Third Sunday of Easter

Today's text is Luke 24: 13-35, read by Mark Chamberlin. This morning's sermon was delivered by the Rev. Dr. Phil Snider.

Lead Pastor: Rev. Dr. Phil Snider (he/him)

Associate Pastor: Rev. Emily Bowen-Marler (she/her)

Youth Director: Paije Luth (she/her)

Children’s Church Coordinator: Valerie Bush (she/her)

Executive Assistant: Wacey Rivale (she/her)

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:05

Our reading today is taken from the Gospel according to Luke, chapter 24. Now, on that same day, two of them were going to a village called Emmaus, about seven miles from Jerusalem, and talking with each other about all these things that had happened. While they were talking and discussing, Jesus himself came near and went with them. But their eyes were kept from recognizing him. And he said to them, What are you discussing with with each other as you walk along? They stood still and looked sad. Then one of them, whose name was Cleopas, answered him, Are you the only stranger in Jerusalem who does not know the things that have happened in this place in these days? He asked them what things? They replied, The things 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 be condemned to death and crucified him. But we had hoped that he was the one to redeem Israel. Yes, and besides all this, it is now the third day since these things took place. Moreover, some women of our group astounded us. They were at the tomb early this morning, and when they did not find his body, they came back and told us that they had indeed seen a vision of angels who said that he was alive. Some of those who were with us went to the tomb and found it just as the women had said, but they did not see him. Then he said to them, Oh, how foolish you are, and how slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have said and declared. Was it not necessary that the Messiah should suffer these things and then enter into his glory? Then, beginning with Moses and all the prophets, he interpreted to them the things about himself in all the scriptures. As they came near the village to which they were going, he walked ahead as if he were going on, but they urged him strongly, stay with us, because it's 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. They said to each other, Were not our hearts burning within us while he was talking to us on the road, while he was opening the scriptures to us? That same hour they got up and returned to Jerusalem, and they found the eleven and their companions gathered together. They were saying, The Lord has risen indeed, and he has appeared to Simon. Then they told what had happened on the road and how he had been made known to them in the breaking of the bread. Maybe hear what the Spirit is saying to the church.

SPEAKER_00 4:00

Narrative, of course, meaning stories, like referring to the kinds of stories that we find meaning in, that we feel connected to, stories with like ultimate significance. As one author describes, it's like the stories we find ourselves in that we are drawn to that help us find value and meaning and connection, help us figure things out. This morning we are invited to find ourselves in the story of the two friends who are traveling on this road to Emmaus. Now, the story tells us that they feel crushed. While the resurrection has happened, they don't believe it. If you could just go a few verses up, the women uh tell of the resurrection, and the men are like, oh, it's just an idle tale, women talking about these things. What do they know? That's a paraphrase, but they dismiss what the women say in terms of the proclamation of the resurrection. And that's the only time that's ever happened in history. Um, not. So, like the resurrections happen, but they don't get it. They don't understand, they don't recognize it, their hopes feel dashed, they're heartbroken in the face of loss, everything they they'd hoped for feels gone. So Jesus comes alongside them and asks, What's wrong? They don't recognize him. They're like, have you not been paying attention to like basically everything that's happened in and around Jerusalem the last few days? How did you miss this? The person we were putting our hopes in, the one we thought was gonna help us get through to redeem Israel, to to help overthrow the Romans, the person we we hoped in, trusted in. Did you not hear what happened? He was arrested, he was crucified, he's dead. But we had hoped, they said. We had hoped he was the one. We had hoped. Sometimes the deepest truths come out in the simplest phrases. We had hoped. These three words carry the weight of a thousand prayers that did not go the way that we imagined. We had hoped the treatment would work. We had hoped the relationship would heal. We had hoped our grief would be eased by now. We had hoped the job would last. We had hoped we would have gotten into the house. We had hoped our loved one would not have had to suffer so much. We had hoped our retirement would have gone differently. We had hoped our friends wouldn't forget us. We had hoped. It's not a failure to feel these things, it's just being honest about sometimes how life goes and the way it can break us. It's what love sounds like when love hopes and dreams and longs for things to be better, but they aren't. These three words consist of prayers spoken by countless generations. We had hoped children would not keep dying in the crossfire of wars they did not choose. We had hoped leaders would not take us into needless, unnecessary wars where there is untold human suffering. We had hoped the planet would be treated with care. We had hoped the law would bend toward justice. We had hoped the things we fought for generations ago would not have to be fought for again. We had hoped the churches would widen their welcome instead of narrow it. We had hoped that after all we've been through, pandemics and wars, irreparable losses, we had hoped we would emerge kinder, more connected, more humane. We had hoped we would recognize how much we need one another. We had hoped. Like those travelers on this road to Emmaus, there are times we can feel the ache of it all when things don't go as we had hoped. And we can feel that ache even as we try to move forward. And sometimes part of the healing is in the conversations, being able to just share grief together. Notice in this story, Jesus comes alongside these travelers and for a long while just listens to them. They felt loss and trauma, grief, they're trying to find ways to express it. Sometimes we tell our stories over and over because we're trying to get to the truth of them, because we're trying to understand them, we're searching for what our stories mean. And these travelers, like so many of us, carry grief and confusion, shattered hope. And notice that when Jesus comes alongside them, he doesn't interrupt. He doesn't say, yo, hey, Jesus rose from the dead right here, y'all. He doesn't correct them in mid-sentence. He doesn't rush to fix their theology or tidy up their emotions or or give them the latest hot take. He just listens. He lets them tell their story all the way through. The version they they understand, the version that still aches, the version that doesn't make sense. And there is something deeply healing about being able to speak our grief out loud, especially in the presence of someone who won't rush us past it, who will just listen and be present. Because we don't just tell our stories once, we tell them again and again, we circle back, we repeat ourselves, not because we're stuck, but because we are searching. We're trying to find the truth of our stories. We're trying to name what hurts. We are trying to understand what has been lost. We're trying to figure out who we are now on the other side of it. And those travelers, they're they're processing trauma in real time. The violence that they witnessed, the hope they carried, the confusion they feel, Jesus comes alongside them and honors that. Sometimes we we imagine God's role is just to step in quickly and to give us the answers. But in the story, Jesus first chooses something else. To meet them in solidarity and love, to walk at the pace of human grief. Part of the healing is not just in answers. It's in having someone who will stay long enough to hear the whole story. To be in communities or to have friendships where grief can be spoken without feeling silenced or rushed. It's not just in the answers that can be given, but it's in how a person makes you feel. Sometimes resurrection begins with being heard, being seen, being loved. Now, if we're to step away from a bit and take a look at this story, you have a number of resurrection stories in the Bible. And all of these stories are trying to say something different, trying to help people connect in different ways with the story of Jesus, what it means, how it continues on beyond his death. And in this particular story, it's crafted in such a way that the travelers on the road to Emmaus do not recognize Jesus by the answers that he gives as he explains everything. They begin to experience the presence of Jesus. Their hearts begin to burn as the text describes, by their presence coming alongside. And in this particular story, they do not recognize Jesus until they are at table together and Jesus breaks bread. And the idea in this story is to say that whenever you take part in the kinds of things that were part of Jesus' life, the breaking of bread, the sharing of bread, then you too can experience the risen Christ. So it's a story carefully crafted to let people know that the living Christ is experienced in and among the community of love and belonging and care. That is where we see the risen Christ, not just in the answers that are given. When we participate in the kinds of things that mark Jesus' life, the sharing, the caring, the loving, the experiencing a sense of belonging, that's when the risen Christ is among our midst. Another one of our participants at last week's Pub Theology had just written a really beautiful, moving and thoughtful post on his Substack. It was about his faith journey, and he gave me permission to share some of it with you this morning. In his post, he asked the question of whether or not you can experience faith apart from community, apart from belonging, because for him, community and belonging was not always easy to come by. In his post, he talks about how he grew up in the church, he even became a minister in the church. But when he wrote posts about affirming LGBTQ folk, and then later when he came out as bisexual, he was not only stripped of his ministerial credentials, he was effectively kicked out of his church, out of his community that had been deeply woven into the very fabric of his being his whole life long. Like those folks traveling on the road to Emmaus, he felt crushed. He had hoped that he would be accepted for who he was, but instead he was met with rejection for who he was. His hopes had been dashed. And he talked about the long journey of finding a faith community where he could belong for who he was and not in spite of who he was. So he didn't have to hide. So he could live in the truth, live into the truth of his story, of who he is as God created him to be. And he was living in the Ozarks. And he found out about Brentwood. And these are the kinds of stories that make me forever grateful for Brentwood. He writes, quote, I was finally accepted for who I am. I met other queer people at this church where we all found belonging. And in another group for people going through religious deconstruction, when I had talked about this, someone asked if my faith depended on community. Does my faith depend on community? And I had to think about it. And he says, yes. Yes, it does. Yes, it does. Being welcomed, accepted, and included as an equal helped my faith when it was nearly torn down. The risen Christ is experienced in and among folks who come alongside one another. In the midst of the struggles, in the midst of the grief, where we create space for welcome and belonging, where we give space for folks to process their grief, where we don't just show up with all the easy, ready-made answers that we say, I maybe don't know, but I want to walk on this journey with you, knowing that love will hold us together. As soon as we think we are church because we've got all of the right answers, but we don't recognize we are church at our best whenever we cultivate places of belonging and care and love. We miss the mark if we think church is just about believing all the right things. Because truthfully, we're all drawn to this call, this beauty of love. And we call it God, and we we have things we believe and things we think, some things we're not sure of. But love holds us together on the journey. And whenever we gather around table, when we break bread, creating spaces of belonging, when we give space for people to share stories, to process grief, to be present in the spirit of solidarity, in the spirit of love. It is then that we too, like those travelers on the road to Emmaus, have our eyes opened. We recognize and see the living Christ among us. Thanks to be to God. Amen.