God Made Real

Easter 3A-26

Immanuel Lutheran, Chicago

They recognized him in the breaking of the bread. The Emmaus story is a eucharist story. Jesus “took bread, gave thanks, broke it, and gave it to them” (Luke 24:30). All three synoptic gospels say the same thing (Matthew 26:26 = Mark 14:23 = Luke 22:19). When Jesus “broke the bread, their eyes were opened” (24:31). Luke repeats this detail a second time: ‘when the disciples return to tell what had happened on the way, and how they recognized Jesus was when he broke the bread” (24:35).

They could have believed what the women had told them. Yet, despite their astounding testimony of that morning, the disciples had tallied it up and concluded the wonderful story amounted to nothing. Cleopas and the unnamed disciple decided to head home. For them, the dream had ended in violence and shame. They had given up when Jesus came along and walked beside them.

On the way to Emmaus, they were walking off their post-traumatic stress. Jesus, under guise of a stranger, joins their walk and patiently listens to them vent about their frustrations and express their pain. Jesus responded with some expert biblical exegesis, yet his testimony is, at least initially, beside the point. Only in “the breaking of the bread” (Luke 24:35), do they recognize his presence, and everything fell into place. Their hearts burning, they rush back to Jerusalem “that same hour” to share their discovery with those they love most.

Notice, none of it would have happened had they not invited a stranger to join them for dinner. Despite their dismissal, doubt, and disappointment, enough Jesus had rubbed off on them. Something prompted them to ask him to stay with them, although he was walking ahead as if he intended to be going on (vs. 28). Alleluia! Christ is risen!  (He is risen indeed. Alleluia!)  For Christ to be raised from the dead Christ must live in our hearts, minds, and deeds –not merely in our words and beliefs.

In the Eucharist, Jesus showed the disciples how to find him, and how to partake in him, how, quite literally, to be him. We do this not merely with our words, but when we enact the gospel by using our body.  We get up. We follow. We take and eat. We become the body of Christ. We do God’s work with our hands.  Even the expert teaching of Jesus was not enough to reach them. Words must be paired with deeds. The old saying still holds true: ‘Don’t tell me what a friend I have in Jesus until I see what a friend I have in you.’

Communion means “one with.”  It is of Latin origin, a combination of the word cum, meaning “with,” and unus, meaning “one.” But for a Latin speaker there would have been a rich image associated with it. Unus, meaning “one,” sounds like unio, meaning “a great pearl.” When we enter communion with one another, we enter a precious unity. It is like the “pearl of great price” that Jesus uses to speak of the treasure of God (Matthew 13:46). (John Philip Newell, A New Harmony, p. 114)

In communion Jesus teaches that we find ourselves only by giving ourselves away in love. Finding the oneness of God is like finding treasure hidden in a field.  Upon finding it, we want to sell everything we possess to buy the field. “Is this happening in our lives? If not, is it because we have yet to discover the treasure? Or is it because we are unwilling to pay the price? Have we glimpsed the hidden gold of oneness in our relationships yet been dissuaded by our individual ego, or by the ego of our nation or species, from truly giving ourselves?” (Newell p. 117). The Swiss psychiatrist and founder of analytical psychology, Carl Jung, wrote that the “ego seizes the reins of power to its own destruction.” (Mysterium Coniunctionis, p. 369)

Communion with Christ does not represent a loss of our individuality.  Quite the opposite. Union with Christ is based on a deep cherishing of our distinctness as individuals. The French, Jesuit, paleontologist and theologian, Pierre Teilhard de Chardin wrote, that this is the great gift of Christianity, “to be united while remaining oneself” (The Divine Milieu, p. 116).  Gathered at this Table, in communion with the risen Christ, we do not lose the unique qualities that make each of us one of a kind. We find our true selves in one another.

This is another way to describe what happens when we begin to live the reality of Easter.  In our resurrection we must die to our old, small ego-driven self, and be raised by the grace of God to our higher self. Jesus showed us we truly find ourselves by losing our egocentricity. He showed us that true strength is to be found by loving the other as one’s self.

“To love God, to love oneself, and to love one’s neighbor, as Jesus teaches, is impossible unless and until we realize with the Spirit’s prompting that each of these amount to the same thing. To truly love one’s family is to love the essence of every family. To truly love one’s nation is to enter “genuine dialogue” with the heart of every nation.  To truly love God is to look for the sacred in everything that has being” (Newell p. 123). Easter is not just a holiday on our calendar, nor is it a day to celebrate the events of two thousand years ago, rather it is the occasion of our own daily dying and rising to new life in Christ in communion with one another and all living things.

Celtic teacher and author, John Philip Newell, writes about an American rabbi who was once asked what he thought of Jesus’ statement, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me” (John 14:6). Surprisingly, the rabbi replied, “Oh, I agree with these words.” The questioner persisted, “But how can you as a rabbi believe that Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life? “Because,” answered the rabbi, “I believe that Jesus’ way is the way of love, that Jesus’ truth is the truth of love, and that Jesus’ life is the life of love. No one comes to the Father but through love.” (Newell p. 119)

How often have we heard these words to imply that “We are the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father but through us?” No one comes to God except through our beliefs, our sacraments, ourchurch? (Newell)

“We miss the rabbi’s point…Instead of seeing Jesus as embodying the way of love that we are to follow, and the truth of love we are to live, we have turned his teachings into a set of propositional truths about Jesus. We have pretended that the most important thing is to give assent to a set of beliefs rather than to follow the way of love, the truth of love, and the life of love.” (Newell)

The disillusioned disciples encountered Jesus in the breaking of bread after welcoming a stranger to dinner. It doesn’t matter how many times you may have let Jesus walk past without acknowledging him, or how many times you may have pretended you didn’t even know him.  Jesus is ready to walk with you now. We pray this Easter for the gift of new eyes and new ears.  We show hospitality to strangers, for in doing so we may entertain angels unawares. (Hebrews 13:2).

Only love has the capacity to transform the individual parts of our lives and world into a living communion.  All the mightiest weapons of the world put together do not have the power to change a single human heart. (Newell) We do more than meet Jesus here at this Table. We partake of him—we become his very body, walking with those trying to walk off their trauma, patiently listening, mediating Jesus in meals shared, and recognizing Jesus now offered to us at a stranger’s table. “Be my hands and feet, said Jesus, live as ones I died to save” (ACS #939).