As we gather this morning, we find ourselves in the aftermath of Easter. As we Christians weave our lives into the life of our beloved teacher, this is the time of year that we encounter, once again, the mystery of resurrection. Even as the landscape around us is recalled to life, so too, the one we call Emmanuel, God-among-us, cheats death of its sting, evades the oppressive weight of Empire, and returns, against all odds, to break bread with us. During these Sundays after Easter, we read the stories that are told of Christ’s post-resurrection appearances, in our effort to understand how the Divine moves among us still.
As we gather this morning, let us begin by recognizing the great claim of our faith – that brutality, suffering and death do not have the final word. The story does not end at the cross. The story continues. Though death is real, it is not final, because love does not end.
Christ’s resurrection is God’s action in history that demonstrates this truth. Death is real, but as long as there is a human heart to respond to the Holy, there will be no end to love.
We recognize and respond.
For we humans are creatures gifted with the ability to recognize what is true and what is beautiful. Our souls are stirred in ways that we strive to understand. This recognition is God given, and so our response to it, is a response to God.
So when I say “we recognize and respond,” I am talking about our connection to the sacred. To interact with God, we must have some confidence that we know God when we perceive God. To be a person of faith, I think, is not merely to acknowledge mystery… to be a person of faith, I think, is to recognize God and to respond.
**
As I write, I can hear the clothes dryer in the other room.
Tumble tumble tumble.
As a kind of ritual observance of the changing season, I put out the clothesline again this morning – stringing it up, one end to the woodshed and the other to a pole that, in other times, was designed to hold up a badminton net. So my day – and my sermon writing – has been punctuated by the joy of hanging clothes out on the line.
My mother, who has been gone these fifteen years (fifteen years!) was with me this morning as I put the clothes out on the line. I recognized her in the moment when, reaching up to hold a shirt to the line, I reflexively positioned the next clothespin into my mouth.
There’s mom!
My mother putting the clothes out on the line, New Zealand, circa 1977
I recognized her when I overlapped two items of clothing, pinning them with a single clothespin.
These are not philosophical arguments or theological dissertations. They are the memories of my body. My love for my mother returns with a depth of certainty that requires no rational explanation. It is a deep, thorough knowledge… a love that I recognize in the passing gestures of this humble domestic chore.
But you may be wondering about the dryer. If I spent my day hanging up old t-shirts and nostalgic reveries on my backyard clothesline, why did I mention the tumble tumble tumble in the other room?
It’s the bath towels.
Bath towels can dry on the line like anything else, but in such conditions, the terricloth stiffens with the result being coarse towels that are unpleasant against skin that has been softened by bathing. Much better towel drying results when you tumble dry them, and toss in one of those fabric softener sheets for good measure.
I learned this pearl of domestic wisdom during the “baby bottom” period of my life, when a coarse towel might cause a toddler to howl in consternation.
Hence, even though I christened the clothesline in honor of Spring, and even though I am well past the “baby bottom” era of my life, I still write my sermon to the accompaniment of the dryer.
Duet for laptop and dryer.
**
For the last week, I have been tumble drying the idea of “recognition” in the clothes dryer of my mind.
Why?
Because in today’s story — as in many of the post-resurrection stories – a question of recognition is at stake.
The plot particulars vary from story to story, but many of the post-resurrection stories share a common plot device: during an initial part of the story, Jesus and the reader know Christ’s real identity, while the disciples remain in the dark. And then, in each story, a pivotal moment occurs when, in a moment of revelation the eyes of the disciples are opened, and they recognize their beloved teacher.
The story that is before us this morning begins on a road, where two of the disciples are on their way to a village called Emmaus. The text says
While they were talking and discussing, Jesus himself came near and went with them, but their eyes were kept from recognizing him.
Their eyes were kept from recognizing him. The phrase “were kept” seems to suggest that the inability of the disciples to recognize Jesus was not their fault. Someone was intentionally keeping them from recognizing Jesus…
Presumably it was Jesus himself
Jesus did not want them to recognize him.
Why?
Purely from a narrative perspective, there is a logic to the use of this plot device. Jesus, here, is not unlike the prince who disguises himself and walks among his soldiers, in order to discover what is really happening on the ground. Jesus asks the two travellers a leading question or two, and the disciples willingly oblige, giving Jesus a concise Reader’s Digest abridgement of his own story – the arrest, crucifixion and the empty tomb.
It is worth noting that while they remain blind to Christ’s real identity, the disciples are just like you and me. They believe in Jesus, but they must figure out how to act like followers of Jesus without the benefit of his physical presence. In this moment, their actions reveal their own resilience — their own, independent moral wherewithal.
What will they do, for example, when Jesus (a stranger as far as they know) proposes to continue walking on into the night?
Will they welcome the stranger into their home, as he taught them to do?
The text says:
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.
Even though, at this point in the story, they have not yet recognized Christ’s true identity, they do invite him to come inside – to eat at their table, and rest his tired feet.
That says something, doesn’t it?
They may not have recognized Jesus… but perhaps…
Perhaps they have recognized Jesus in the stranger.
In this way, the disciples took what Jesus had taught them, and made it real in the world. Because it was Jesus, wasn’t it, who said:
When you do this unto the least of my brothers and sisters, he said, you do this to me.
Jesus did not say: it is like you have done it to me.
He said: you did it to me.
It’s almost as if the disciples recognized Jesus before they actually recognized Jesus.
Or perhaps you could put it this way: By responding to the need of the stranger, they invited Jesus into their presence.
Jesus, the Prince of Peace, hid his identity, and walked among his people to see whether or not they would recognize him and respond to his need.
They did!
Will we?
**
We understand what it means to recognize another person.
We encounter each other in the course of the day, and having been in each other’s presence before, we know each other’s facial features and physical characteristics. We are familiar with each other’s endearing quirks, and sometimes, dare I say, their vexing eccentricities.
But how do we do what the disciples did?
How do we recognize God?
This kind of recognition involves a different set of issues.
But there is one thing for sure.
If a person says “I am God” – that person is not God.
If a person says “I am Jesus” that person is not Jesus.
The stakes, here, are very high.
Because there have been, and there will always be, people – bad people – who pretend to be God.
There have been, and there will always be, people – bad people – who pretend to be Jesus.
And there is almost nothing… nothing in the whole sweeping pageant of human history that is more dangerous or more toxic than such idolatrous people.
Idolatry is the practice of placing someone or something in the place of God.
We need to be able to pass the test that those disciples passed on the Road to Emmaus that night.
As people of faith, we must learn to recognize Jesus when we encounter Jesus in our lives.
It is crucially important for our own personal salvation, that we get it right.
And it is crucially important for the well being of humanity itself, that we don’t get it wrong.
So how, then, do we recognize the Divine?
Fortunately, as Christians, we have a measure for what the Divine looks like…
The Divine does not look like a king in a golden ballroom.
No.
The divine looks like a person who cares for the poor.
A person who walks the long dusty road, healing people the sick, and giving sight to the blind.
A person who places compassion before doctrine.
A person who serves the lost.
A person who washes the feet of his followers.
A person who, even as he is dying a brutal death, prays for the forgiveness of his executioners.
A person who does not allow brutality to have the last word.
A person who returns,
breaks bread with us…
and is
recognized.
Amen