Trinity Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)

Sermons 

Have you ever noticed how Jesus

never did things the easy way?

I don’t just mean for himself,

although that certainly is true.

I mean, he often seems to have made a deliberate choice

to make things confusing and difficult for his disciples as well.

This Emmaus story is so very strange.

It’s odd enough that the two disciples didn’t recognize him at first,

although, as we saw last week with Mary Magdalene at the tomb,

that was a common reaction.

So maybe he really did look different somehow.

But there he is, along the road,

talking with those two sad disciples,

who all along the way are talking about him,

and does he ever say,

"Hey, y’all … Look! It’s me!"

No, he doesn’t.

He just goes into traveling-teacher mode,

and tries to help them understand

everything that has happened to them in the past few days.

And then, finally, at the end of their journey,

when they do recognize him at the table, breaking the bread,

how does he respond?

Does he say, "Congratulations, you finally figured it out!"?

Does he say, "Run back to Jerusalem, now, and tell the others."?

Does he say, "Okay, now, let’s make plans for the future of our mission."?

Does he say, "Now do you understand?"?

He does none of those things.

He simply vanishes from their sight.

Leaving them to figure out what it is that they are supposed to do,

now that everything has changed once again.

They thought he was the one that would redeem Israel,

but then he died.

They thought he was dead,

but then he showed up and walked and talked and broke bread with them.

Full of surprises,

and none of it done the easy way.

None of it done in a way that would spare himself

misunderstanding, pain, or grief, or even death itself.

None of it, in a way that would spare his disciples

confusion, heartbreak, grief, or responsibility for their own failures.

God so loved the world, absolutely …

but oh boy, is it a "tough love."

Well … I emphasize this in such detail today

because I suspect that many of us are feeling today

much like those disciples did on the road to Emmaus.

Like Jesus hasn’t done quite what we thought we would do,

what we thought he ought to do,

and we are sad and confused.

"We had hoped that he was the one to redeem Israel."

We had hoped that he was the one to save our congregation.

And instead, what has happened looks very different

from what we hoped would happen.

We don’t necessarily believe that Jesus is absent,

or has abandoned us,

but we are sure that he hasn’t done

what we believed it was his job to do.

And so we are about to embark on a journey away from a familiar place,

and while we may accompany one another on the road,

we aren’t sure where we will find Jesus.

And the Emmaus story seems to suggest to us,

even when we do find him – or he finds us –

we may not recognize him at first!

Here is some of what I mean by that.

Some of us are quite certain –

and you can put me in this category –

Some of us are quite certain

that we will not find Jesus anywhere but in a Presbyterian church.

I don’t mean that he’s not in those other churches!

Only, that I tend to think that’s not where I am likely to find him.

And so, what happens if Jesus starts talking to me

from the door of a United Methodist church?

Or a United Church or Christ?

Or someplace non-denominational?

Will I hear him?

Will I recognize his voice as being the voice of Jesus?

Or will I stand still, looking sad?

Will I keep walking, and talking,

not realizing that the One I seek is right there beside me?

And what will it take for him to get me to notice?

Others of us who are lifelong Presbyterians

may run into the same possible difficulty.

Some of us are less concerned about the denomination in which we might find Jesus

as we are about the size of the church in which we can find him.

I’ve heard some of us say,

"I just wouldn’t feel comfortable in a big church."

That may be a very realistic statement about yourself,

and yet, what if that’s where Jesus shows up and invites you?

Will you recognize him?

Will you understand his call to create, perhaps,

small-church-like enclaves of care and support

within a bigger place?

I often think that I can’t possibly find Jesus

in a church that doesn’t have a great music program.

What if he stands at the door there, where they are singing off-key,

and invites me to come in?

What if Jesus calls to you from a place

that’s full of people who are of a different ethnicity than you?

What if he calls from a place that has no church,

and says, I need you to help me build a church here?

How will we recognize Jesus

if he shows up some place we didn’t expect to find him?

How did those two disciples on the Emmaus road recognize him?

Two things, really …

The story tells us that they recognized him in the breaking of the bread …

that is, when they sat down at the table with him,

and saw the familiar gestures,

and they must have knocked themselves on the head

and said whatever was the first-century equivalent of "Duh!"

But in retrospect,

they also realized that their hearts were burning within them

when he talked with them on the road.

When he explained the scriptures to them,

and took their questions and their doubts and fears seriously,

even if he couldn’t resist calling them "foolish."

How did they know him?

In the words that he preached and the bread that he broke.

Well, we know that from our old friend John Calvin.

Calvin said that the true church of Jesus Christ exists

wherever the Word is rightly preached

and the sacraments are rightly administered.

So, if Jesus appears to you in a particular place

in the things you are taught, and the words that you hear,

and the breaking of the bread,

then, there he is.

Even if you didn’t think you could find him there.

Remember that,

as many of us will be wandering these next few weeks …

Leaving our Jerusalem,

where once we had it all figured out,

but Jesus didn’t do things as we expected.

He may surprise us on the road,

and journey with us in ways we did not expect.

But the second half of the Emmaus story is just as weird,

and just as important for us today.

Because here, on the one hand,

the two disciples have just figured out, finally,

that this stranger is Jesus and not just some wanderer …

They have done the appropriate, hospitable thing,

and invited him to stay with them and share a meal

rather than remaining on the road after dark …

And then their eyes are opened, and they recognize him,

and he vanishes from their sight.

Well, what in heaven’s name is fair about that?

He’s just brought them out of their time of grief,

and confusion, and misunderstanding …

he has taught them, and they are beginning to get it …

And he disappears.

And they have to decide what this new strange thing means,

and what they are going to do about it.

This is, I think, important to us

because for many of us right now,

it may feel like Jesus has vanished,

or is getting ready to do so.

We are not going to be able to find him

in the same place and in the same way

as we have been doing …

some of us, for our whole lives.

More than just disappearing,

it may feel as if he has abandoned us.

We may not be able to respond quite as quickly

as those two disciples in Emmaus did …

But what we have to recognize is the same thing that they recognized.

Number one, we don’t get to hold onto Jesus.

Just when we think we’ve figured him out,

he vanishes … he goes somewhere else …

and we have to follow him,

not sit where we are comfortable and wait for him to return.

But number two, once we have figured it out,

our job is to go tell the good news.

Run back to Jerusalem to tell the eleven disciples:

guess what, the women really weren’t making it up,

Jesus is risen.

We saw him ourselves!

Run to wherever it is that we have been familiar and comfortable,

to tell anyone who will listen,

I have found the Lord!

Here’s how I recognized him.

Come with me, you can find him, too!

One of the great advantages of a church with a history,

particularly if we’ve spent most of our life here …

is that we know this is where we can come to find Jesus.

It has been a place of stability for us,

where Jesus challenged us, to be sure,

but where we also knew we could come to rest in the Lord.

It’s where God met us when we were celebrating,

and when our hearts were broken.

It was a place where we found comfort

in a world that is all too disquieting at times.

And now, for us, Jesus is vanishing from this place.

It seems unfair … and perhaps it is.

But perhaps it also means that he needs us somewhere else.

Perhaps Jesus needs for us to be the ones who run to Jerusalem …

or walk, or drive, or whatever …

to tell the good news in a different place.

Like those disciples two thousand years ago,

we don’t get to pin Jesus down and keep him in one place

where we can predict what he will say and do,

and how he will want us to respond.

We get to journey,

even though many of us are, shall we say, advanced in years …

remember that Abraham was 75 when God called him to go on a journey.

So there is precedent!

This after-Easter story of Jesus both comforts us and disturbs us.

It offers us the comfort that Jesus is always with us,

if we are prepared for him to be.

But it disturbs us by letting us know

that we won’t always recognize him at first,

and he won’t be limited by our desire to hold onto him.

The Lord is risen …

and he goes before us,

to new places, where we have not seen him before.

He has not abandoned us,

but he is pulling us ahead into a future

that we have not yet imagined.

He stands beside us in our sadness,

but he always encourages us forward

into God’s reign and God’s realm,

no matter how strange and different it looks.

Whatever the next weeks and months hold for each of us,

Christ walks alongside of us,

teaching, proclaiming, and inviting.

Even as we grieve,

may we journey with him into something new.

Alleluia!

Amen.

© 2008 Julie Adkins (e-mail: DrJAdkins@trinitypresdallas.org)