Breaking Bread/Companions on the Road

Sunday, May 4
Third Sunday of Easter

Weekly Theme
Breaking Bread/Companions on the Road

Weekly Prayer
Elusive God, companion on the way, you walk behind, beside, beyond; you catch us unawares. Break through the disillusionment and despair clouding our vision, that, with wide-eyed wonder, we may find our way and journey on as messengers of your good news. Amen.

Weekly Reading
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.

All readings for the Week
Acts 2:14a, 36-41
Psalm 116:1-4,12-19
1 Peter 1:17-23
Luke 24:13-35

Focus Questions

1. How might believing help us to see, rather than the other way around?

2. What “miracles” have you hoped to see in order to believe? Were they really necessary?

3. What is the connection between faith and hospitality in this story?

4. What experiences of community–of communion–have opened your own eyes to God?

5. How does Benjamin Franklin’s pragmatic advice (in the quotation below) sound to a Christian?

Reflection by Kate Huey

Throughout the Gospels we have seen and heard of many astonishing events: healings, exorcisms, the raising of Lazarus, the multiplication of loaves and fishes, and the sky opening up with the voice of God addressing those present. These many, convincing “revelations” are powerful, but no more powerful than the simple acts and events of this passage from Luke about the Emmaus story.

Friends are making their way from one place–a place of hope-turned-into-despair, a place of perplexity and the unbelievable (and “idle”) tales of women–to another place: Emmaus. In The Magnificent Defeat, Frederick Buechner has written evocatively of the many ways we seek to find a place, an Emmaus, to run to when we have lost hope or don’t know what to do, the place of escape, of forgetting, of giving up, of deadening our senses and our minds and maybe our hearts, too. He even says: “Emmaus may be going to church on Sunday.” Perhaps, as you look around your church, you may see at least some folks who have gone to Emmaus, even though they appear to be in church. (Perhaps you feel like you are one of them!) What do you think took, or drove, them there? The community of faith, of course, is called to support the “opening of their eyes”–of all of our eyes, really, because, as our theme says, we are “companions on the road”–and the word “companion” is rooted in the words for “bread” and “with.” Surely, we are on this road, the journey of faith, together, breaking bread, together.

In fact, these resurrection appearances are powerful stories of community, of believers, doubters, and strugglers gathering and breaking apart, and gathering again, coming together and telling the stories of their experiences, sharing their memories of Jesus–his acts and his words–and then, like people of faith today, shining the light of Scripture on that experience and coming to new understandings. But that’s not all. They sit down at table together and break bread, and often, more than intellectual understanding, they come to see with their hearts what was right before them. What are stories from your own life, when your eyes were opened because someone welcomed you, or because you opened your heart, your door, your life, to a stranger, someone you didn’t expect to be a blessing?

A world rocked by one death

If the world of the disciples had been turned upside down by life and teachings of this person Jesus, think of how that same world had been “rocked” by his death. Even so, they haven’t had time to absorb that calamity when new stories have sprung up. Think of times when the news, or your own life, unfolded in ways that shook the foundations of what you believed in, perhaps too fast for you to process and integrate into your understanding. What did you do to find peace and balance, and to build new foundations?

If the Bible is about hospitality, hospitality, hospitality, we might hear and tell this story as one of hospitality and its deeper meaning. Hospitality isn’t a condescending or begrudging, dutiful sharing (preferably from our excess, not our substance); it’s an openness to change and a welcoming of the new learning change brings (however uncomfortable and perhaps even painful). Hospitality and openness make transformation possible, especially when brought to us from the most unexpected places by the most unlikely people, perhaps even by strangers. If we know that we must see Jesus “in the least of these,” we have a clear mandate from him to share our table and its abundance with all who are hungry, physically and/or spiritually.

In the church, we can sometimes neglect both spiritual and physical hunger as we go about our “church business,” or perhaps we have a thriving hunger ministry with our food pantries and hot meal programs, while unintentionally neglecting additional ways to feed the spirit. Yes, the spirit is fed when we are fully engaged in mission, but we also need times of quiet, of reflection and meditation, of deep prayer and meaningful worship, of spiritual growth through the arts and through nature. As Anthony B. Robinson writes, “People want to experience the divine, the sacred, the holy. They are dying for want of grace, wonder, mystery, and not for want of by-laws, committees, and sign-up lists. At least they don’t want those things instead of God” (“From Generation to Generation (or not)” at http://www.ucc.org/vitality/ready-set-grow/foster-discipleship/generation-to-generation-or.html). In what ways have you known hunger, both physical and spiritual? Who was the unexpected person who shared something with you, and in doing so, transformed your life?

The power of hospitality to transform

R. Alan Culpepper’s commentary on Luke in The New Interpreter’s Bible draws on the work of Eugene Wehrli to note wonderful parallels between this story and that of Lazarus and the rich man. Both stories involve the interpretation of Scripture (“Moses and the prophets”), table sharing (or not!) and “someone rising from the dead.” Again, hospitality has the potential to transform our lives if it opens our eyes even more than we have opened our doors. It’s not simply a matter of being nice; hospitality is justice and generosity embodied, a spiritual practice that both requires and brings spiritual growth.

As the United Church of Christ strives to extend and embody extravagant hospitality, where is the possibility of transformation within our congregations and our selves? How is God still speaking to your congregation in the simple breaking of bread, the sharing of the story, the study of Scripture? Perhaps, in a time of increasing polarization in our public discourse, we in the church can find common ground in the simple but faithful practice of hospitality. It will take practice to develop this discipline because it’s not easy to welcome all of God’s children along with the hopes, and dreams, and beliefs that animate their lives and may transform our own.

Many different ways to be hospitable

Just this week, I’ve encountered two examples of challenges to my own sense of hospitality: first, watching a short clip of a Sunday news show where three religious voices, all with a Christian perspective very different from my own, were expressing their thoughts on the decline in religious practice in the United States. I found that it takes an extra effort on my part to quiet my mind and listen to what they’re saying, and maybe even to find common ground with them: it demands a kind of intellectual hospitality that I practice more readily toward non-Christian sisters and brothers than I do toward Christians who disagree strongly with my perspectives. I wonder if I could sit down to dinner with these “other” Christians, and be at ease (or not), but in any case, to feel that I met them as my brothers, not as “others.” (In this case, they all happened to be men.) It seems to me that many folks become unexpected friends because they sat down to dinner and broke bread together.

Second, as a community and nation, I wonder if we can open ourselves to entertain stories and histories that will change our understanding of who we are and how we have been in relation to other peoples, other nations. When I was a history major in school, there was so much I was never taught; as an adult, I read Howard Zinn’s A People’s History of the United States, and it changed my life. I realized the need to fill in those tremendous gaps in my education. Reading good novels and non-fiction, including biographies and memoirs, can help us open our hearts and lives to others, and to see Jesus in everyone we meet. Perhaps, if we could see ourselves and those we consider “other” in new ways, we might practice a new humility and graciousness in sharing the blessings of God more generously, more equitably. Intellectual hospitality, and hospitality of the heart, both open our lives to the stories, suffering, gifts and hopes of others. But it takes a lot of practice.

Glimpses of God’s presence

The experience of these two travelers (one may have been a woman, like other New Testament pairs) was fleeting, as our glimpses of God, or brushes with God’s presence, are. We look back on our experiences and process them, understanding them better “in the rear view mirror” than we did face-to-face. How does God still speak to you today, not only through the encounter these early Christians had with Jesus, but through your own encounter with Jesus, in the breaking of bread, the sharing of stories, the study of Scripture? We’re not just hearing/reading a story about something that happened to others, long ago and far away. It’s happening here, today, in our lives, too, if we open our eyes and see, and then maybe our hearts, too, will burn within us. When we struggle with questions of meaning and we just can’t understand what’s happening around us, the answer is often right before us.

So much in this Sunday’s readings, as in all of Scripture, calls for our response. The crowd in the reading from Acts, hearing Peter’s passionate sermon, asks what they should do, and he calls them to repent and be baptized. But he also makes a promise: they will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. This promise is not just for them, but for their children (for us today, their descendants in faith), and “for all who are far away, all whom the Lord our God calls to God.” If we understand these words as meaning “the Gentiles,” which was unthinkable for many in the early church, we may look around and wonder who the “unthinkable” ones are, those who are “far away”–at least from us–but nevertheless called by God. Again, how does the hospitality of a still-speaking God call for a response from us that repents our failure to include and welcome and empower even the least likely and the most unexpected, “all who are far away”? What sort of transformation might that work in our lives and our communities?

The reading from First Peter may be addressed to those who are not only metaphorically “aliens” but concretely so, those who feel “not at home” where they are, perhaps stripped of their rights to participate fully in the life of the community and to enjoy its protections and benefits. If our response to all of this good news, and to the call of a gracious, generous, hospitable, compassionate and still-speaking God, is to “love one another deeply from the heart,” how will our lives look and feel different than they do now?

More reflection materials are available at https://www.facebook.com/SermonSeeds.

For Further Reflection
Anselm of Canterbury, 11th century
“I believe in order that I might understand.”

Benjamin Franklin, 18th century
“Believe none of what you hear and half of what you see.”

Oscar Wilde, 19th century
“I can believe anything, provided it is incredible.”

Meister Eckhart, 14th century
“God is at home; it is we who have gone for a walk.”

Henry David Thoreau, 19th century
“Live your beliefs and you can turn the world around.”

Mahatma Gandhi, 20th century
“There are people in the world so hungry, that God cannot appear to them except in the form of bread.”

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Weekly Seeds is a service of Local Church Ministries of the United Church of Christ. Bible texts are from the New Revised Standard Version, © 1989 Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved. The Revised Common Lectionary is © 1992 Consultation on Common Texts. Used by permission.