Got anything to eat?
Notes
Transcript
Did you ever have friends growing up where you could just drop by their house any time eand make yourself at home? I had two best friends in high school in particular, one the student director of the choir before me, and the other I ran cross country with.
It was never a question of asking permission to come over or anything, it just happened. And what’s more, it didn’t matter how clean or messy it was - it was enough that we were welcome.
As our gospel for today picks up, the risen Jesus has traveled on foot between cities with a couple of other pilgrims (not an uncommon thing to do in itself), discussing scripture and what has happened (to him, though they didn’t know that at the time), and when they got to Emmaeus they had sat down to eat. I’ll pick up there and ready just before our lesson today starts:
Luke 24:30–35 (NRSV)
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.
Now, while they were saying these things (that is, while the pilgrims were still right there with the disciples, Jesus stood among them. While it’s possible this is another of those appearing through closed doors moments, we’re not told if it is, so it’s likely he came in the normal way.
How many of you have ever seen Pinky and the Brain, either in Animaniacs or their own TV series? For those who aren’t familiar, they’re two (talking) lab mice. Pinky, the goofy and well-meaning but not real smart sidekick asks Brain every day “Gee, brain, what are we going to do tonight?” to which the Brain (the smart and devious mouse who’s been modified in an experiment to have a huge brain) responds “The same thing we do every night, Pinky. Try to take over the world.”
It’s not wrong to characterize Jesus as trying to take over the world, but in a much more Pinky way than a Brain way - that is by doing the right thing without cutting corners.
But the real reason I bring up this memory (besides it being indelibly in my own brain after growing up watching Animaniacs every day for years) is that there’s a rhythm and expectation that Pinky and the Brain set up as to what happens every night.
And that’s what happens next here. If you’ve been paying attention for the last few weeks (since before Easter) you can probably guess the first thing Jesus did after showing up unannounced in the midst of the disciples and pilgrims: He bade them peace.
Why is this such a pattern? Because the disciples are more or less the Pinky here. Every time Jesus shows up during Holy Week and after his resurrection (and really throughout his ministry if you read Mark), the disciples seem to either freak out or completely miss the point, even it it seems obvious to us reading the Bible today.
But Jesus responds differently. Brain, in the show, is clearly frustrated at Pinky’s incorrigibility. At the end of every episode, Brain asks Pinky “Are you pondering what I’m pondering?” to which Pinky responds with a non sequitur like “I think so brain, but if they called them sad meals, no one would but them” to which Brain tends to whack Pinky on the head.
Jesus, by contrast, is in the habit of starting by bidding them peace, before they even have a chance to mess anything up. That’s not to say the disciples don’t misunderstand or become afraid. Those are almost as much a theme as what Jesus does. But what happens next? Just like with Thomas last week, Jesus anticipates their needs and meets them where they are (figuratively - since he’s already doing so literally).
Today’s passage is very much like Peter and John (in the Easter gospel) or Thomas (last week). Each time, one or more of Jesus’ disciples is told by a witness to the resurrection that Jesus is alive, and each time they are afraid and can’t fully believe what’s going on.
And each time, Jesus comes into their midst, bids them peace, and, without any judgment or frustration, makes himself known to them.
But there is something that make’s the stories in Luke different. In John, both times, Jesus assuages their doubts by showing them his body - so they can touch him and see the wounds from the crucifixion. Luke, too, emphasizes the corporeality of Jesus’ resurrection, going so far as to say:
Look at my hands and my feet; see that it is I myself. Touch me and see; for a ghost does not have flesh and bones as you see that I have.”
But in Luke, we see that this only gets part of the job done:
Luke 24:41 (NRSV)
In their joy they were disbelieving and still wondering…
In context, it does seem that they understand it must be true (thus the joy) but the disciples don’t yet get it.
So Jesus throws them a curveball. He asks, seemingly nonchalantly (even though he’s just revealed to them that he is risen from the dead) “Hey, you got anything round here to eat?”
Many commentators point out that eating serves to further reinforce and prove that he’s not just a particularly convincing ghost or apparition. But I don’t think that’s the main point here.
Because it is only when he has eaten that their eyes are opened:
Then he said to them, “These are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you—that everything written about me in the law of Moses, the prophets, and the psalms must be fulfilled.” Then he opened their minds to understand the scriptures,
If that sounds familiar, it’s because verse 45 matches the two pilgrims’ experience on the road to Emmaeus after Jesus revealed himself to them when he blessed the bread and broke it:
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?”
It is the simple meal in Luke - bread with the pilgrims, a portion of fish (implying others also had some) - where Jesus reveals himself. And it is the simple meal at our table where Christ’s intercession on our behalf, and his victory over the grave through death and resurrection becomes real. It becomes real in communion, and it becomes real every time we gather at the table with our fellow Christians, whether over coffee and eclipse-themed treats after worship, a community supper, a meal shared with the residents at To Our House, or a home-cooked dinner at the family table. Christ’s love becomes real because it is embodied.
In my experience, the closest relationships I have with others have involved a sense that whatever’s going on around us (including how clean or messy things are, or how busy life gets, or whether anything makes sense at all), all we have is freely shared with each other. When I visited my best friends in high school at their homes (or they at mine) we knew that it was perfectly fine to ask “Hey, you got anything to eat around here?” and in sharing places and meals, we became closer and learned to trust and lean on each other more.
Just as the food we eat gives us strength for our bodies, sharing with Christ in his body, the heavenly food, gives us strength for our spirits.
And for what, you may ask? Why keep trying, as it were, to take over the world, if we know from Jesus’ own testimony that there will continue to be sin and suffering and pain and many will not listen. Why keep trying, like Pinky and the Brain, if we know we’ll fail?
Because the message is true and the message will get out, regardless of us:
Then he opened their minds to understand the scriptures, and he said to them, “Thus it is written, that the Messiah is to suffer and to rise from the dead on the third day, and that repentance and forgiveness of sins is to be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem.
Jesus emphasized this on Palm Sunday:
Some of the Pharisees in the crowd said to him, “Teacher, order your disciples to stop.” He answered, “I tell you, if these were silent, the stones would shout out.”
The Holy Spirit comes soon after today’s reading, as the verse just after this says:
And see, I am sending upon you what my Father promised; so stay here in the city until you have been clothed with power from on high.”
And though this is the final section of Luke’s gospel, it’s not the final section of his retelling of God’s story. Luke, who emphasizes over and over the connection of Jesus to the Old Testament, the Hebrew Scripture (and through it, to God the Father), not only wrote the gospel of Luke, but the Acts of the Apostles, which is really a story of the Holy Spirit and its works in the early church.
And knowing this, Luke foreshadows Acts:
You are witnesses of these things.
Witnesses don’t just see something - they testify about it, whether in a court of law, or to those around them in their lives.
The disciples and the pilgrims were already witnesses both of the scriptures and, because Jesus, in sharing meals with them had opened their eyes, of the meaning of those scriptures and how they were being fulfilled through Jesus and the coming Holy Spirit.
Nor is it treated as optional. Jesus doesn’t send them out with an exhortation here in Luke. He says “you are witnesses” and that’s that. The only sending he indicates here, in fact, is the sending of the Spirit to give them the power to remain strong in their faith and in witness to others.
Repentance and forgiveness of sins (in light of the gospel) is to be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning in Jerusalem with those with whom he shared a table. We don’t have to try to take over the world - the Spirit will manage - but the fruit of repentance and forgiveness is witness, shining the light on the hill and not covering it up.
As we share in Christ’s table this morning, I pray that you will be nourished and reassured of the deep and abiding reality of his resurrection, that your eyes may be opened, and that you may be inspired to witness, in word and deed, to the power of that truth in your life and the world.
Thanks be to God.