Ordinary Places
Scripture: Luke 24:13-35
Our gospel lesson this morning requires us to rewind back to the very first Easter. This Easter was a little bit different from the Easter we had two weeks ago. If your Easter two weeks ago was like mine, there was a lot of celebration time, a lot of worship, and a lot of food. And when I say a lot of food, I mean just that—A LOT of food. I still felt full two days later. And while two weeks ago was a kind of cloudy, rainy day, I usually associate Easter weather with the kind of weather we had yesterday—bright and sunny, warm, but with just a touch of a chill in the air still. Gorgeous weather, green grass, and beautiful spring flowers everywhere.
But that first Easter, when this morning’s gospel story takes place, there was no ham waiting at home to be popped into the oven for the big family dinner. (As an aside, does anyone else think it’s funny that ham is the traditional meal for Easter, when Jesus was a Judean and probably never ate ham in his life?) The mood for Jesus’ followers could be more easily compared to this country a few hours after the planes crashed into the towers on September 11th. We were confused, upset, grieving, and not sure what to do with ourselves. The disciples had lost their leader, and he had died a particularly humiliating death at the hands of the Roman occupiers. Now all the disciples were in retreat, with no leader, no center, and no direction, and on top of that grieving and possibly fearing for their own lives.
The two disciples, who are most likely a husband and wife, are on their way home to Emmaus, which is about a two-hour walk from Jerusalem. It’s getting on toward evening, and the light is dim, and they’re talking to each other in hushed voices: “What are we going to do now? I already miss him so much! Are they going to come after us?” Into the middle of this a stranger walks up from behind them.
“Why the long faces?” he says. “Did something happen?”
They respond, “Are you kidding? Haven’t you heard what everyone in Jerusalem has been talking about? We were following this great young guy—Jesus of Nazareth—and he was teaching us all these amazing things, and then on Friday the Romans grabbed him and crucified him, practically for no reason, and all of us who were hoping he could really make a difference are totally in the dark about what to do next. Now that Jesus is dead, it’s over. But some of our women are saying they saw Jesus alive in the garden this morning. We’re not sure what to make of it, and we’re tired. We’re going home now.”
The stranger answers them: “Listen, I don’t think you’ve been paying close enough attention to the scriptures.” (By this he means the Old Testament) And he goes on to point out all these different ways that Moses and the prophets predicted what Jesus would do, and how the one anointed by God would have to suffer as part of his mission. It was a Bible study on the road.
So they’re about to the disciples’ house, and the stranger makes as if to keep going on down the road, but the couple insists that he come to stay with them. Finally he relents and they bring him home to share dinner with them and to put him up for the night. At the dinner table, they’re about to eat, when the stranger does something they don’t expect. He takes the bread and blesses it in a certain way that they recognize from somewhere. Then he takes the wine they’ve put in front of him and he blesses that, too, and suddenly they realize: They’ve been talking to Jesus for the last hour and a half! And then, all of a sudden, the stranger, who they now realize is Jesus, vanishes into thin air. The one disciple turns to the other and says, “No wonder my heart was burning inside me while we were walking down the road!”
I’ve just finished reading a book you may know called Life of Pi. When the main character, Pi Patel, is in his early teens, he discovers Christianity. Raised by his parents as a Hindu, Pi is unimpressed when he first learns about Jesus. Compared to other incarnations of gods, Jesus can hardly do anything. He never grows to 40 feet tall or wages war with tremendous powers, and other gods would never, ever endure a humiliating death on the cross. Pi is irritated and under whelmed. But soon he discovers that he is fascinated by Jesus, in spite of this initial reaction. Somehow the very humanness of Jesus makes him compelling in a way Pi never initially imagined could be true. Soon he has decided to follow Jesus himself and becomes a Christian. There is more to the story, but I’ll let you read it for yourself.
The walk to Emmaus raises many mysterious questions: Why don’t the disciples recognize Jesus right away? How is it possible for Jesus to appear and speak and break bread one moment, and then to disappear the next? What is the mysterious power the disciples felt in their hearts as he spoke to them? But what is most mysterious, and perhaps most characteristic of Jesus in this story is that even while he’s doing something so outside of nature and our usual experience, he still does it in an ordinary way: by walking with the disciples, by teaching them about the scriptures, and by blessing wine and breaking bread. And I think this simplicity can teach us something about God.
This week, I’ve seen many images of people who do not always do things simply and humbly the way Jesus did. I don’t know if many of you follow the British royals. I don’t usually, but I’ve been interested in watching the lead-up to the marriage of Charles and Camilla in the last few weeks. Here are two people who made a tremendous mistake over 25 years ago, when they decided not to marry each other. And behaved badly as a result of it. And yet there they are in the church, with the priest asking them, “Will you be faithful?” as part of their vows, but also as an understated rebuke, and they answer with feeling: “That is my resolution, with God’s help.” England’s heir to the throne, with all his titles and inherited respect, still has to stand before God to confess his weaknesses.
The pope’s funeral also comes to mind. Thousands of people stream by to pay respects to this man in the gorgeous setting of St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome. The pope is laid out in fine robes, with two deep red pillows under his head. Here is the man who has headed the Catholic Church and its 1 billion adherents for over a quarter of a century. He’s like the Christian Bill Gates. But if you look at the picture closely you’ll see that death is the great leveler for him, too. Beneath all the velvet, and behind the tremendous role of being Pope John Paul II, this man named Karol was just a man like any other, and now he has died. His small frail body is all that remains.
I think it is meaningful that the disciples don’t recognize Jesus until he breaks the bread and blesses it in front of them. For them, that is the essence of who Jesus is, and it reminds them of his total humanity when even his teaching did not. If you have ever been in the presence of a loved one who is terminally ill, you may have an idea of what I mean about this essence of a person. When I was an intern as a hospital chaplain, I met a man who I remember very clearly even now. I met him when he had already been sick for a long time, and had lost most of his hair. He was usually heavily drugged, but I could still see what his essential personality was like—loving, giving, funny and caring. And I could tell what expressions were his—what habits of speech and eyebrow raises that made him distinctively himself. And this is, I believe, the person that God loved in him. Not necessarily my friend when he was well and healthy and capable, although of course God loved him then too, but not because of his accomplishments or his abilities, but because of who he is in his essence—that distinct personality. I think what the disciples saw when they recognized Jesus all of a sudden: that particular, strange habit of his—blessing the bread and the wine the way he always did—that is what opened their eyes to the person sitting in front of them. The essential Jesus.
The good news in this story is twofold. First, God loves us for our essence, not for our accomplishments, whether we are a pope in Rome, a prince in England, or someone a little less famous in Baltimore, Maryland. Jesus speaks to us in simple ways through bread and juice and dinner with a wise stranger, and God loves us deeply and richly without our ever having reached our or responded to God.
Second, Jesus can still speak to us in the everyday and the ordinary. This story is often considered a text about communion, but I think that for Jesus communion and a common meal shared with friends were one and the same. So we can also interpret this text as an encouragement to remember and be thankful for the many gifts that God gives us—the promise of resurrection, companionship in our spiritual journeys, and on a more basic level, the food we eat every day. This is a foundational story about saying grace before a meal.
If you aren’t already in the habit of saying grace before meals, I suggest that you remember this story and give it a try. Too often today, many of us are rushed in our daily lives. We want to accomplish so much and so much more, and we barely have time to eat, much less to prepare a meal for ourselves. And really, wouldn’t it be more convenient if we didn’t have to eat so much or so often? It would so much easier to get things done. But God didn’t build us that way. Our bodies have limits. So let grace before your meal be a reminder of your own limits and the fact that God loves you as you are, and provides for you as you are. The prayers don’t have to be complicated: a simple, heartfelt “thank-you” is enough to start. But the moment of quiet and contemplation—time to slow down, however briefly—is something nearly all of us can use more than once in our days.
My hope for all of you, as you go out into the world today, is that you will begin to encounter Jesus in unexpectedly ordinary places. May you be blessed in the nourishment of your bodies and in the nourishment of your souls. And may you encounter, too, that strange power those disciples felt on their walk home, that your hearts will burn within you with love and with hope. Amen.
Our gospel lesson this morning requires us to rewind back to the very first Easter. This Easter was a little bit different from the Easter we had two weeks ago. If your Easter two weeks ago was like mine, there was a lot of celebration time, a lot of worship, and a lot of food. And when I say a lot of food, I mean just that—A LOT of food. I still felt full two days later. And while two weeks ago was a kind of cloudy, rainy day, I usually associate Easter weather with the kind of weather we had yesterday—bright and sunny, warm, but with just a touch of a chill in the air still. Gorgeous weather, green grass, and beautiful spring flowers everywhere.
But that first Easter, when this morning’s gospel story takes place, there was no ham waiting at home to be popped into the oven for the big family dinner. (As an aside, does anyone else think it’s funny that ham is the traditional meal for Easter, when Jesus was a Judean and probably never ate ham in his life?) The mood for Jesus’ followers could be more easily compared to this country a few hours after the planes crashed into the towers on September 11th. We were confused, upset, grieving, and not sure what to do with ourselves. The disciples had lost their leader, and he had died a particularly humiliating death at the hands of the Roman occupiers. Now all the disciples were in retreat, with no leader, no center, and no direction, and on top of that grieving and possibly fearing for their own lives.
The two disciples, who are most likely a husband and wife, are on their way home to Emmaus, which is about a two-hour walk from Jerusalem. It’s getting on toward evening, and the light is dim, and they’re talking to each other in hushed voices: “What are we going to do now? I already miss him so much! Are they going to come after us?” Into the middle of this a stranger walks up from behind them.
“Why the long faces?” he says. “Did something happen?”
They respond, “Are you kidding? Haven’t you heard what everyone in Jerusalem has been talking about? We were following this great young guy—Jesus of Nazareth—and he was teaching us all these amazing things, and then on Friday the Romans grabbed him and crucified him, practically for no reason, and all of us who were hoping he could really make a difference are totally in the dark about what to do next. Now that Jesus is dead, it’s over. But some of our women are saying they saw Jesus alive in the garden this morning. We’re not sure what to make of it, and we’re tired. We’re going home now.”
The stranger answers them: “Listen, I don’t think you’ve been paying close enough attention to the scriptures.” (By this he means the Old Testament) And he goes on to point out all these different ways that Moses and the prophets predicted what Jesus would do, and how the one anointed by God would have to suffer as part of his mission. It was a Bible study on the road.
So they’re about to the disciples’ house, and the stranger makes as if to keep going on down the road, but the couple insists that he come to stay with them. Finally he relents and they bring him home to share dinner with them and to put him up for the night. At the dinner table, they’re about to eat, when the stranger does something they don’t expect. He takes the bread and blesses it in a certain way that they recognize from somewhere. Then he takes the wine they’ve put in front of him and he blesses that, too, and suddenly they realize: They’ve been talking to Jesus for the last hour and a half! And then, all of a sudden, the stranger, who they now realize is Jesus, vanishes into thin air. The one disciple turns to the other and says, “No wonder my heart was burning inside me while we were walking down the road!”
I’ve just finished reading a book you may know called Life of Pi. When the main character, Pi Patel, is in his early teens, he discovers Christianity. Raised by his parents as a Hindu, Pi is unimpressed when he first learns about Jesus. Compared to other incarnations of gods, Jesus can hardly do anything. He never grows to 40 feet tall or wages war with tremendous powers, and other gods would never, ever endure a humiliating death on the cross. Pi is irritated and under whelmed. But soon he discovers that he is fascinated by Jesus, in spite of this initial reaction. Somehow the very humanness of Jesus makes him compelling in a way Pi never initially imagined could be true. Soon he has decided to follow Jesus himself and becomes a Christian. There is more to the story, but I’ll let you read it for yourself.
The walk to Emmaus raises many mysterious questions: Why don’t the disciples recognize Jesus right away? How is it possible for Jesus to appear and speak and break bread one moment, and then to disappear the next? What is the mysterious power the disciples felt in their hearts as he spoke to them? But what is most mysterious, and perhaps most characteristic of Jesus in this story is that even while he’s doing something so outside of nature and our usual experience, he still does it in an ordinary way: by walking with the disciples, by teaching them about the scriptures, and by blessing wine and breaking bread. And I think this simplicity can teach us something about God.
This week, I’ve seen many images of people who do not always do things simply and humbly the way Jesus did. I don’t know if many of you follow the British royals. I don’t usually, but I’ve been interested in watching the lead-up to the marriage of Charles and Camilla in the last few weeks. Here are two people who made a tremendous mistake over 25 years ago, when they decided not to marry each other. And behaved badly as a result of it. And yet there they are in the church, with the priest asking them, “Will you be faithful?” as part of their vows, but also as an understated rebuke, and they answer with feeling: “That is my resolution, with God’s help.” England’s heir to the throne, with all his titles and inherited respect, still has to stand before God to confess his weaknesses.
The pope’s funeral also comes to mind. Thousands of people stream by to pay respects to this man in the gorgeous setting of St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome. The pope is laid out in fine robes, with two deep red pillows under his head. Here is the man who has headed the Catholic Church and its 1 billion adherents for over a quarter of a century. He’s like the Christian Bill Gates. But if you look at the picture closely you’ll see that death is the great leveler for him, too. Beneath all the velvet, and behind the tremendous role of being Pope John Paul II, this man named Karol was just a man like any other, and now he has died. His small frail body is all that remains.
I think it is meaningful that the disciples don’t recognize Jesus until he breaks the bread and blesses it in front of them. For them, that is the essence of who Jesus is, and it reminds them of his total humanity when even his teaching did not. If you have ever been in the presence of a loved one who is terminally ill, you may have an idea of what I mean about this essence of a person. When I was an intern as a hospital chaplain, I met a man who I remember very clearly even now. I met him when he had already been sick for a long time, and had lost most of his hair. He was usually heavily drugged, but I could still see what his essential personality was like—loving, giving, funny and caring. And I could tell what expressions were his—what habits of speech and eyebrow raises that made him distinctively himself. And this is, I believe, the person that God loved in him. Not necessarily my friend when he was well and healthy and capable, although of course God loved him then too, but not because of his accomplishments or his abilities, but because of who he is in his essence—that distinct personality. I think what the disciples saw when they recognized Jesus all of a sudden: that particular, strange habit of his—blessing the bread and the wine the way he always did—that is what opened their eyes to the person sitting in front of them. The essential Jesus.
The good news in this story is twofold. First, God loves us for our essence, not for our accomplishments, whether we are a pope in Rome, a prince in England, or someone a little less famous in Baltimore, Maryland. Jesus speaks to us in simple ways through bread and juice and dinner with a wise stranger, and God loves us deeply and richly without our ever having reached our or responded to God.
Second, Jesus can still speak to us in the everyday and the ordinary. This story is often considered a text about communion, but I think that for Jesus communion and a common meal shared with friends were one and the same. So we can also interpret this text as an encouragement to remember and be thankful for the many gifts that God gives us—the promise of resurrection, companionship in our spiritual journeys, and on a more basic level, the food we eat every day. This is a foundational story about saying grace before a meal.
If you aren’t already in the habit of saying grace before meals, I suggest that you remember this story and give it a try. Too often today, many of us are rushed in our daily lives. We want to accomplish so much and so much more, and we barely have time to eat, much less to prepare a meal for ourselves. And really, wouldn’t it be more convenient if we didn’t have to eat so much or so often? It would so much easier to get things done. But God didn’t build us that way. Our bodies have limits. So let grace before your meal be a reminder of your own limits and the fact that God loves you as you are, and provides for you as you are. The prayers don’t have to be complicated: a simple, heartfelt “thank-you” is enough to start. But the moment of quiet and contemplation—time to slow down, however briefly—is something nearly all of us can use more than once in our days.
My hope for all of you, as you go out into the world today, is that you will begin to encounter Jesus in unexpectedly ordinary places. May you be blessed in the nourishment of your bodies and in the nourishment of your souls. And may you encounter, too, that strange power those disciples felt on their walk home, that your hearts will burn within you with love and with hope. Amen.
posted by Amy Sens at 11:20 AM
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