“Journeying with the Stranger, Meeting him at the Table”
Luke 24:13-35
April 6, 2008 – Confirmation Sunday
Rev. David A. Kaden
Time Warner Cable was generous to our family back in the fall, offering us a sweet deal to upgrade our cable service. We decided to do it. Never before have I had this many TV channels to choose from. Does anyone actually watch all those channels?
I like having access to 24-hour news networks like CNN and even FOXNEWS. But the real reason I liked the idea of upgrading was because it meant getting one channel in particular. The Yankees Entertainment and Sports Network-the YES Network for short. Channel 74, if you're interested. Now I can watch every game of my beloved Yankees. It's a healthy distraction. Not since High School, living in the NYC area, have I been able to watch the Yanks every day. The 2008 season is now underway, and I'm suddenly realizing how much I've missed watching games, as opposed to just following them online. (Now if I could just find the time to actually sit down and enjoy a game, I'd be all set!) But, just having the YES Network one remote click away has been such a treat that it's felt almost too good to be true .
... Too good to be historically true, is my reaction when I read today's story called the 'Journey to Emmaus' in Luke 24: Two disciples, one a man named Cleopas, the other unnamed and probably a woman (his wife perhaps), are journeying from Jerusalem to a place called Emmaus. It’s still Easter Sunday, according to Luke, and these two travelers are confused and perplexed about the events of the last three days when suddenly they're interrupted by the Risen Jesus himself, eavesdropping on their conversation. But they don't recognize him. This Stranger pretends no to know what they're talking about, but then begins to teach them about the Messiah from the scriptures, until they arrive at their home. He continues walking. They petition him to stay, inviting this Stranger whom they don't yet recognize, to join them for dinner. And when they sit down, he takes the bread, blesses it, breaks it, and gives it to them, as if serving communion. And then the epiphany moment! The two disciples recognize him, and he vanishes from their sight.
The story is so good, so much like a church service, I'm skeptical that it actually happened in the way Luke describes. Some scholars have suggested that Luke may have taken an existing church liturgy, and wrote this Emmaus story around it. In the story, just like in a church service, there's teaching from the scriptures; there's a petition-like a prayer-invoking Jesus to come; there's communion complete with blessed and broken bread; there's even a primitive creed Luke places onto the lips of the travelers who say, 'Jesus of Nazareth, a prophet mighty in word and deed before God and all people.' (It's got rhythm to it. . .it sounds like a creed.) And to round the story out, there's a spiritual moment-a moment when the Stranger's veil is lifted, and his presence felt. And isn't this what we're hoping will happen in church? The story seems too good to be historically true.
A Native American Chief once sat down to tell a story and began with these words: 'I don't know if this actually happened, but I know it's true.'
The Journey to Emmaus may never have happened in history, but it's a true story. Scholar John Dominic Crossan has written, 'Emmaus never happened ... Emmaus always happens.'
The Emmaus story is a true story I can relate to more easily than a lot of the other stories in the gospels. Our four gospels are loaded with stories that seem almost too miraculous ... too out of touch: five loaves and two fish feeding a multitude? A gentle touch making a leper clean? Spit, mud, and a few words and a blind man can see again? A command from the lips of Jesus and the demented soul writhing in mental anguish is quieted?
These are stories that have a place and purpose, but they depict events that seem worlds away from our daily struggles with colds and sore throats, cancer, HIV, heart disease, pneumonia, stress, depression. A gentle touch and a few kind words from Jesus would be welcome relief from the ailments we face. But alas, healings are miracles, and miracles don't happen very often, or else they wouldn't be miraculous.
.. . But the Journey to Emmaus ... now this is a story I can relate to. It may never have happened in history, but it's something that can happen at any time. Ordinary followers of Jesus; pondering his life and ministry; doubting the future; wrestling with the present; longing for a glimpse of the One who'd changed the way they saw the world.
Questioning, doubting, wondering. Sounds like a spiritual journey, if you ask me. More questions than answers; more doubt than confidence; clinging to a glimmer of hope; Emmaus is a story about faith. It's a story about the life of faith: the twists and turns along the way-the uncertainty, and the brief spiritual glimpses we sometimes receive-the flickers of the Risen Christ, which give us a taste of the More, of the Sacred, of God, and then vanish from before our eyes, leaving us with just enough to keep us seeking God again and again and again.
.. .I heard an Emmaus story when Jacquie and I lived in Newark, NJ. I knew one 35 year old woman, named Rita, who'd been addicted to heroin for 15 years. The years of addiction had been harsh to her face. Heroin addicts will sometimes starve themselves, spending all their money buying the drug and not eating, making their faces look drawn and gaunt, sickly. Plus street heroine is sometimes laced with impurities that can make the user deathly ill, further distorting their appearance. Rita looked much older than her 35 years.
She once showed me where she used to buy heroin, just two blocks from the Christian school we worked at. I would drive by the line of gutted row houses several times a day, running errands or going home. And frequently, I would see a person approach the front door of one of the houses where there was a gaping hole. The person would pass a wad of cash through the hole, and a hand would reach out the hole and drop the dope through. Once every few months the police would raid the house, clean it out, board up the hole. But a week or so later, business would be thriving once more.
Rita used to buy her heroine there at that gaping hole. But one day, out of money and in the throes of withdrawal, too weak to steal, too tired to prostitute herself, she went to a local church in desperation. There she got a warm embrace from perfect strangers. The prayers, the songs,
the laughter, the community, and the Table – it was Communion Sunday – gave her the freedom that had been so elusive for 15 years. ‘That day in church, I knew,’ she said. ‘I had been a slave, but that Sunday I got a fix that was better than any needle. And now I’m free!’
Emmaus happened that day. The Risen Christ met her in a church, walked her through the doors, was seen in the faces of the people who hugged her. His voice was heard in the scripture that was read, in the prayers that were prayed, in the songs that were sung. His presence was felt at the table, his body in the bread, his life in the cup. She still had a long road to walk to break her addiction, but it was a road she would never again walk alone. She had a crucified and risen Traveling Companion by her side.
…I like the Emmaus story. I like the idea of having a Traveling Companion as I journey on this road of faith. I like that this is the story we’re reading on Confirmation Sunday when we’re about to sit down at a Table and invite the Risen Christ to join us – a day when teenagers in our church are publicly beginning their journeys of faith.
For too long Confirmation in Christianity has been viewed as an end-of-the-road experience where Confirmands are expected to say “I believe” to a set of dogmas in a creed, or else they can’t join the club. (That’s how it was for me when I was confirmed.) But Confirmation is not the last step in a person’s faith development. It’s the first one. Confirmation is not a confession that says ‘I believe in God.’ It’s a confession that says, ‘I have a relationship with God.’
And relationships are messy: full of twists and turns; ups and downs; doubts and joys. Relationships are winding and complicated with uncertainties along the way. On this day our Confirmands are acknowledging that a relationship with God is beginning – a journey to Emmaus has commenced, a journey that will last a lifetime. And maybe – just maybe – the Risen Stranger will eavesdrop along the way, offer some guidance, sit down to fellowship, and open spiritually closed eyes.
Emmaus can happen any time.
In her best-selling book Eat, Pray, Love, Elizabeth Gilbert describes an Emmaus experience that started her on a journey of faith that would take her to three countries. It all started one night at 3 a.m. in her bathroom. She was sobbing, knowing that her marriage was failing, and uncertain about what to do next. She writes: ‘It was during that night on the bathroom floor when I began to speak to God directly.’
“In the middle of a…crisis…I had finally noticed that I seemed to have reached a state of hopeless and life-threatening despair, and it occurred to me that sometimes people in this state will approach God for help…What I said to God through my gasping sobs was something like this: ‘Hello, God. How are you? I’m Liz. It’s nice to meet you.’”
“That’s right – I was speaking to the creator of the universe as though we’d just been introduced at a cocktail party. But we work with what we have in this life, and these are the words I always
use at the beginning of a relationship ... In fact, it was all I could do to stop myself from saying, ‘I've always been a big fan of your work….’”
"I'm sorry to bother you so late at night," I continued. "But I'm in serious trouble ... I'm not an expert at praying, as you know. But can you please help me? ! don't know what to do. I need an answer. Please tell me what to do. Please tell me what to do...”
“And so the prayer narrowed itself down to that simple entreaty - please tell me what to do repeated again and again. I don't know how many times I begged. I only know that I begged like someone who was pleading for her life. And the crying went on forever. Until - quite abruptly - it stopped. Quite abruptly, I found that I was not crying anymore. I'd stopped crying ... mid-sob ... I lifted my forehead off the floor and sat up in surprise ... I was surrounded by something I can only describe as a little pocket of silence - a silence so rare that I didn't want to exhale, for fear of scaring it off…”
“Then I heard a voice...it was not an Old Testament Hollywood Charlton Heston voice ... It was merely my own voice speaking from within my own self. But this was my voice as I had never heard it before. This was my voice, but perfectly wise, calm, and compassionate. This was what my voice would sound like if I'd only ever experienced love and certainty in life. How can I describe the warmth of affection in that voice, as it gave me the answer that would forever seal my faith in the divine? The voice said: Go back to bed, Liz. I exhaled. It was so immediately clear that this was the only thing to do. I would not have accepted any other answer. [It was a voice of true wisdom]…In a way, this little episode had all the hallmarks of a typical Christian conversion experience - the dark night of the soul, the call for help, the responding voice, the sense of transformation.”
I find that story gripping. I love the Emmaus experience it describes. I can relate to stories like this. An encounter with the Living Stranger can happen anytime: during life's hinge moments of desperation on bathroom floors desperately sobbing our eyes out looking for answers. Emmaus can happen when walking into a church for the first time to start down the path of breaking addiction. We might meet the Risen Stranger while battling cancer, or when a family member passes away. We might feel his comforting presence after getting dumped by a girlfriend or boyfriend, after a divorce, or while in the throes of tormented worry over that son or daughter whose life is on the line. We might sense his embrace, as we watch the birth of our first child and hear that meek little cry for the first time, and life changes forever.
Emmaus can happen in life's big moments, and in life's mundane ones: Like in an ordinary church service, on an ordinary Sunday, when you hear the Stranger's voice speaking to you in the reading of scripture, or, when his spirit lifts your heart through a song sung, or when his presence inspires you from the words of a prayer (or maybe even a sermon!). Emmaus can happen when you greet friendly faces at the church's door - people who accept you simply because you're a child of God and a fellow journeyer on this road of faith. Emmaus can even happen when we share the bread and cup with the Risen Stranger who invites us to join him at the Table. Emmaus just might happen today. AMEN.