Who you know

John 14:1-14, Rite 13 Ceremony

Imagine that you’ve signed up for (or been talked into) a guided adventure: a wilderness hike, a tour of a new country, or even an urban project close to home. And at the peak of the adventure – when you know you’ve come to a place that’s really new to you, when you’re not quite sure how you got there or what the new surroundings mean – just then the guide announces that he is leaving, and from here on your group is on your own to finish the trip or the project.
Anyone feeling a little anxious?

That may be how the disciples felt when Jesus announced that he was leaving, and that the whole project – preaching, teaching, healing, transforming the world according to God’s purpose (nothing big…) is now up to them. Us.

Jesus does tell the disciples not to worry. That he’s going on ahead to prepare a place; and that they – we – know the way that he is going.
Caught on the edge of the wilderness, it’s no surprise that the disciples think this is less than helpful:
“Wait a minute,” says Thomas, “what do you mean we know the way? We have no idea where you’re going!”
“Yes you do,” says Jesus, “because you know me.”
You know the Way, because you know the Truth: you know what I have taught you, and know God’s word revealed in human flesh. You know the Life: God’s abundance and creative gifts that I have given you.
That’s the Way.

It’s not actually about instructions, it’s about relationships.

As we grow in faith, and as we do God’s work, everything that matters is in relationship. Not what we know, but who we know, and who we become, in relationship.

Think about the people you spend time with. Family and friends,and people at work and at school. Who has seen your secrets, your hopes and your dreams, and held them safe, and encouraged you to grow with them? Who do you trust? Hold those people in your mind and heart.

Now think about who you become when you are with them.
Do you become anxious, or do you become strong? Do you become funny and brilliant? Thoughtful or creative? Does this relationship make you lonely or afraid? Does it make you hopeful or well-loved? What kind of person do you become in this relationship?
As we grow, as we encounter the challenges of life, it’s who we turn to that shapes our path. It’s who we know.

When I was 14, I moved into the dorms at the Illinois Math and Science Academy with a whole bunch of other teenage nerds. In many ways, it was like standing on the edge of the promised land. Fun stuff to do in school. Exciting ideas and projects, and a sense that we could change the world.  And no parents!

But after orientation, once the deadlines loomed and the work was hard, I began to feel lost. As if the guide had disappeared. I had signed up for this great adventure – but I hadn’t realized that I was going to have to navigate on my own quite so soon.

Now, not everybody goes to nerd school, and I imagine many of you would not think that it’s the promised land, either.
But we all go through adolescence. New experiences. A glimpse of the promised land of adulthood. New privileges; new responsibilities. And the discovery that the guides that got us here don’t seem quite as helpful as they used to. It’s hopeful, powerful, anxious and confusing at the same time.
It can happen at other points in our life: marriage, births or deaths. Job loss or a sudden promotion or moving to a new home. And we find ourselves, halfway through the adventure, wondering where we go from here and why the guide seems to have left.
In those times of wilderness: adventure, hope, privilege and responsibility, it’s never the how-to that really shows us the way. It’s not the best method to feed the baby, pick up the pieces, do the job or solve the problem of the day that we really need (though we often want it.)
It’s the relationships. The people we turn to who walk with us even if they don’t have answers.

In the first semester at IMSA I called home all the time. (My poor parents!)
When I asked, they couldn’t give me directions on how to like the change around me and inside me, instructions on how to meet challenges with delight and confidence instead of anxiety.
All they could tell me was what I already knew:
We love you, and we want you to be well. How you get there doesn’t matter.

And that was the way.
Not step-by-step instructions for each challenge, but remembering who I was whether I passed the test or shrunk everything I owned in the laundry.

Today’s gospel, like the Rite 13 ceremony that we will celebrate today, assures us that when we are lost – or found – in the middle of a great adventure it’s not the map, the instructions, or even the place we end up that matters.
On a journey to adulthood, or to the kingdom of God, it’s who we know.
It’s who we become, in relationship: Funnier, wiser and more aware in our relationships with our friends. Stronger and braver in our relationship with our families. More creative, loving, and well-loved in our relationship with God and our community.

In relationship we can become trustful and trustworthy people (that’s as true of parents with their children as of children with their parents!) because when we know well, and are well known, it doesn’t matter if independence is frustrating, our hopes don’t seem to come true, or if we don’t know where we’re going,
because we do know the Way.

[Rite 13 Celebrities:] I thought I would like to give you advice in this sermon.
But then I realized that the ceremony we are about to celebrate has all the advice I could give you, at least today, because it is about relationships.

Instead of advice, I – we! – need to be there for you:
To know you as you are, and as you grow and change. To let you know us, your faith community and your friends. To answer your questions honestly, even when we don’t have the Answers. To trust you, and to be worthy of your trust.
And to be proud of you. We ARE proud of you.

It’s a privilege, today, to share God’s delight in you, and to remember with you Jesus’ promise and commandments: that in relationship we know the Way, and in relationship, we can do more than we imagine.

Hidden miracles

Luke 24:13-35

Did you want to see the pictures of Osama bin Laden?

It was a big news story this week: would we, or would we not, get to see photographs of a dead body.

I’m confident that the photographs are ugly and maybe sickening, and personally, I was somewhat relieved that they wouldn’t be released.  But there was still the question at the center of much of the news coverage:

If you can’t see it, how do you know it’s true?

Maybe we ask that because we live in a world where we can see things that happen thousands of miles away: a wedding, a war, a grandchild’s first steps.

But still, there are many things we can’t see:

dinosaurs, the ozone layer, a change of heart

and so we hear the story and the evidence, and we sometimes ask ourselves: If you can’t see it, how do you know it’s true?

In an odd coincidence of timing,

that’s the question being asked in today’s gospel story.

Think about Cleopas and his companion for a minute.  They’ve spent the Passover festival in Jerusalem among the crowd of Jesus’ disciples.  They’ve waited with the others through the tragedy of his death, and his burial.  They heard this morning that some of the women among them have been to the tomb and found it empty – and the disciples, perhaps, have suddenly remembered and reminded one another that Jesus kept saying he would be back on the third day.

Our travelers have waited as long as they can, hoping to see him. 

Finally, they’ve had to head home. There is work to be done, and the journey can’t be put off any longer.

But on the road, they wonder, and discuss: 

The tomb is empty, but Jesus isn’t back.  Had they misunderstood the prophecy after all?

If we can’t see him, how do we know it’s real?

You and I weren’t there in Jerusalem, two thousand years ago, the day the tomb was empty.  Neither were most of the people who told the story to us. 

And God knows there might be a time when we ask ourselves how we know it’s real.

Resurrection is a good story.  Essential, hopeful and challenging.

One that can teach us that tragedy is not the end, even when tragedy is real.

One that invites us to imagine a new world:

a world without fear and terror, a world that shines with the love of God.

Sometimes that’s enough.

But when tragedy has hold of our hearts,

when fear or loneliness or grief close doors and build walls to hold us in, that question becomes urgent: if we can’t see it, how do we know it’s real?

I noticed something about the way things happen on the Emmaus road.

It’s God who opens the eyes of the travelers to recognize Christ in the breaking of the bread.  But it’s also God who keeps the travelers from recognizing Jesus on the road.

Not a lack of information, not willful misunderstanding or general denseness, but the hand of God.  I believe that is so that when they do see, they know not only Christ himself, but something else:

It’s real.

Not just what we can we see,

but even, maybe especially, when we cannot see.

That’s what the travelers taught each other, rushing back to Jerusalem: were not our hearts burning within us?  It was real, even when we couldn’t see!

The Emmaus road teaches us that we know resurrection, we know Christ, in the scripture that lights our hearts on fire.  And we know the risen Christ at the table – in meals shared with strangers in need, or with fellow disciples.

Even when we don’t see him, it’s real.

They didn’t take pictures on the Emmaus road. Even if there were cameras in those days, there wasn’t time. They don’t have souvenirs.  They only have the sudden understanding that truth and sight are different things,

that the ordinary and the miraculous can’t really be separated.

And that’s why we remember their story.

That’s what the Emmaus road is for.

That road is ours on the days when in spite of our honest faith and hope, we don’t really expect God to be with us,

when we aren’t as sure as we want to be that Christ is real, and risen.

The days when we want to believe, but neither our hearts nor our minds can make that leap on faith alone.

The Emmaus road is the place – every place – where God walks with us, unrecognized.

It might be the grocery, or the office, or the highway or Metra train.

And this story reminds us that Christ is risen and real at every table where bread is blessed and shared, not just at the table in the church, but the one in the kitchen, the one in the McDonalds, the one at PADS.

This story assures us that the miraculous is hidden in the ordinary whether we know it or not.

In a way, that truth is particularly appropriate for Mother’s Day, because today is a day we pay attention to the miraculous in the ordinary. 

Motherhood is full of roads and tables.  Literal roads, traveled with a car full of kids.  Metaphorical roads, the paths and detours that our lives travel from beginning to end.

Multiplication tables, table manners and literal tables, with quick meals or joyous feasts.  

And perhaps, occasionally, breakfast in bed.

Motherhood – and living with our mothers – is all about what is ordinary.  Love, yes. And all the layers of patience and care and chores and grief and hope that make up our everyday relationships, and the relationships we long for. 

Today we look at the ordinary moments, and remember that they are full of hidden miracles,

real miracles whether we see them or not.

Love is hidden there. 

Our love, but also God’s love for each of us. 

Grace, and strength and above all the gift of life hide in every ordinary moment.

It is real.

Christ is risen.  Love wins.

Near Emmaus, in our kitchens and cars,

in every ordinary place and time.

Sometimes we will be able to see the miracle, and sometimes we won’t.

But the gospel assures us that even the miracle we don’t see is real.