Sermon: Easter 3 23 April 2023
Text: Luke 24.13-35
Theme: Known in the breaking of the bread
Let us pray:
God of the ever-living Christ Jesus, our words of thanksgiving are indeed not enough. The poverty of our best sentences, and the inadequacy of our sacred music, frustrates our attempts to worship you as you deserve. We say we extol you, we praise you, and we glorify you. Gladly we sing out our love and adoration for you. Yet we have not expressed even a fraction of the wonder that throbs in our hearts. O God of Jesus and our God, you are that holy Beauty that will always leave us gasping, yet never leave us unloved. All glory be to you, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen!
As well may be very evident, I love to sing, and I love to preach, and I love to preside at Eucharist. But as much as I love standing here reflecting upon the Scriptures and as much as I love the fantastic sacred music here at Christ Church there is one moment each and every Sunday which still blows me away and has done since the very first Eucharist service, I presided over back at Christ Church Bundaberg twenty-six and a half years ago on Sunday 22 December 1996. It’s the moment called the Fraction – where I break the host and say, “we break this bread to share in the body of Christ; we who are many are one body, for we all share in the one bread.” It is a special and solemn moment of which I am humbled and honoured to lead, and a moment I hope does not get lost. When I was in post-ordination training (what we irreverent young clergy would call – after its initials - Potty training) there was one sentence that the Director of POT said that has stayed with forever. Father Lyall Turley said, “That a Priest shapes their life not Monday to Sunday or by the work calendar at all but Eucharist to Eucharist – that for Priests – the most important role one has is as Presider at the Eucharist liturgy and no more so than at the Altar. This is a moment in our worship which traces its origins right back to our Gospel story this morning – the particularly delightful and revealing story of the Emmaus walk.
As I was carefully reading the Gospel two things popped out that I hadn’t really spent time contemplating before – the first was – what was Jesus doing going for a leisurely walk the late afternoon of Easter day – I could imagine so many other places he could have been and so many other things he could have been doing but here we find him – walking away from Jerusalem – more on that later. The second thing to pop out was Jesus’ intention to continue his walk once Cleopas and the unnamed disciple had reached Emmaus – and I will come back to that as well. But before then – I want to state very clearly that I believe this text to be foundational to our community life as Christians. All the elements of our common worship are present in this story. Jesus coming to those who are confused and anxious; to those who for whatever reason can’t believe the testimony of others – who need to know the presence of the living God – Jesus coming alongside those who are sad and bereft – Jesus warming hearts as the Scriptures are opened and most importantly being known in the breaking of the bread. And as an Anglican on the Catholic wing of the church these last two things and the order they are placed in the story is vital. Yes, the Scriptures are vital to worship – “were not our hearts burning within us while he was talking to us on the road, while he was opening the scriptures to us!” and like John Wesley do not our hearts need to be warmed by the truth revealed in the scriptures; but the disciples eyes were opened at the breaking of the bread – that moment when Jesus went from being guest to host. And this is a clear reference to our practice of communion – that it is vital and necessary and not some thing to be tacked on to worship but is at the very heart and core of what we do when we gather as disciples today. After 2000 years of preaching and acts of love and service, this act of communion is the one thing Christians have been doing everyday since to Resurrection. Gathering to break bread together.
But as much as I love how this story as a whole is a story of us as we worship, what strikes me even more is how much the Emmaus story reveals about the heart and character of Jesus. Here are four things I notice:
I notice a quiet resurrection. One would think that a God who suffers a torturous and wholly unjust death would come back with a vengeance, determined to shout his triumph from the rooftops, and prove his accusers and killers wrong. But Jesus does no such thing. As far as we know, he doesn’t enter the Temple and make a scene. He doesn’t appear to the Sanhedrin, or show up at Pilate’s house, or set the sky ablaze with fireworks. He makes absolutely no effort to vindicate himself, or to avenge his cruel death. Instead, on the evening of his greatest victory, the risen Christ does what – he takes a walk. He takes a leisurely walk on a quiet, out-of-the-way road. When he notices two of his followers walking ahead of him, he approaches them in a guise so gentle, so understated, and so mundane, they don’t recognise him. This is not, I’ll admit, what I always want from the resurrected Christ. “But we had hoped” he’d be more dramatic. More convincing. More unmistakably divine. We had hoped he’d make post-Easter faith easier. But we have the disappointment of God’s maddening subtlety and hiddenness. The disappointment of a Jesus who prefers the quiet, hidden encounter to the theatrics we might expect and crave. I notice healing through story. As soon as Jesus falls into step with the companions on the road, he invites them to tell their story: “What are you discussing with each other while you walk along?” Astonished by the question, Cleopas and his co-traveller tell Jesus everything. They tell Jesus the whole story.
And Jesus listens. He hears them out, allowing them the balm of articulation. And then — when they’re done — he tells the story back to them, and as he does so, the story changes. In his retelling, it becomes what it really always was — something far bigger, deeper, older, wiser, and richer than the travellers on the Emmaus Road understood. “Here’s what you’re leaving out,” Jesus seems to say. “Here’s what you’re missing.” When Jesus tells the story, he restores both its context and its glory. He grounds the story in memory, in tradition, in history, in Scripture. He helps the travellers comprehend their place in a narrative that long precedes them, a narrative big enough to hold their disappointment without being defeated by it. When Jesus tells the story, the death of the Messiah finds its place in a sweeping, cosmic arc of redemption, hope, and divine love that spans the centuries. When Jesus tells the story, the hearts of his listeners burn.
I notice the freedom to leave. When the travellers reach Emmaus, Jesus makes as if he’s leaving, placing them in a position where they must be absolutely intentional and definitive about their desire regarding him. Do they want him to stay? Are they willing to risk hosting a stranger in their home?
Do they wish to go deeper with this man who makes their hearts burn, or are they content to leave the encounter where it stands, and return to their ordinary lives without learning more? I always shudder a little bit when I get to this part of the story. What would have happened if Cleopas and his companion said goodbye to Jesus on the road? How would their story have ended if Jesus walked away? The companions would have missed so much. The Messiah they thought they knew and loved would have remained a stranger. They would not have experienced the intimate knowing of the broken bread, the shared cup. The joy of resurrection would not have become theirs.
I’m always surprised — and, I’ll admit, frustrated — by Jesus’s unwavering commitment to my freedom. He will not impose. He will not overpower. He will not coerce. He’ll make as if he’s moving on, giving me space, time, and freedom to decide what I really want. Do I desire to go deeper? Am I ready to get off the road of my failures and defeats? Am I willing to let the guest become my host? Do I really want to know who the stranger is? “Stay with us.” That’s what Cleopas and his companion say to Jesus. Stay with us. An invitation. A welcome. The words a patient Jesus waits to hear. And finally I notice the smallness of things. Once Jesus and his companions are seated around the table, Jesus takes bread. He takes, blesses, breaks, and gives. So small a thing. So small a thing that changes everything.
It’s difficult to trust in the transformative power of small things. A bit of bread. A sip of wine. A common table. A shared meal. But the Emmaus story speaks to this power — the power of the small and the commonplace to reveal the divine. God shows up during a quiet evening walk on a backwater road. God is made known around our dinner tables. God reveals God’s self when we take, bless, break, and give. God is present in the rhythms and rituals of our seemingly ordinary days. The stranger who is the Saviour still meets us on the lonely road to Emmaus. The guest who becomes our host still nourishes us with Presence, Word, and Bread. So we keep walking. We keep telling the story. We keep honouring the stranger. We keep attending to our burning hearts. Christ is risen. And when he lingers at our door, honouring our freedom, but yearning to feed us, let us say what he longs to hear: Stay with us.