Hearts Burning

Sermon based on Luke 24: 13-35

We’ve been doing a lot of celebrating here lately.  Beginning with Easter two weeks ago, we celebrated the resurrection with spectacular singing, a beautiful, handmade kite, communion and a baptism.  That was–as far as I’m concerned–one of the most amazing services I’ve been part of for a long time.  It was quite the celebration for an event that is at the center of our faith tradition.  The Resurrection.

But after the communion bread is eaten, the candles are blown out, and the plastic Easter eggs are returned to their boxes for next year’s hunt.  After the festivities are over, then what? What does all of this mean to us, to celebrate this resurrection?

In today’s gospel story, we meet two disciples.  Cleopas, and another unnamed disciple.  Cleopas is not one of the original twelve, but still a faithful follower of Jesus.  Because nothing in these texts are unintentional, the unnamed disciple is an opportunity for us to enter into the story, to fill in that blank with our own name.

These two are heading to a town that is a two or three hour walk from Jerusalem.  And they are talking–disbelievingly–about all the things they’d heard that day.  Jesus walked up to them, but they did not recognize him.  And Jesus asked them questions–What are you talking about?  What things have happened?

The disciples were stunned that this stranger had no idea what had happened in Jerusalem.  They assumed he was a resident alien, and undocumented immigrant.  So they told this stranger who Jesus was.  They told the stranger what happened to Jesus, and how disappointed they were that Jesus was not the person they thought he was going to be.

And then they shared their disbelief that the women disciples who went to the tomb claimed to have seen Jesus.  In fact, they called what the women had seen a vision.

Their interpretation was distant and had no grounding in their own experience.  Jesus was out there.  They hoped he would be the messiah, that he would be more personal to them, but he wasn’t.  Those other people claimed to have seen Jesus alive and the tomb empty, but that was out there, in the distance.  Away from their hearts.  Jesus was not distant, but right there in the midst of them, and they didn’t even recognize him.

Jesus admonished the disciples for their disbelief, but he didn’t stop there.  Instead he re-interpreted all that they’d seen and heard.  He reinterpreted the story through the lens of Jesus’ death and resurrection.

It’s a kind of funny moment, because here’s Jesus, and the disciples don’t recognize him.  And Jesus is retelling the story of the people of Israel through the lens of his own resurrection.

It’s kindof like this.  Something happens to you.  You are sad and hurt about it.  Your vision about the whole thing become myopic, and in your hurt you begin to interpret things in a certain narrow way.  But, then someone asks you how you are doing, you tell your story, and they look at you as if you are from another planet.  “What you are actually saying is…..” and they go on to reinterpret what you’ve said, in some way that you’d never thought of.  They pan back from your myopic perspective and show you all the things you are missing in your own experience.

It’s eye opening.  And it’s good to have friends like this–friends that can speak the truth to you, and help you see things differently.  Those are the kinds of friends you want to walk with.

So, when it looked like Jesus (who they hadn’t yet realized was Jesus) was going on ahead of them, they begged him to stay.  They offered him hospitality and food.  And Jesus did what he did in the upper room the night before his crucifixion.  He broke bread, blessed it and gave it to them.  Such a simple act.  And that simple act opened their eyes to see who is was that was walking and talking with them all that time.

And then, just like that, Jesus was gone.

After the death of Jesus, Luke was framing the next important question for the followers of Jesus, “Given the resurrection, how do we understand the scripture?”  In rabbinical tradition, it’s not unusual to say, “We read the text through the eyes of Moses” or someone else.  It’s a way of interpretation.

Here, Jesus does something similar for us.  The disciples are lost.  They don’t know how to interpret what’s happened.  And so Jesus interprets the scripture, from the beginning, telling the story through the lens of Jesus.

But Jesus does something more here than just tell the story through the lens of his life, death and resurrection.  Jesus brought the disciples into the story.  He brought them in when he continued to walk with them, when he accepted their hospitality, and when he turned and offered hospitality to them.  The story of God’s saving love beginning with Abraham–the wandering Aramaen–and continuing to the resurrection of Jesus and beyond.  It continues in the shared meal that they had with Jesus and into the shared meal we have together.

This story makes Jesus a lens for interpreting the story of God’s work in the world.  It is I AM interpreting I AM’s self to them all along. That alone makes this story incredibly powerful.

But there is another component to this story–This  story tells us why we worship, and what it means to worship.

We gather every week, to share our lives together.  We read scripture together, confess our doubts and failings.  We read scripture together and understand our lives through the lens of Jesus.

And then we break bread–sometimes at this table, sometimes in each other’s homes, and sometimes downstairs in fellowship hour–we break bread and our eyes are opened.

There are many times in our worship when this may feel boring, ritualistic, lacking in meaning even.  But this is not something to find perfection in.  This is a practice.  We gather together to share our lives, and to tell our story through the eyes of Jesus.  We tell the story of the great I AM, a story that includes us, a story that invites us in, that makes us part of it.  There is no distance in this story.  It is intimate, it is personal.  It is our story.

And it is brought to life, made personal, in the breaking of bread, in the sharing together.

Not every Sunday can be like Easter.  Not every Sunday involves gorgeous kites, baptisms, and breathtakingly beautiful singing.  But every Sunday, like those disciples did that first day of the week, we gather, we share our stories, and we see our lives differently.  We see our lives not in confusion, but through the lens of a God who loves us, of a God whose son was killed but returned to life–not with human vengeance, but with love.  We hear that story of love, told to us through the eyes of Jesus.  And when we gather together, around this table, giving and receiving hospitality, we see Jesus among us.

Today is not Easter proper, but it is the season of Easter, the ongoing celebration of the resurrection of Jesus.  Today we hear the testimony of Thea and Katie, and we bless their decision to be baptized and follow in the way of Jesus.  And today, we celebrate by breaking bread together, by sharing it with each other.

And because we share the story today, our hearts burn within us, for we have seen the risen Christ among us.  AMEN.