Third Sunday of Easter

Psalm 116:1-4, 12-19
Luke 24:13-35

Grace and peace to you.

Sometime ago I discovered a podcast published by Our State magazine called “Away Message.” A Greensboro reporter travels all over the state sharing the stories of places that are off the beaten path. In the finale from the first season, recorded three years ago he walks from his house in Guildford County to his office in downtown Greensboro and as he walks he records the people he sees and the conversations he has, and how different his 14 mile commute sounds and looks on foot compared to the short drive he usually takes to get to his office.

As I was imagining the two disciples walking to Emmaus, some seven miles from Jerusalem, I remembered that reporter and his story, and also saw that his story and that of the disciples and ours today are all one story.

The Ingles in Kings Mountain, Cline’s Nursery up Fallston Road and Crest High School all are a little less than seven miles from the sanctuary. It isn’t like walking this discipleship journey is taking us to far away places or beginning a pilgrimage to the Holy Land. We are in familiar territory.

And yet, we are on the road, on the Way, with Jesus.

And especially right now, our lives look, feel and sound differently than they have in the past.

It’s easy to recognize the holy when we are on mountaintops and in sacred spaces like our sanctuary or celebrating the Passion of Christ during Holy Week, but as the disciples in Luke’s gospel discover, when we are in familiar or unremarkable surroundings, we can have more difficulty.

Jesus invites the travelers into conversation. His question to them is literally, “What words are you tossing back and forth?” Isn’t that so much of what our conversation feels like right now? Words tossed back and forth, from the news to us and from us to a friend, and then back to the news. The disciples are trying to get at the heart of the matter, to make sense of the cross, and sadly are unable to sort it out.

I confess that I don’t like the next bit of our gospel story. It sounds to me like Jesus is scolding the disciples and then lecturing them , showing them where they had missed the signs in Scripture that point to him being the Messiah and how they had forgotten his own words foretelling his death and resurrection. I’ll be honest - I like the Jesus who eats with his friends and heals the sick more than this One. But then I remember John’s Gospel where the gospel writer tells us

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was in the beginning with God. 3 All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being. …grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. 18 No one has ever seen God. It is God the only Son, who is close to the Father’s heart, who has made him known.

“Grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.” Jesus tells the truth; in Luther’s words, he calls a thing what it is. And when my eyes are clouded and I cannot see the Way, I am grateful Jesus is there to set me straight.

And the disciples don’t seem bothered by this talking-to; in fact, when it looks like Jesus is going to leave them and continue on, they urge him to stay with them. Last summer I discovered an icon, a religious image, of Mary that called her the “un-tier of knots” and I wonder if that isn’t how the disciples felt listening to Jesus. Instead of feeling scolded or lectured, perhaps listening to him helped unknot or untie what the psalmist calls the cords of death and the anguish of the grave.

And then when Jesus was at the table with them, and took the bread, blessed it, broke it and gave it to them, their eyes were opened and they remembered how their hearts had burned within them as he had spoken about all these things. With perfect hindsight, they recognized they had been in the presence of the holy.

We are not participating in the sacrament of Holy Communion, or the Table, while we are apart, but later in worship I will invite you into spiritual communion, a practice of prayer shared by our full-communion partners in The Episcopal Church. In the absence of the physical wine and bread, broken, blessed and given, where else may our eyes be opened to see the holy in our midst?

Certainly with the psalmist we can begin with words of thanksgiving and praise. We first call on the name of the Lord because we know God’s promises to us, and then we call on the name of the Lord again as we experience the freedom of being rescued from sin and death and loved by God - the freedom to have our eyes opened to all that is holy.

Where else may we not merely glimpse Jesus but listen to God’s Word and pay attention to where God is being revealed?

Perhaps it’s in a conversation with a neighbor that would have been missed if you both got into your cars and left the house each day.

Or it’s in slowing down to look around you and notice when your heart is burning – where have you experienced joy this week?

The questions I leave for you on this third Sunday of Easter are:

When have you experienced the peace of knowing God is present with you?

What is a gift that you have received during this time of worshiping from home?

Let us pray…
Redeeming God,
We give thanks for your only Son made known to us in the breaking of the bread.
Close to Your heart, He brings grace and truth to us all.
Open our eyes and hearts to Your love and forgiveness and make us aware of your Holy presence with us.
May your grace sustain us as we follow Jesus.
We pray in your Holy name.
Amen.