“The Wonder of Sunday”
Luke 24:13-35
Allen Huff
Jonesborough Presbyterian Church
4/15/18
13Now on that same day two
of them were going to a village called Emmaus, about seven miles from
Jerusalem, 14and talking with each other about all these things that
had happened. 15While they were talking and discussing, Jesus
himself came near and went with them, 16but their eyes were kept
from recognizing him. 17And he said to them, “What are you
discussing with each other while you walk along?”
They stood still, looking sad. 18Then
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?”
19He 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, 20and how our chief priests and leaders handed him over to
be condemned to death and crucified him. 21But 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. 22Moreover, some women of our
group astounded us. They were at the tomb early this morning, 23and
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. 24Some 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.”
25Then he said to them, “Oh,
how foolish you are, and how slow of heart to believe all that the prophets
have declared! 26Was it not necessary that the Messiah should suffer
these things and then enter into his glory?”
27Then beginning with Moses
and all the prophets, he interpreted to them the things about himself in all
the scriptures.
28As they came near the
village to which they were going, he walked ahead as if he were going on. 29But
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. 30When
he was at the table with them, he took bread, blessed and broke it, and gave it
to them. 31Then their eyes were opened, and they recognized him; and
he vanished from their sight.
32They 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?”
33That same hour they got up
and returned to Jerusalem; and they found the eleven and their companions
gathered together. 34They were saying, “The Lord has risen indeed,
and he has appeared to Simon!”
35Then they told what had
happened on the road, and how he had been made known to them in the breaking of
the bread.
Emmaus. Where is Emmaus? Seven miles from Jerusalem, says
Luke. Some archaeologists say it could be more like sixty miles. And whether
north or west is anyone’s guess. The uncertainty makes Emmaus more than some
spot on a map. Like Tarshish, Emmaus is “the place we go to escape.”1
When the story has imploded, when gravity no longer holds our feet to the
ground, when grass is orange, and pigs fly – that’s when we go to Emmaus.
We
might find Emmaus on YouTube or Facebook. In Andy Griffith re-runs. At Wal Mart.
In anger, argument, or war. At the bottom of a bottle. Maybe even in church
where so much gets ritualized and so little realized. And when all feels lost,
when nothing matters less than what happens now, why not go to Emmaus?
Luke
introduces us to a pair of second-tier disciples, Cleopas and a man whose name
we’ll never know. The events of Friday and Saturday have sent these two
Jesus-followers wandering. Sure, they’ve heard the Sunday morning rumors – that
the women saw Jesus, and that he told them, “Go and tell my brothers to go to
Galilee. There they will meet me.” But this only complicates things. So, on
Sunday evening, the two men find themselves on the road not to Galilee, but to
Emmaus.
Cleopas
and his companion seem mystified, cast into a kind of purgatory. In the confusing
chaos of fear, dismay, disappointment, and uneasy hope, their walk feels all
the more like an escape.
Have
you ever felt that way? Exiled from a story to which you were once intimately connected?
Surrounded by an unimagined reality? As human beings, when we depart from our
story, from all that has been real to us, from all that has given our lives
structure and purpose, we’re like fish out of water. Disorienting experiences,
whether chosen or forced upon us, can throw us into a kind of living death.
Cleopas and his friend are wandering in that living death. Like
fish on a riverbank, they flop helplessly down the road toward Emmaus.
That’s
when the sudden stranger appears.
What are you two talking
about? he says. He’s baiting these fish.
The question stops the disciples in their tracks. A person
would have to be dead not to know what’s happened over the last few days. So,
they bring this clueless man up to speed. And in telling their story, they tell
on themselves.
We’d thought Jesus was the one God had promised. We
thought he’d be the one to bring Israel back from the brink.
You mean like Moses
did? says the stranger. You do
remember Moses, don’t you?
And then the stranger brings these two clueless men up to speed, not by recounting the last
couple of days, but by remembering the last couple hundred generations. In
hearing their story again, Cleopas and his companion gulp living water across
the gills of their hearts. They begin realize things that their Fridayed and Saturdayed minds had not been able to piece together.
As the men approach Emmaus, the sun is setting. When they
turn toward town, the stranger continues on the road.
“Stay with us,” says Cleopas, “because it is almost evening,
and the day is now nearly over.”
The stranger accepts the invitation, and that evening,
around the table, he blesses the bread and breaks it. “Then,” says Luke, “their
eyes were opened, and they recognized him.” As quickly as the disciples recognize
Jesus, he disappears, but they can’t un-see what they’ve seen. The wonder of
Sunday has broken over them.
If
there’s a dead giveaway for the living Christ, it’s in the willingness of his
followers to lay aside all hopelessness and fear, all prejudice and selfishness
for the sake of the stranger, whom, we discover, is no stranger at all.
To welcome the
stranger, says Jesus, is to welcome
me. And when you welcome me, you welcome the one who sent me.
In welcoming others, especially ones whom we don’t know, we do
risk making ourselves vulnerable to circumstances we can’t control and to
outcomes we can’t foresee. At the same time, we open ourselves to the dynamic
presence of the risen Christ. The road to Emmaus is populated with strangers
and uncertainty. But the resurrected Jesus transforms even that road into the
very threshold of the kingdom of God. And the kingdom transforms us.
Mark Achtemeier is a Presbyterian pastor who has been a
missionary, served congregations, taught at Dubuque Seminary, and now makes his
living writing and speaking. Twenty years ago, in the Presbyterian debate on ordination
standards, Mark lent his intelligent and thoughtful voice to the argument
against opening ordination and marriage to those who were openly gay. Then, the
denomination asked him to join other scholars, pastors, and lay people from
both sides of the debate for a two-year commitment to study and prepare a theological
statement on human sexuality. Mark agreed, and he soon found himself at an
Emmaus table.
For two years, Mark met with, studied with, prayed with, and
broke bread with people he had been taught to consider unfaithful. He listened to the stories of Christians who had and
were continuing to struggle with their sexual orientation, which was as real
and irreversible as their love for God, their love for the church, and their
desire to serve.
Mark could not deny the
love and the long-suffering, Christian faithfulness of the men and women he met.
By the conclusion of the study, for Mark Achtemeier, the kingdom of God was a
larger place. And he faced angry retribution from those who had trusted him to
be a particular voice. But after his experience, he understood God, scripture,
and Christian service differently. The wonder of Sunday had opened his eyes and
his heart in a new way.
Preacher, did you really need to go there? Just when we’d
gotten used to not talking about all
of that?
Well, no, I didn’t have
to. But if the last few years have taught me anything, it’s that, in our
society, we have hardly overcome our prejudices and fears. If anything, they’ve
intensified and need to be acknowledged and addressed.
I’ve
asked some folks if they’d like to go to UKirk-ETSU for a worship service this
evening. The service, which will be led by Olivia Marenco and the students, will
close out that ministry’s participation in Pride Fest. We’ll attend the service.
We’ll take refreshments for them. We’ll eat with them and visit with them.
Now,
I know that JPC is a very purple church. Our red folk are pretty red and our
blue folk are pretty blue. We’re not all in the same place on the road. So, if any
of you would like to come along, please do. And if you don’t, that’s fine. You
won’t be judged by anyone else. If you do, send them to me. I’ll say this, too:
Preachers aren’t moderators of debates. When in the pulpit, we’re not here to
be unbiased. We’re here to proclaim the truth of the gospel as authentically as
we can to edify, nurture, and challenge our hearers. If we remove ourselves and
our points-of-view from our preaching none of us will have much to say. On the
other hand, we are charged with
speaking as humbly, pastorally, and compassionately as we are called to speak honestly
and prophetically. So, if you ever do feel judged by me, let me know, because either we show the loving compassion of
the risen Jesus to everyone. Or we
don’t.
Besides,
for all of us, no matter where we are, “…it is almost evening, and the day is
now nearly over.”
May the wonder of Sunday be with you.
1The Magnificent Defeat, Frederick Buechner. Harper Collins, 1966. p. 85.
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