The One Who Would Not Stay

The One Who Would Not Stay

Luke 24:13-49
April 6, 2008

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.

When I started seminary or graduate school back in 1993, I remember being a little
hesitant about the whole experience, for a lot of reasons, but one of the major reasons
was that I was now being thrown into a situation where I would have to make a whole
new set of friends, something I hadn’t had to do in awhile. I mean, I had a good set of
friends in college, and remained close with a few of them, but I wondered whether I
would have that same experience in graduate school, where the age ranges of the
students were wider and the life experiences more varied and diverse. I remember
meeting my seminary roommate for that first semester, and thinking, after a few
minutes, “this is going to be a long, long year.”   But then I started meeting people and
eventually a smaller group of us developed a close-knit set of friendships, and that first
year was survivable because of them and their grace and support. For me, seminary
was such an intense experience, academically, but mostly spiritually and emotionally,
and I can’t imagine having that experience without those fellow travelers—Tracy who
eventually married a Methodist minister, Dan, who grew up Jewish, but eventually
became a Buddhist and who, oddly enough, found himself getting a graduate degree
from a Christian seminary, Beth, one of the smartest people I’ve ever met and who
eventually got her PhD. at Emory, Tony, who has jumped in and out of ministry over the
years, and who now serves a Lutheran church in rural Kansas, and Christine, whose
experience in seminary was so bad that she never, ever wanted to serve a church, and
hasn’t been active in church in years—actually, she works at a hospice now. At the
time, my intense friendship with each of them, and our intense relationship with each
other, it seemed strong and unbreakable at the time, as if we would never lose contact
with each other because the intensity of going through the seminary experience
together was so profound for us. And yet, we have lost touch and I have come to
realize that our friendship during that time was meant for that particular time—the
experience of seminary itself bonded us together more than our individual friendships
with each other, though I still remain close to a couple of those folks.

We’ve all had those kinds of experiences, friendships that were meant for the moment,
a space in time when we came together and found ourselves being intensely close to
each other during that time, and we there to teach other and to support each other, but
when that which bonded us together ended, that which we experience together was
over, the relationship changed, maybe not ended, but changed, and became
something different, something new, and definitely less intense. These friendships,
these loves, they were meant for the moment, gifts for the present, but not for the
future—they were what they were, and though I miss the friendship of some of these
people profoundly, and I miss the intensity I shared with many of them, I don’t regret
them nor really regret not having them in my life, or even have a desire to replicate that
experience again. I was given what I needed at that time in my life, and these gifts
given by God—they were meant for that moment in my life and that is just fine with me.

I suspect that the disciples had a similar experience when they were going through this
moment in the text that you just heard a few moments ago. It is still the day of the
resurrection, it is Easter day, in Luke’s telling of the story, and these disciples are on
their way to Emmaus, for whatever reason, and they are in the midst of an intense
discussion about the events of the last 3 or 4 days. And then a stranger joins them, a
stranger who is no stranger, of course, but one whose identity was divinely kept a
secret from them, the text says. This stranger asks them what they are debating
between themselves, and they explain to him that they are struggling with the meaning
of the life and death of their spiritual master, this Jesus of Nazareth. They go further
and say that some of their fellow disciples, a group of women have claimed that they
saw a vision of this Jesus outside of his tomb, a vision of angels as well, though they
themselves have not seen this risen Christ. But then this stranger explains to them that
this was all meant to be, as foretold in the Jewish Scriptures, and he clarifies and helps
to interpret the passages from Moses and the prophets that seem to hint at the story
they have seen unfold before their eyes.

But the conversation seems like it will come to a natural ending point when these two
disciples reach Emmaus, because this stranger goes up ahead of them, as if he was
going on further. And yet, these disciples don’t want the conversation to end, they
want it to continue, and so they ask him to stay with them, to stay the night, because it
was almost evening. He accepts, and at the dinner table, in a movement reminiscent of
another man at another table they had been at only days earlier, in the breaking of the
bread, this stranger is revealed to be no stranger at all—it is the Christ, the risen One.
And the moment of recognition is described as the experience of eyes being opened, of
a world dimly seen all of a sudden being seen with incredible clarity. Before them is the
one who had died, and yet who is no longer dead, the one who has conquered death
itself—the breaking of the bread, how ironic that it is in that moment that they recognize
the one before them!

And it is a moment that has been a favorite of artists throughout the centuries—look at
the cover of your bulletin this morning, at this poor reproduction of Caravaggio’s
Supper at Emmaus. Notice the seated disciple on the left grabbing the armrests of the
chair, as if he is going to quickly raise himself in his startled amazement of the one who
is before him, his chair thrust out beneath him. The standing servant just looks
puzzled, and he is clearly does not understand what is happening—he only looks at the
one who is the source of the disciple’s amazement. And then there is the Christ, his
right hand outstretched towards us, the viewer, his face young, and plump almost,
some have said even feminine—notice that there is no beard: Caravaggio based the
absence of the beard on a small remark in the Gospel of Mark where it says that Christ
came to the disciples in another form and so he interprets that as the Christ coming to
them as a much younger man. And, though it is hard to see this in the bulletin
reproduction you have in your hands, notice how still everything is on the table; chaos
reigns, people are jumping out of their seats, arms are flaying, but the center of
painting remains still—art historians have noticed that despite the emotional and
spiritual chaos and surprise that is happening here, the table and its contents remain
almost eerily still, serene almost. .

But I tell you what actually caught my eye the first time I saw this first of two painting
Caravaggio actually did on the Supper at Emmaus—it is the disciple on the right that
drew my eyes, more than anything or anyone else. Look how both of his arms are
stretched out beside him, as if we stunned and startled with the profound surprise at
the one who he is sitting next to—his left hand almost looks as if it is was going to reach
out of the painting and lay of hold of us! But it’s that right arm, the one with the hand
that looks as if it going to grab hold of Christ that interested me the most. He falls
forward, grabbing us, the viewers, with his left hand, and with his right hand, he is about
to lay hold of the Christ whom he has just now recognized, in Christ’s all too familiar act
of breaking bread.

But it is an “almost” moment, a “just about to” moment, because the narrative in Luke’s
Gospel says that the instant they recognized Jesus for who he was, he simply vanished,
he disappeared from the room, as if he was a ghost. I can imagine the disciple on right
hand of the painting reaching for Christ with his right arm, but only grabbing air in the
end, and the disciple in the painting who is about to push his chair away and stand up,
only to be staring into thin air, the room itself now thick with silence. This resurrected
one does not stay; the moment of recognition seems to be the last thing Christ gave to
these disciples in this encounter with him. In the other, latter part of this text, in Luke’s
Gospel, Christ shows them his body, his hands and feet, and allows them to touch and
see him, something that he does not allow in this moment at Emmaus—and so it is
proof, so to speak, of this one not being a ghost, this one can be touched and felt, this
one can be held. But not here, not in our text, at this table in Emmaus, not at this
moment, not for our disciples at this table, for whatever reasons.

You know, there seems to be a theme in the resurrection stories about the holding and
touching of this Christ that runs throughout most of the Gospel accounts of this story. I
have no doubt that there are apologetic or defensive reasons why these stories about
touching and holding are included—first, to share with the communities to come who
would hear this story for the first time that this resurrected Christ was no ghost, that he
was flesh and blood in life, death, and this life after death. But, secondly, it was
important for some in the early church to answer those who sought to demonize the
human body as the embodiment of all that was wrong with the universe, the center of all
that is unholy in this world, a Greek or sometimes Gnostic understanding of the body.
The church’s answer was to affirm the body, and especially to affirm the flesh of this
particular Jesus of Nazareth, both in life, death, and now in this resurrected state, this
life beyond life.

But there is something else here, I think, beyond the historical reasons why the
narratives are written the way they are written—there seems to be a tension in the
Gospel accounts where the disciples, both male and female, they seek to hold onto this
risen Christ, they grab or hold him close. Mary Magdalene, in the passage from John
that I preached on during the Easter service, she grabs and holds Christ fast the
moment she recognizes him (again, the moment of recognition!), she doesn’t want to let
him go. But who can blame them: who doesn’t want to hold onto what was so good
from one’s own past—she and the other disciples want to hold onto Christ as they have
always known him, as they have loved him and been loved by him. And it is
understandable, isn’t it? I mean, who can’t understand them in these moments, their
reaching out towards what used to be, towards what was so good at one time in their
lives, before the chaos of the present moment…

And yet, the gifts of the moment, of the present, they really are only meant for that
particular moment, aren’t they? Friendships, lovers, mothers, fathers, children, they
were the gifts given to us in that moment, given to us to help us see ourselves in a new
way, or to see the world for the way it was and is, or maybe even to see God for who
God is, or maybe they were just given to us for no reason, for no reason other than
that God was so incredibly generous with us at that time. The gifts of particular people,
they were the fellow travelers meant to go with us on particular parts of our journeys,
but no farther, for whatever reasons. I think of my friends in seminary that I couldn’t
imagine not being connected with throughout the rest of my life—but here I am,
unconnected to many of them, over a decade apart and many experiences now
between us. The great danger, of course, of looking backwards too much is not being
able to look at the present, of being too nostalgic about the gifts of the past, but never
being able to see the present, the present moment with particular and unique and good
gifts. The way the disciples have always known their Christ would not be they would
know him in the future—that is why I think Christ in the resurrection accounts is always
trying disentangle himself from the grasp of the people who truly loved him. If they got
too attached to this gift of the present, this gift of being with them this particular way
only days after his murder, this particular way of comforting them, the danger would be
that they would never be able to recognize him again in the future, in the new ways he
would chose to meet them in the coming days and years. This one does not stay, at
least not like this, though in the coming days and years he will come again to them,
over and over again, giving them gifts for the particular journeys they each will be on,
each gift right and maybe even perfect for the moment they are experiencing at that
time, the particular part of the journey they are on.

But let me be clear—looking backwards is a good and gracious thing, and I remember
those seminary friends with incredible fondness and joy—they are reminder to me how
incredibly faithful God has been to me through the years. And yet, looking backwards
is best done when we seek to be reminded of the ways God has been faithful, reminded
of the God who, thankfully, cannot seem to let us go, despite our best efforts to
disentangle ourselves from God. The gifts needed for this part of this journey, for your
life, my life, the life of this church, and the life of the world, they are present, right here
and right now, and they will be forever present, as long as we do not mistake the gifts
of the present for the gifts of past or the ones that must come to us in the future, as
Mary does in John’s Gospel, or as disciple does as well in Caravaggio’s painting. Our
hands are already full, but they are already full with present gifts, full of God’s
faithfulness to this present moment in our lives, and for that we are to be forever
thankful. Amen.