Here’s some quick notes from some musings I had while reading Luke 24. I shared them at ThPM/Monkfish last week. Not sure it went over that well. But I was just trying to go “hey look what’s in my head.” …. I think folks still feel like anytime I speak I’m suddenly this creater called “the pastor” and I’m trying to convince them of something. When really, I’m just trying to talk like the next guy, just trying to be human.

Anyway, here it is for safe keeping. It’s not edited.

________________________________________

And they knew him in the breaking of the bread.

Luke 24

The same day two of them were walking to the village Emmaus, about seven miles out of Jerusalem. They were deep in conversation, going over all these things that had happened. In the middle of their talk and questions, Jesus came up and walked along with them. But they were not able to recognize who he was.

He asked, “What is this you’re discussing so intently as you walk along?”

They just stood there, long-faced, like they had lost their best friend. Then one of them, his name was Cleopas, said, “Are you the only one in Jerusalem who hasn’t heard what’s happened during the last few days?”

He said, “What has happened?”

They said, “The things that happened to Jesus the Nazarene. He was a man of God, a prophet, dynamic in work and word, blessed by both God and all the people. Then our high priests and leaders betrayed him, got him sentenced to death, and crucified him. And we had our hopes up that he was the One, the One about to deliver Israel. And it is now the third day since it happened. But now some of our women have completely confused us. Early this morning they were at the tomb and couldn’t find his body. They came back with the story that they had seen vision of angels who said he was alive. Some of our friends went off to the tomb to check and found it empty just as the women said, but they didn’t see Jesus.”

I love it that it is the women who throw things into confusion, the women who bring new ideas, new thoughts. I’ve often wondered why God would have the women bring the news. Who would believe them, sub-citizens that they were in that culture. Indeed, even here we see that these men do not believe them. Do not think them strong enough witnesses to be trustworthy. Yet it is not the leaders who – who condemned Jesus and put him to death – nor is it the twelve men closest to Jesus who are just confused and lost – but it is the women who have the right answers. Now, I’m not making this about gender. Not al all. I’m just saying, that sometimes it is the fringy people, the barely connected who see the real deal, who know the real thing. And that’s a good lesson for me to remember.

Then he said to them, “So thick-headed! So slow-hearted! Why can’t you simply believe all the prophets said? Don’t you see that these things had to happen, that the Messiah had to suffer and only then enter into his glory?” then he started at the beginning with the Books of Moses, and went on through all the Prophets, pointing out everything in the Scriptures that referred to him.

This reminds me of the girls when they are trying to get things right and then they make a mistake. They spill their milk, or they forget to put their jacket and shoes away, or maybe it’s more like they spray 409 on all the windows instead of windex. We chew them out and they get this face, first a look of surprise, then a wide-eyed mournful look as the reality of their error sinks in, and they begin to cry. The are trying. The girls. The men in this story. Me. Us. We are trying to get it right. “Don’t you see that these things had to happen?” No actually! We don’t. We didn’t know. We can’t quite figure it out. We need someone to take us by the hand and start at the beginning and point out everything step by step. Here’s how you clean a window. Here’s how you live a life.

I guess that’s what keeps me reading. I’m looking for those stepping stones, lined up in a row, getting me from one shore to another. I’m trying to connected the dots from Moses to the resserection. But story is circular, it weave in and out, it double back on itself, and the stepping stones are not in a straight line. It takes a lot of trust to lean back and float, to acknowledge, that though you don’t know how, the water molecules will suspend you. That you can get to the other shore.

They came to the edge of the village where they were headed. He acted as if he were going on but they pressed him: “Stay and have supper with us. It’s nearly evening; the day is done.” So he went in with them. And this is what happened: He sat down at the table with them. Taking the bread, he blessed and broke and gave it to them. At that moment, open-eyed, wide-eyed, they recognized him. And then he disappeared.

Back and forth they talked. “Didn’t we feel on fire as he conversed with us on the raod, as he opened up the Scriptures for us?”

I have to laugh a little, under my breath when I read this. I love the bit about open-eyed, wide-eyed. And what makes them like this, sitting agog and opened mouth? A complicated treatise? A long sermon? A midrash on the text. Nope. Tried that. Didn’t really work. Oh sure, later they say “Didn’t we feel on fire as he conversed with us on the road, as he opened scriptures for us?” But really, the strait skinny is that all that detailing of the prophets really didn’t reveal Christ in a way they could see. They saw him in the breaking of the bread. In the most everyday of things. In the staple food. In the routine actions of eating, meal taking.

There’s hope in that, isn’t there? That we can see him in the everyday. In the songs Eden sings on the swing in the back yard “I roll through the daisies in the grass. I swing with my feet up in the sky. How can I not love you?” In the security of four walls and forced air heat. In the shoring-up nature of a phone call coming at just the right time. In water flowing uncontaminated from a faucet in your very own kitchen.

We see him in the breaking of the bread.
_______________________________________________________________
Communion

He sat down at the table with them. Taking the bread, he blessed and broke and gave it to them. At that moment, open-eyed, wide-eyed, they recognized him.

So come Lord, we want to recognize you. We want to be wide-eyed, open-eyed. We don’t mind being corrected, being taken by the hand, being told to try again. We will remember you, we will try to recognize you in the breaking of the bread, in the everyday, in the simple, the sidelined, the mundane. Only don’t disappear. Be near to me, be near to me. For you are good. Amen.

Blessed are you O Lord our God, Ruler of the Universe
Who has given us the grain of the earth, the fruit of the vine
the blood of your vein, the pulse of your heart.

Jesus is present to you. Jesus is present in you.