Incarnate Now

Luke 24:13-49

April 30, 2017

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.

Their eyes were kept from recognizing him. We read this richly symbolic story with the sly superiority of the knowing. How could these followers of Jesus not even recognize him when he’s walking right alongside them? How quickly they forget. But we, through the omniscience of the narrator, know what these characters do not – and we feel smug about it, too.

Hah! I’d know Jesus anywhere! No way I’d fall for the old hidden-Jesus trick! Not if we’re walking together talking about important stuff!

And he said to them, “What are you discussing with each other while you walk along?” They stood still, 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.

Seriously! This guy hasn’t heard the latest news. He’s so out of it, he must be a loser. He’s certainly not an insider. He doesn’t even know about the things that just happened here over the weekend! He can’t be important. He’s got nothing to say that’s worth listening to.

But then, these two forlorn travellers do something completely unexpected.

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.”

Did you catch that? These two men cite the testimony of women. Now, to be sure, they testify that the men went to the tomb after the women – perhaps to mansplain to the women about how tombs and stones work – but they did not see Jesus. Nevertheless, Cleopas and his friend cite the testimony of the women that the tomb was empty and that they had seen a vision of angels who said that Jesus was alive.

Then these two men do something else unexpected. They listen to this stranger who doesn’t even know the latest news:

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. 

Walking along the road to Emmaus this stranger, this nobody, gives them a Bible study beyond what they’d expect from the most learned rabbi.

A friend of mine who serves a congregation in the projects in Chattanooga noted the other day that he would much rather listen to elderly African-American women from the projects talk about politics than to white, male Sanders supporters. Stereotypes of “Bernie bros” aside, what I hear in the comment is a preference for listening to the voices of the marginalized over the voices of the privileged.

I suspect my friend’s preference arises out of years of serving marginalized communities, but it also comes straight out of our Book of Confessions. Our Brief Statement of Faith includes this conviction:

In a broken and fearful world the Spirit gives us courage to pray without ceasing, to witness among all peoples to Christ as Lord and Savior, to unmask idolatries in Church and culture, to hear the voices of peoples long silenced, and to work with others for justice, freedom, and peace.

“To hear the voices of peoples long silenced.” To hear such voices requires the willingness to follow the example of the disciples on the road to Emmaus: they listened to someone they did not know. They listened to someone who did not come to them with degrees and lofty titles. They listen to a fellow traveler along the road, a person with no visible signs of privilege.

Re-reading the Brief Statement of Faith last week I was struck, in the section I just read, by the faith claim upon which the section rests. We say, in this confession, that we trust in the Spirit, and, specifically, we trust that the Spirit of the living God will give us courage to hear the voices of peoples long silenced.

It takes no courage to listen to the talking heads of TV networks, or to the pundits of the opinion pages, or to elected public officials. Now, I’ll grant you, that it takes a strong stomach to listen to some of them these days, but that is not the same thing as courage.

Likewise, it takes little courage to listen to scholars or experts or corporate leaders, and it surely takes no courage to listen to me or other church leaders.

At least, that is, if we stick to the dictionary definition of courage as the “mental or moral strength to venture, persevere, and withstand danger, fear, or difficulty.” I just don’t think it takes a lot of that to show up at church on Sunday mornings most weeks!

But, in our Brief Statement of Faith, we confess that it takes courage to listen to people who do not usually get listened to. Why? Why do we feel the need to pray for the courage to hear voices long silenced?

It does not, it seems to me, take heroism or bravery to listen and to hear. On the other hand, as Brene Brown reminds, “Courage is a heart word. The root of the word courage is cor - the Latin word for heart. In one of its earliest forms, the word courage meant ‘To speak one's mind by telling all one's heart.’ … Speaking from our hearts is what I think of as ‘ordinary courage.’”[1]

The road to Emmaus is a path toward ordinary courage. When we follow that path we never know whom we’ll meet along the way.

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 talking to us on the road, 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 Simon!” Then they told what had happened on the road, and how he had been made known to them in the breaking of the bread.

How many of you have seen the ad that Heineken beer recently put out? It’s being touted in some corners as the “antidote” to the mess that Pepsi and Kendall Jenner put out earlier this year. Pepsi had a privileged white woman bringing peace, love, and understanding to social strife with a nice cold can of soda.

Heineken, on the other hand, constructed a social-science experiment that brought together pairs of individuals who clearly did not see the world through the same lenses: a trans woman and a man who said “that’s not right: you’re a man, be a man or you’re a female, be a female”; a white man who said, “feminism today is man-hating,” and a woman of color who said, “I would describe myself as a feminist: 100-percent”; and so on.

The individuals knew nothing about one another when they walked into a warehouse space together and were given a series of instructions that led them through a small but unclear construction task. Eventually each pair built a set of stools and an unfinished table. The instructions guide them to sit and answer a few questions that lead them to sharing some of their personal histories with each other. The construction task puzzle continues until it becomes clear that they’ve built a bar. The instructions lead them to a pair of beers which they are to place on designated spots on the bar.

Then the disembodied voice that has led them to this point instructs them to stand and watch a short film. The video shows them clips of each other from interviews conducted prior to the experiment revealing the attitudes that should separate them. Then they are given the choice to leave or to sit down together over a beer.

Now it’s a beer commercial, so the pairs that made it into the final commercial all choose to stay. I don’t know if there were folks who chose to walk out. And, it’s a beer commercial, so mostly it’s trying to sell us beer.

Nevertheless, it reveals some important truths: if ordinary courage is about speaking one’s mind by telling one’s heart, then courage requires spending time together, committing to a common task together, being willing to speak and listen from the heart, and being willing to sit down together at table.

Cleopas and his friend spend time with a stranger. They take on the shared task of hiking together for hours. Then they offer hospitality from their hearts, and finally they break bread together. Along the way they get to know one another, and their deepest identities – their true hearts – are made know in the breaking of bread. Just as Jesus was known to his followers in the breaking of bread, so we are best known to one another at table.

The road to Emmaus is, ultimately, a story of incarnation, and, if we have the courage we are invited to walk the same road.

The heart of this story of broken hearts breaking open again beats in incarnation. Something becomes flesh, becomes real. Do we have the courage to listen if in that listening we may encounter deep and abiding truth, if, in that listening, Christ may be made flesh in our midst, if, in that listening, our own hearts may become transformed?

Toward the end of Matthew’s gospel, just before the Holy Week narrative, we read the parable of the judgment of the nations. The parable turns on this incarnational truth: when I was hungry, you fed me … Lord, when did we do this … truly I tell you, whenever you did this to the least of these my family you did it to me. On the road to Emmaus that parable might have included, “when I was walking the road alone, you welcomed me to join you and you listened to my story; when I had no home at the end of the road, you invited me into your home and you offered me a meal.”

There’s an Episcopal church in an affluent neighborhood in the town of Davidson, NC, that installed a sculpture in its yard. It’s a simple bench with a homeless man sleeping on it. It’s called Jesus the Homeless. The first week after it was installed a neighbor called the police to report a vagrant sleeping on the church grounds.

Come, Holy Spirit. Grant us the courage to walk the road to Emmaus with eyes wide open to Christ in our midst, grant us the courage to open our minds to the stories of our hearts, and grant us the courage to hear the voices of peoples long silenced. Amen.

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[1] Brene Brown, I Thought It Was Just Me (New York: Gotham, 2007).