Gathered to See
Posted on Apr 30, 2017 by David Whetter
A couple of months ago, Jill and I were out to dinner with our kids and grandkids. It was a weeknight and we were at a local bar and grill. The restaurant is very family friendly and one which our grand kids love because it has all kinds of activities do while you are there. Oversized games like “Connect the Dots” can keep them busy while the adults chat and relax. On this particular night, as we were sitting there, there was a large group sitting across from us and like our table, mostly adults, but there a few young children. There was a women sitting at the end of the table that I thought looked familiar but I just couldn’t place her. The longer we sat there, the more it bugged me. The woman was around our age and I was guessing she was the grandma of the kids. Finally, after about an hour of eating, talking and staring at this woman, trying not to look creepy about it, it struck me and I said to Jill, “I know who that is!” The woman was the nurse that worked with surgeon that did both of our shoulder surgeries. Up until a few weeks before that night, I had seen and spoke with this woman every few weeks as I made my doctor visits. You would have thought that I would have recognized her instantly, but she was out of uniform and out of the place I was used to seeing her. So it took me a while to recognize her.
I was reminded of this story as I read today’s gospel. Two men were walking from Jerusalem to Emmaus, about a seven-mile journey. We are told that that were “talking with each other about all these things that had happened” (Luke 24:14) and they looked sad. These were disciples of Jesus who had been crucified just few days earlier. As disciples of Jesus’ they had followed him, worked with him, ate with him and been with him often during his ministry. They had hoped Jesus would be the one to redeem Israel! While they were talking about what had happened, a “stranger” suddenly appears and joins in on the conversation. We know the “stranger” is Jesus, but we are told that “their eyes were kept from recognizing him” (24:16). Some interpret this to mean that God kept them from recognizing Jesus, but I disagree with that completely. That is not what Luke tells us. No, I would argue that what kept them from recognizing Jesus was they weren’t looking for Jesus. As far as they were concerned, Jesus was dead, even though some of the women in their group had been to the tomb that morning and they had “seen a vision of angels who said that [Jesus] was alive,” (24:23) but when some of the men went to see, they say nothing. Therefore, believing that he was dead, they did not expect to see him, they did not expect to hear him and they certainly did not expect that he could walk and talk, or eat. Dead men don’t do these things. This road was not the place to see Jesus. So, they kept walking away.
Yet, the risen Christ was walking with them, teaching them and eventually would share a meal with them. It wasn’t until the meal, however, that they experienced their “ah-ha” moment. “When he was at the table with them, he took bread, blessed and broke it, and gave it to them. Then their eyes were opened, and they recognized him; and he vanished from their sight” (24:30-31).
So often, it is hard for us to recognize people we don’t expect to see in places we don’t expect to see them and recognizing Jesus in our lives is no different. How many of us really get up each morning expecting to see Jesus as we travel to work, or at work, or at school, or at our table when we are eating? How many of us expect to see Jesus when we are in conversation with our friends, or with someone on the street? For most of us, I would bet the answer is we don’t expect to see Jesus, yet, we will boldly proclaim, “He is Risen!”
The story of the Road to Emmaus is a perfect example of why, we as followers of Jesus, need to find places and situations in which we can learn how to recognize Jesus. So how might we learn to recognize Jesus? Maybe it is through the study of scripture. Jesus interpreted the scriptures for them. Maybe it is in serving others so that we might come to see Jesus standing before us in the hungry, the thirsty, the homeless, or the stranger. Maybe its in the music we listen to where as we sing his praises we learn about him so that we come to expect him to be with us. There are many ways to learn to recognize Jesus, but the one that I would argue that is the most powerful is in our worship.
The story of Emmaus is a story that provides us a perfect pattern of our worship and a perfect way to come to recognize Jesus. In worship we initially gather and talk. And man, can you all talk as we gather! Since we don’t have a large narthex area to use before worship, our custom is one of coming in to the sanctuary and instead of quietly sitting, we engage in conversation about what is happening in our lives and does it ever get noisy in here as we gather. But, once we have gathered, we then come together in song and in prayer to remind ourselves, and the world, that we are gathered in the name of Jesus, which means we are gathered in the presence of Jesus. Then we read the scriptures, we interpret the scriptures, and we learn to recognize the ways of living that Jesus calls us to live. Often times these ways of Jesus that hear challenge us and even make us mad because they differ from how we want to live. Often times I get accused of being political, but I assure you, I don’t mean to be. When I talk about hunger, poverty, racism, sexuality, immigration, money, all issues that have been turned into political issues in our society, but first and foremost they are issues that God challenges us to wrestle with outside of politics. The challenge is to learn to see them from the eyes of Jesus and to see Jesus in the midst of those issues.
And then after hearing and being challenged by the Word, we then partake in the sacrament of Holy Communion. The meal God gave us as a sign of God’s love. The meal that offers forgiveness that is the very body and d blood of our Lord. A meal offered to feed us and empower us to turn from the ways of this world and then leave this place to be the hands and feet of Jesus. Like Cleopas and the other disciple, worship is to be that place each week that we are challenged to turn around and go back out in the world to share the Gospel.
Brothers and sisters, all too often, as a pastor, I have people tell me why they don’t need to participate in organized worship, after all they believe in God and they are spiritual. But believing in God, and believing that God is alive and active in our lives is very different. We come to worship so that we might hear God’s word with the hope that it will make our hearts burn as it did Cleopas and the other disciple. We come to worship so that we might learn to “see” Jesus. We come so that we might be fed and strengthened to turn our lives around and turn to Jesus. Amen.