on the road to emmaus

Third Sunday of Easter ● April 14, 2024

Rev. Alexis Lillie © 2024

You can view the full worship video recording at:

https://youtu.be/NfALv9l9eMw?si=0DuvkSUxWrPkn8hC

Scripture Readings: 

Luke 24:13-35 (The Inclusive Bible)

The reading text is provided at the end of this sermon.

I’m obsessed with this book, The Anxious Generation. It’s written by a researcher, Jonathan Haidt, exploring social ties of digital natives. He explores how there has been a loss of childhood – a fraying of real-time relationships – as things have moved increasingly online. He points out that we evolved to be together and learn from one another, from our mistakes, and that it is important for us to journey together, in real time, with all the beauties and flaws, joys, and disappointments that this creates. He argues that part of growing up and learning to be human is yes, fighting for change when necessary, but resisting the temptation of escapism, and learning to exist together within an imperfect reality.

The two followers we meet in our text are not digital natives but they are learning this lesson in their own way. They are literally journeying together, during a time of deep disappointment. Things haven't turned out as they'd expected, and they're trying to figure out how they fit into this new reality

 We can tell they're having some feelings about this! They're frustrated, anxious, probably scared. Look how they respond to the stranger that meets them (quite honestly, it’s a little condescending!): "Are you the only one" who doesn't know what's going on??  

From our position we know, of course, that Jesus very much does know what's going on. And yet he steps into their imperfect reality with them. In a way in doing this, he reveals his own imperfections. The way he responds seems a little mansplain-y: "How foolish you are ... how slow to believe!" We can imagine Jesus feeling his feelings too! He has his own versions of frustration and disappointment as he tries to figure out what this new reality means for him too!

This is how our journeys go: they are emotional and sometimes confusing, and discerning a way forward often calls for the support and accompaniment of others. We learn from this text, that Jesus can step right into our difficult realities. He has experience with difficult realities!

 So he steps into this situation on the Emmaus Road, but the followers don't yet know who "he" is. At first, he is just a guy engaging them in some theological and scriptural conversation. They go on this way for roughly seven miles. The followers wondering about their new reality, perhaps stewing in what they perceive as their new reality. And Jesus trying, through scripture and story and reasoning, to shift this reality and help them notice what is right in front of them.

I love a theological conversation, but not sure I love talking about any one thing for seven miles! Turns out, maybe neither do his followers, because they just don't get it! To be fair, I think this is less about their lack of perception, and more about how intellectual discussion, understanding theology, processing and hypothesizing about scriptures can be helpful and important, but it's not the end in and of itself. It has to be held together with the embodied experience of the divine, in community.

Because, when does it all sink in for these two followers of Jesus? All the textual exposition was maybe helpful, interesting, but it falls kind of flat until they get to where they're going and ...

They pause together.

They eat together.

 In the pause, in the meal, in communing, in what we would refer to as communion, that's when Jesus is revealed. This is extra interesting because, all this time, all these seven miles, they’re talking about Jesus – so how could they not recognize him?!

It’s almost like the ritual of eating together triggers a bodily memory about who and what Jesus is. Even theological exposition offered by the divine figure of Jesus himself (!!) .only has power when it moves into our embodied reality.

Jesus becomes alive and revealed in the midst of our (imperfect) communing community. It goes one step even beyond that. The table is the place of revelation, where they recognize Jesus, and when they recognize what I'm going to call their own heart burn.

The text provides kind of a retrospective. They seem to realize in looking back: their hearts were burning during their theological discussion, but they weren't able to acknowledge this till they've had the human, embodied, sharing-a-meal, ritual encounter. And then this is what drives them back out into the world. By this point in the story, Jesus is gone - literally poof, disappeared! as the author writes it. The focus becomes on the followers moving forward in community

The combination of engaging theologically with their sacred texts, and of then pausing for nourishment together, this allows revelation to bloom into a burning in their heart. This is what propels them back out into the world. They have to do something about what they've experienced!

I wonder – what makes your heart burn? (I don’t mean pizza and acidic foods 🙂 .) Think about it this way, in the words of theologian Howard Thurman: "What makes you come alive? Because what the world needs is more people who have come alive."

If our encounters with Jesus don't lead to moments of revelation that propel us back into the community with burning hearts ... so what?? How does the embodied experience of the revelation of Christ in our lives make us come alive, so much that we need to share that alive-ness with the world? Just as Jesus joins his followers on a fraught journey, and even shares some of his own imperfections, we do this imperfectly, to be sure.

I think of our journey at COTV of anti-racist work. Our beliefs about God, and Jesus' work on earth, and what we read in our sacred text impact our desire for racial justice. And we've taken time to sit with this, sometimes quite uncomfortably! (I think about some of the trainings we've done as leaders and as community!) We have had "ah-ha" revelatory moments because we've taken time to sit into this discomfort. Then we move forward with new energy for this work of equity, new ideas that ripple out. Ideas like gathering to have conversations around dinner tables in one another's homes, to hear one another's stories. We do this imperfectly, in fits and starts, relying on the grace found in community to help us through some of our less-perfect moments.

This is one example of how the ways we receive and understand Jesus and our interactions with each other are hopefully creating moments of revelation that sink so deeply into our hearts, we can't keep it to ourselves!

 So ... we're around tables, we'll break bread in a minute, but first, we're going to stop just receiving theological information ... and pause. Pause for a moment of revelation to notice that Jesus is already with us on this imperfect journey. To notice how those around us define and enrich our revelation. And let's reflect on heart-burning moments we've experienced.

 When have you felt "head knowledge" connect deeply into your being so that your heart burned, you "came alive"?

How did pausing to receive that revelation move you further into action in the world? 

Luke 24:13-35 (The Inclusive Bible)

That same day, two of the disciples were making their way to a village called Emmaus—which was about seven miles from Jerusalem— discussing all that had happened as they went.

While they were discussing these things, Jesus approached and began to walk along with them, 16 though they were kept from recognizing Jesus,who asked them, “What are you two discussing as you go your way?”

They stopped and looked sad. One of them, Cleopas by name, asked him, “Are you the only one visiting Jerusalem who doesn’t know the things that have happened these past few days?”

 Jesus said to them, “What things?”

They said, “About Jesus of Nazareth, a prophet powerful in word and deed in the eyes of God and all the people— how our chief priests and leaders delivered him up to be condemned to death and crucified him.  We were hoping that he was the One who would set Israel free. Besides all this, today—the third day since these things happened— some women of our group have just brought us some astonishing news. They were at the tomb before dawn and didn’t find the body; they returned and informed us that they had seen a vision of angels, who declared that Jesus was alive. Some of our number went to the tomb and found it to be just as the women said, but they didn’t find Jesus.”

Then Jesus said to them, “What little sense you have! How slow you are to believe all that the prophets have announced!  Didn’t the Messiah have to undergo all this to enter into glory?” Then beginning with Moses and all the prophets, Jesus interpreted for them every passage of scripture which referred to the Messiah. By now they were near the village they

were going to, and Jesus appeared to be going further. But they said eagerly, “Stay with us. It’s nearly evening—the day is practically over.” So the savior went in and stayed with them.

After sitting down with them to eat, Jesus took bread, said the blessing, then broke the bread and began to distribute it to them. With that their eyes were opened and they recognized Jesus, who immediately vanished from their sight.

They said to one another, “Weren’t our hearts burning inside us as this one talked to us on the road and explained the scriptures to us?” They got up immediately and returned to Jerusalem, where they found the Eleven and the rest of the company assembled. They were greeted with, “Christ has risen! It’s true! Jesus has appeared to Simon!” Then the travelers recounted what had happened on the road, and how they had come to know Jesus in the breaking of the bread.

The Word of Life and Salvation.

Thanks be to God.