A sermon preached by Rev. Henley, April 6, 2008
The author of the Gospel of Luke gives us another Easter Sunday story. It is one of the most detailed and complete stories about Easter Sunday. Luke told the story this way, because he wanted a believable, solid story for the early church. In the first century many could believe in supernatural events. With this story, Luke provided all the elements for a core belief system. A foundation which could sustain Jesus’ followers and give them what they needed to carry on Jesus’ ministry. Everything is what someone in the first century needed to have a religion.
There is the supernatural possibility of Jesus living beyond the cross,
there is the fulfillment of the Messiah prophecy in the Hebrew Scriptures,
there is the powerful image of community, sharing bread in the same way Jesus shared bread at Passover, and, most important,
there is the promise of a relationship with God through Jesus, even if one had not seen Jesus with their own eyes. This, this promise of a relationship with God through Jesus is where my heart brought me with this sermon.
Powerful, powerful images in this story
In the afternoon, two of Jesus followers were walking to Emmaus. It is about seven miles from Jerusalem. They were busy talking with each other about the good news. Somehow, Jesus was alive! Of course, it was hard for them to believe.
They find themselves walking with a stranger, explaining the excitement of the day. They tell of miraculous stories of that morning, Jesus of Nazareth, a prophet mighty in deed and word, handed over to be crucified. We had hoped, they said, that he was the one to redeem Israel. Some women of our group were at the tomb early this morning, and when they did not find his body, they came back and told us he was alive.
When they came to the village, it was late, and they asked the stranger to stay with them. When they sat down, the stranger took the bread, blessed and broke it, and gave it to them. Then their eyes were opened, and they recognized him; and he vanished from their sight. That same hour they got up and returned to Jerusalem; and they told everyone there what happened on their journey to Emmaus, and how Jesus broke break with them and opened their eyes.
This is indeed a very rich story, and has meaning for us today. It speaks to our hearts about our own journey—our own road to Emmaus.
Are we so busy living our lives, that when Jesus does come to see us, we do not notice?
I heard a woman on the radio tell this story just the other day.
The woman attended a church that was in an unfamiliar part of town. She had been there many times. She was, she said, a busy woman, and she only had so much time for God. But one Sunday morning, she woke up, and she knew she had to go to church.
Underlying this need to go to church, she said, was this mindset, that it had to be on my terms. “I wanted what I wanted and nothing else mattered to me.”
She got ready, got in her car, and started out to this church. Thank goodness she left early, because when she got to the neighborhood where the church was, she got lost and drove around for awhile. She came upon a street where there was a police barricade at each end of the block. It looked like some kind of problem with a group of teenagers. But she needed to get to church, so she pulled her car up, got out, and walked over to a young police officer. He was very polite and she noticed his name on his badge. She asked if he knew how to get to the church from there. “I’ve been there hundreds of times,” she said, “but, this morning I just can’t find it.”
The police office said, “You’re close, a few blocks that way…”
“As I walked away, a voice within said, ‘Turn around, tell him to be careful.’ But I was too busy trying to get to church, I wanted what I wanted and nothing else mattered. So, I kept on walking, and all of a sudden there were very loud sounds behind me. I did not even turn around; I just kept walking, got in my car and went to church.”
“Two days later I read in the paper that the young officer who gave me directions was shot that day; he died.”
She said, several times in her story, “I knew what I wanted and nothing else mattered.”
Are we so busy living our lives, that when Jesus does come to see us, we do not notice? Or, when God speaks, we do not hear?
We have today a proliferation of books on a variety of spiritual and psychological subjects. Many of them are written to help us with “personal transformation.” We can go to any bookstore, anytime, virtually, and purchase a book that, supposedly, will help us live a better life. Each book, no matter what its theme has one underlying message.
Life is a journey, and what matters most is the journey, not the destination.
We are not so much different than Cleopas and his traveling companion. They were followers of Jesus. If they were followers, then we know that they were probably not privileged, had challenges, were marginalized, and maybe had demons which Jesus threw out. We know that both were probably inspired by Jesus to believe that their lives, their religion, their culture, their relationship with God could be transformed.
It is impossible to put ourselves in their sandals; most of us here are privileged with education, or resources, or power to control our own lives. However, we can imagine what their lives were like, and understand why they were followers.
But as modern human beings, with the privilege of living in the United States, we also have our challenges, our own kind of oppression, and our own demons. Reinhold Niebuhr wrote about the “oppression of the privileged.” What he was talking about, is that there is a price to pay for the privileges we have, for the life we have, and the price is pretty high.
All human beings are oppressed in some way by their lives, their culture, or their internal, personal demons. It could be the people of any century, Jesus’ followers, or us. Maybe that is why there are so many self-help books today and why so many people who buy them.
Are we so busy living our lives, that when Jesus comes to see us, we do not notice?
What are the priorities of our lives? What are we doing when God shows up? Perhaps that is what Jesus was trying to say to us all along when he talked about “coming again.” He said to be ready for his coming. Perhaps it is not a literal second coming as some believe. When he said in Matthew 24, two men will be in the field; one is taken and one is left. Two women will be grinding at the mill; one is taken and one is left. Watch therefore, for you do not know on what day I will return.
He meant that there is always an opportunity to see him, to know his message, to live his teachings.
As we live our lives, we have at any given moment the opportunity to listen for God. Sometimes, we might even hear, “Turn around, tell him to be careful.” Are we are so busy wanting what we want, that we pay no attention.
When we feel oppressed by our demons, and turn to self-help books for transformation, are we open to the possibility that God is there with us to be part of our transformation?
Elizabeth Andrew in her spiritual memoir SWINGING ON THE GARDEN GATE:
“You never know where God might show up ... [our] spiritual journey is really co-creation throughout every—every—moment. Washing dishes. [Hiking on] a mountainside. Grieving lost life. Making love. Marching, waving the banner I believe in…”
“Who we become is shaped by God, and who God becomes is embodied—in the landscape, in our shivering bones,” and I will add, in our journey.
Who we become is shaped by God, and who God becomes is embodied—in the landscape, in our shivering bones, and in our journey.
In the first reading this morning, we see some very modern people on a journey. They’re riding their motorcycles. We are not told the “why” or “wherefore” of their journey, we are, however, given the privilege to see the complexity of their lives, their pursuit, their demons, and their desire to enjoy the journey and not rush to their destination. We even see the images they experience as they ride through the beautiful landscape.
The reading highlights for us the difference between the journey to Emmaus and a journey in our modern lives. Are our lives so radically different and complex that we have no room for strangers?
Is it impossible to see Jesus today?
Is it impossible to hear God today?
We walk on our own road to Emmaus.
Are we so busy living our lives, that when Jesus does come to see us, we do not notice?
READING I
From Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry Into Values, by Robert M. Pirsig
We ride down out of the pass onto a small green plain. To the immediate south we can see pine-forested mountains that still have last winter's snow on the peaks. In all other directions appear lower mountains, more in the distance, but just as clear and sharp. This picture-postcard scenery vaguely fits memory but not definitely. This interstate freeway we are on must not have existed then.
The statement "To travel is better than to arrive" comes back to mind again and stays. We have been traveling and now we will arrive. For me a period of depression comes on when I reach a temporary goal like this and have to reorient myself toward another one. In a day or two John and Sylvia must go back and Chris and I must decide what we want to do next. Everything has to be reorganized.
The main street of the town seems vaguely familiar but there's a feeling of being a tourist now and I see the shop signs are for me, the tourist, and not for people who live here. This isn't really a small town. People are moving too fast and too independently of one another. It's one of these population fifteen-to-thirty-thousand towns that isn't exactly a town, not exactly a city...not exactly anything really.
We eat lunch in a glass-and-chrome restaurant that brings no recall at all. It looks as though it's been built since he lived here and shows the same lack of self-identity seen on the main street.
I go to a phone book and look for Robert DeWeese's number but don't find it. I dial the operator but she's never heard of the party and can't tell me the number. I don't believe it! Were they just in his imagination? Her statement produces a panicky feeling that lasts for a moment, but then I remember their answer to my letter telling them we were coming and calm down. Imaginary people don't use the mails.
John suggests I try to call the art department or some friends. ....[W]hen I'm relaxed again I do this and learn how to get there. It's not the technology that's scary. It's what it does to the relations between people, like callers and operators, that's scary.
From the town to the mountains across the valley floor must be less than ten miles, and we cross that distance now on dirt roads through rich green high alfalfa ready for cutting, so thick it looks difficult to walk through. The fields sweep outward and slightly upward to the base of the mountains where a much darker green of the pines rises suddenly up. That will be where the DeWeeses live. Where the light green and the dark green meet. The wind is full of the light green new-mown-hay smells and livestock smells. At one point we pass through a cold bank of air where the smell changes to pine, but then are back in the warmth again.
READING II
Luke 24:13-35
Now on that same day two of them were going to a village called Emmaus, about seven miles from Jerusalem, and talking with each other about all these things that had happened. While they were talking and discussing, Jesus himself came near and went with them, but their eyes were kept from recognizing him. And he said to them, "What are you discussing with each other while you walk along?" They stood still, looking sad. Then one of them, whose name was Cleopas, answered him, "Are you the only stranger in Jerusalem who does not know the things that have taken place there in these days?" He asked them, "What things?" They replied, "The things about Jesus of Nazareth, who was a prophet mighty in deed and word before God and all the people, and how our chief priests and leaders handed him over to be condemned to death and crucified him. But we had hoped that he was the one to redeem Israel. Yes, and besides all this, it is now the third day since these things took place. Moreover, some women of our group astounded us. They were at the tomb early this morning, and when they did not find his body there, they came back and told us that they had indeed seen a vision of angels who said that he was alive. Some of those who were with us went to the tomb and found it just as the women had said; but they did not see him." Then he said to them, "Oh, how foolish you are, and how slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have declared! Was it not necessary that the Messiah should suffer these things and then enter into his glory?" Then beginning with Moses and all the prophets, he interpreted to them the things about himself in all the scriptures.
As they came near the village to which they were going, he walked ahead as if he were going on. But they urged him strongly, saying, "Stay with us, because it is almost evening and the day is now nearly over." So he went in to stay with them. When he was at the table with them, he took bread, blessed and broke it, and gave it to them. Then their eyes were opened, and they recognized him; and he vanished from their sight. They said to each other, "Were not our hearts burning within us while he was talking to us on the road, while he was opening the scriptures to us?" That same hour they got up and returned to Jerusalem; and they found the eleven and their companions gathered together. They were saying, "The Lord has risen indeed, and he has appeared to Simon!" Then they told what had happened on the road, and how he had been made known to them in the breaking of the bread.