The Road to Emmaus

From last week's sermon on the Road to Emmaus (Luke 24:13-35):

While the 2 of them were pouring out their despair to the stranger on the road that day, they used what may be the four saddest words in all of Scripture: “But we had hoped …”. You can almost feel the yearning in their words: … But we had hoped that this Jesus whom we had seen healing, whom we had heard teaching, whom we had followed for so long … we had hoped he would be the one to redeem us.

But for all that they had hoped before, now they could only pour out their questions, their disappointment, their despair to the stranger they met along the way.

But we had hoped ….

When have you wanted to say that? We had hoped that … this would be the relationship; our child would get better, this would be the job … this move would make us happy ….

For anyone who has been listening to the news from Pakistan or Afghanistan or even the tragedies still emerging from the rubble of tornados, for anyone who has worried and questioned and struggled over children or grandchildren, over marriages, or jobs, or health … those same 4 words become our own protest that this is not the way we thought it would be. They become the watchwords of our own longing and lament: but we had hoped….

And when those are our words, that’s when we find ourselves walking down our own road to Emmaus. The end of the road at the end of a tragic and long, disappointing day.

But do you notice what happens next?

What in fact has actually been happening ever since that morning at the tomb? Maybe it would be easier to see if we had been reading right from the beginning of the chapter, right from the beginning of that Easter morning.

When the two angels spoke to the women at the tomb to announce the resurrection, unlike in the gospels of Matthew and Mark, they don’t tell the women to go tell the others to hightail it back to Galilee to meet the risen Christ there. Instead, they tell them to “remember” all that Jesus had told them.

Now on the road, the stranger calls the two travelers to remember everything that the Scriptures had said about the Christ.

And then, seated at the table that evening, they finally remember.

Maybe it was when they sat down to eat that it starts to come back to them. Maybe they start to remember other meals they’ve shared together – that bread-and-fish picnic when the 5000 were fed or that last supper in an upstairs room just days before. Surely, it starts to come back to them.

We don’t know how it happened, maybe the way he broke it, or in the familiar words of blessing … but there was something that made all the pieces fall into place. It was in the breaking of the bread that they remembered when they have met this man before. And their eyes are opened and they recognize him. They are brought back from the despair and shadows of death and they realize that life has won.

Remembering can do that to us, can’t it? At first, everything may seem like bits and pieces, random background “noise” with no rhyme or reason. Yet in our remembering something happens that can make it all seem so clear.

Thinking about those disciples at the table with Jesus has sent my own memory roaming back to communion services over the years when I have seen bread broken and shared the cup with others. And I remember …

· As a 6th grader, finally able to take communion and sitting beside my father in the pew while he held the communion tray to pass it to me;
· I remember the large pans of the special recipe of unleavened communion bread my grandmother would bake … almost like shortbread, but not sweet. I still remember the taste of it.
· I remember once (a long time ago, of course) getting my tongue stuck in a communion cup. My best advice: Do not try to get the last drop out of the cup. Trust me, it’s not worth it.
· I remember the first time serving communion at the J.L. Zwane Church in South Africa when I realized that it was the custom for the pastor to fill the small glass communion cups (like we use) at the table in front of the congregation using a large, wide-mouthed pitcher. More of it ended up on the table, on me and splashed all over the trays than actually ended up in the cups. (Later, I bought them one of the devices like we use that help fill the cups a bit more easily.)

I remembered all the places I’ve had communion.

I’ve shared communion at a TB hospital and in shacks in squatter settlements in South Africa. I’ve had communion on top of Mt. Sinai and in grand cathedrals in Europe, and a Greek Orthodox Church in Jerusalem. I’ve joined in communion with a thousand and more people at a Presbyterian General Assembly and then again with just a handful of people in small rural churches in north Florida, at a prayer service for the opening of Congress in D.C., at retreat centers and presbytery meetings, in nursing homes and at bedsides, in the intimacy of someone’s home … and many, many times here with all of you.

Pita bread, rye bread, wafers, my grandmother’s special communion bread, gluten-free, whole wheat, unleavened and even Wonder Bread white.

And each time, just like that evening in Emmaus, there has always been the same things: a spoken word, a bit of bread that was broken … a sip of wine (or, being a good Presbyterian, more often … a bit of grape juice) … all very simply things … and yet, each time, somehow my eyes are opened and I know Christ has been in our midst.

In a world that seems to be spinning out of control, when on any given day we have hoped it might all be different those things seem absolutely inconsequential. Yet somehow it is in the small things … a spoken word, a bit of bread, a sip of wine that we remember that Christ is present, that life can still come out of death, that the wounded can be made whole, that swords can still be turned into plowshares.

As I’ve been thinking about and remembering all those communion services, I’ve realized what it was I was really remembering. It wasn’t the place, nor whether it was wine or grape juice served in a common cup or in little cups, nor even the kind of bread we had.

It was the community, the people … that I remember: gathered around the table, telling old, old stories, sharing the feast, sharing how our lives had been touched by God, and I remember.
When we do it right, that’s what church looks like and that’s how we can know Christ is present: sharing meals around this table … or a potluck table, crying together at the funeral of a friend, lifting prayers in weekly worship, telling and re-telling the stories of scripture, feeding those who are hungry, sheltering those who have no home, rebuilding communities, serving together for our community and our neighbors near and far, and witnessing with the way we live and the choices we make that there is another way to live.

That road to Emmaus happened a long time ago … and we still walk along it even today.
Emmaus helps us remind each other that we can still have hope.
Emmaus helps us remember that God still walks alongside us in our confusion, our doubt, our hope and our faith ….
Emmaus invites us to expect God to meet us where we are … on a street corner or in an office, at school or on the sports field or at work, at 4-H or Chorale or in AA, at the detention center or prison, in a circle of knitters or by someone’s bedside. Wherever lives are shared, comfort given, support provided, injustice challenged … Christ is there.

So where is it and how is it that we see Christ among us even now?
May our eyes be opened and so remember.
Amen and amen.