Open doors - open eyes
8am & 11am, Sunday 23rd April 2023
Acts 2.14a, 36-41
1 Peter 1.17-23
Luke 24.13-35
There is a story about a family of Christians who find Jesus on their doorstep and are amazed by the presence of God with them. Awestruck by their guest, they ask him in, and invite him to share in every aspect of their lives. Having found Jesus, they will not let him go, so passionate are they about their faith.
But after they’ve lived with Jesus for a few weeks, the reality hits them. They find his presence just too demanding. They sense that life can never be the same again. So they come up with a plan. They decide to put Jesus in a box in their living room. They still pay attention to him – in fact, they bow and genuflect to him every time they enter and leave the room – but now, he’s safely inside his box, so they don’t need to feel so overwhelmed by his presence.
It’s a salutary tale, especially for those of us whose practice is to reserve the Sacrament in a box – however beautiful it is. It warns us of the risk of domesticating Jesus: of the temptation to think we know who he is, and to think we know what we need to do in response to him.
But the road to Emmaus cuts through our domestication attempts, as Luke’s account draws out themes which are dear to its author: themes of journey, of hospitality, and of seeing.
In Luke’s second volume, Acts, he refers to the followers of Jesus as ‘the Way’. Right from the earliest days, there is a sense of movement, change, journey, in those whom Jesus calls. He himself journeyed in his ministry: encounters happen on the hoof as he travels from place to place; he heals as he goes; he teaches itinerantly. So it is perhaps no surprise that the risen Christ meets these two disciples on the road. Two disciples who are unaware that their dejected flight from Jerusalem in the aftermath of the Crucifixion is about to turn into a journey home.
Initially, these two are a picture of sorrow and bewilderment, chewing over with each other, as they walk, the crushing of their dreams. And then, as a stranger joins them, they are arrested in their progress by a perfectly ordinary question which brings them back to themselves: ‘What are you discussing with each other while you walk along?’
They are incredulous that this stranger appears not to know what has happened. And in their incredulity, they come out with a formulaic response – a kind of creed, setting forth what they had believed about Jesus. This assertion that Jesus was a prophet mighty in word and deed is just what Peter is heard to say when he is giving an account of the faith on a couple of occasions in Acts. It’s on-message; it’s not wrong. But their eyes are kept from seeing Jesus with them. So they’re talking about him, in an academic sort of way, while he’s actually right there.
And then, the stranger blasts through their grief and their perplexity with sheer rudeness: ‘Oh, how foolish you are and how slow of heart…’ And so the pause in their journey gives way to more walking, as this he questions, and interprets – and then gives them space. Having said all these things to them about the Messiah, he walks ahead, as if he's going to leave them. This is their journey. For the one who, unbeknownst to them, is calling them, there is no dogmatism, no compulsion, no agenda. There is simply his presence, his questioning, his laying before them the story of salvation, which is both his and theirs.
Without knowing why, they know that they have to be with him. Without knowing who he is, they invite him in. Without knowing what will transpire, they act anyway. Their journeying with him leads them to extend hospitality to him. And here, because they open their door to him, dwells the burning centre of the story: as Jesus breaks bread, they recognise him. Through this physical act, their eyes are opened, and as the risen Christ vanishes from their sight, so they see him. And their seeing is not just present, but past and future, too. They are enabled to see in retrospect what they could not articulate at the time – that the fire of this moment was also in them as they encountered Christ on the road. And they are enabled to see far enough into the future to know that, even though they were preparing to turn in for the night, they need to get back on the road and share their new understanding with their companions.
Breaking bread is of course a very obvious symbol for us, gathered here on a Sunday morning. But there are those who argue that to interpret the Emmaus moment as Eucharistic is to miss a major theme in Luke – that of the Kingdom simply being made present through the sharing of food, especially with those on the margins of society. On one level, you can’t argue with this: Jesus at the Last Supper says he will not share food with the disciples again until the Kingdom has come. Now, he shares food with them, showing that the Kingdom has indeed come. It is about food and the Kingdom. But I don’t think that this is binary. Emmaus is surely also about Christ’s body – his presence, his building of community, his disruptive love. It is about the Eucharist, and because of that, it’s also about eating with people. It’s about breaking bread then, and because of that, it’s also about breaking bread now. It’s about journeys then, and because of that, it’s about journeys now. This is about the Kingdom being in our midst, and it’s also about all that this means for us, in our contexts and in our communities.
The problem with the family in the story I started with is that they box Jesus up in order to domesticate him. They might bow to the box and reverence him, but their behaviour makes very little sense, because they’re paying homage to someone whose disruptive presence they don’t actually want in their lives. They’re a bit like the two disciples on the road, reciting a creed, but not really knowing why they’re doing it. What Emmaus shows us is that any amount of discussion and argument and scripture will be insufficient for faith, if we do not open our doors to the One who journeys with us. Only open doors will lead to open eyes.
I have been struck, letting this passage interrogate me after both Covid and the invasion of Ukraine, by the new resonances it might now have for us. For so long, if we saw a stranger, we kept away from them. And we weren’t allowed to take the risk of saying ‘Stay with us’, especially to someone we didn’t know. Now that most of us have our freedoms back, I wonder how much we cling to our securities. For those of us who are fortunate, some aspects of Covid, though they were frustrating, enhanced our natural tendencies to stick with what we know, to hunker down, to be domesticated. These tendencies were magnified, but they’re present to a greater or lesser extent in all of us. And it’s worth, I think, noticing that in the light of the risen Christ.
But then, there is Ukraine, and a great opening of doors to the stranger as people fled for their lives and needed housing. So many among us have taken the risk of meeting on the journey, and inviting in, someone unknown, from a different culture, with different language and traditions. Sometimes, this has gone smoothly; sometimes, it’s been incredibly hard. Right there, in the centre of domestic life, there is an upheaval: love has led to both an embracing of discomfort and also a widening of vision. And it’s worth noticing this in the light of the risen Christ, too.
Because through his broken body, Christ calls us away from our tendencies to hunker down, and towards that invitation to the stranger. This week-end, both the anniversary of the death of Stephen Lawrence, and Earth Day, bring us a painful recognition of the complacency and narrowness of our vision, and of our need for open eyes.
To gain our sight, we need to allow Christ, who will be present in the bread on this table, who is present in the bread in our pyx, whose presence with us we honour and revere, to be also Christ who is just too demanding; with whom life will never be the same again. Christ who turns us outwards from ourselves, and who invites us to open our doors to strangers whom we don’t understand. Without knowing who they are, he says, invite them in. Without knowing what will transpire, he says, act anyway. If someone’s life or manner or strangeness bothers us, we need to be with them. We need them to be with us. Because we don’t know what we will see until we are prepared to be open to it. This is how the Kingdom is made present in our midst. This is what being a Eucharistic community looks like.
Journey, hospitality, seeing. As the two disciples return to Jerusalem, there is tangible evidence that their slow hearts have been quickened by the fire within them. The eleven and their friends are still talking about what they were talking about before. And now, these two get it. Because of the stranger, they have a shared language.
And so do we. Through all our differences, our disagreements, our distrust, and our fear. So do we. Because of the disruption, the strangeness, the power and the love which we find in the bread we share, and the fire Christ kindles in us.
Amen.