Road to Emmaus, by Daniel Bonnell
Two people were on a long walk, and the Risen One appeared to them. He asked them what they were discussing, and “they stood still, looking sad.”
“They stood still, looking sad.”
This is reasonable. It makes perfect sense. The news of Resurrection is complicated. It is even traumatic. They are on a long walk, but they aren’t celebrating after a sumptuous Easter dinner. They are “talking [about] and discussing” all that has happened. That may sound calm and contented, but the Greek word we translate as discussing could also mean reasoning, debating, questioning, or even arguing. They are reasoning about all that has happened. They are debating all that has happened, questioning it, arguing about it.
The Greek word is συζητεῖν [sue-zay-TAIN]. This word is used elsewhere in the Good News, in Mark chapter 8, to describe the Pharisees challenging Jesus, picking a fight with him. And it’s used previously in Luke, in chapter 22, when the disciples anxiously question or argue about who is going to betray Jesus. It’s a word that signals conflict. The news that the Lord is risen is complicated.
Resurrection starts arguments.
And so this long evening walk is wondrous, but also anxious; it is not a time for warm reflection in the glow of the setting sun as much as a frustrating effort to make sense of a confusing, rattling, deeply upsetting day.
And so it makes sense that when the stranger questions them about what they’re arguing about, they “stand still,” and “look sad.” The stranger’s question stops the argument. They go quiet. And then the sadness overcomes them again. All their hopes had been dashed: “But we had hoped he was the one,” they say, in futility. We had hoped. Sadness.
Grief is like this. Grief allows for moments of relief, little breaks, interruptions in our attention: there’s enough to discuss about what happened that we can sustain a conversation for a while, and even an argument; but soon enough, when we stop, the sadness floods back.
“They stood still, looking sad.”
We are living in Eastertide 2023. We may know more than Cleopas and their companion. (We are not told her name.) We have the benefit of twenty centuries of reflection on all the things that had happened in those days, in Jerusalem. But there is plenty for us to discuss – plenty for us to argue about – as Resurrection people today. And we have much to grieve, too. We often feel sad.
We look for the resurrection of the dead, yet we mourn our dead, and often enough we are “still disbelieving and wondering” about how – or whether – we will see them again. (“Disbelieving and wondering” – this is another pair of verbs in Luke, used to describe the actions of the befuddled followers of the Risen One who can’t make sense of it all. They are “still disbelieving and wondering” just after today’s Emmaus encounter, when Cleopas and the other hiker return to the city and find the others.) Talking, arguing, disbelieving, wondering: again, maybe we know more than they do about the Resurrection, but its full meaning eludes us too, and our grief for those we have lost, and our grief about all of our dashed hopes, can easily flood back upon us.
And we grieve more than just our beloved dead. We are emerging from years of a traumatic global health emergency, one that has left us shaken and wary, exhausted and pensive. Now, we do have cause for hope: 2023 is not 2020, and the reason and skill of medical professionals have given us vaccines, boosters, Paxlovid, and a lot of new knowledge about how to keep people safe. But recovery is slow-going. We have all been badly hurt by this crisis, and the impact will be felt for generations.
Meanwhile, when I live and work here at St. Paul’s, I notice other trauma specific to us. For several years, many of you felt insecure about your leadership, particularly in the office of rector. Reverend Nat gave you tremendous help, and they were as sure a sign of Resurrection here as anything or anyone, but Nat was not your permanent priest, and again, they were leading you in a time of worldwide upheaval. I am so deeply glad to be here with you now, and I have plans to remain here for many good years, but it may be hard for you to trust that. It may be hard for you to trust me. You may still need to talk about it and discuss it, to still disbelieve and wonder.
And now, as summer (slowly!) approaches, we are poised to begin refurbishing our buildings and grounds. This project honors the heritage we received from our bold forebears who built a parish office in 1938 and a new sanctuary in 1962. We are joining their movement to be Christ’s Body here in the urban core of Seattle and not somewhere up the hill, somewhere cut off from the city’s many gifts – and persistent challenges. Our forebears were Easter people: they talked and discussed; they disbelieved and wondered; but then they acted. They stayed here, and they built here.
And so, now, do we: we are doubling down on their commitment to this mission base. We are here to stay, and that is powerfully good for this neighborhood, and for us, too. And yet – and yet – this is daunting, this project. We may occasionally lose confidence. We might feel scared. And though it takes us further into the heart of God, it doesn’t take away our grief. We may, every once in a while, stand still. And whenever we do stand still, we may, yet again, feel sad.
And despite our tremendous courage, despite our stirring legacy of prophetic ministry in this city, despite all that we are determined to do and to be right here, I wonder if this might be something like a fallback position for us – this standing still and feeling sad. It may be our shadow, to put it in a Jungian way. A few weeks ago I sensed that the discussions about cutting pews here in the sanctuary could go on forever, that we were at a standstill, so I somewhat impulsively pushed for action, by asking a few volunteers to help haul one of the long, heavy pews downstairs. That quickly led to our hiring a contractor to cut two of the pews and refinish them (beautifully), creating four new places for members in wheelchairs to join us in prayer. Several of you began our 2023 capital improvements, restoring lighting in the stairwells – much faster than I imagined, with me still disbelieving and wondering.
“They stood still, looking sad.” They did. And we get it. We feel it. We’ve been through a lot, and the Resurrection is also a lot. We are told that death does not have the last word, yet we know in our bones that death is, nevertheless, one of the words. And it’s been a hard few years. We do know that Christ has triumphed, allowing the powers of Sin and Death to crush him, and in so doing, bringing the power of God down upon them, and raising him – and with him, us – up to new life. “Alleluia,” we sing, a Hebrew word that means “Praise the Lord.” Yes. Yes. But “still the captives long for freedom; still in grief we mourn our dead,” goes the old hymn. It’s complicated. The Risen One joins his hiking followers in the mess and upheaval and anguish of our complicated lives, as we contemplate our uncertain futures while the sun goes down.
But then the Risen One breaks the bread. He accepts their graceful invitation to come and stay with them, and he finds his place at their table. He then takes and blesses the bread, breaks it, and gives it to them. “Then their eyes were opened, and they recognized him.” We, too, join in this pattern: we gather around this Table, where we meet the risen Christ.
In a few moments, we will enact this breaking of the bread, this moment at Emmaus when our forebears recognized Christ. Now, when I break the consecrated bread, I will drop eye contact and hold the broken bread aloft for a time. I was taught to do all of this with conscious care. My liturgy professor told our class of seminarians, “Don’t look at the people when you break the bread. This moment is not about you. It is about the assembly recognizing the presence of Christ in their midst, in the breaking of the bread.”
The breaking of the bread: the bread is injured, broken open, divided, diminished, so that it can feed more and more people, so that it can feed all who are gathered here, so that by its power we can fill our SPiN wagons to bursting with food for our neighbors. In that breaking, in that division, and in that nourishment – there we recognize the presence of the risen Christ. Resurrection comes to us in the midst of brokenness, broken bread, broken expectations, broken hearts: broken open and given away, so that all may be fed, all may be nourished.
So, do not just stand still. Your sadness is a holy and righteous feeling, a feeling known to God, in Jesus – but hear this Good News: Christ the Risen One is among us, in the broken bread, in your broken heart, in our broken circle around this Table. Christ the Risen One is here, and even now is setting our hearts burning with gladness.
***
Preached on the Third Sunday of Easter (Year A), April 23, 2023, at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, Seattle, Washington.
Acts 2:14a, 36-41
Psalm 116:1-3, 10-17
1 Peter 1:17-23
Luke 24:13-35