Holy Heartburn (Second Sunday of Easter; Luke 24:13-35; April 23, 2017)

Holy Heartburn

Second Sunday of Easter
Luke 24:13-35
April 23, 2017

Rev. John M. Caldwell, PhD
First United Methodist Church
Decorah, Iowa

I've really come to enjoy our Wednesday After School Program. Eight or so kindergarten through sixth graders come straight to church when school gets out. We have a snack that some of you help provide. (Thank you very much!) Then we have a lesson that Steph Folkedahl has prepared with a Bible story and crafts (sometimes edible!), worksheets and a video. The curriculum is produced by Cokesbury, our denomination's publishing house, and is called Deep Blue. It's well-written and it anticipates how the kids are going to respond pretty well.

Pretty well. Kids being kids, though, and not having learned that you're not supposed to ask questions, ask questions we didn't anticipate. This week, for instance, we asked for some examples of where we can see God. Of course, we know that this is shorthand for "where we can see traces of God at work," but, again, kids haven't been completely read in on our jargon yet. So one of our kids, having heard a few answers--"in the flowers", "the green grass", and so on--objected. "I don't see God. I don't see God anywhere." That wasn't in the lesson plan!

We often say that theology isn't important. We often say that it isn't what's in our heads that counts, but what's in our hearts instead. And Methodists have a long tradition of underscoring how important heartfelt religion is. And it is. At the same time the importance of a relationship with God that is rooted in our hearts doesn't mean that our brains are not important. Sometimes, maybe even most of the time, when I hear "it isn't what's in our heads that counts," it's a commitment to intellectual laziness. Sometimes, "it isn't what's in our heads that counts" should be translated, "Thinking is hard. Don't expect me to think. It's too hard!"

But one young person at least is asking us to do the hard work of thinking carefully and well about how we talk about God. One young person needs good theology. So let's see if we can do some good theology for their sake, if not for ours. The story that serves as our lesson for today will give us a place to start.

On the day that we call Easter, but they were still calling the third day after Jesus was killed, two disciples set out to walk the seven miles from Jerusalem to Emmaus. One of the disciples is named--his name is Cleopas--and the other is unnamed. And yet, with unanimous confidence, every artistic rendering of this story I have ever seen portrays two male disciples walking with Jesus.

Christianity has a problem when it comes to women. The New Testament writes past them like they weren't even there, and then every once in a while it says, "Oh, look! A woman!" And then it promptly goes back to ignoring them. The tradition since then is even worse, changing the names of an apostle to turn her into a man, painting Jesus' disciples as all men, when even the New Testament admits that there were women among them, and turning Mary Magdalene--a strong leader of the early Jesus movement--into a former prostitute who spends all her time weeping.

In the ancient world, if two people were mentioned and one of them is a man who is named and the other is not named, we can safely assume two things: the "other", unnamed person is a woman and the woman is the named man's wife.

So the story begins with Cleopas and his wife walking to Emmaus. None of the paintings that I have ever seen has gotten it right. We may assume that they live in Emmaus and are going home from Jerusalem.

This married couple who were part of Jesus' circle of disciples and had been caught up in the events of the last few days had been stuck in Jerusalem over the sabbath. They were not allowed to walk seven miles on the sabbath. They had decided to give it up, pack it in, go home, and pick up whatever was left of their lives.

They were grief-struck. "We had hoped he was the one who would redeem Israel," they said. "We had hoped..." Are there any sadder words in the English language? Their hopes had been dashed. Jesus had been brutally and publicly murdered. They might be next. They were afraid, certainly, but more than that they were in shock. The earth had opened up beneath them. Their world had come to an end.

They took some comfort in each other's company. They talked about what they had experienced. Walking helped a little, too.

It's at this point the Jesus joined them. They didn't recognize him. People who are deep in grief are often pulled into themselves. Sometimes they don't notice everything going on around them that they would have otherwise. They looked at Jesus, but they didn't see him. They didn't see him anywhere. There was only this stranger who asked questions and let them tell him their story.

What do we say to someone in grief? "Tell me, what happened?" isn't bad place to start. When grief is deep and new, our lives stop making sense; telling the story is one way to begin to make sense of life again. So they talked and he listened: "There was power in his words and his deeds, but our leaders had him killed, ending our hopes. Oh, and, some strange stuff happened this morning. Some women went to the tomb and saw glowy people, but not his body. Others went to the tomb, but the glowy people weren't there. Neither was Jesus."

Then Jesus--and remember, they still don't see him--did what I do not recommend that you do with grieving people: He called them foolish people with dull minds. Don't do this. It isn't helpful. Then, he launched on a tour of the Law and the Prophets to demonstrate that his (Jesus') suffering was a necessary part of his journey.

By the time he was done, they were walking though Emmaus, the couple's destination, but Jesus (still unrecognized) didn't to plan to stop. They urged him to stay with them for the night. Travel by day wasn't without risk, but travel by night was dangerous. It wasn't something people did, especially if they were traveling alone. So Jesus (still unrecognized) accepted their invitation. When the supper was ready, Jesus (still unrecognized) took his place at the table. Or maybe he took Cleopas' place at the table, because what he did next was to take over the role of the host. Get this. In a culture that set great store by a hospitality governed by strict rules of etiquette, the guest acted as host forcing the hosts into the role of guests. He took the bread. He blessed it. He broke it. He served it to Cleopas and his wife.

And then things happened very quickly. They both recognized that it was Jesus. Something in those actions of Jesus reminded them of other times when Jesus had done these very things: in the upper room, in Peter's mother-in-law's house, along the roadside, anywhere the little band of followers ate together. At the same time, Jesus disappeared from sight and they were, once again, alone. They also named what they had experienced before, while still on the road: Their hearts had been "on fire" while he had been explaining the Bible. It was holy heartburn.

It was too late to travel, but they had to be with the rest of the band of Jesus followers in Jerusalem. They didn't hesitate at all. Back out into the night they went and walked--or did they run?--the seven miles back to Jerusalem, back to "the eleven" and their companions. They heard that Jesus had also appeared to Peter and they told in their turn what had happened to them "and how Jesus was made know to them as he broke the bread."

Now back in the eighties, Protestants were rediscovering the pattern of worship in the early Church. In all humility, let us note that we noticed it because Catholics and Episcopalians had already discovered it and had put it into practice. We had noticed that the ancient pattern could be seen in this text: the pattern of Word and Table. Early Christian weekly worship consisted of two parts: a service of the Word in which lessons were read and interpreted and hymns and psalms and prayers were sung or said; and, a service of the Table in which the bread and wine were taken and blessed, the bread was broken, and the bread and wine were shared with the whole community. And here is that same pattern: first Jesus cited the scriptures and interpreted them, and then he presided at the table where bread was taken, blessed, broken, and shared. There was the two-fold pattern in its most basic form.

The similarities between that pattern and this story are not an accident, but here is a question, and it leads us into the theological question that lies behind our friend's observation. Which came first, the story of the resurrection with its two parts, or the pattern of worship with its two-fold nature? Did the structure of worship come from this text? Or did the structure of this text come from the pattern of worship?

Let's ask this question: Why is this story in Luke? Remember that neither Luke nor any of the gospels were written to tell what happened. Luke was not written to prove that Jesus rose from the dead. It was written for a community that already believed that. Because it came from documents that had gathered oral traditions in the church, the episodes described were news to no one who read Luke, even for the first time. What was new was how the stories and sayings were arranged, and how they were told.

To read the gospels as sources of information instead of as particular tellings of information we already know and have is to read them backwards. To imagine that this is a story about Cleopas and his wife--rather than a story about us--and the risen Jesus is to read this story backwards.

This is a story about the risen Jesus and us. Jesus is alive and very much with us and we look straight at him and don't see him. We don't see him anywhere. We could kind of shuffle along through our days and years in his company and never have the slightest clue that he is shuffling along with us. But then we start to tell stories and not just the stories that get told in the beauty parlor or the barber shop or on MSNBC or Fox. We start to tell our stories, the stories of our hopes and our disappointments, the stories of our broken hearts and lives, and we find our way somehow to the stories about Israel's hopes and disappointments, about the life and broken heart of Israel's God, and something begins to stir. We sit down at a simple meal, perhaps even the barest possible meal--a little piece of bread to eat and a little sip from the cup--and suddenly something falls into place. We become aware once again and once again we a part of all the meals that Jesus had with us in the upper room, in Peter's mother-in-law's house, along the roadside, and at a couple's home in Emmaus.

We don't see Jesus. We don't see him anywhere. But Luke tells us where he is whether we see him or not. He is wherever two or three of us are gathered to retell the stories and respond to them in the deepest places of our hearts and mind. He is wherever two or three of us gather at the table and the bread is taken, blessed, broken, and given. He is at lot of other places, but Luke suggests that here is one place to start. We don't see Jesus, but he is here and our hearts are warmed by the stories. We don't see Jesus anywhere, but he is here and can be recognized, even unseen, in a flash, in the breaking of the bread.

And with this key we can begin to attend to other places where the risen Jesus is present even though unseen. We can recognize him, even if we do not see him, in the supportive fellowship of a congregation, in the unexpected kindness of a brother or sister who normally makes us crazy, in the undeserved welcome from those whom we would turn away, in the illness of the sick, in the shivering of the poorly dressed, in the hunger of the starving, in all the places where Jesus chooses to be. We can't see him; we don't see him anywhere. But that doesn't keep us from knowing where he is. That doesn't keep us from being where he is. That doesn't keep us from the telltale holy heartburn of his presence.

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