Fourth Sunday of Easter
Shelagh Balfour

Luke 24:13-35

The other day, a friend told me how much she loved the gospel readings at this time of year because, from the women at the tomb to the disciples on a Galilean beach, she loved hearing, again and again, the stories of Jesus’ appearances after his resurrection. Her favourite, she said, was the appearance to frightened disciples in the locked upper room. I had never really thought about a ‘favourite’ resurrection story, but when she asked about mine, I realized it was today’s gospel in which Jesus meets up with disheartened disciples as they trudge, with broken hearts, back home to Emmaus.

This is quite a detailed story, one we can barely touch on in a brief reflection. As Henri Nouwen pointed out in his book With Burning Hearts, this small portion of scripture holds the story of the life of the church as it takes us from loss through to presence, invitation, communion, and mission. We cannot examine all these steps today, but I commend Nouwen’s compact, insightful book as a meditation on the Eucharistic life of the church.

As I reflected on the road to Emmaus story, I still had last week’s reading, the one about Thomas, in my mind. Doubting Thomas. And it led me to notice something I hadn’t seen before: When Jesus came upon the disciples in their walk back to Emmaus, we are told these two were sad. Asked what was on their minds, they told this apparently clueless stranger who has joined them of the events that had transpired three days before, of the death of Jesus of Nazareth, a prophet mighty in deed and word before God and all the people. They told him that, in this death, their hopes for the restoration of their people had been dashed.

But think about the bit they added at the end: women from their group had gone to the tomb, found it empty, and had been told by angels that Jesus was alive! Pretty exciting stuff and yet, these two disciples, grief stricken and with their hopes gone, were trudging home. Thomas wasn’t the only one who doubted. Thomas wasn’t the only one who could not imagine the unimaginable. These two followers of Jesus had been told the grave was empty and he was alive, but they could not believe it.

It seems to me that this is a thing we are all called to do, to imagine the unimaginable. Like you and I, these disciples were people of their time. They interpreted the events of their time by what they already knew. It seemed impossible to imagine life any way other than what they had always known. When Jesus came upon them on the road, they could not recognize him precisely because they already knew he was dead. They knew he could not be there.

Jesus, however, was not prepared to leave them in their assumptions. Beginning with Moses and all the prophets, he interpreted to them the things about himself in all the scriptures, which is to say, he took them back through the scriptures they were sure they already knew and showed those scriptures in a new light, helping them to see things they had never imagined were there. He gave them the tools to imagine the unimaginable. And their hearts began to burn within them. They were moving from the loss of the crucifixion into the presence of the life giving Word of God, embodied in Jesus.

When we approach scripture, most especially as we study the Word of God together in community, we, like the disciples walking to Emmaus, are invited to hear it in new ways, to hear the life giving Word of God spoken into our new situation. Most of the readings we hear during Sunday worship are words we’ve heard dozens of times before. As Rod noted last week, we hear these same resurrection stories year after year during the Easter season. Our challenge is to listen to what God is saying to us through his Word, in this moment in time. Our challenge is to hear God interpreting the things about himself in all the scriptures in a way that makes our hearts burn within us.

By the time they reached Emmaus, a new fire had been lit within the disciples, but they had not yet recognized who had done the lighting. Their ears were opened but not yet their eyes. When they reached home, though, they invited the (perhaps not so clueless) stranger to share a meal with them. At this meal, Jesus took bread, blessed and broke it, and gave it to them and in that moment, they recognized him. In the simple, homely act of sharing bread at table, through the familiar gestures of taking, blessing, breaking, and giving, Jesus had become intensely present in their lives. So energized were they by this, that even though the day was now nearly over, they got up and rushed back to Jerusalem to share the news. I imagine there was far more energy in their steps on this return trip.

One of the things that challenges us as a worshipping community is that, with our current physical isolation, we cannot gather together to share the breaking of the bread. This is a source of sadness for us, dislocation even, and we long for the day when we will be together around the altar once again. In the meantime, though, it may help us to remember how deeply rooted we are in the Eucharistic nature of our community, even when we are not physically together, even when we cannot share the meal that teaches us who we are.

The word Eucharist, means ‘thanksgiving’. In these unusual times, we still live lives of thanksgiving for the saving acts of God in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. We live in thanksgiving that we have been nourished by the Body of Christ over many years, shaping us to live as the Body of Christ in this new world.

So, what does this mean in day-to-day terms? It means that, in concrete ways, the Eucharistic life we are rooted in informs our actions in the time of physical distancing. Let me give you a couple of examples. You may remember that last week, Margaret Clarke told us about the outreach ministry team learning that a community agency was in need of 100 cloth masks. The team was able to coordinate with other parishioners who sewed and other folks in the wider community who were already responding, to help provide those masks within a few days of learning about the need.

In another example, a member of the parish told me she has been hand-making and delivering cards to let people in the parish and people in her neighbourhood know that she is thinking of them and praying for them at this time. This has led to rich conversations and created new community connections.

I’m sure there are other similar stories we could share of ways we are connecting with one another and the world even while we are physically apart. This has turned out to be a rich time of ministry for St. Peter’s. The very fact that so many of us continue to worship together on Sunday morning, shows St. Peter’s family living out our identity as a Eucharistic community, sharing the presence of Christ with one another and preparing to take it out into the world.

When Jesus met the disciples on the road to Emmaus, he found them wrapped in grief and uncertainty. By the time he revealed himself in the breaking of the bread, he had brought them to new life. He had set their hearts on fire with his word, filling them with energy to share the Good News they had experienced. May it be so for you and for me as we continue to discern God’s presence in this new time.