On The Road Away

Luke 24:13-35 (Acts 2:14; 36-41; 1 Peter 1:17-23)

I wonder if they were trying to get “back to normal”?

It wouldn’t work, of course; things were never going to be the same for them, and Cleopas and his friend probably knew that.

But they were headed out of Jerusalem anyway; turning their backs to the place of change and expectation; of loss and uncertainty, and heading for the obscurity of Emmaus.

The big adventure of the charismatic, gifted rabbi they had been following has ended badly, and rather ambiguously. Jesus was killed, and the powers that be are running along, undisturbed and unchanged. Yes, there’s that odd thing that Mary and Joanna and Magdalene said about the tomb being empty and angels visiting, but… Nobody knows what’s really going on; what’s supposed to happen next.

It’s Monday morning soon, and mystery or not, there are obligations waiting.

Cleopas and his friend may have gone to Emmaus seeking relief from the tides of change and the strong and unpredictable emotions of Jesus’ followers in Jerusalem: all that hope and disappointment, amazement and confusion. Or they may have been turning “back to normal” in despair: that miracle didn’t work out after all; there’s nothing to hope for.

You and I may also be looking toward “back to normal” or “re-opening” or just being able to follow through with our plans again with hope or with anxiety. It may seem like a relief to make plans to go back to business; or “back to normal” may be a road dark with disappointment and fear. Or all of the above at the same time.

Of course, just like Cleopas and his friend, you and I know that things have changed in the world and in ourselves that aren’t going to just change back. Normal isn’t going to be the same “normal” as before, whenever we get there.

But once we enter God’s story, it doesn’t really matter where we think we are going; or how eager or anxious we feel about getting there. Luke isn’t interested in any of those parts of the story; our story.

Luke only tells us what happened on the road.

Only tells us that Jesus comes up to Cleopas and his friend, and invites himself into their conversation, their journey. Jesus spends deliberate time drawing them deeper into the story, showing them where and how to look for the action of God.

They don’t recognize Jesus, and that’s on purpose. Luke suggests that God explicitly keeps Jesus’ identity hidden for a while. But they invite this intriguing person to dinner, and then…then he’s revealed. They recognize Jesus in the breaking of the bread. 

Luke is loading that moment with references to the Eucharist, to the holy meal we receive from God, and inviting us to see that ritual, and all our meals, as moments we share with the risen Christ.

And at the same time, Luke is telling us that God chooses our moments of revelation, God chooses when we recognize and respond to the presence of Jesus. God sets these up for us; we don’t do it for ourselves.

Luke is telling us that the moments of elation, connection, of knowing God with us, don’t necessarily happen where we’ve gone looking for them. Not in Jerusalem, not at the climax of our plans and hopes. Not in the center of the inner circle.

But at a small dinner table, with a couple of sort of mid-weight disciples, people who’d had to step out of the middle of those focused on Jesus’ death and the rumors of his resurrection, and go their separate way.

I find that comforting right now.

It’s comforting to remember that the first time the risen Jesus appears to anyone in Luke’s story, it’s to these two relatively unknown disciples, away from the religious center of things, separated from the rest of their fellowship.

When discomfort, loss, and fear around us are pressing us to find ways back to “normal”, and we also know that “normal” is dangerous right now, it’s comforting to think that these roads are exactly the ones Jesus can find us on. Will find us on.

Helpful to remember that Jesus finds us before we get back to normal, too. Finds us, and pours out extraordinary on us so that we forget we ever wanted “normal” and become joyous messengers of God’s newness and transformation.

When we can’t break bread together and share communion in the ritual we know conveys Christ’s presence with us, I find it comforting to remember that in this story, Jesus is around for hours before dinner. Jesus hangs out unrecognized, deeply interested in us, trying to help us be ready to encounter resurrection, teaching us what we’ll need to recognize something beyond our wildest imaginings.

I also find it helpful to remember that this revelation of Jesus’ resurrection and God’s loving care happen at what’s really an ordinary meal, with two disciples separated from their community – and that Jesus can show up unexpectedly at our separate or even solitary tables. Jesus appears at the breakfast table in pajamas; over home-baked quarantine sourdough, or takeout, or a disorganized meal scrounged from the back of the cabinet, just as readily as in the breaking of special bread at a decorated altar in a formal church.

When I find it hard to tell what God is up to, when I can’t imagine where Jesus is in this time of our great need, it’s comforting that this story tells us that God chooses the moments of connection, the moments when we get to see Jesus’ presence clearly, and that’s not in my control. Helpful to remember that Jesus might be with me and you unrecognized for the longest time, just setting up the moment God chooses as a gift.

It’s worth noting that while God does the choosing, while God makes the miracle of presence and connection happen on God’s own schedule, outside of the center of faith, Cleopas and his friend do cooperate with God.

They don’t leave their faith behind in Jerusalem. They stay open, and ready to hear, even on the road away. They tell the story they know and listen to a stranger’s story, too. They invite God’s storyteller into their lives and home, even if they don’t yet recognize God’s own self. 

It’s worth noting that those things are within our reach at home, outside the centers of our faith, in the middle of the uncertain road toward whatever might be normal next. We didn’t actually leave our faith behind in the pews of the church when the doors closed for a while. We still have a story about our hopes and longings to tell, and God comes close to us to listen, even if no one else happens by. We can – and do – invite God’s storytellers into our homes: reading scripture, joining online classes, talking about what matters most with our friends. And Jesus undoubtedly walks along with us, even if our eyes are kept from recognizing what God is doing among us right now.

This promise is for us, today; it always has been. God is setting up those moments of revelation for us, too: walking the road with us, hearing our stories and our questions, teaching as we go, setting up those glimpses of presence and love and blessing at tables far away from the center, where we will be connected again to all of God’s joy.

Both Hands

John 20:19-31

Every single year on the Sunday after Easter we hear this story of Jesus coming to the disciples after the resurrection, not just once, but twice. All this repetition suggests that somebody thought the story is pretty important.

And over the years of repetition, the church has paid particular attention to the role of Thomas in this story:

Thomas, who missed the first evening when Jesus burst in on his frightened disciples – passed right through the doors that fear had locked – and bestowed peace and power on them.

Thomas, who demands to see and touch, to feel the reality of resurrection, the assurance that this isn’t a mass hallucination or a trick.

Thomas, who sees and then exclaims out loud what no one else has said yet: “This is God.”

I think we’ve come to focus on Thomas because soon as Thomas declares his proven, all-encompassing faith that Jesus is not only the resurrected Lord, but the God of all creation, John tells us that Jesus says, “You believe because you have seen. Blessed are those who have not seen, and yet have come to believe.”

That has become, in some circles, a sort of reprimand. It’s used to say that if you want to see and touch and feel, if you want to prove or experience God’s truth, your faith isn’t as strong as those who believe without seeing. And that’s troubled many of us, including me, who have moments or ages of uncertainty or doubt. Many of us experience that desire to see and touch more of God than just the story, so that we feel able to truly believe. (So that we can believe in our own belief.)

But I am convinced that John meant it exactly the other way around. Not that we are wrong if we want to touch, but that if we can’t touch and see, our faith can and will still be as strong as those who do get to experience miracles on their skin and fingertips.

That became important very early in the life of the church, when new converts who weren’t there for resurrection needed assurance that even though we never met Jesus ourselves, even though we didn’t put our fingers in the nail holes, our relationship with the resurrected Jesus is just as real as Peter’s, as Mary’s. Just as important a relationship with Jesus as Thomas’s ever was.

“Blessed are those who have not seen, and yet have come to believe.”

That’s not a condemnation of those who want more. 

It’s assurance for those of us who don’t have more.

That’s particularly important, I suspect, in these days when you and I not only have to celebrate Jesus’ resurrection without any chance to see and touch and feel it for ourselves, but when we also have to essentially take our church on faith, too.

We can’t see and touch and feel our church community, gathered around us to share joy and sorrow. We can’t see each other at coffee hour, can’t touch each other’s hands to share God’s peace. We can’t feel that community we belong to in our bodies.

I have to take you on faith, when I come and preach in an empty church. I cannot see you now; I have to believe in you with me, without those assurances and clues that say we are together, that we are real.

When Jesus comes back to prove resurrection to Thomas, it’s also to tell the coming generations of disciples that we are just as real as the first disciples.

That our faith is just as true, as holy, as blessed, when we can’t lay claim to personal experience.  Jesus insists on that because it is hard to trust our own faith when the tangible clues are missing. Not just in this strange and separated time, but in more normal days.

I have many friends who talk about Jesus as if Jesus sits down for conversations with them all the time. And, well, I don’t have that “personal relationship” experience. I’m not close to Jesus like Thomas, or Peter, or Mary.

Instead, for much of my life, I’ve depended on the clues of the gathered church, on the rituals and songs of our worship services, the words of The Book of Common Prayer, rhythms of the church seasons, to be the proof of my faith.

And that wasn’t enough the summer I served as a hospital chaplain during seminary. I was alone in the rooms of strangers: no liturgical calendar, no beautiful church, no shared trust in the prayer book. Other chaplain interns told me they felt the presence of Jesus there; even some of the patients I was supposed to be comforting would tell me about their personal experience of Jesus. Not me. Jesus wasn’t “leading” me anywhere. I felt absolutely unqualifed, inadequate, to be a spiritual resource there and then.

But I prayed then, because I was supposed to.

I prayed to a God I could not see, touch, or feel, for things I wasn’t sure about. And John tells me that Jesus said, into exactly that situation: Blessed are those who have not seen.

Slowly and uncertainly, mostly in hindsight, I began to understand that praying when you can’t feel the presence of God – or even feel your longing for God – is just as faith-full as praying to a Jesus you can touch and feel.

Showing up for church with a pocketful of uncertainty and absence is just as faith-full as feeling the presence of Jesus in your car’s passenger seat. Praying prayers that are sometimes “just words” over and over is just as blessed as preaching in the power of the Spirit.

Preaching to empty pews; watching church online in your pajamas; lacking that touch-and-feel proof of connection, is just as blessed, just as much the community of faith, as praying in unison and tasting the bread and wine.

The prayer for spiritual communion we’ll be praying in this season asks Jesus to come into our hearts when we cannot touch and feel and taste the wafer and wine that usually assure us of God’s presence in our hearts and bodies.

Thomas’ story tells us that Jesus will, that Jesus does, come through the locked doors of anxiety and absence to be fully present with us when we call out for God.

Thomas’s story also tells us that when we have to take even that spiritual presence on trust – when we don’t feel like it’s real – our faith is just as full.

This story reminds me of a kind of game I played as a child.

I have a treat in one of my hands: pick right or left, and if you’re correct, you’ll get the treat.

(It was a great way to tease a sibling who had run out of Halloween candy before I had.)

But when John tells this story today, Jesus has a blessing in both hands.

In one hand, when, like Thomas, we throw our heart and trust into the expectation that Jesus will show up, the blessing is that Jesus does, right through locked doors or any other barriers (though maybe not at the time we might have chosen).
And, in the other hand, when we don’t feel that presence, when we don’t even expect to feel it, the blessing is that our faith is equally real and holy and ready to grow.

Jesus always offers us a blessing in both hands.
And we can receive with both hands, too.

We can let ourselves long for the opportunity to touch and feel the presence of God, and know that God will respond.

And we can let ourselves pray and act in faith that doesn’t always feel real, knowing that that emptiness is also full of God’s blessing.

Pick both hands, my friends.

Jesus does!

In-Between Easter

Matthew 28:1-10

It doesn’t really feel like Easter right now – to be standing here alone without all of you;

without the festive crowds, bright flowers and trumpets we usually enjoy.

It doesn’t feel like a celebration of victory, of life triumphing over death.

And yet, of course, it is.

If you are watching this now, in this strange April of 2020, carefully apart in our homes instead of gathered together in church, it IS a victory of life over death,

a victory of love over danger,

that we are coming together in this strange new way to experience Easter.

And this experience of Easter is probably, for most of us, a lot more like the experience of Easter recorded in the gospel story than it is like the other Easter Sundays of our lives.
Many of us are much closer in our hearts, right now,  to Mary and the other Mary, slipping into the burial place early in the morning, hearts aching with their loss, wrapped in a messy confusion of the emotions of grief: sadness, anger, frustration, weariness, an achy sort of guilt, a sharp-edged emptiness, an unpredictable indifference to things that once mattered most.

Today, the restrictions and risks of a world struggling to evade and survive a pandemic virus bring us into the Easter gospel in a different place than the lilies and trumpets, the festive crowds we more often see on this Sunday morning.

Usually, we enter the story from the end, from the fullness of joy that the risen Christ has brought salvation and hope and eternal life. Today, I feel us stepping into the story from the middle; from that place where we have heard that Jesus is risen; that God has upended death and reinvented life, but we haven’t experienced it yet.

Mary and the other Mary stand with us today, in front of the tomb, still unsteady from the earthquake brought by the dazzling messenger who shocks the earth and brushes aside the immovable rock sealing Jesus’ tomb.

The angel’s message has been delivered:

He is not here. He is risen as he said. Look at the place where he was, and then go tell the others to meet him in Galilee.

They’ve heard the good news.

There’s an emptiness before their eyes that implies that God’s promises are fulfilled, that salvation is completed.

But they haven’t seen Jesus. They haven’t seen and touched and felt this truth.

It’s the Easter of in-between.

We’ve heard the good news, too.

Heard it many times, some of us.  Heard it really for the first time, others of us.

Heard God promise resurrection and transformation and eternal life, and all of the salvation that is so utterly beyond our own power.

Heard a messenger – a friend, a preacher, a book, an angel – tell us that it is accomplished, that God has DONE all that was promised, and more that we couldn’t expect.

But for many of us, probably most of us today, that completed salvation hasn’t become real in our own lives.

Our friends haven’t been restored to our reach and touch; our lives still face into unexpected kinds of emptiness and loss – absences of comforts, joys, loved ones, gatherings, jobs, schools, places that we love.

Now, you may not be experiencing Easter exactly the way I am. That’s true every year. Every year, in the bright crowded festival, some of us are facing into the empty tomb, or still weeping at the cross. This year, some of us are as truly rooted in joy, completion, and the triumph of God as we ever could be in a crowded, bright and flowering church.

But as a community – as a congregation, a people – this year we, with Mary and Mary, are in the Easter of that suspended uncertainty between being the promise being told and the miracle being real.

We do not yet know how it will be to see and touch the risen Christ, to touch the reality of God’s promises with our own over-washed hands, to feel the full healing embrace of our bodies in Jesus’ real, risen, arms.

And that – that suspended moment between being told and being real – is Easter, too. That uncertain, unbounded space between hope and completion, between amazement and relief, is just as Easter, just as full of the triumph and joy of God as the bright familiar festival.

This is the Easter that reminds us that joy doesn’t have to wait for loss or grief to end; that assurance and uncertainty can mingle in our souls without erasing either one; that triumph and heartache can each make the other richer and more profound.

This is the Easter that reminds us that God’s action can be known in emptiness and doubt and wonder, not just in completed miracles. God’s loving work can be met in the blank and open space of an empty tomb, and in that echoing, uncertain space, we can still shout “Alleluia!”

When Mary and Mary run from the tomb, in fear and joy, launching themselves from this suspended moment that we share, they meet Jesus on their way.

And Jesus’ first word to them is “Rejoice!”

It’s a common enough greeting in that time and place, but it’s chosen carefully. Not to deny the anxious wonder of the moment, the heartache of finding even the certainties of death yanked from under us, the unpredictable transformation of our most important relationships. But to call God’s joy out of the depths of our hearts right in the middle of all that is uncertain, incomplete, changing and worthy of grief.

So go ahead, on this very different Easter day, and shout out “Alleluia!” with all the strong uncertainty your voice can manage. Sing about the triumph of God with deep conviction and celebration, or sing about the victory of life with tears in your eyes if that’s how it goes today.

Eat all the chocolate.  

Laugh, and fall into God’s arms in grief the way you fall into the arms of love held out by friends and family at funerals. Go ahead and cry with heartache and anger and frustration, and also dance with the celebration of new life.

Setting free all these expressions of holy joy, and all the raw honesty of our sense of loss and uncertainty will make us present to God and participants in God’s promise, make us part of the Easter story this day and year and lifetime.

Your whisper or shout of “Alleluia!” on the threshold of an empty tomb, our song of celebration while change shakes the earth around us – these are channels through which God’s promises weave themselves more deeply into our world.

This Easter – strange as it may be – is where God acts to heal and redeem and transform this world in love, even before the miracle feels real to us.

So stand with me, today, on the threshold of emptiness and hope, and whisper, sing, or shout:

Alleluia! Christ is risen!

Christ is risen indeed. Alleluia.

Amen.