In the Breaking of Bread
Luke 24
May 8, 2011
Last week as we fed our neighbors with the Arlington Street Peoples Assistance Network, Martin noted one particular gentleman whom we’ve served previously. The man has an amazing shock of white hair and a beard that lends credence to the rumor I am here inventing that he was an original touring member of the Grateful Dead. He’s a gregarious, friendly man, and Martin remembered in particular that the guy had disapproved of the behavior of someone else in the line back in December, saying, “some people give us bums a bad name.”
For better and for worse, you get to know people best in the breaking of bread.
I was reminded of that in reading again the story of the long walk to Emmaus, in which the feeble-mindedness of a pair of Jesus’ followers could certainly have given the rest of them a bad name. It takes a complete stranger, so it seems, to explain to these two the significance of the story, and the reality of their own experience. More to the point, it takes the breaking of bread for them to recognize the one who is in their very midst.
There’s a whole lot going on in this little story that comes toward the end of Luke’s gospel. It raises all kinds of questions. To name but a few: why this dialogue? Why the road to Emmaus? Why bread? And, most importantly, what is the word of the Lord for us in this story?
So let’s run through these initial questions briefly before opening up some conversation on that last one.
Why this dialogue along the road?
Wasn’t this simply Jesus’ way? Engaging everyone he met in rich conversation, and understanding that every moment is, as we might say today, a teachable one. Moreover, every moment is also sacramental, or potentially so. Every conversation presents the possibility of revealing invisible grace, of speaking a word of grace into an otherwise ordinary moment.
Luke could have set this story just about anywhere. He wasn’t writing journalism, he was proclaiming gospel. Jesus could have unfolded Moses and the prophets pretty much anywhere, but he writes this as a revelation along the way.
The walking is important. As Barbara Brown Taylor writes in An Altar In the World, “walking [is] one of the most easily available spiritual practices of all.” She goes on to say, “All it takes is the decision to walk with some awareness, both of who you are and what you are doing.” The Emmaus story suggests that an awareness of one’s companions on the journey is also crucial to the spiritual practice, to making the journey itself sacramental.
She writes, “Most of us spend so much time thinking about where we have been or where we are supposed to be going that we have a hard time recognizing where we actually are” – or, in the case of the disciples on the road, with whom we actually are spending our time. So why are they there, on that road?
Why the road to Emmaus? It could be a simple matter of heading home after momentous events in the big city. Emmaus was something of a suburb, although seven miles would be at least a couple of hours journey. It could be that Emmaus stands in for that place that each of us has, or wants to have, to escape when the world is too much, a place of forgetting, perhaps, or of giving up when life has defeated us.
All of that is possible.
Historically, Emmaus was the scene of a famous Maccabean rebel victory related in 1 Maccabees, where Judas Maccabeus urges the rebels on saying, “then all the Gentiles will know that there is one who saves and liberates Israel” (1 Maccabees 4:11). The despairing friends on the road to Emmaus had hoped that Jesus was “the one to liberate Israel” (Luke 24:21). Perhaps the road to Emmaus is the road of violent revolution, but in the breaking of bread Cleopas and his friend recognize the nonviolent Jesus and reverse course and return to the community of the disciples to proclaim again the good news of God’s triumph over the violence of the empire.
All of that is possible, as well.
Luke is the great story teller among the gospel writers. He is the one whose account is always rich in details of place and time, so it comes as no surprise that he would note the passage of time along the road, and be attentive to the fact that the hour gets late.
Say what you will about the ability of Cleopas and his friend to discern the signs of the times, to interpret the law and the prophets, or even to recognize the one who is in their midst, but they absolutely understand the one clear thing that scripture is always about: hospitality.
UCC Pastor Kate Huey puts it this way, “Hospitality isn’t a condescending or begrudging, dutiful sharing […], it’s a kind of openness and welcoming to change and the new learning change brings […]. Hospitality and openness make transformation possible, brought to us from the most unexpected places by the most unlikely people, perhaps even strangers.”
Ultimately, hospitality is not simply about sharing with someone – friend or stranger – our food or even our shelter, it is about giving someone our selves.
Hospitality is sacramental, for it is the visible, tangible, even ingestible sign of the invisible grace of our own lives.
Jesus’ entire life testified to that simple truth, expressed most eloquently in the words that institute our church sacrament of table: “this is my body, broken for you.”
Why bread?
It is the visible sign of the invisible grace of creation.
Think about it – about real, actual, simple bread. A bit of flour – begun as a seed buried in the earth; in this case an invisible sign of an invisible grace, a sign to come of a promised and delivered grace. A bit of yeast, perhaps, – that mysterious, living organism that gives rise, literally, to the fully realized bread. A bit of water – that elemental gift upon which all life depends.
Why bread? Because it is fundamental, in one shape or another, flat, round, rice or wheat or whatever, basic to every culture’s table.
In the breaking of bread, the disciples realize, “hey, we are in the presence of the Holy.”
In the breaking of bread, any time, any where, we are in the presence of the holy.
In the breaking of bread in the A-SPAN line, we are in the presence of the holy.
In the breaking of bread at this table, we are in the presence of the holy.
In the breaking of bread at our own kitchen tables, we are in the presence of the holy.
So, as we consider our common life at Clarendon and our individual lives in the wider world, what is the word of the Lord for us in this simple story of broken bread?
May 8, 2011
Last week as we fed our neighbors with the Arlington Street Peoples Assistance Network, Martin noted one particular gentleman whom we’ve served previously. The man has an amazing shock of white hair and a beard that lends credence to the rumor I am here inventing that he was an original touring member of the Grateful Dead. He’s a gregarious, friendly man, and Martin remembered in particular that the guy had disapproved of the behavior of someone else in the line back in December, saying, “some people give us bums a bad name.”
For better and for worse, you get to know people best in the breaking of bread.
I was reminded of that in reading again the story of the long walk to Emmaus, in which the feeble-mindedness of a pair of Jesus’ followers could certainly have given the rest of them a bad name. It takes a complete stranger, so it seems, to explain to these two the significance of the story, and the reality of their own experience. More to the point, it takes the breaking of bread for them to recognize the one who is in their very midst.
There’s a whole lot going on in this little story that comes toward the end of Luke’s gospel. It raises all kinds of questions. To name but a few: why this dialogue? Why the road to Emmaus? Why bread? And, most importantly, what is the word of the Lord for us in this story?
So let’s run through these initial questions briefly before opening up some conversation on that last one.
Why this dialogue along the road?
Wasn’t this simply Jesus’ way? Engaging everyone he met in rich conversation, and understanding that every moment is, as we might say today, a teachable one. Moreover, every moment is also sacramental, or potentially so. Every conversation presents the possibility of revealing invisible grace, of speaking a word of grace into an otherwise ordinary moment.
Luke could have set this story just about anywhere. He wasn’t writing journalism, he was proclaiming gospel. Jesus could have unfolded Moses and the prophets pretty much anywhere, but he writes this as a revelation along the way.
The walking is important. As Barbara Brown Taylor writes in An Altar In the World, “walking [is] one of the most easily available spiritual practices of all.” She goes on to say, “All it takes is the decision to walk with some awareness, both of who you are and what you are doing.” The Emmaus story suggests that an awareness of one’s companions on the journey is also crucial to the spiritual practice, to making the journey itself sacramental.
She writes, “Most of us spend so much time thinking about where we have been or where we are supposed to be going that we have a hard time recognizing where we actually are” – or, in the case of the disciples on the road, with whom we actually are spending our time. So why are they there, on that road?
Why the road to Emmaus? It could be a simple matter of heading home after momentous events in the big city. Emmaus was something of a suburb, although seven miles would be at least a couple of hours journey. It could be that Emmaus stands in for that place that each of us has, or wants to have, to escape when the world is too much, a place of forgetting, perhaps, or of giving up when life has defeated us.
All of that is possible.
Historically, Emmaus was the scene of a famous Maccabean rebel victory related in 1 Maccabees, where Judas Maccabeus urges the rebels on saying, “then all the Gentiles will know that there is one who saves and liberates Israel” (1 Maccabees 4:11). The despairing friends on the road to Emmaus had hoped that Jesus was “the one to liberate Israel” (Luke 24:21). Perhaps the road to Emmaus is the road of violent revolution, but in the breaking of bread Cleopas and his friend recognize the nonviolent Jesus and reverse course and return to the community of the disciples to proclaim again the good news of God’s triumph over the violence of the empire.
All of that is possible, as well.
Luke is the great story teller among the gospel writers. He is the one whose account is always rich in details of place and time, so it comes as no surprise that he would note the passage of time along the road, and be attentive to the fact that the hour gets late.
Say what you will about the ability of Cleopas and his friend to discern the signs of the times, to interpret the law and the prophets, or even to recognize the one who is in their midst, but they absolutely understand the one clear thing that scripture is always about: hospitality.
UCC Pastor Kate Huey puts it this way, “Hospitality isn’t a condescending or begrudging, dutiful sharing […], it’s a kind of openness and welcoming to change and the new learning change brings […]. Hospitality and openness make transformation possible, brought to us from the most unexpected places by the most unlikely people, perhaps even strangers.”
Ultimately, hospitality is not simply about sharing with someone – friend or stranger – our food or even our shelter, it is about giving someone our selves.
Hospitality is sacramental, for it is the visible, tangible, even ingestible sign of the invisible grace of our own lives.
Jesus’ entire life testified to that simple truth, expressed most eloquently in the words that institute our church sacrament of table: “this is my body, broken for you.”
Why bread?
It is the visible sign of the invisible grace of creation.
Think about it – about real, actual, simple bread. A bit of flour – begun as a seed buried in the earth; in this case an invisible sign of an invisible grace, a sign to come of a promised and delivered grace. A bit of yeast, perhaps, – that mysterious, living organism that gives rise, literally, to the fully realized bread. A bit of water – that elemental gift upon which all life depends.
Why bread? Because it is fundamental, in one shape or another, flat, round, rice or wheat or whatever, basic to every culture’s table.
In the breaking of bread, the disciples realize, “hey, we are in the presence of the Holy.”
In the breaking of bread, any time, any where, we are in the presence of the holy.
In the breaking of bread in the A-SPAN line, we are in the presence of the holy.
In the breaking of bread at this table, we are in the presence of the holy.
In the breaking of bread at our own kitchen tables, we are in the presence of the holy.
So, as we consider our common life at Clarendon and our individual lives in the wider world, what is the word of the Lord for us in this simple story of broken bread?
posted by David Ensign at
7:08 AM
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