Burning Hearts on the Open Road
Easter 3A | Luke 24:13-35
Now we’re on the road to Emmaus from Jerusalem. Last week, the lectionary had us in the Upper Room and two weeks ago, the empty tomb. So that means two weeks have gone by for us but for them, zero days. We are back at Easter, the Resurrection Day. And we’ve moved to a different gospel, to Luke. And it is in Luke’s gospel that Jesus says that the disciples are to go ahead to Galilee because Jesus will be meeting them there.
This evangelist we call Luke is far less focused on fear than John is. These disciples aren’t hiding. Now, don’t get me wrong, they still ran away from the crucifixion and abandoned Jesus on the cross. That is consistent in all of the gospels. But Luke’s focus is on the experience of the people who followed Jesus and on helping us engage with it ourselves.
So first: these disciples.
The Two Disciples
Does it say who these two disciples are? No, not really. We aren’t given any names or besides one. Nor are we given their relationship to the others.
This is also a good time to remember that Luke has the most generous way of speaking about the disciples of the four canonical gospels. The word disciple is not entirely defined, but is often used as a general synonym for the twelve, who are the twelve men we associate with that word.
But early on in Luke’s gospel narrative, he offers a much wider vision of followers who are called disciples. In chapter 9, he calls the twelve disciples to go out into the world as apostles, healing and proclaiming the good news. Then in chapter 10, he sends the seventy disciples to do the same.
This is what I mean by “generous”. There are a lot of disciples, and many more than the super special twelve. And this is important because it shows Jesus wasn’t putting all of his eggs into that one basket of a dozen dim bulbs but into a whole community of people. And these two are from that community.
And that means we, too, can become members of that community. It isn’t locked into the special charisma of this chosen dozen. We, the people, become the center of discipleship for the gospel. So the experience these two have on the road gets to reinforce the experiences of Mary and Peter.
Emmaus
Where is this city? We don’t know. Scholars suggest it was to the west of Jerusalem, putting it on the way to Galilee. But that seems to be about the logic of this story and the desire to make sense of it.
For many, Emmaus, and this road to Galilee, has become the shorthand for revelation and awakening faith. This is particularly true in evangelical circles, where one can go on an “Emmaus Walk” and “the Road to Emmaus” is a means of talking about new zeal for one’s faith.
This often comes to us in the form of a curriculum or special gathering in which leaders are put ostensibly in the role of Jesus to open the scriptures to participants or to provide for seemingly organic ways of inspiring transformation. These often come in emotional moments crafted to generate opportunities to experience divine grace. For many of us, the most common example of this is Cursillo, but there are others.
What many of these kinds of encounters intend is to get people who are Christian to become more so. This is not a criticism. It’s the intent. So Emmaus is different from the Ethiopian Eunuch story, for example, which is about bringing an outsider in. Movements like Cursillo are designed to educated the already faithful and encourage them to be drawn deeper into the faith.
Let us consider, however, that this story is less about drawing the faithful deeper and more about a fresh encounter that helps these “regular” disciples have an experience of the risen Christ as profound as Peter’s and Mary’s.
And let us also consider how this encounter is itself non-replicable. But can continue to be experienced over and over again by breaking bread and sharing wine with other people. In other words, the real juice of this story is that Jesus goes away and manages to stick around.
Opening the Scriptures
The last piece we need to engage in before tying it all together is this odd phrasing that is common in the gospel of Luke that scripture can be opened. And as words go, I think it is a profoundly Anglican way of speaking because it says a lot while giving room for wildly different interpretations to coexist.
What then is “opening the scriptures”?
Is this mere understanding? Like, does Jesus do a solid Bible study with these folk and they’re like I never thought of that before.
Is it something more like a “true” meaning that only the special people get because it is somehow deprived from everyone else or if you misunderstand it, it’s because you are ruled by the devil? I’ve got to warn you all that this take, while totally common in some circles, is 100% gnositicism! So if that floats your boat . . .
I think there is something much more organic happening here. Because much of the modern American Christian aesthetic is to be all scientifically literal — like, figuring out what specifically happens in a situation with all factual conceptions present — or else to render the magical work of Jesus to break those very literal rules of time and space. To paraphrase the late Marcus Borg, it seems as if premodern Christians had a more advanced and mature way of reading scripture than most modern Christians.
We’re talking about understanding together, in common and seeing in Jesus, the messianic promise. In him and with him, it all makes sense. That’s the point.
Burning Hearts
We have in this travel log a story of awakening faith, but not because these disciples lacked faith or needed to go deeper. They were jazzed to go to Galilee and talk with a stranger about the crazy stuff that went down in Jerusalem. They seemed to be pretty on fire for Jesus already.
What we seem to get is a chance to see these disciples recentered to the scripture and their common practice of it together. That Jesus doesn’t become known in the talking about Scripture in the first half, but in the breaking of bread in the second. And his literal presence with them evaporates when they come to acknowledge it.
This reminds me of that remarkable scientific phenomenon in which scientific facts about the world can change simply because we’ve observed them. So apparently, observing Jesus makes him disappear.
You feel that, don’t you? When you’re having a remarkable time with people, eating really good food and it feels almost magical. And then somebody comments on how awesome everything is, and it all slows down a little and the colors dull and everybody stops laughing. People get serious and the energy just disappears. I mean, it’s still fun, but the best night? Not anymore.
Bread and Wine is the Key
The thing about those awesome times is that the person wasn’t wrong to say something. It really was inspired. And I think this is one of the reasons why the focus from Luke isn’t on how smart or learned the disciples are or on Jesus teaching them the doctrines of the faith. It was on their innocent walk together, in faith, in wanting to share the good news of all that had happened with this stranger. In wanting him to join them for dinner, in wanting the night to keep going. That is where all the story’s thematic growth is. In their relationship to the stranger who happens to be Jesus.
And Jesus’s arc is in participating and joining in and sharing with them and opening up and then, in the end, breaking bread with them, and literally, when he breaks the bread, he becomes real, the real Jesus. And they can’t unsee it. Even as he, himself, disappears.
That is why the bread and wine is the key. To the story, yes, but to the life of Christians who follow the Way. Yes, because he told us to do it. But also because it is in this that we are most connected to Jesus.
And we recognize this in Holy Communion, in our sharing of Holy Eucharist on Sundays. When we break and share and eat and see the love of God in our midst. It is holy and effective and the highlight of our time together each week.
It is also present whenever we eat with another person. When we evoke a deeper sense of community and hospitality and unity. When we gather to serve and love one another. The stuff the eucharistic celebration is supposed to energize us for and inspire us to join into the rest of the week. That is why we gather — for the 167 hours a week we don’t.
Coffee and a pastry can work. Jimmy John’s, too. Homemade anything? Yes please.
But this is just a vehicle. For Jesus to be present. When we are present to one another.