” Then, they run back to Jerusalem to tell the disciples.
Last week, we heard an Easter story that we could relate to. On the rare occasions when we have made it all the way to the death of someone we loved, we’ve caught glimpses of something more, glimpses which are both amazing and a little terrifying and leave us not saying much to anyone about any of that for a while. That’s the women’s experience in Mark: there may be more but right now there’s just a lot to sort through.
This week, we hear a post-Easter story we can relate to: we walk along in life trying to make sense of things, especially when our hopes and dreams have been dashed. If we can stay open, if we can keep listening, if we can make our default setting be one of welcoming the stranger and being open to a new perspective, if we keep on caring and even take a risk or two in order to care a little more, we might just realize that we have been in Christ’s presence, all along.
Christ can become present in the simplest moments if we are committed to living a loving life. Christ can even become present in the breaking of bread if we make room for Christ at our table. If we stay open, our hearts will burn with the realization that what we just experienced was, in fact, a glimpse of the Kingdom of God.