Pasadena
Presbyterian Church "Remembering
Christ with our Life" Scripture: Luke 24:13-35 Now on
that same day two of them were going to a village called Emmaus, about
seven miles from Jerusalem, and talking with each other about all these
things that had happened. While
they were talking and discussing, Jesus himself came near and went with
them, but their eyes were kept from recognizing him.
And he said to them, “What are you discussing with each other
while you walk along?” They
stood till, looking sad. Then
one of them, whose name was Cleopas, answered him, “Are you the only
stranger in Jerusalem who does not know the things that have taken place
there in these days?” He asked them, “What things?”
They replied,”The things about Jesus of Nazareth, who was a
prophet mighty in deed and word before God and all the people, and how
our chief priests and leaders handed him over to be condemned to death
and crucified him. But we had hoped that he was the one to redeem
Israel. Yes, and besides
all this, it is now the third day since these things took place.
Moreover, some women of our group astounded us. They were at the
tomb early this morning, and when they did not find his body there, they
came back and told us that they had indeed seen a vision of angels who
said that he was alive. Some
of those who were with us went to the tomb and found it just as the
women had said; but they did not see him.”
Then he said to them, “Oh, how foolish you are, and how slow of
heart to believe all that the prophets have declared!
Was it not necessary that the Messiah should suffer these things
and then enter into his glory?” Then
beginning with Moses and all the prophets, he interpreted to them the
things about himself in all the scriptures.
As they
came near the village to which they were going, he walked ahead as if he
were going on. But they
urged him strongly, saying, “stay with us, because it is almost
evening and the day is now nearly over.”
So he went in to stay with them.
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. They
said to each other, “Were not our hearts burning within us while he
was opening the scriptures to us?”
That same hour they got up and returned to Jerusalem; and they
found the eleven and their companions gathered together.
They were saying, “The Lord has risen indeed, and he has
appeared to Simeon!” Then
they told what had happened on the road, and how he had been made known
to them in the breaking of the bread.
~~~~~~~~ Julio Diaz came out of his apartment building in New York City on a
brisk evening this winter and strolled towards his favorite corner café for
dinner. A few minutes later, a young kid (as Julio calls him) stepped
out of the shadows, pulled a knife, and demanded Julio’s money.
Julio handed over his entire wallet.
As I listened to National Public Radio a few weeks ago, I heard Julio
tell what happened that evening. As the young kid shoved Julio’s wallet in his pocket,
Julio offered him his coat, as well.
“Why do you want to give me your coat?” the young kid asked. “Because it’s chilly and if you’re going to be out all night
robbing people, you’ll probably get cold.”
The kid paused and looked at Julio in disbelief.
“I was on my way to dinner,” said Julio.
“You’re probably hungry,
aren’t you? Why don’t you join
me?” He did. Julio was a regular
at the café, and everyone there knew him.
The servers and bus boys called him by name, and the chef came out to
visit with him. Even the dishwasher
came out of the kitchen to say “hello” and called him by name. Finally the kid asked suspiciously,
“How come everybody knows you? Do
you own this place?” “No. I’m just nice to
people and I come here a lot. Didn’t
your mother tell you to be nice to
everybody?” “Well, yes, but nobody does that!” he said. As they talked their way through dinner, Julio asked the young man what
he wanted out of life. A shadow of
sadness fell over the kid’s face, and he didn’t answer. When the bill came, Julio looked across the table and said, “You’ll
have to pay for dinner. You have my
wallet.” The kid paid for dinner.
Then he gave the wallet back to Julio. Julio gave him twenty dollars. Then
Julio asked the kid to give him something, anything. The kid paused. He gave
Julio his knife. “Be known to us in breaking bread, but do not then depart,” says an
old communion hymn. “Savior abide with us and spread a table in our heart.”
Cleopas and another disciple were walking from Jerusalem to Emmaus a few
days after Jesus was killed. A
stranger joined them on the road and walked with them.
He interpreted Jesus’ death in the light of the Hebrew scriptures.
They invited the stranger to eat dinner with them, as the hour was late,
and such hospitality was what one did. Jesus
prayed and broke the bread, much as he had just a few days earlier.
At that moment, says Luke, the disciples realized the one they thought
was dead was alive, and had joined them on their walk.
As the stranger changed their grief and confusion into hope and faith,
Jesus was remembered and known. It
was as if Jesus’ broken, crucified body was put back together in a new way:
re-membered in such a way as
to give life and hope to those who followed him. When the world was born, much as when a child is born, God’s heart was
full of hope and dreams, plans and promises: hope for a world where all would
dwell together in unity, in peace and unafraid; plans for a world where every
person has enough to eat, shelter from the storms, work to do and rest from
their labor. Surely God’s heart
was full of dreams for a world where each person shares freely until all have
enough, and full of promises for a world in which all creation lives in harmony
and balance. This is what God
promised, planned, hoped and dreamed. We
are part of a covenant with God to live in such a way that the hopes and dreams
for unity voiced in the heart of God at the birth of the world may come true. But we know, and God knows, that in a world where there is much good,
much justice, much mercy, much compassion, there is also sin and brokenness.
Much as parents’ dreams of a sheltered life for their children are, even in the best of circumstances, unfulfilled, so
too, God’s hopes are clouded by the pain of humanity’s warfare and
tragedy, bruised hearts and broken lives.
“What God has joined together, let no one tear apart.” says Jesus,
in the Gospel of Mark. And yet,
we do. “In a broken and sinful world,” nation fights nation for
land, wealth, oil and status. Peoples
fight one another to avenge grudges now centuries old. Youth are shot point blank on the streets of our community
because they have chosen not to join a gang.
Air and water grow more polluted as we continue mindlessly down the
path towards our own destruction. Even
in the church, it seems we must tear ourselves apart in each new generation
to discover God’s word for our time.
Long ago, God walked among us in Jesus of Nazareth, preaching and
teaching, healing the sick, and eating with sinners.
Where life with its structures and systems had grown toxic and
destructive, he challenged it. Where
community had been torn apart by human sin, he built bridges between insider
and outcast, between rich and poor, between men and women.
Where life was torn apart in the hearts of those he met, he healed it
and put it back together. You
might say, he “re-membered” it. Finally though, the powers of human brokenness that were fighting for
their life in a struggle between Good and Evil, seemed to win at a place
called Calvary. In our
brokenness, we crucified Jesus. We
broke his body. We tore him apart. We
hung him on a cross until he died. Hearts
were broken. Lives were broken.
For three days it appeared that hope had been broken.
But God was not finished with us yet.
Easter dawned. Christ
was resurrected and re-membered in a way that set his power and love loose
for the whole world in every generation.
Today we gather at the communion table and remember that what we have
broken apart shall be, and has already been, put back right.
In the words of the liturgy, we “remember the Lord’s death until
he comes again.” How odd that
must sound to one who is not familiar with it: to celebrate and remember a
death ritually, over and over again. There’s the key: we re-member. When
we remember a person, we bring together different parts of his or her life
and form a new whole that continues with us.
When we remember the past, we bring new meaning for today from the
separate experiences of earlier days that we have re-membered and hence, put
back together. When we re-member Christ’s death, we put it back together in such a
way that it has meaning which could not have been seen before.
We give it new meaning that could not be seen by human eyes until
Easter came and Christ was raised. On Easter, hope was re-membered and put back together.
God’s love that conquers evil was re-membered and put back together. God’s power to redeem even the world’s worst brokenness was re-membered,
As we gather today at the Lord’s Table, we come as people with broken
places in our lives, broken hearts, broken relationships, broken promises.
We come as a world, broken and torn apart by hatred and greed,
revenge and rage. Some of our
brokenness we can, with God’s help, heal.
Some of our brokenness will involve hard choices.
Some of our brokenness will only be healed in God’s time, not ours. We come to the Lord’s Table, in our personal brokenness and in the
brokenness of the world. At the Lord’s Table, we re-member Christ, broken,
restored and raised for us. We
re-member Christ, who in his brokenness for us, became the bridge
reconnecting and re-membering us to God and to one another.
At the table, we are made whole.
Like the young man eating dinner with Julio, we are forgiven and
healed. At the communion table,
we are united with the broken parts of ourselves, with one another, and with
God. Nourished, healed, and re-memebered, we are sent by Jesus into the world
to invite others to the table where we will re-member Christ Jesus.
Jesus sends us into the world to live our life in such a way that we,
ourselves, will be broken, restored and re-membered in his name, so that
others may know God’s love... and the broken world may be healed. “Do this, remembering me,” says Jesus.
Each time we eat this bread and drink this cup, we re-member Christ
and give meaning to the Lord’s death, until in the fullness of time,
Christ comes again. Then
God’s dream shall come true, and all creation shall finally be made whole.
Amen. (c) Copyright 2008 by Barbara A. Anderson. All rights reserved. Permission granted for non-profit use with attribution. |
