Easter 3A – George Yandell
How do we followers of Jesus recognize him today? Maybe in those who ask us “What have you been talking about? What’s on your minds?” Those two disciples assumed they knew much more than the stranger who joined them. And often in the stories about Jesus and his disciples, when a named male is joined by another unnamed disciple, that unnamed one is female.
Jesus’ first action after the discussion on the road is significant: “He walked ahead as if he were going on.” In Near Eastern customs, the guest was obligated to turn down an invitation like Cleopas and his companion/wife gave until it was vigorously repeated. Theologically, Jesus’ action demonstrates that he never forces himself on others. Faith must always be a spontaneous, voluntary response to God’s grace. Luke’s Jesus was always going further, unless invited to stay for a while. [From the New Interpreters’ Bible, Vol.9, p. 479]
Frederick Buechner interprets Emmaus as “the place we go in order to escape – a bar, a movie, wherever it is we throw up our hands and say, ‘Let the whole [darn] thing go hang. It makes no difference anyway.’ …Emmaus may be buying a new suit or new car… or reading a second-rate novel or even writing one. Emmaus may be going to church on Sunday. Emmaus is whatever we do or wherever we go to make ourselves forget that the world holds nothing sacred: that even the wisest and bravest and loveliest decay and die; that even the noblest ideas that [people] have had—ideas about love and freedom and justice – have always in time been twisted out of shape by selfish [people] for selfish ends.” [ibid p. 482]
The risen Lord meets us on the road to our Emmaus’s, in the ordinary places and experiences of our lives, and in the places to which we retreat when life is too much for us. The story warns us, however, that the Lord may come to us in unfamiliar guises, when we least expect him. [ibid]
For Jesus a meal was not just an act of survival—a necessary activity which must be performed to keep the body functioning. Unfortunately, in our production driven, mass produced culture, food is both big business and an unfortunate, albeit necessary, interruption to our effectiveness.
For Jesus, though, food was a gift, and the act of eating was an opportunity to be nourished, not just physically, but through the whole person.
Meals with Jesus were times of feeding the soul, the mind, and the body, and were wonderful opportunities for teaching, challenging and confronting—all necessary ingredients of the true community he was building. And, when people were gathered around a table or a picnic basket, Jesus often used the opportunity to reveal more of himself and his purpose. [ibid p. 482]
Listen closely to what happened at the table, before Cleopas and his companion recognized Jesus. They sat down to a meal together with their guest. They saw him take bread, bless it, break it, and give.
They had seen that pattern before. They must have, because in that moment their eyes were opened. It wasn’t when he came near them; it wasn’t when he tried to explain it all to them, again. It is when he takes, blesses, breaks and gives them bread – something so ordinary that they had seen it before, time and time again. It’s only when their tears give way, their heads look up from the table, that they finally see who has been journeying with them. Jesus lives after all! The tomb, the angels, the women—can it really be true? It all comes back to them and they SEE. And in an instant they see him no more. [Adapted from “The Christian Century”, April 12, 2017 edition, p. 20]
This was the miracle. The open table fellowship the rabbi Jesus had established in Galilee continued after his resurrection. Those who had shared meals with him and become part of the fellowship continued to find the resurrected Jesus at the table with them.
As we eat and share our stories, we are nourished in our whole being. And as we gather, the presence of the Christ who loved to share meals with friends is with us and revealed to us. [From “Synthesis, A Weekly Resource for Preaching”, April 2014 issue.]
It’s all about connection. Cynthia Bourgeault in her book The Wisdom Jesus (Boston: Shambhala, 2008) describes the encounter with the two disciples on the road to Emmaus as a textbook study of spiritual recognition. She explains: “What keeps these two good souls from recognizing their master is very clear: it’s their self-pity and nostalgia. As Jesus catches up with them on the road and asks what their sadness is about, they respond: ‘ … about Jesus of Nazareth, who was a prophet mighty in deed and word before God and all the people, and how our chief priests and leaders handed him over to death and crucified him. But we had hoped that he was the one to redeem Israel’.
“Clearly they are stuck in their story, and their stuck-ness is what makes them unable to see the person standing right before their faces. They are trapped in the past, filled with self-pity and doubt, and no one can recognize anything in this state. What Jesus does in this case is a delightful exercise of ‘skillful means’: he rewrites their story for them.” After he takes them verse by verse through the appropriate [Hebrew scripture] pointers and explains their meaning in the light of his own life and death, he breaks bread with them in communion fashion and then disappears. Finally they “get it.”
Bourgeault concludes: “They have come to understand that their attuned hearts are the instruments of recognition and that these same attuned hearts will bind them to their risen Lord moment by moment and forever.” We are with Cleopas and his friend. Let the resurrected Jesus open your eyes as you take the bread of fellowship with him and all the multitudes from the past 2000 years. He and they are here with us.