Sermon — April 23, 2023
The Rev. Greg Johnston
They said to each other, “Were not our hearts burning within us while he was talking to us on the road, while he was opening the scriptures to us?” (Luke 24:32)
I don’t know whether it’s because the weather’s been so nice or because the T has been so slow, but recently I’ve found myself mostly traveling on foot. Now, because I live and work in Charlestown, this is pretty easy. But in just the last few weeks, I’ve walked over to meetings at the Cathedral and City Hall and Old North Church, all reasonable walks from here. And just this Tuesday I had a lovely walk across the city to South Station, thinking that rather than walking to Community College, taking the Orange line at a snail’s pace to Downtown Crossing, and then probably walking some more anyway rather than waiting for a second train to go one stop on the Red Line, it would be faster and much more pleasant just to walk. And it was great.
But on the way home, something really awful happened. After my meeting, as I was headed back to church, I pulled out my wireless headphones and realized that the batteries were dead. And so I was left, to my horror, to walk the several beautiful miles back to Charlestown alone with my thoughts. And I couldn’t help but notice how long it really takes to travel somewhere on foot. In terms of minutes, it wasn’t much slower than it would have been to take the T these days. But when there are no distractions, no headphones in the ears or staring down at the phone—I’m much too clumsy to do that and not trip—the time really stretches out. You hear the traffic and the birds. You see the architecture and the limping runners seeing the sights on the day after the Marathon. If you’re like me, maybe you say a little prayer for all the twenty-somethings who look like they’re gearing up for a day in the mines as they rush toward their Financial-District jobs. When you travel somewhere by foot, at a leisurely pace, you start to notice things.
Unless you’re Cleopas or the other, unnamed disciple, who walked most of seven miles with Jesus and didn’t seem to realize it was him.
Maybe they’re caught up, the two of them, discussing the incredible things that have come to pass, the trial and death and supposed resurrection of their Lord. And a man joins them on the road, and starts talking with them, as they all walk along. And they speak at great length. Luke doesn’t tell us when exactly on the seven-mile walk Jesus joins them, but their conversation clearly lasts a while. They think that he’s a traveler from abroad, and they fill Jesus in on the events of the last few days, and he replies, beginning with Moses and all the prophets and explaining to them how all of this makes sense, re-telling the whole story of the Bible until they understand that when they heard that the Messiah had come, this was exactly what they should’ve expected.
But looking at him, they don’t see that it’s Jesus walking with them. Hearing him, they don’t hear that it’s Jesus talking to them. They don’t recognize that this is a classic sermon from the man they’d been following around now for months.
And after a long walk, seven miles down the road, they reach Emmaus, and the disciples invite him in. “Come, stay with us. Have something to eat.” And he sits with them, and he takes bread, and blesses it, and breaks it, and gives it to them. And then they recognize him, and he vanishes from their sight.
And it’s only then, in retrospect, that they begin to understand. It’s only then, when Jesus has appeared to them and disappeared again, that they recognize that he was there with them along the way. It’s only then that they look back on the experience of spiritual fulfillment that they’d had, at this sense that their hearts had been strangely warmed, that they recognize it as a sign that Jesus was walking with them.
Their inability to recognize Jesus is not because they were looking down at their phones, or had their headphones in. It’s because Jesus has been transformed. The Jesus who appears to us now, on this side of the Resurrection, doesn’t look or sound quite the same. Jesus appears to us in many different ways, and we don’t always recognize him. These disciples don’t recognize him in the man who’s walking with them along the road. They don’t recognize him in the stories Scripture tells, or in the sermons that Jesus gives. They don’t recognize him when they invite this stranger to come in and eat. Jesus is present in all of those things, for those ancient disciples and for us. And sometimes we meet him there. But in this story, they recognize him in the breaking of the bread, in that first true Eucharistic meal, when he is suddenly revealed before their eyes, and then he disappears, vanishing from their sight. And they’re left to reflect on that long walk, and to realize that he was with them all the way.
Now, some of you heard me say this on Maundy Thursday, and I’m sorry to repeat myself, but I’ve been noticing more and more, recently, that huge parts of my life only make sense in retrospect, especially in my spiritual life. Does that ring true for any of you? It’s hard to know, in the moment, that God is close at hand. Most of us are, most of the time, head down in our phones, literal or metaphorical; we’re distracted by the regrets of the past and the worries of the future. And even when we’re not, even when we’re undistracted for miles along the road, Jesus doesn’t necessarily choose to be revealed. Even when we’re fully present, we don’t always recognize that God is present with us as we walk along the road on the long, slow journey from Jerusalem to Emmaus.
But then there may come a time, when God’s grace and mercy are revealed—when, even if it’s just for an instant, Jesus is revealed, and a whole long section of the journey suddenly makes sense.
“Ohhhhh,” we think to ourselves. “Okay.” That random guy on the road did seem to know a lot about Messianic prophecies in the Bible. I guess it makes sense, if he was really Jesus after all. Ohhhh. That burning in my heart? That wasn’t just that second helpful of extra spicy baba ghanoush. That was the presence of the risen Lord. That makes more sense.
I’m being facetious, but not really. I was walking down to South Station to talk with someone about the ordination process, and I love having conversations like this, because they give me a chance to reflect back on the last decade of my own life while I’m talking with someone about their own journey into ministry.
And like I said, over the last few months I’ve started looking back over the last few years, and everything’s started to make more sense. It turns out, strangely enough, that moving from full-time ministry out in Lincoln to part-time ministry here actually turned out to be the best possible decision for my family, before I knew I would need it to be. It turns out that, ten years ago, when I was feeling torn between two very different callings to ordained priesthood and software engineering, and I decided to answer the call to ordination—that I was really saying yes to both. (I don’t know how many of you know that in the other part of my time I maintain daily prayer applications for Episcopalians and Anglicans in the US, Canada, and Singapore, with three or four thousand users a day.)
More and more often, during this particular season, I’ve been looking back over the last seven miles of my life, as it were, and realizing that it’s almost as if Jesus had been walking with me along the way. Imagine that. It’s almost as if the Holy Spirit is actually real, as if God does in fact lead us and guide us without our knowing it, as we stumble and trip our way through life; as if, maybe, just maybe, I can give up some of my over-anxious need to be in control and trust that, come what may, God will be there with me.
And that’s a very scary thought, for someone like me. I’ll be honest with you. It’s very scary for an anxious know-it-all like me to admit that I might not be able to control it all, or even understand or recognize what’s happening in the moment. But it’s such good news, too. Because God is here, with you, whatever road you’re walking right now.
And so I close with the prayer with which this service began: “O God, whose blessed Son made himself known to his disciples in the breaking of bread: Open the eyes of our faith, that we may behold him in all his redeeming work; who lives and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.”