Third Sunday of Easter-Emmaus
4-26-20 |
|
The appeal of the Emmaus story is that it
talks about where most of us live. There are no revelations, no great
Saints, no exotic places or people. The Emmaus story is about ordinary
everyday despair and Monday-morning drudgery. It is about bumping into a
stranger, about sitting down at a table and about sharing a meal. It is
about a couple of unknown followers of Jesus who are walking along a
dusty road. Their conversation is full of despair, discouragement and
disappointment. Life is a burden and does not live up to its promises.
|
|
Then they meet a stranger. He asks them
about their conversation and they recite their woes. In many ways, their
conversation could be ours: the everyday stuff, the kids, the economy,
world crisis’ all around us like the COVID 19 pandemic, the war, the
price of gas or toilet paper, school, job and so on. These are the
threads of the daily fabric of our lives. Then the two men go deeper,
they say we were hoping for (hoping for what?) for answers to their
questions. The same thing we all hope for as we move through life…where
is God? Does my life count? Does anything make sense?
|
|
Why am I so sick? Why this accident or
death of a loved one? Why don’t I feel that God is with me? I could put
up with anything if I could feel the presence of God; if I only knew
that He cared and heard prayers. The Emmaus story picks up on the lives
of all of us; we are all on the road of life. Some just beginning their
journey while some are in the middle and others near the end. Along the
way there are times of joy and times of sadness. We win a few and lose a
few. We enjoy the company of family and friends. We despair when bad
people win and the good suffer and, like those disciples, we say we were
hoping for a God of justice and compassion to make sense of it all.
|
|
Then suddenly into this mess comes God,
the stranger with the holes in His hands who shares food and Himself.
That is the point of the story-God is here. He penetrates our everyday
life, but we do not always know it. Just as those two disciples, going
into Emmaus finally recognized the risen Christ, not in some fabulous
Technicolor explosion, but in the simple breaking of the bread…Eucharist
moment. They remind us that God is in our lives, although we do not see
Him most of the time.
|
|
The Emmaus story invites us to see God’s
love everywhere. Easter moments abound. Let me share with you a true
story. A man told me about his son who was in his thirties who was
confined to a nursing home. The son had been injured in a car accident
several years before and was in a permanent comatose state. The man and
his wife would visit at first every day, then twice a week and as the
year passed just once a week. “Only because it is our duty as parents.”
The man told me “we had stopped loving him.” He said, “Love was
reciprocal relationships, giving and receiving and our son could not
receive, our son could not give. We went to see him, but as the years
dragged on, we stopped loving him.”
|
|
A whole wall of the young man’s room was
glass so that he could be seen at all times from the nursing station.
One sunday as the parents arrived they were surprised to see a stranger
by his bed. The stranger was a Eucharistic Minister from the local
Parish who came every Sunday. But the parents usually visited on a
weekday. The Father said, “As we waited outside the room we saw the
visitor talking to our son as if they were engaged in a conversation-as
if my son could appreciate a conversation.”
|
|
Then the man took out the Bible and read.
By this time, we were in the room and he read the gospel of the day, the
road to Emmaus. I thought as he was reading on, “My son cannot hear or
appreciate the reading.” Then he prayed a prayer as if my son could
appreciate a prayer. Then he continued to give him Holy Communion as if
my son could appreciate what he was receiving. Apparently, he did not
know my son’s condition. Then as if God had hit me over the head, the
Eucharistic Minister does know; but he sees my son differently. Not
simply through medical or clinical eyes, but through the eyes of faith.
|
|
“He treats my son the way he should be
treated, as a Child of God.” Then I saw the connection, this Eucharistic
Minister was the stranger on the road to Emmaus revealing the presence
of God in that hospital room. A God who loves us deliriously, a God who
is in our lives and cares about us. However, sometimes it is a matter of
practice to be able to discern Him. |
|
I guess that is one good reason why we
come to church. To recover our sense of vision, to celebrate the God we
have bumped into all week without knowing it. To handle the word and the
bread and see this very congregation with the realization that such
common everyday stuff harbors the very presence of God.
|
|
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment