University Presbyterian Church - Chapel Hill, NC

Video | Download Video
Audio Player Below | Download Audio

by Anna Pinckney Straight    

October 4, 2009

Luke 24: 13 – 35

Now on that same day two of them were going to a village called Emmaus, about seven miles from Jerusalem, and talking with each other about all these things that had happened. While they were talking and discussing, Jesus himself came near and went with them, but their eyes were kept from recognizing him. And he said to them, "What are you discussing with each other while you walk along?"

They stood still, looking sad. Then one of them, whose name was Cleopas, answered him, "Are you the only stranger in Jerusalem who does not know the things that have taken place there in these days?" He asked them, "What things?"

They replied, "The things about Jesus of Nazareth, who was a prophet mighty in deed and word before God and all the people, and how our chief priests and leaders handed him over to be condemned to death and crucified him. But we had hoped that he was the one to redeem Israel. Yes, and besides all this, it is now the third day since these things took place. Moreover, some women of our group astounded us. They were at the tomb early this morning, and when they did not find his body there, they came back and told us that they had indeed seen a vision of angels who said that he was alive. Some of those who were with us went to the tomb and found it just as the women had said; but they did not see him."

Then he said to them, "Oh, how foolish you are, and how slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have declared! Was it not necessary that the Messiah should suffer these things and then enter into his glory?" Then beginning with Moses and all the prophets, he interpreted to them the things about himself in all the scriptures.

 As they came near the village to which they were going, he walked ahead as if he were going on.

But they urged him strongly, saying, "Stay with us, because it is almost evening and the day is now nearly over." So he went in to stay with them. When he was at the table with them, he took bread, blessed and broke it, and gave it to them. Then their eyes were opened, and they recognized him; and he vanished from their sight.

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?"

That same hour they got up and returned to Jerusalem; and they found the eleven and their companions gathered together. They were saying, "The Lord has risen indeed, and he has appeared to Simon!" Then they told what had happened on the road, and how he had been made known to them in the breaking of the bread.

Jesus’ followers are discouraged.  Confused.  Overwhelmed.   And maybe because of this.  Or maybe in spite of it, they go for a walk.  A walk to a town called Emmaus.  We’re not really sure why.  We don’t even know with certainty where Emmaus was.  The NRSV translates it as seven miles, but the Greek says, depending on which manuscript you consult, either 60 or 160 stadia.   It might have been 7 miles or it might have been 19.[1]

We don’t know.

What we do know?

Jesus’ followers are discouraged.  Confused.  Overwhelmed.  And so, they go for a walk.  A long walk.    Jesus is dead, and they don’t know why.    Their vision for how Jesus would redeem Israel has been taken away, and nothing, in their eyes, has come to take its place

On their walk, a stranger joins them, only they don’t know that it is Jesus. They walk.  They talk.  They offer hospitality to the stranger.  

Then, at supper:

When he was at the table with them, he took bread, blessed and broke it, and gave it to them. Then their eyes were opened, and they recognized him; and he vanished from their sight. 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?"

The moment when they recognize Jesus is the climax of this text, but it is not the sole focus of this text.

In her own sermon on this walk, Barbara Lunblad offers this perspective[2]:

“It is a story of faith and revelation, a story of remembrance and recognition. While we may long for a special moment of revelation, a datable time of being saved, a heightened experience of God's presence -- this story from the first Easter day reminds us that faith is not so neatly captured.”

Indeed.  Faith is not captured, it is received, and the faith received in this text speaks of a new vision.  A new vision for the life of faith in which followers of Jesus are not only the recipients of the Good News, they are also the tellers and the sharers of Good News, tellers and sharers about the Jesus who was not only born, lived, and died….    he was also resurrected.

It took a long time for the followers to get there, it was a long walk.  And it didn’t start on the day they set out for Emmaus.

Jesus had told them these things before, only, until this moment, they hadn’t had the ears to hear and hearts to believe.  It took them time.

And that is a schedule which is contrary to our nature.  For we are a people of fast.  And maybe even more than fast, we are people who believe in efficiency.  How can we get the same things accomplished in less time.

We are descendents of Frank Bunker Gilbreth,[3] a man who 100 years ago was an expert in the field of motion study, an efficiency expert.  It wasn’t just what he did at work, it was who he was.

Two of Frank Gilbreth’s twelve children wrote a book about their childhood.  They wrote:

at home or on the job, Dad was always the efficiency expert. He buttoned his vest from the bottom up, instead of top down, because bottom up took only three seconds and top down took seven. For a while, Dad even tried shaving with two razors, but he finally gave that up - he grumbled, ‘I can save 44 seconds, but I wasted two minutes this morning putting this bandage on my throat.’ It wasn't the slashed throat that really bothered him - it was the two minutes."[4]

It didn’t stop there.  Bathing, dishwashing, multitasking- learning to speak a foreign language while bathing- it was all a part of every day life in the Gilbreth household and it was an approach they took out into the world to a very receptive audience.  We are descendents of Frank Gilbreth. 

In the Department of Labor’s  Productivity Report, we are told that the average American worker’s productivity has ,in the last 100 years, productivity has increased 10-fold.[5]

And we have taken this message of efficiency to heart.  We may not film our actions at home in order to identify wasted motion, but I am willing to guess that if you have a dishwasher, you also have someone in your household who claims to know the best way to load that dishwasher.

Or how to fold clothes, or sweep the driveway, or pack the car.

When we first moved to Chapel Hill, I took the back roads to Charleston on my first few trips.  But since those first trips, I just can’t give up the highway route.  It’s a little bit longer, but it is also 30-45 minutes faster.  I can’t give it up.

We are a people of the Protestant Efficient Work Ethic.

It is a tradition which stands in stark contrast to the journey of the disciples, a journey that took time.  That was not about speeding up the progress but listening to Good News.

Not everything is better if it takes less time in which to do it.  And so we are not only people called to faith, we are called to discernment.

Sometimes, we , the tunnel—vision—Lightening McQueen’s of the world need a Sally to remind us of the importance of just going out for a drive.[6]

The meaning found in this text from Luke isn’t solely located in the recognition of Jesus, it is how the disciples come to recognize Jesus, over time, in ways they do not expect.

And so it is for us, too. 

Susan Andrews, a pastor and one of our former General Assembly moderators writes:

On Sunday morning in contemporary America, modern disciples come straggling through the church door weighed down by cynicism, stress, pretense, power. They are sophisticated lawyers and skeptical scientists and shell-shocked journalists -- skilled practitioners in the seductions of the world….. They, like the first disciples, yearn for the living presence of God. But they are…  [often] preoccupied, suspicious, too busy to actually recognize God… They do not yet realize that it will only be through pounding hearts and burning hearts that they will come to believe -- that they will come to recognize Jesus.[7]

Coming to recognize Jesus is what we are invited to do, here. 

Maybe the recognition moment will come during a hymn.  Or in one of the times of silence or pause that are included each Sunday as a way to invite us out of worldly time and into spiritual time.  Or maybe while we are affirming our faith.   Or maybe even it will happen in communion, in our celebration of the Sacrament of the Lord’s Supper, something that we could no doubt speed up if we wanted to.  It wouldn’t even take an efficiency expert.    But we don’t.  Because some things take time. 

Communion is not about getting it done, it’s about being in the moment, being welcomed by God as a forgiven, loved, and loveable child of God who can go out into the world in peace, with courage, to love God, practice justice, and live into hope.

Some things take time.  Learning to pray.  Learning to listen.  Studying the Bible.  Worshipping with your family, here and at home. 

It isn’t something we are called to get “right,” they are things we are called to do, because we learn about God in the process, and welcoming our God given eyes and ears of faith takes time.

Because Jesus comes to us, too.  Jesus surprises us, even us, too.   

We too, are invited to recognize Jesus in places, in moments, in circumstances we do not expect.

Recognizing Jesus takes time, time which we must claim.  Do we have the time? 

So that.  When Jesus breaks bread and gives it to us, we will know it as a sacred, life-changing moment.

When he was at the table with them, he took bread, blessed and broke it, and gave it to them. Then their eyes were opened, and they recognized him; and he vanished from their sight. 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?"

Thanks be to God for this time.  Amen.