You Never Know Who You’ll Meet
First Congregational Church – Wauwatosa, Wisconsin
Third Sunday of Easter – April 10, 2005
Rev. Steven A. Peay, Ph.D.
[Texts: Acts 2:14a, 36-41/Luke 24:13-35]

            “You never know who you’ll meet.” That was my mother’s admonition to make sure I was properly dressed, face washed, hair combed, and attitude on right as I went out each day. That was her observation because it was true – we meet all sorts of people we never expect in the course of a day and, for that matter, of a life. Those two disciples on the road to Emmaus didn’t set out to meet anyone that long ago Easter day. They most certainly didn’t expect to encounter the living Christ on their journey. Quite frankly, neither do most of us, but we’ll get to that.

            Why Emmaus? We’re not sure what the attraction was. It wasn’t far if it was only a “Sabbath’s day journey.” Scholars tell us that Emmaus was a town with a long history of military violence. There had been a military camp there during the Maccabean revolt and it had been burned by the Romans for being involved in an uprising following Herod’s death. That same year the Romans crucified some 2000 rebels. It might well could have been that they were drawn toward that place because it represented exactly what they were feeling – defeated.

            Regardless, they were moving away from Jerusalem and the whole point of Luke’s Gospel is the journey TO Jerusalem. These two disciples – one with a name, the other without, us perhaps? – are moving away from the path of Christ. They’re going their own way and following their own interpretation of the events they had witnessed. No matter how you put it – they’re walking the wrong way.

            They continue their journey and are joined by a stranger, an ‘alien’ as one commentator said. The fugitive disciples don’t recognize their teacher. Some think it was because of the light as they walked into the sunset. Others think it was because they don’t recognize his characteristic gestures or actions. John Shea writes, “The person of Jesus is summed up and symbolized by an action, an action he did with them and told them to do with one another, an action that is the key to the mystery of his suffering. They have forgotten this eucharistic action. Therefore, they do not recognize him.” [On Earth As It Is In Heaven, p. 167] For whatever reason, they don’t know who it is that has joined them on the road and, I believe, all of us have that same experience all the time.

            The ‘philosopher’ John Lennon once said, “Life is what happens when you’re busy making other plans.” I have come to the conclusion that he was absolutely right. Not to mention that we encounter the Divine while we’re trying to do everything BUT encounter the Divine. God comes to us when we least expect and by means we least expect. So I would say that revelation is what happens while you’re looking for something entirely different.

            Just like the two disciples, they were looking for something else. Now they think they’ve encountered someone clueless as to the events. Cleopas even asks, “Are you the only stranger in Jerusalem who does not know the things that have taken place?” And the stranger, the alien, asks “What things?” So they let out their own interpretation of the events. What we hear is the story of a victim, one who was the passive recipient of others’ condemnation. They vent and their lack of understanding is made patently obvious. Ultimately it is they who are the strangers, the ones who are alien to understanding the events of the last three days.

            Christ is hidden from them because they haven’t opened their hearts to the possibility of the resurrection. Augustine preached this about them, “The Lord’s absence is not an absence. Have faith, and the one you cannot see is with you. Those two, even when the Lord was talking to them, did not have faith, because they didn’t believe he had risen. Nor did they have any hope that he could rise again. They had lost faith, lost hope. They were walking along, dead, with Christ alive. They were walking along, dead, with life itself. Life was walking along with them, but in their hearts life had not yet been restored.” [Sermon 23 in Ancient Christian Commentaries New Testament vol. III, p. 379] Their hearts needed to be opened so that their eyes could recognize the Lord. They needed to rise within themselves through faith.

            Jesus encounters them and is not happy with their lack of faith, their unwillingness to believe that God could be with them. He calls them “foolish,” evoking the Psalmist’s words, “the fool says in his heart there is no God.” They only want to interpret life as they see it, without considering the spiritual dimension. They discussed Jesus and the events of his life only in sociopolitical terms. They have not remembered him correctly and Jesus is justifiably displeased with them and with their sluggish hearts.

            The heart is an interesting metaphor in spirituality. As John Shea points out, “In biblical spirituality the heart is connected to the eyes. When the heart burns, the fire pushes up the chest and flows out of the eyes. This allows the person to see. The eyes are like the headlights of a car. They are lit from within in order to peer into the darkness without. When the fire in the heart dies down, the person’s sight dims and eventually goes out. This may be poor physiology, but it is good spirituality.” [p. 170]  To not be in touch with our spiritual center renders us incapable of seeing from the spiritual perspective and life thus becomes one dimensional, flat.

            Jesus stirs the embers of their hearts and helps them come to full or true knowledge. The Greek word used here is epignosis. Jesus opens their hearts to understand things from Moses on through the prophets. Luke tells us he told them, but he doesn’t tell us what he told them. Maybe that is because all of us have to come to that moment ourselves when we open our hearts to the Christ whom we encounter as we walk along life’s pathways? For each of us there will be a moment when our hearts burn and our eyes are opened and we see the full truth of what God has for us.

            Jesus looks as though he’s going to walk on beyond them. In every case Jesus seems to be moving faster than his followers, always a step ahead it seems, sometimes to the point of exhaustion. But here comes the crucial point. They say, “Stay with us,” and he does. So it always is, we have to come to the point where we make the invitation ourselves. What we’ve heard tantalizes, delights, and makes us want more and we have to say, “Stay, please.”

            He sits with them at table, had he not called himself, “the bread of life?” And in that simple act of sharing “our daily bread” their eyes are opened. This is my favorite Gospel story and now, perhaps, you also know why I am such an advocate of more frequent communion. They recognize him in the breaking of the bread. As they recognize him he is gone, but is he? Soon they realize that he is always there in the communion, the fellowship of those whose hearts are open to the truth of God’s loving care. When he is remembered correctly – remember as one who shows the way to unselfish love – he is there. The whole purpose of the table ritual is simply to remind us that all of life then has the possibility of communion. Every simple meal holds the potential of presence when we come with hearts aflame and eyes wide open. It’s far from magic – it’s memory.

            As you can tell, I read something from John Shea this week that has just gotten me thinking, resonating if you will. Something else he wrote summed it up so well.

Talking about the act of breaking bread he says, “This is a gesture of taking your life in your hands, giving thanks for the life that has been given you, and giving that life to others so that they may grow strong on it – as a person who eats bread grows strong on bread. Whenever the divine life wells up in one person and is poured into another person so that person is built up from within by that gift of life, then Jesus is present as the invisible power and energy of that relationship. He is no longer one more visible, physical entity among them. Nor is he in the tomb. Nor is he a ghost. He is the invisible spirit of their communion. The key to finding the risen Christ is knowing where to look.” [p. 173] Ah, how right he is. The key is to know where to look – everywhere and in everyone we see the same kind of self-giving love Jesus modeled for us. The goal is to BE eucharist, breaking the bread and pouring out the cup of our lives so that others might grow in love with God and in their humanity.

            You may find “A Wonderful Life” sappy and overdone, after all it is a forties’ Christmas movie. Yet, there is a pointer to the truth in it. We need to open our eyes to the good we do and the good we can do when we act in an unselfish, unselfcentered manner. Small as they may be, our actions do make the world a different, a better place. Were we not around, had we not acted or loved – where would it be? It is in those moments and actions, our becoming eucharist for each other, that Christ’s presence is realized in the world here and now. This isn’t just sentimental claptrap, it’s the truth that God comes in the ordinary, but we only get it if, when we open our eyes! Our Puritan forebears understood that one met God in the home, the workshop, and the school-room as surely as one met God in the meeting house. As the poet said, “Christ plays in ten thousand places” – do we have hearts burning, eyes ready to see?

You see, my mother – and I hope she can hear this – was right. Oh, she was right about a lot of things, but especially about not knowing who you will meet. We meet Jesus on the roads of our lives, the journeys we take through the most ordinary events of every day we live. He is willing, ready to walk with us, to stay with us, to teach us and to direct us in the right paths to walk. However, we have to open ourselves to know who he is, to recognize him in the simplest acts of everyday life and to know the truth that the living God is present to us. So today and in the days ahead, be conscious of your companions on the journey – you never know who you’ll meet. Christ is risen!