For those who are interested in my Sunday-morning ramblings,
Open to God
Luke 22:31-34, 54-60Luke 24:13-16, 28-35Acts 3:1-16 The disciples were terrified.
Three days earlier their Lord, Jesus-whom-they-had-thought-was-the-messiah, had been seized at sword-point in the garden on the Mount of Olives, and they hadn't been able to do anything about it, and they had barely escaped with their lives.
And the unimaginable had happened: Jesus had been tried, and sentenced, and flogged, and paraded in a humiliating spectacle through the streets of Jerusalem and out to the hill called Golgotha where he was suffocated to death on a Roman cross. He was gone -- the man to whom and for whom they had given everything was gone -- and everything was despair and heart-rending loss.
The Jesus movement was over. Peter, the rock on whom Christ was to build his church, had denied him three times even before he died. The disciples were scattering to the wind, wondering if they could stomach picking up the broken pieces of the lives they had had before they knew Jesus. [fishing? tax-collecting? and for the women -- focus on keeping house and leave religion to the men?]
On that Sunday morning, as Mary and Mary and Joanna were bringing spices to Jesus' tomb to care for his body, but found he wasn't there; as the eleven remaining apostles hunkered down in stunned terror in some hidden room in Jerusalem; on that Sunday morning two of Jesus' disciples, Cleopas and another unnamed man or woman, prepared to leave the city. Even after the women returned with -- frankly -- unbelievable stories of dazzling angels making strange pronouncements, the two, full of grief and sorrow, set off to walk to the village of Emmaus, a little more than seven miles from Jerusalem.
And Jesus joined them on the road, but they didn't recognize him.
Now, that's the part that always pulls me up short. They loved him, and they truly had centred their lives around him; they had followed him to Jerusalem, they had heard him preach, they had eaten with him, they had watched him die, but they didn't recognize him. And there's something essential here, it's not a fluke -- the gospel of John tells us that when Mary Magdalene saw Jesus at the tomb that morning, she didn't recognize him either, at first.
We have trouble recognizing Christ, it seems -- for some reason our perception is blocked or our vision doesn't work properly, and sometimes we can't seem to see God even as He stands among us.
We know -- intellectually, at least -- where to look for Christ. You all are good, church-going people, and I'm preaching to the choir (quite literally!) here: you know to look for the image of Christ in the faces of the people around you -- it's easy to see God working through them: [Christ in Eileen, Christ in Lucille, Christ in Barbara.] You know also to look for Christ in the faces of the people who come to Food and Friends, in anyone who is hungry or thirsty or sick or lonely.
But it's one thing to know intellectually where to find Christ, and it's another altogether to recognize him when he appears beside us on the road. Is our vision really all that clear? Do we do a good job perceiving and responding to Christ in the world?
Let me pose you a situation:
When walking down the street with a colleague or a friend, headed for lunch at a moderately priced restaurant, you are approached by a homeless man (thirtysomething, clean close-cropped blond hair, moderate build, jeans and a plaid shirt, seemingly young and healthy.) He asks for money for food. How would you be most likely to respond?
Would you ignore him and continue talking with your colleague? [I've done this -- I'm not proud of it, but I've done it.]
Sometimes I've acknowleged him, but said "I'm sorry" or "I have no change" and kept walking.
Sometimes I've given him some change, or a coupon good for food at a nearby restaurant.
Sometimes I've bought him lunch at a nearby food stand or sandwich shop.
But I must admit I've never asked him to accompany me to lunch.
When they meet up with a stranger on the road to Emmaus, the disciples invite him home.
Cleopas and his companion 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.
Just when they recognize him, when they put together the familiar gestures and the intonation of the blessing and the burning sensation in their hearts, Jesus vanishes. Just when we think we have God pegged, we discover that we don't. God will no longer be fixed in one place: it is Easter, and Christ shines not only through the resurrected Jesus on the road to Emmaus, not only through the resurrected body outside the garden tomb, but through each and every one of us who open ourselves to him.
And the amazing thing about this is that even though we are not Jesus, even though we are flawed and thoroughly human, God in Christ consents to shine through us, and to do the work of His kingdom through us.
I am immensely comforted that it is Simon Peter whom Jesus names as the rock on which he will build his church, promising the gates of Hades will not prevail against it. Simon Peter, the man who with a curse and an oath denied Jesus three times on the very night the Lord was handed over to be killed. It is, Matthew tells us, Peter to whom are given the keys of the kingdom of heaven -- and so the Roman Catholics have a traditional image of Saint Peter as a sort of physical gatekeeper of the Pearly Gates, the man you have to talk your way past to enter the kingdom. I'm grateful for this image, because otherwise I'd be likely to imagine the gatekeeper as some sort of unearthly Seraph or Cherub, like the firey sword-wielding angel guarding the gates to the garden of Eden. But it's not some unearthly being; it's Simon Peter at the gates, and Peter knows stark terror and profound grief; he knows what it's like to sin, and he knows regret. And yet God worked through him in profound ways, for healing and preaching and witnessing to God's kingdom.
The disciples were terrified. Overcome by fear, they found it hard to see God. But even in their fear, God was with them, guiding and directing them.
The disciples were heartbroken, caught up in the loss not only of a man they loved, but also of their hopes and dreams and vision for the future. Even in their grief, God was with them, and worked through them.
Even though we might be broken in so many ways -- some of us are terrified, some of us are grieving, some of us feel lost -- God will work with anything we bring to Him. The key is to open ourselves to Him, to turn always back to God, so that Christ might work in us and through us to the glory of His name. Amen.