These are the days following Easter when the Church seeks to discover again, or perhaps for the first time, how to live truly as resurrection communities. It is, of course, similar to Christmas when after the tree is down and the carols silent, in the days following the astonishing news that God has come to live among in the flesh, Christians seek live as people who truly know that God is with us, full of grace and truth. Christ is risen, we proclaim on Easter with loud fanfare. He is risen, indeed! Yet, if it ends there with the last trumpet blast then we have missed something, haven’t we?

The resurrection of Jesus among other things surely means that he is alive among us in his Spirit. I think that is both comforting and unsettling; comforting because the living Christ is with us always, unsettling because, well, because the living Christ is with us always! Our life purpose is to discover just how to live as Easter people in power of the resurrection being shaped into the community of Jesus followers.

Luke 24:13-35

heartburn is a good sign

April 6, 2008 Third Easter Year C

Roy W. Howard

It’s not hard to imagine two men walking away depressed by the events of the day. It’s a long walk home – wherever that is - when your world is spelled defeat. Someone said the other day, everyone has their Emmaus, just like everyone has their Cheers; the place you go when you must get away from the darkness. Only you never can truly get away. I think we know that, as much as Cleopas and his pal knew it walking those seven miles from Jerusalem to Emmaus. Not much is spoken between them. Men aren’t known for sharing their pain.

Beset by a sad turn of events, with no clear future in front of them they walk along with one another holding their pain and sorrow, fear and anxiety close to the heart. In fact, they may not even be able to name all that is happening inside them. Most of us don’t in the same situation. It’s just a bewildering mess of sorrow and despair. Depression is like that. Darkness hangs as low clouds over the heart. No matter how far you walk away from it all, the clouds keep coming with you. I’ve been on the road to Emmaus. Not the one outside Jerusalem. The one that runs straight through my being. Maybe you have to.

What is remarkable is that these two men are not walking alone. No one knows that transpired between them. Maybe it was like the day after a funeral. It’s over. What do we do now? Did they discuss their sense of guilt that when faced with their greatest life challenge, they left the one they loved to twist in the wind? Maybe they chuckled at each other for being so dumb as to believe in Him in the first place. Maybe they laughed at the wild rumor of the women who said he wasn’t dead after all.

All we know is that they are walking along, companions in sorrow, when a stranger comes to walk alongside them.

It’s a good thing they weren’t on the Metro. They might have been riding when the stranger sits down next them. Securing their earphones and turning up their iPod. No conversation. Period. It’s strange dance that happens among folks heading toward their Emmaus; friends and strangers all caught up together. But occasionally marvelous things happen, too, when the earphones come off and the conversation begins. Everyday there are encounters that scatter the clouds of doom, that offer a glimpse of the divine if only for a fleeting instant.

The stranger appears clueless about all that has occurred. He just listens as they unfold their grief. When clouds are hanging low over your heart and sorrow threatens to consume your soul, what a great gift it is when someone comes alongside simply to listen; to be your companion in pain. On any given day there is someone on the road toward some place to get away from the pain. Every day there is a opportunity to walk alongside another listening and being one to whom pain can be unfolded.

The stranger listened as Cleopas and his pal named their pain in great detail.

I think it’s crucial for anyone who is holding pain, sheltering sorrow, unsure of the future, guilty about the past, to unload it to someone who will truly listen to your bewildered, broken heart. But then something else has to happen as it did along the Emmaus road.

Deep listening in time gives way to a deeper conversation; not one that repeats the events of the day or the pain of the past, but actually a conversation about what matters most in our lives. A conversation about scripture and God’s ways among us. Cleopas and his pal needed more than someone repeating back to them everything they said.

When you are holding pain without hope you need to hear a way forward from death to life. The stranger listened well, but then he honestly told them who was actually clueless and it wasn’t him. He turned their hearts to scripture and the wild tale the women told, the very one they thought dead was now setting their hearts on fire.

Heartburn is a good sign. In fact, when your heart is stirred up by scripture it’s a good time to pay attention.

Authentic listening. God conversation. These can occur along every road that you and I walk every day.

I love what Gustavo Guetierrez, the Peruvian theologian, says at this point in our story. “The initiative belongs to the Lord. But if we open the door of our being to him, we shall share his life, his supper.” He who sets their hearts on fire, who illuminated scripture, who turned their despair toward hope, stood at the fork in the road. Having initiated the encounter, he was now leaving. “Stay with us,” they pleaded. This plea is the opening of the door of our being to the living Christ.

Stay with us! Come into our home, receive our hospitality, the night has come and the road is long. A simple meal is all they shared. He blessed the bread, broke it and poured the wine. In the dim light of that room, with hearts burning, their eyes were open to the presence of God in this very stranger.

I find it wonderful that they knew him first as stranger who had come alongside them to listen to their pain, to share God’s way to a new future. To this stranger they opened their hearts, discussed scripture, shared a meal and their eyes were opened. Everyday there are encounters that scatter the clouds of doom, that offer a glimpse of the divine if only for a fleeting instant. Sometimes this is how it happens to communities living in hope of the resurrection, offering hospitality to strangers.

Authentic listening. God conversation. Holy Communion. Christ is risen.

This is what it means to live with burning hearts in the power of the resurrection.

Let us break bread together.