Acts 2: 14a, 36-41; Psalm 116:1-3, 10-17 1 Peter 1:17-23; Luke 24:13-35
The Rev. Drew Brislin
Earlier this week I had the pleasure of visiting with one of my seminary classmates and her family. We met in Tuscaloosa as she and her husband were in town with their daughter to visit the University of Alabama as a prospective student. When they told me they were visiting Bama, I told them I would be there. I jump at the chance, anytime I have the opportunity to serve as an ambassador for my alma mater and especially with my dear seminary friends. While I knew they would get a wonderful campus tour experience, I wanted to show them the larger community that had formed me for so many years. I introduced them to the chaplain at Canterbury Chapel on campus who visited with us and gave them a tour. We stopped at Krispy Kreme and Midtown, the local shopping center. While it may seem mundane, they wanted to know that places such as Target were available. I also felt it was important to show them the world renown Alabama BBQ establishments, Archibald’s and the original Dreamland. I wanted to show them that in addition to a top-notch school, what else Tuscaloosa has to offer to supplement one’s college experience. After the tour we talked about the myriad of opportunities to get involved on campus, from the Episcopal chaplaincy, to sororities, to the various clubs associated with the degree she aspires toward to what student life around town is like in general. Nearly twenty years after graduating from college it is interesting to reflect on one’s own experience as they share with someone who is possibly about to enter into the new community. How has it changed? How is it the same? People are different and the same. I put a hard sell on and made sure she had plenty of swag to take home. So what kind of Jesus swag do we get to take home from our Gospel this morning? In our Gospel reading this morning we get the story of the Road to Emmaus which is only found in Luke. We may be in the third week of Easter, but our story continues to set us in Easter night.
Yes, I know we are in lectionary Year A and are supposed to be reading mostly from Matthew, however, we get this reading from Luke every year, just like we always get Doubting Thomas every year on the Second Sunday in Easter. We must pull this story from Luke though since that is the only Gospel where this story is found. This story that still finds us on Easter evening in the hours after Jesus’ first appearance to the remaining eleven disciples. This story, however, places Jesus traveling alongside a couple of disciples who are not a part of the original twelve. One of them is named and is revealed for us, Cleopas, while the other disciple’s name is never revealed to us. Some academics have called in to question whether or not the unnamed disciple is supposed to be us, you and me and the community of believers. The disciples do not recognize Jesus, yet they invite him to join them on their journey. As they continue on their journey, they talk about what had happened to Jesus. Subsequently, Jesus interestingly enough asks them what they are discussing. To which they reply, “Do you not know what happened?” Their question is rather perplexing though in that Jesus is probably the only one who really knows what happened on the cross and in the tomb. Yet Jesus, in his desire for relationship, continues on the journey with these two disciples. As they approach the village, which was the destination, the gospel tells us that Jesus begins to go ahead of the travelers, yet they invite him to stay. As a result of their invitation, Jesus decided to stay with them and when they sit at the table Jesus offers the blessing and in the breaking of the bread Jesus’ true identity was revealed to Cleopas and his friend. This sounds a lot like our liturgy, doesn’t it? After the Lord’s Prayer when we break the host wafer. It is this moment in the Eucharistic Prayer, our theology teaches us, that the real presence of Jesus is revealed to us. So just like Cleopas and his companion for whom Jesus revealed himself in the breaking of the bread so too does Jesus reveal himself to us. However, unlike in our Gospel reading where Jesus seems to almost instantly disappear after his revelation to the disciples, we are afforded the opportunity to continue our relationship and engagement with Jesus through our participation in Christian community. In our liturgy we are brought into the body of Christ sacramentally and through our engagement with one another we are given the chance to seek and serve the Jesus we find in each other and the stranger. Jesus does not disappear on us but engages us in the sacrament so that we might be his hands and feet in our communities. Jesus continues to reveal to the disciples that unlike the warrior-like messiah that they were awaiting, he would be different. Jesus begins with the story of Moses and then moves through all the prophets interpreting the scripture so that they might come to know the truth of what God was doing in the world.
Shared experiences often draw us into community and into relationships that grow into friendships. As I ushered my friends and their daughter around Tuscaloosa, it is hard not to reflect on those experiences and the friends that I now cherish from high school to college to seminary and now in vocation. As my friends and I have moved into and through the different phases of our lives the opportunities to gather have dwindled for various reasons. Jobs, then marriage and families are new forms of community that require care and attention as well, however, I take comfort on those cherished times that we do get to gather and tell stories. I love to hear about what is going on in their families lives today. I have enjoyed watching their children grow. Moving in and out of these various phases of our lives is the natural course that we experience as we age. I look forward to watching my friend’s daughter navigate the communities that she will find herself participating in whether it is in Tuscaloosa or somewhere else. Christianity is not just something we are but it is something one must do and do in community. Jesus did not just hang out in Jerusalem after the resurrection. He goes out in search of people in their disbelief so that he might invite them to participate in his body in a new way. In our welcoming, and in our invitation and in our serving we are doing as Jesus instructs us to do but where do we find opportunities to do this better? Maybe Jesus swag comes to us in grace, that unearned and underserved love of Jesus that everyone sees in how we love and care for our neighbor. How do we continue to be more inclusive and inviting to those we do not recognize because I think in doing that, we are welcoming Jesus unaware and sharing our Jesus swag to everyone we encounter.