St. Andrews Episcopal Church

RECENT SERMONS

The Road to Emmaus

It has been said that in order to know where you are
going you must first know where you have come from. I
have been interested in genealogy for as long as I can
remember and I would like to share a little of that
with you if I could. Growing up I heard many stories
of my ancestors where they were from, what they did
and so forth. As children often do I asked many
questions. One that I can remember asking was, “Where
did they go to church?” The answer was, “Oh, they
were Church of England.” Like I was supposed to know
what that was. I just tucked it away. Many years later
I would discover what that meant as I was on my own
“Road to Emmaus.”

It’s a sure thing!…Have you ever banked on a “sure
thing” so much so that the possibility that it would
not happen had completely left your mind? Sometimes
we only hear what we want to hear and those words that
were not even spoken are now reality. Sometimes we
take these thoughts on this “sure thing” and we begin
playing out the different scenarios of how things will
turn out.

In the gospel passage appointed for today it shows us
two of Jesus' disciples who represent that basic state
of mind in which most of the disciples found
themselves on the day of the resurrection. They were
utterly discouraged. That, “sure thing” just didn’t
happen. They asked each other what happened? He was
to be the “New King of the Jews”, and we were to
rule with Him by His side. People would look up to us
because of our new authority.

No one's career and message had ever been so
thoroughly defeated and discredited in the public eye
as had that of Jesus. Even his disciples and closest
friends had left him and fled; indeed, he had been
betrayed into the hands of the ecclesiastical and
civil officials by one of his closest friends. The
hopes of his disciples were in shreds. “ a sure
thing…..”

It is clear from this text that the hopes of these two
disciples were not in accord with the message that
Jesus had been trying to communicate during his
lifetime. One of the things they said when he asked
for an explanation of their sadness was, "We were
hoping that he was the one who would set Israel free."
In other words, these disciples--and this may have
been Judas' problem as well--had preconceived ideas
about who the Messiah was to be and what he was to do.
One of their expectations was that he would deliver
Israel from the domination of the Roman Empire. In
other words, they wanted a Messiah who would fit into
the nationalistic aspirations of the Jewish people of
that time. Although Jesus had made it clear that he
would have nothing to do with political programs, he
could not get this idea out of the heads of his
disciples. Consequently, when he predicted well in
advance that he would be delivered into the hands of
the Gentiles and put to death; they did not hear what
he said.

Our emotional programming is such that we rarely hear
what we do not wish to hear. The disciples envisaged
the reign of God as a political triumph, not as the
mystery of God's intervention in their personal lives.

The two disciples had heard reports about women going
to the tomb and not finding the body of Jesus. It
does not seem to have occurred to them that if the
women's report about the empty tomb were true, their
report that Jesus had risen from the dead might also
be true.

The confused and disgruntled disciples were paralyzed
by utter disappointment and grief.

Totally absorbed by their grief, they failed to
recognize Jesus, as fellow-traveler along the road,
and asked, "Friends, what are you talking about, and
why do you look so sad?" Obviously, Cleopas said,
he must be a stranger if he hadn’t heard of the recent
happening in Jerusalem. His friendly and courteous
manner opened them up to dialogue, and they poured out
all the reasons for their distress. Cleopas and his
companion, had trusted that it had been He which
should have redeemed Israel and we were to have and
important place in the new Kingdom.

Notice that the disciples were heading away from
Jerusalem. They had evidently decided, despite what
the women were reported to have said, that their part
in the community of Jesus' disciples was over.

Jesus' response to their sad tale was, "How little
sense you have! How slow you are to believe all that
the prophets have announced!" Then, opening the Holy
Scriptures to them, he began to put into perspective
the true meaning of the Messiah. As they approached
the outskirts of Emmaus, Jesus indicated that he was
going further; he probably would have gone on if they
had not urged him to stay with them.

He went in to the inn with them and sat down at a
table. It was now evening, the time of the evening
sacrifice and the time that the Last Supper had been
eaten. He took bread, pronounced the blessing and
broke the bread. Then he distributed it to them just
as they had seen him do several days before and many
times at common meals.

Later the disciples acknowledged to each other that
their hearts were burning as Jesus explained the
scriptures to them. This "burning" brought them to a
high level of concentration and attentiveness.
Suddenly, as Jesus broke the bread, the data of
their external senses and their interior alertness
connected. The intuition of faith saw through the
outward appearance of the stranger to the Reality. In
front of them was the risen Christ! As soon as
they recognized him, He vanished from their eyes.

"They immediately turned around and went back to
Jerusalem." There they learned that Jesus had also
appeared to Peter. During the course of the day, the
apostles had come to accept the fact of the
resurrection, either because they had been to the
empty tomb or because Peter had seen the Lord. More
importantly, they were beginning to experience
interiorly the grace of the resurrection. The risen
Christ was awakening within them, enabling them to
see the events of the past few days…. with the eyes of
faith.

Like the disciples of Emmaus, we, too, have our own
ideas of Jesus Christ, his message and his church.
We, too, are conditioned by our upbringing, early
education, culture and life experience. The disciples
could not recognize Jesus as long as their mindsets
about who He was and what He was to do were in place.
When Jesus demolished their blindness with his
explanation of the scriptures, their vision of him
began to assume a more realistic tone. The price of
recognizing Jesus is always the same: our idea of
Him, of the Church, of the spiritual journey, of
God himself has to be shattered. To see with the
eyes of faith we must be free of our
culturally-conditioned mindsets.

When I was wondering along that road, wondering, where
was I going and why. My memory was triggered back to
my youthful inquisitiveness I started researching my
ancestors and the heritage that they left me.

John Spotswood, the Archbishop of Glasgow and Saint
Andrews, was chancellor of Scotland responsible for
the passage of the five Articles of Perth confirming
the Episcopal government. In 1638, he was deposed
and excommunicated by the Glasgow General Assembly.

Five Articles of Perth
1. The sacrament of the body and blood of Christ
should be received kneeling
2. It might be administered in private to the sick
3. When infants could not conveniently be baptized in
church they might be baptized at home.
4. Children being eight years old, and after being
instructed in the Lord's Prayer, Creed, Ten
Commandments, and Catechism, should be brought to the
bishop on his visitation, to be examined in the
religious knowledge, and to receive his blessing.
5. The days commemorative of Christ's birth, passion,
resurrection, ascension, and the sending down of the
Holy Ghost should be kept in devout observance.

Like the two disciples on the Road that day reflecting
back on things that they heard, witnessed and felt
sparked their realization of Christ and the clarity of
His promises. It was those early conversations I had
as a child about my ancestors, the Five Articles of
Perth, that drew me to the Episcopal Church and gave
me the realization that I am home, I am where I came
from.

When we let go of our private and limited vision, He
who has been hidden from us by our pre-packaged values
and pre-conceived ideas causes the scales to fall from
our eyes. He was there all the time. Now at last we
perceive his Presence. With the transformed vision of
faith, we return to the humdrum routines and duties
of daily life, but now, like Mary Magdalene, we
recognize God giving himself to us in everyone and in
everything.

Glory to God whose power, working in us, can do
infinitely more than we can ask, or imagine: Glory to
him from generations in the Church, and in Christ
Jesus forever and ever. Amen.

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