Easter People... meet Jesus in their vulnerability and hospitality (on the road and at the table)

Easter people…

Today we begin a new series for Eastertide… a series I’m calling “Easter People…” and in these weeks from now through the end of May, we’ll fill in that sentence in a number of different ways.

We finish our time in the book of Luke today and then we’ll have a few weeks in Acts (or Luke part 2) and Paul’s letter to the church in Galatia, giving us a small taste of what the “original” and early Easter people were like and were called to be. This will take us through the celebration of Pentecost or the birth of the Church, and finish up on Trinity Sunday, which falls on May 30th.

And so, we are in a threshold season, or what some would call liminal space…that ambiguous transition period in which we are neither still here, nor yet “there”… and this kind of threshold or liminal space exists for us right now on several levels.

We are in a liminal moment in the Jesus story. (He is risen, but not yet ascended. We are in that post-Easter moment where we get to read and dwell on the post-resurrection appearances. But also He’s already ascended and is seated at the right hand of the Father.)

We are in a liminal season in the church year. The story of God and the story of God’s people… over and over and over again. We are in what’s called “Eastertide” which is the 50 days from Easter Sunday through to Pentecost. This is that season in which we stretch out the celebration of new life found in Jesus. This is that season in which we lean into what resurrection life might look like NOW and not just in the future.

And we are in a liminal moment (or year?) in our personal and community story. Because of Covid, yes. Of course. But also all sorts of other thresholds. In work or retirement, in independence or in relationships. In personal crises or in collective becoming. In any part of life in which we are not still “here” but we also aren’t quite “there” yet.

As Richard Rohr rightly points out,

“Liminal space is a unique spiritual position where humans hate to be, but where the Biblical God is always leading them.”

So, we’re in this liminal space. On at least one of the levels. In the Jesus story, in the story that the church year helps us tell, and then in our personal and collective stories. We’re here in liminal space. And, as Richard Rohr helpfully names it, we hate it. We don’t want to be in this in between place. (Don’t get me wrong, if we were here, we’d long to be there, and once we get there, we’ll speak with nostalgia about back when we were here.) But we are in this in between space. This liminal space. We are in between.

I wonder if we could take a moment even right now - and notice where you resonate most with the idea of threshold or transition. Where are you experiencing liminality right now? Take a few quiet moments and ask God to help you notice and name one or two places that resonate most for you.

As we turn our attention towards Luke, I’d like to share this video which does a fantastic job of summarizing and giving context to the final chapter of Luke’s gospel.

[VIDEO]

What does it mean to be an Easter people?

I love that Luke 24 reminds us that part of being an Easter people will be that we are confused and disappointed. That our ways of being and thinking get disrupted by the resurrection. That resurrection, as we looked at last week, doesn’t always initially appear to be good news. That it disorients us. That it interrupts the status quo. And sometimes that doesn’t feel like something to celebrate.

So being an Easter people means that we are a people who are disrupted by hope.

And that might be the best way to describe the encounter that two disciples have with the Risen Jesus as recorded for us in Luke 24:13-36. In just a moment Kevin will read it for us. But as you listen, I invite you to listen and notice if a word or phrase jump out for you. Don’t’ try to take in the whole thing. But listen, and pay attention… maybe even write down that word or phrase when if pops out for you.

Kevin, would you read for us?

[READING]

I’d like to invite you to use the “Chat” function if you know how to do that now… and just type in the word or the phrase that stood out to you as you listened to Kevin read.

two disciples

Emmaus

We had hoped

But there’s more

Then he interpreted

Stay with us

What we do learn about being “Easter people” from this text?

What does it look like for these two disciples? For these “Easter people”?

I want to draw your attention to WHERE these Easter people meet Jesus.

And I want to draw your attention to HOW they meet the Risen Jesus.

So first, WHERE do they encounter Jesus? This is easy, really.

They meet Him on the road. And they meet Him at their table.

They meet Him “out there” and they meet Him “at home”.

But more specifically, let’s look at HOW they meet Jesus in these places.

On the road, they meet him in their vulnerability.

At their table, they meet him in their hospitality.

On the road, they could have walked in silence.

They could have talked about something else. Anything else.

But they were discussing what had happened. Their disappointment. Their questions. Their dismay.

And into THAT expression of human community, Jesus comes along and join in, transforming their human community into actual Christian community.

They share with him what they have been discussing. (Are you the ONLY PERSON WHO DOESN’T KNOW?)

They tell Jesus all about what happened to him this past weekend. They explain it to Jesus.

And then they articulate that beautiful line… “We had hoped...”

Into THAT honest and vulnerable conversation, Jesus offers back to them a bit of conversation that I wish so much was recorded somewhere for us. Verse 27 says, “Then he interpreted for them the things written about himself in all the scriptures, starting with Moses and going through all the Prophets.”

Interpreted.

So they meet Jesus on the road in their vulnerability.

But they also meet Jesus at their table in their hospitality.

The hospitality doesn’t begin when they sit down at the table with Jesus.

It started when they walked together. When they shared themselves with one another as they walked. And then it extended to include Jesus the Stranger when he joined them in their journey. Then it deepens and broadens when they invite the Stranger to stay. It is evening after all. This is customary and good manners on the one hand. But it is also more…

Jesus stays. (After faking them out like he was going on!)

And then he is revealed to them, made known to them in the breaking of the bread.

They meet Jesus on the road and at the table.

They meet Jesus in their vulnerability and in their hospitality.

Easter people meet Jesus in community. There is no individual, one-on-one relating to Jesus in this text. They are in community. And they risk vulnerability with one another. And into that, Jesus comes, and expresses curiosity (What are you talking about? What things?) and then shares of himself… revealing to them a new way to look at the scriptures they likely knew quite well already. Easter people are a community that is marked by vulnerability. And Easter people are a community that is marked by hospitality.

Ruth Haley Barton speaks of the disciples on the road to Emmaus as being in liminal space this way...

[They are] “suspended between loss and possible gain, grief and possible joy, profound human suffering and perhaps some kind of redemption, dashed hopes and maybe daring to hope again.”

Easter people are liminal people, they are in transition, crossing thresholds, but also in that painful place in between here and there. Easter people, even in these liminal moments and seasons, are a community marked by vulnerability and hospitality. In fact, it is in our vulnerability and hospitality that we meet the Risen Jesus. Consider for a moment what the walk to Emmaus might have been like if the disciples had chosen not to share… perhaps Jesus would have just walked along in silence with them? But then would they have missed the walk through Scripture? And what about if they had just waved him politely on when he acted as though he were continuing on? They would have missed out on recognizing him as he broke the bread.

Our vulnerability and hospitality aren’t optional “add-ons” for certain special Easter People. Our vulnerability and hospitality are what transforms a walk home or a meal in into an encounter with the Risen Lord.

COMMUNION

And so we come to the table ourselves. To a table where we prepare bread and wine, but then we are hosted by someone else. Even at our own table.

Just like in the home that was opened to Jesus in Emmaus, the guest becomes the Host.

So, this morning, we have prepared elements so that we can take communion “together” even thought we’re apart. But the host of this meal is Jesus Himself. It is He who invites you now. It is He who will feed us. And it is He who will send us up from this meal to share the good news of His resurrection life.

BENEDICTION

Their encounter with Jesus compels them to get up from the table and go to find their friends. To go back out into the night and to walk the seven miles back to Jerusalem because they simply MUST SHARE what they have experienced on the road and at the table. Et, misse est.

Our encounter at the table with the Risen Jesus does the same. This isn’t a meal that we linger over. This is a meal that propels us to look at things with new eyes. This is a meal that reaches into our everyday eating and drinking and going to work or school or doing whatever it is that your do lives… and helps us see that the resurrection reaches into THIS too. Into COVID news cycles. Into variant reports and vaccine programs. Into isolated people and unemployment. Into family structures that are crumbling beneath the weight of all that this last year has required. Into loneliness and depression. Into overwhelming anxiety. Into our frustration and into our fear. Jesus enters in to all that. And, Jesus arrives into our locked rooms… into the places in which we are trying to make sense of a resurrection that disrupts and speaks Peace.

And so may the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ,

the love of God,

and the friendship of the Holy Spirit

be with you - and grant you PEACE.

Amen.