The story
today is well known among us. It is
often referred to as the “Road to Emmaus.”
Ironically, archaeologists cannot tell us for sure where the town
was. Oh, to be sure, there are some
educated guesses out there. Most of them
limit themselves to within about 40 stadia of Jerusalem, giving the disciples
an opportunity to run back that evening.
But it is a story which, as with many in our Scriptures, has a
particularly important teaching or two for a people mostly in quarantine
because of a pandemic!
First and
foremost, I know some people have loved picking up Eucharist. I get it.
For some of us, church is not church without communion. That’s part of why we choose to worship in a
liturgical setting. If we did not need
communion, we could be worshipping in other traditions and feel just as
fed. That’s ok. Our text reminds us today where we meet Jesus
as Anglicans. I asked at 8am. Thankfully, there were only nineteen other
people on, so the answers were not too cacaphonic! That experience, of course, makes me make
this one rhetorical. As you all would
have answered, had I unmuted you, we meet Jesus in the Scripture each day and
in the Eucharist. Ah, I see you shaking
the cobwebs to remember your Confirmation classes. Yes, Anglicans believe we meet Jesus in the
Word and the Sacrament. Why? In part, our reading from Luke’s Gospel
informs our rationale. How do the disciples
respond to Jesus’ illumination of the Scriptures? Their hearts burn! What happens at the Eucharist? Something like their eyes being opened. Sometimes I will state that I am thrilled to
be an Anglican or Episcopal priest because I get two chances each time we
gather to help those in my cure see Jesus.
If I put you to sleep with bad preaching, you still may meet Jesus in
the Sacrament. If I give a good sermon,
you are blessed to spend twice as long with the Lord.
I see some
smiles and glad most everyone still has their sense of humor after six weeks of
Coronatide. The application is, of
course, pretty obvious. We can meet
Jesus just fine in the study of Scripture either through Morning Prayer and the
other daily offices or through Bible study.
Such study of God’s Word is true worship. So, it’s not as if we are withholding
something from God or even ourselves. We
all have a chance to meet Jesus every day, multiple times a day, if we are
truly seeking Him! That’s not say, of
course, that we will not enjoy getting back into community and celebrating the
Eucharist together. For now, we just
live in a season where are brains are more engaged than our mystical sight or
hearts. And while not ideal, neither is
it heretical, at least for Anglicans.
Aside from
the teaching that we meet Jesus in the Scriptures and in the Breaking of Bread,
there are a couple other great lessons for us.
One, in particular was, I thought, better suited to Jim and Robert’s
group, Wrestling with God, though it speaks to any American alive today that
deals with, let’s call them passionate discussions, regarding the issues of the
day. When Jim had agreed to launch his
group, after he found a partner in crime in Robert, he asked me to brainstorm
for names. One of the first I came up
with was “syzeteins.” I was thinking
they could sell t-shirts or coffee mugs and have a blast with it. Jim, of course, completely ignored it. I’m not sure he even asked me what it meant,
he was so underwhelmed!
Syzetein is
a word which indicates strong debate or passionate discussion. Luke has used it before in 22:23 and it will
appear again in Acts 6:9 and 9:29. The
first reference in the Gospel was the fight among the disciples to figure out
who was the greatest. In Acts, the first
references the passionate discussion about Stephen among the members of the
synagogue of freedmen, and the second references Paul’s effort to evangelize
the Hellenized Jews in Jerusalem.
Syzetein has that sense of passionate conflict, where neither side is
willing to back down. About what are the
disciples fighting on the road to Emmaus?
We are not told. Clearly, they no
longer believe that Jesus was the Messiah, but Luke does not share with us
their particular debate as Jesus “encounters” them.
We live in
a world and a church that tends to one extreme or the other when it comes to
passionate debates, right? People do
everything they can to win the debate or argument, sometimes resorting to
emotional efforts or ad hominem attacks, if the sense they are “losing.” It’s horrible when the Church mirrors the
world. We claim to be seekers of the
Truth, of God’s truth, yet we fight down and dirty like the best of any
politician. Our spiritual forbears are
the people of Israel, those who wrestle with God. Put in a different language, we have
inherited their mantle and do a pretty good job of arguing with God and one
another. I see some rueful smiles. Good!
We should see ourselves in that wrestling. I’ll hear back all kinds of feedback about
the music. I’ve tried to keep it
Episcopalian, but we range from organ to praise band to trio to folksy. Some will love some of it; others will hate
some of it. Many will share their
considered opinion, not giving a second of thought to whether others found it
edifying or distracting. That’s
syzetein!
Passionate
discussions are a part of our spiritual DNA.
How we go about those discussions matters, but we are not crazy or
sub-Christian for having passionate discussions about things important to
God. Quite the contrary! If they are important to God, they should be
important to us. And when are eyes are
scaled over or our brains in a fog, we should expect a bit of syzetein in our
midst. Best of all, so long as we are
loving our partners in those passionate discussions, God seems to tolerate that
in us! Our problem is when we devolve
into ad hominem attacks or, worse, try to convince others we know the others
are not “real” Christians, as if we can see into their hearts better than our
Lord.
The second
lesson I want us to ponder today revolves around the Resurrection. There is a famous poem that speaks to a
popular American ethos. It’s by John
Greenleaf Whittier, and some of you are already mouthing the money part of the
poem. He wrote a famous poem about not
quitting, that success was simply failure turned inside out. The poem ends with the lines For all the
sad words of tongue or pen the saddest are these: “It might have been!”
For many of
us, the poem is about perseverance.
Sometimes the difference between failure and success is just a little
more work on our part. Too often, people
give up just before they “make it,” whatever the making it really is. There is some truth in that ethos. If we quit every time things get hard, not
much will be accomplished. And often, on
the other side of success, people will be heard to say how they gave serious
thought quitting just before buckling down.
Good, I see the nods. I suspect
that such an ethos is well valued here in Brentwood and Nashville, right? How many musicians gave up and failed? How many tried one more show? Just one more presentation? Gave it just one more year or month?
What
happens, though, when we give it our all?
What happens when we give it every ounce of effort or talent or whatever
we had to offer, and still we do not succeed?
Such is, of course, what the disciples have experienced in our passage
today? The disciples find themselves in
that horrible position, we had hoped.
Is there a more lamentable condition in the human existence? In their case, they had come to believe that
Jesus was the Messiah, that God’s blessings on God’s people were going to be
made accessible through Him. But now
they have lived through the events of Holy Week. Was Jesus glorified, as they understood
Messiah would be glorified? Was Jesus
crowned as the heir of David’s lineage and covenant? Had the oppression of Rome been successfully
cast off? Were the blessings of God bestowed
upon them now?
NO!
Their friends
and fellow disciples are in the upstairs room lock for fear of those who put
Jesus to death. The two fellows seem to
have high-tailed it out of Jerusalem in defeat.
There is absolutely left to commend their faith, so far as they can
tell. So here they are, passionately
arguing or discussing, telling a stranger we had hoped.
Mercifully
for them and for us, their and our faith is about to receive precisely what it
needs. The stranger, as we all know, is
Jesus. Jesus begins to teach them from
the Scriptures that His death was not only necessary, but foretold! No doubt they were helped in their
understandings with reminders that Jesus Himself had warned them, at least
three times according to Luke, that He would be betrayed, die, and rise again
before they made it to Jerusalem that final time. Luke shares with us that they felt their
hearts burn at the teaching provided by Jesus.l
As they
reach the town, the stranger seems determined to continue on His way. They invite Him to stay with them. As He breaks bread with them, Luke tells us,
theirs eyes were opened. They perceive
that the stranger was none other than their Lord! And they head back to Jerusalem, despite the
late hour and the days walk, to tell everyone what they have seen and what they
have experienced, only to be interrupted by those in Jerusalem telling them
that they, too, have seen the Risen Jesus!
Now, only in light of that resurrection, can they begin to grasp what
has truly happened.
As
Christians, we claim to be a Resurrection people, an Easter people. We claim, rightfully so, that God has the power
and has the will to redeem all things in our lives. We are assured that, when we are finally with
Him for eternity, the sufferings of life won’t even be worth a tear to us. The worst things we have suffered will be
like those strawberries we go when we first learned to walk or the battle wounds
we got from learning to ride a bicycle.
Yet we are
a people who often claim in our hearts we had hoped. This month two Advent families have said
good-bye, for now, to loved ones. No
doubt when their loved ones got sick the Davenport’s, the Bowden’s, and the
Bannister’s hoped for a different outcome. It is likely that all prayed for God’s
healing. He has the power. It would be appropriate to hope that He would
act. But He did not. And because He did not act in this time, they
cannot stand at the grave with their loved ones here at Advent, mourning their
loss but reminding themselves of God’s faithful promises, saying their
alleluias at the graves.
Others of
us entered into marriages we thought would last a lifetime. We stood before our family and friends and
God Himself and promised we would commit ourselves to our loved one just as God
committed Himself to His people. Their
love would reflect His love. Yet, how
many marriages have ended in divorce, an ending no one wanted? We had hoped . . .
Not a few
of us have likely found ourselves on the short end of interviews. Ever find yourself lusting after that perfect
job or promotion? I see some nods. Did you ever feel you were the perfect person
for that job or promotion? Yep. Ever get passed over for reasons that seemed
. . . insincere or unfulfilling? You
know that feeling . . . We had hoped . . .
Ever become
a parent? Ever have that determination
or feeling that you were going to be the best parent ever? That your son or daughter were going to be
parented the way you wished you were?
Then you changed that first diaper and stuck the baby with a pin? Turned your eye or attention for a moment,
resulting in a fall that scared toddler and you? Ever found yourself repeating the same
phrases of your mother or father, phrases you promised yourself and that baby
in your arms you would never use on them, only to find yourself using them? Ever do everything right, as far as you can
tell, and still found your child suffering, for blaming you for their need for
therapy, for a broken relationship between you and that baby whose smell still
live in your memory? We had hoped . .
.
Ever found
yourself looking for a group to which you could belong, looking for your “tribe.” Maybe you thought it was a special club;
maybe you thought it was a church?
Whatever group it was, you knew you would be valued for who you are because
of the shared values. But when you “got
in” you found the group gave you no sense of belonging? We had hoped . . .
Ever believed
you could be an agent of change? Have
you ever sold out completely in support of a cause or a political candidate? Ever found yourself convinced that whatever
the cause was or whoever the candidate was, you were willing to do whatever was
necessary to lift a profile, get support, see someone elected? Maybe you found yourself distanced by friends
and family, but you knew what you were doing, you knew who you were supporting,
was good for all of them and you? Then,
once your mission was accomplished, once your support was no longer needed, you
find the cause did not fill that void within you, that the cause did not help
as you expected, or that the politician was just like every other politician?
I could go
on and on and on and on. Likely, as I
have been sharing times where we had hoped, you were thinking of times
where you had hoped, where you had been convinced you were wrong or
gullible or whatever to have believed in someone or something. Like the disciples on the road to Emmaus, we
know that lament well. Some of us know
that lament too well.
But like
the disciples on the road to Emmaus, we also know the only one in Whom we can
place our hope and never be disappointed, never be failed. Last week, I reminded us that we know Jesus
was raised from the dead by the simple fact that all of us have been empowered
to accomplish something that glorifies God.
Had Jesus not died, been raised, and ascended, you and I would not have
those pentecostal experiences. Some
Adventers even shared their mystical experiences this week. You and I, like those disciples 2000 years
ago, though, know the truth of the Resurrection. All of us. What prompted these disciples to run back to
Jerusalem? What caused Peter, as we
reminded ourselves last week, to switch from denying knowing Jesus to a serving
maid to proclaiming to Jerusalem and to the Sanhedrin that Jesus, the Anointed
of God, was the only way to right relationship with Yahweh? What prompted someone to share with you their
faith? What prompted you to believe? What caused you to accept the promises of God
and the claims of His disciples through the ages?
The
Resurrection!
If Jesus
was raised from the dead, we need not be a people who stay in the we had
hoped. We become a people who can
still hope, who can still look to the future, because, if God can redeem death,
then every other redemptive need in our lives and experiences pale by
comparison. If Jesus can be raised and
vindicated for His faith, then we know, we who have been baptized intoHis death
and promised a share in His Resurrection, that we, too, will be commended for
our faith and vindicated for our belief.
That is not
to say these we had hoped moments do not hurt. This is not to say we should ever floss over
those I had hoped moments of our life.
As a liturgical church, we remind ourselves that suffering is real, that
the world wants to squash the hope out of us, that God’s enemy, our spiritual
enemies, want us to fall away, to abandon that hope that is within us.
That’s why,
my fellow travelers on our own roads, we are called over and over and over
again to remind ourselves of the truth of the Resurrection. We are called by God to study the Scriptures,
to see the patterns of redemptive suffering contained in those pages, so that
we might see them in our own lives and in the lives of those around us. But even then, my brothers and sisters, we
are called to gather, to break bread, to remember His death, to proclaim His Resurrection,
and to await His coming again, that we might be given eyes to see and ears to hear
His work in our lives and the world around us, and that we might cling desperately
to that hope only He can give us—that our Father loves us, that our brother Christ
has restored us, and that, one glorious day, we will live the hope that He has
planted within us.
So often,
it is easy to accept that our sin is too powerful or that His enemy really
rules this world, as He claimed when he tempted Jesus. So often, it is easy to become those who
had hoped. The Resurrection of Jesus,
my friends, is that first step into the glorious life He has promised, that we
might leave behind the fears and failures of those who hoped and become the
heirs, the firstborn sons and daughters, He has called us each to be!
In His Peace,
Brian†
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