Who Are We Now?

Luke 24: 13-32

Video link to the sermon at Community of Hope UCC.

There’s a problem with the story of these two folks on the road to Emmaus.

They seemed to know where they were going. It seems as though they lived in Emmaus.

 

They were grieving the death of Jesus.  They had no idea what the future held. But they were heading toward this place called Emmaus. They knew where they were going. But we don’t.

 

That’s the problem. Some 2,000 years later, we have no idea where this place called Emmaus was. There are a half dozen places in Israel today that folks say might have once been the village of Emmaus, but nobody knows for sure. 

 

That’s sort of a metaphor we can use for our own lives. These two had  just been thrown into a state of confusion and disappointment and fear. They knew the road. But they did not really know where they were going.

 

They told the stranger on the road about Jesus. “We had hoped he would be the one,” they said. He was “a prophet mighty in deed and word before God.” And now hate had killed him and with it, their hopes had been dashed.

 

Have you ever felt that way?

There has been a pandemic that has thrown all of our lives into turmoil over the last two years. We are watching a brutal war raging in Ukraine. We are painfully aware of the racial disparities in our society. 

 

We are witnesses to the hatred that pervades our politics at the moment. On this Earth Day weekend, we are painfully aware that we are not moving fast enough to ameliorate the causes of climate change. 

 

We are wandering along a road and we do not have a clear picture of where we are going. We are not even sure of who we are now.

Closer to home, I know Community of Hope UCC is going through a period of discernment, looking for your way to an uncertain place like Emmaus, defining who you are now and who you will be in the future.

 

What a perfect Sunday, then, to dive into this story.

 

It is a story 

of walking together through grief and uncertainty, 

of letting the stories of our sacred scriptures serve as a guide along the way, 

of extending hospitality even in hard moments, 

of sharing a meal and seeing Jesus in the breaking of the bread. 

And here’s an added bonus: the word Emmaus means “warm springs” – it’s a place of comfort and healing.

 

Have you ever come across people who look lost, sad, full of anxiety? 

 

Jacqui Lewis, pastor of Middle Collegiate Church in New York City, tells this story in her new book Fierce Love of the night at the hospital in a strange city in Canada. She and her husband had been in a car crash and he was hospitalized with injuries. She was not allowed to  stay at the hospital with him overnight and had no place to go. The terror of the accident and the anguish over his injury as well as the uncertainty about where she could spend the night left her crying in the hospital hallway.

Then, out of seemingly nowhere, a woman wearing a lightweight black coat over a flowered dress walked over to her. She asked if Jacqui was OK. She listened to Jacqui’s story of the accident, of her agony at feeling so alone right then. 

 

Jacqui writes, “She was so present to me, listening closely, making space for my pain. When I finished speaking, she hugged me, and I remember thinking I was ruining her coat with my tears.”

Then the woman asked Jacqui how she could help. She crossed all the barriers that might have been between them. 

 

In Jacqui’s words: “I was a stranger, not a Canadian but an African American stranger in a strange land. I must have been a sight to behold. Tall, skinny, wearing a large afro, likely with little pieces of glass in it. Small cuts on my face, jeans dirty from sitting on the gravel on the side of the road, Paul’s blood on my denim jacket.”

The woman got Jacqui some food, took her to a motel, paid for her room, took her to the insurance company the next morning.

 

On that road to Emmaus, Jesus came across two people – I like to think a man and a woman, although only one of them – the man – is mentioned by name. They were downcast. They were talking about the horrible death they had seen Jesus die in Jerusalem and then the confusing message they had heard that morning about Jesus rising from the dead. They did not know what to believe, what to think, what to do. 

 

And Jesus walked with them. He asked them what they were talking about, what was underneath their sadness and fears. 

That’s the first thing: Walking together in hard times.

 

Then he offered them a new way to think about what happened, giving them a fresh look at the stories in the Hebrew scriptures they surely already new.

 

That’s the second thing: Reinterpreting the story in a way to help make some sense out of the chaos around them.

 

Then they took a step forward as well. “Stay with us,” they said, “because it is almost evening and the day is nearly over.”  They did not take Jesus to a motel like Jacqui’s helper did, but they did extend the kind of hospitality that brought the bond between Jesus and them even closer.

 

That’s the third thing: Offering hospitality to help heal the separations in our midst.

 

And then there was the meal.

Of course there was a meal. So often in the stories of Jesus, there is a meal.

 

There’s the meal on the hillside – that grand picnic – when bread and fish get passed through the crowd and all are fed.

 

There’s dinner with people you might not expect to be at the table with Jesus -  with Simon the Pharisee, with Zacchaeus the tax collector. There’s dinner with his friends Mary, Martha and Lazarus. 

 

There’s that last dinner with his closest followers the night before he died – you know, the one where he broke bread and passed it around and told them to remember him. In one of the stories after the Resurrection, he is cooking fish on the shore and there is bread to share with his apostles.

 

This night in Emmaus, however, we don’t know what else might have been on the menu. But we do know that there was bread.

 

Before we get to the bread, though, let’s pause for a moment for an interesting contrast. Do you remember the story Jesus told about the rich man Lazarus (not the same Lazarus who was Jesus’ friend who died and then whom Jesus brought back to life)? This also from the Gospel according to Luke (16: 19-31). 

 

Lazarus ate sumptuous meals at his table, but would not let the impoverished man at the gate even get scraps from the rich man’s table. Ultimately, both men died. The impoverished man went to be with Abraham, the father of the Jewish people, and the rich man landed in Hades, a place of torment. What if Lazarus had shared the food on his table with the poor man? What if he had invited the man to the table? Would the story have ended differently?

So here we are at this home in Emmaus, three people gathered around a table. Jesus had walked with the strangers and given them a new way to think about the disorientation of their lives. The couple had invited the stranger who walked with them to have dinner with them. 

 

Up to this point, the couple had no idea who they were with. It was just a stranger they met on the road. They could not see clearly who this was. 

 

Then the rhythm at the table got very familiar.

Jesus took bread.

He blessed it.

He broke it.

He gave it to them.

 

They ate together and then then their eyes were opened, writes Luke.  And in an instant, Jesus was gone.

 

They had been comforted by someone who took their grief seriously. Their hearts had burned as they learned a new way to understand the scriptures. They had recognized Jesus in the breaking of the bread.

 

Their energy was restored and they went right back out onto the road to Jerusalem and they found Jesus’ other followers there, all sharing the news that Jesus had overcome death, overcome hate, overcome evil.

 

For me, this story contains some of those central ideas of how we can be followers of Jesus.

We can walk with those who are suffering.

We can help people find meaning by drawing on the stories that guide our community.

We can welcome strangers into our midst.

 

We can let the love of Jesus emerge as we break bread together.

 

Yes, these last few years have been hard. They have been hard on so many different levels. The things that can disorient us are still present today. It’s like we are on the road to Emmaus – a place we hope exists but can seem pretty elusive.

 

People have walked this road before. They have shown us the way. Let’s head out into our lives today, in the days ahead, knowing that we can walk this road in a spirit of hope, with some grains of faith, with the assurance of God’s love as we rejoice not only in the good news of the Resurrection, but in the good news that touches our lives and that we then share with others.

 

There’s a song we often sing at communion time – “Let Us Break Bread Together.” But there’s another song that reminds us that in the breaking of the bread, we get glimpses of Jesus, we get to experience God’s love. It's called “Be Known to Us in Breaking Bread.” 

 

Be known to us in breaking bread, but do not then depart;
O Savior stay with us and spread your table in our heart.

Here share with us in love divine, your body and your blood;

That living bread, that heavenly wine, be our immortal food.