The Road to Emmaus 2026

 I have to admit right off that this is one of my favorite Gospel stories.  I identify with it, I suspect you do, and I believe that church has a lesson to learn here also.  So forgive me if I have brought it up in sermons, Bible studies, and in newsletter reflections.  And yet every time I encounter the road to Emmaus I find something – some insight – that I had not seen before.

Emmaus is seven miles from Jerusalem….. – 22 minutes by car.  But these guys were not driving.  They were walking - and probably slowly - as their world had just fallen apart.  They were in the midst of despair, not knowing to whom to where or to what they might turn.  How long is the road of broken dreams...

Two Israelites, one named Cleopas and the other … was he or she a friend? Wife? Father/mother?  We don’t know…  We do know that they were walking alone, having little purpose left.  From the sound of it, I would say that they were headed back home.  The euphoria was gone, the  revolution had been quelled, there was nothing left to do, but to trash the signs, post the pictures on Facebook, go back home and get back to work.

And then a man approaches and walks with them.  They have no idea who he is.  As they walk he asks them about their conversation and they sort of freeze.  First of all they did not see him coming and second of all they could not be sure if he was one of them or one of the other guys.  Is talking to this stranger going to identify us with the guy they just executed?  Kind of like how much can I post on FB without getting trolled by the guys in the other opinion camp.  All of this and more had to be swirling in their minds.  They were staring deeply into God’s eyes and yet not knowing that it was God. 

As Jesus approached Luke tells us they did not recognize him.  Have you ever encountered one of those moments when someone comes up to you and there is something familiar about the person, but not for nothing you have no idea who it is or where you met him or her.  It happens to me a lot and it seems to be happening more often, but that’s another story.  Or have you ever been in a situation where something unexpected happens and you are just not sure what has happened to you.  When your perspective on life is challenged by some stranger - and you know that you are standing at a point of intersection – do I listen to God speaking to my heart or do I run with the herd – hearing only the voice of a broken world.

Once Cleopus and his buddy recover they seem incredulous.   They almost seem to mock the stranger..  “Are you the only clueless person around.  Have you been living in a barn?  Don’t you know that the one person who had given us hope and energy has been executed.  Those arrogant, two-timing temple (expletive deleted) temple leaders deleted ratted him out and turned him over to the Romans – who murdered him in plain sight.  Jesus doesn’t chide or become defensive – he simply tells them about who they are, how they are loved and cared for by God, and what God has done to intervene in their lives.  Then he moves away as if to continue on without them.  And that is the first message that I think this story holds for us.  Jesus walks away from their rant without attacking.  God’s love for us does not hold us hostage – rather God invites us into the surety of Grace and promises us that we are never alone on our journey if we choose to walk with Jesus.

But these two travelers want to know more and so they ask Jesus to stay.  And then at Table Jesus takes, blesses, breaks, and gives the bread and they become aware of God’s presence with them.  And that’s the second message here…  It is in the breaking of the bread, the sharing of gifts, the welcome of the Table that God is made known to us.  They have come to understanding, to knowing and the physical manifestation is no longer necessary for them to hold onto their faith.  God has offered life, they have accepted, and the awareness of their own burning desire for God overwhelms them.  Jesus is no longer physically in their presence, but the burning in their hearts remains.

And the third for me…  It is that same burning desire that gives voice to Peter as he speaks to the Israelites in Jerusalem.  His passion is not rooted in anger, or fear, of a need for revenge or condemnation.  Peter’s passion comes from his own experience of having been forgiven by God for his betrayal of his friend and teacher.  Peter just like the rabbi in my newsletter story, knows what it means to have raw human emotions of hatred, terror, and guilt swirl about in his heart and he knows intimately the healing power of God’s love.  And he wants desperately to share it with his kin.  Christ is not about assigning blame or seeking retribution.  Christ is about helping, loving, and reconciling.

Our world in in chaos right now.  Opinions and feelings are running higher and carry more venom than I can ever remember.  Dennis Hollinger, president of Gordan Conwell University in MA was quoted after 9/11 as saying “Emotions are good gifts from God, but they must always be tempered by virtues of justice, goodness, and wisdom,  Otherwise we begin to mirror the very acts we deplore.’’  I fear we have become our nightmare.

I am appalled by the rhetoric and the hateful accusations and threats, the images in my newsfeeds.  My country has been engaged in war for almost all of my life and long before I was born.  I haven’t counted, but I suspect in our 250 year history we have been at war more years than in peace.  I know that sometimes standing up to oppression, injustice, and aggression is necessary.  I support the thousands of police, fire-fighters, emergency personnel whose job it is to protect the public.  I am grateful for our military for standing in the way of danger, so that I do not have to see my house destroyed or my children blown to bits or my country decimated.   But when I see, hear or read the news… that’s not what I see happening – just the opposite.  Remember Pogo…  “We have met the enemy and he is us”  Peter says that we are to repent and be baptized…  live into our promises that we made – respect, care for, understand, learn, be in community and in the face of our failures - we are cut to the heart. 

Not easy to stand in the middle of the road and say “You know I don’t think God is cheering the loss of even the most evil of creation.  I don’t think God sees this as a win win or a win lose.  Rather I think God is mourning the brokenness of all our lives and calling to us to be aware of the burning in our hearts.

Last week Laureli talked about encountering Jesus.  Yes – that’s it isn’t it.  Just like Cleopus and his friend, we need to encounter Jesus in order to see God’s presence in our lives.  Those encounters - when Jesus becomes known – are about making sense of all this jumble of experiences in our lives, about sorting through the black the white and the gray areas where we stumble and making the path a little clearer for our journeys and it is about distinguishing between the right road and the wrong road.  About choosing death or life.

It is in the breaking of the bread that Jesus is revealed.  It is in the brokenness of our lives that our lives are made whole.

We are each on the road to Emmaus. Each of us nursing wounds and wandering through disappointments.  Jesus meets each one of us there – loves us – gives us an opportunity to be transformed by love.  And each of us must discern when and where we are to go in response.

Amen 

Alleluia Christ is Risen

        

Easter Sunday morning is a good day for a preacher to look out over the congregation and wonder what it is that has drawn these people here because surely if I can figure out what has gotten you out of bed and brought you to church then I can be confident that all of you will return.  Right?  Hmmm  But then is that really what we are about today?    Today is by far the day when the most people who are drawn to Christian faith show up in church.  What is it that makes us do that?  Maybe you know the answer and maybe not. 

Is it because you are always here on Sunday morning?Is it because there is something difficult going on in your life and you feel a need to be reassured of God’s love for youIs it because you have been told all your life that if you do not go to church at least on Christmas and Easter that you will surely go straight to Hell and so you get up and come out of obedience to some distant ethereal father figure.Is it because you got up this morning and felt a strange warming in your heart that you had not felt in many years, but which you knew to be God’s call to you to come.  

       You know each of these reasons is – at least in my opinion a good and valid reason for coming.  I especially like the one about obedience as that is the one I always used on my children. 

      Maybe you are not really sure why you made the effort to get out of a perfectly good bed this morning, rushed to get everyone ready, left a long lingering breakfast, skipped the NYT puzzles, and headed out to church.  I am not always sure why I come either but what I do know is this.  Easter is about far more than habit, obedience, or the promise of life eternal up in the clouds.

   Easter presents us with a whole new reality of what the world is like.  Easter pulls us out and up because it is the most amazing proclamation of all time.  It is at once mysterious and utterly transparent.  The Gospel lessons leave no doubt in the reality of the crucifixion, the death of Jesus and of the empty tomb.  The Easter lessons do not really need a commentary by any preacher.  It is the story of new life in Christ that we come to hear on Easter morning

    But if we end it there then I believe with all my heart that we will have missed the boat because Easter is not about one day out of the year.  Easter is about one day after another – about day in and day out living into the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ.  It is who we are – it is our nature – it is our baptism – it is our life.

    It is my experience in life that God is most known in the silence of a walk in the woods, in the home where children run around in their diapers playing with Mom and Dad who must work every day but Sunday just to feed and house the family.  God is found on the golf course with friends, God is found in the work of one who must go to care for an aging relative each morning. God is found wherever we open ourselves up enough to be aware of God’s presence in our lives.  And each one of these ways in which we grow to know God better is both valid and vital in our lives – I know this because I have known God in these places too.  Who am I to hinder God when God meets you or me outside the walls of this church?

    But there is another equally valid truth.  We also meet God here.  God invites us here to be in community, to learn and to grow together.   Scripture tells us that the women who ran from the tomb in awe and amazement and fear of the reality of God’s action in raising Jesus from the dead, grew to be powerful voices of the Good News, they came to be disciples who carried the Word to others in proclamation and deed.  They were able to do so because the Spirit moved through that early community of believers and gave them a passion, an urgency, and a hope that God was indeed supreme over the forces of evil and death in the world and that they were empowered to be the emissaries of that Good News.

    In our epistle Peter says: “I truly understand that whoever you are, wherever you come from, whatever your life has been like…  God is your creator, God loves you, and God wants your love in return.”  In the end he spoke truth to the power magnates and he welcomed children and women and tax collectors and lepers to his circle of friends.  He taught about forgiving others as God forgives us and he healed those who were sick

    That’s not the whole story though.  Peter gave a wonderful sermon, but it was after the sermon was preached that the real change happened.  The Holy Spirit moved among those folks and all who saw it were amazed.  Through the willingness of Peter to tell these people, whom he had never met, about his experience of knowing Jesus, they too came to know Jesus in a very special and personal way – and their lives were changed too.

    God’s Spirit is moving mightily among the people of St Patrick’s.  I see it in the work of those who give their time to work in the garden or prepare coffee hour or make our worship space beautiful, or create knitted tree ornaments for Christmas, fill the blessing box, clean the bathrooms, protest on the street for those who are afraid or unable to do so.  Sing, preach, set the Table, visit the sick, all the things…..  And goodness knows there is so much more….   I see God’s Spirit come alive in the faces of those who have been hurt by our society or even by our friends and family and find a home in this place – I see it in the face of those who seek to know deeply the forgiveness and the acceptance of God. 

    For sure you do not have to be in this space to be in the presence of God, but it can be a powerful experience of God’s action in this world.  Each time you come and kneel before this altar you are supporting those who support you and you are filled with the power of the Holy Spirit through the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ. That is an experience like none other in this world. 

    The resurrection that we proclaim today throws open the doors of Love and Grace to all who seek to know God or to be known by God. 

    This is the day that we, as a community of faith, proclaim our hope in eternal life because this is the day that God proclaims that we are all God’s chosen, God’s beloved, God’s desired.  This is the day for us to go from this place and to ask ourselves:

What door is God opening for me?

What new experience does God have in store for me?

Who is God asking me to stand beside?

How can I be helpful in finding new and different ways for all of God’s beloved to find a home at this altar?

    Each and every Sunday is an opportunity to celebrate the resurrection of Christ.  It is my desire – my hope – that each one of us will celebrate that Good News each and every day not only with our lips but in our lives, giving up ourselves – our souls and bodies - to God’s service in the world. Let the church say  AMEN

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