by The Rev. Dr. Max Lynn
SCRIPTURE READINGS 1 Peter 1:17-23, Luke 24:13-35
Transcribed from the sermon preached on APRIL 23, 2023
Back in elementary and high school if someone said something derogatory or negative about us, someone else might say, “Ooh, you got burned. Or maybe if you approached a girl and she rejected you someone would say, Ooh, burned. Or crash and burn.
I’ve noticed that much conversation in our culture today seems to be intended to burn. I think it has something to do with the medium of social media where it is not conducive of real give and take conversation but rather for blasting statements. I have noticed that even when trying to pick words carefully in an effort to question or clarify logic, it is often received as biting or burning. What is this you are talking about? Are you the only one? What is this, you fools! Who are you to be telling us what to think about Scripture and our men who just died?
But I think there is also a shift in culture toward an assumption we are supposed to agree at the beginning of a conversation: if you are on the correct side then you always agree, so that if you somehow disagree or don’t understand and want clarification of logic, then you must be among those horrible people on the other side. It is like we have all been burned. We are tender and extra sensitive, so any disagreement hurts. We think they are trying to burn us. We want to burn them first. So many think the solution is to get guns, stand up and stand by. We are all trigger happy literally and figuratively. I wonder if this gearing up for animosity may be in part because we don’t have long conversations while we are walking anymore.
In today’s passage from Luke, we hear of a different kind of burning. “Were not our hearts burning within us while he was talking to us on the road, while he was opening the scriptures to us?”
Cleopas and someone else, perhaps his wife Mary were walking on the road to Emmaus when Jesus came up beside them. They cannot tell immediately that it is him. He asks them what they are talking about, and they tell him about Jesus, about his great moral power and their hopes, about the crucifixion and even that a group of women had gone to the tomb and found his body missing. They told him about the vision of angels who said Jesus was alive. So, the unrecognized Jesus walking with them says, “How foolish and slow of heart to believe are you. Was it not necessary that the messiah should have to suffer these things and then enter into glory? Now we look at conventional wisdom of how messiah kings expected to be treated.
The messiah, the savior, the king, caesar, the boss, the president, whatever the name of the leader, the model was that the king was the one who was served, the king didn’t suffer for others. On the contrary, the average person was expected to suffer and serve so the king could prosper. This idea from scripture that the Messiah is the one to serve and suffer for others is something radically different. Also radical is Jesus nonviolent love: love one quite deeply from the heart you have been born anew.
To not allow animosity in others to generate animosity in us, to not allow the sin in others to tempt us to sin and hate, to not allow hate and violence of others to lead us to respond with hate and violence, this is not the way kings were expected to think. And yet Jesus reminds them, this is what the scriptures foresaw.
So, after this great conversation on the road, it looks like Jesus is going to keep on walking, but they invite him in for dinner. When he was at the table with them, he took bread, blessed and broke it, and gave it to them. At that moment they recognized him. And as quickly as they recognized him, he was gone. Amazed, they said to each other, were not our hearts burning within us as he interpreted the scriptures for us?
Now this is indeed a strange Jesus. They don’t recognize him for the two hours they are walking with him. But then he breaks, blesses, and gives bread and they immediately recognize him. But just as quickly, he is gone. What do we learn from this. Our hearts are lit up and fired up with Jesus through the interpretation of scripture, and through the breaking and sharing of bread. This is a clear guide for the church.
This kind of burning is the warmth and positive energy of the Holy Spirit. When we know we have blown it, when we have sinned and come face to face with it, and yet we are forgiven, that lights a fire within us. This is the good fire of passion and compassion. This is the fire of awe in our hearts when we experience or witness moral beauty.
I wonder if you can remember experiencing the moral beauty of someone and then thought to yourself, I think I just met God? I don’t think it has to be only goodness under the threat of death. We might do or witness little acts of kindness and sacrifice that show a bit of the divine working in the world quite often. It is the goodness not the suffering, the giving of oneself for a good cause, for the beloved community that Jesus is drawing us toward, not suffering for sufferings sake. There is moral beauty in tutoring children, or visiting someone in the hospital, or sharing a meal or even in teaching on a walk. And yet the moral beauty that sacrifices for good in the face of great opposition and threat that shows us love and hope live. No matter what that love is more powerful than violence. This afternoon we will hear Honduran advocates for democracy and sustainable economics who are under serious threat.
When a group of us went to Israel and Palestine, one of our visits was with the Nassar Farm. Dauod told us the story of the family land. His grandfather obtained the land under Ottoman Empire. They slept in caves while they planted olives, grapes, almonds, and fruit trees. After WWI the Nassar farm was registered with the British in 1924. Since the Six Days war in 1967, the Israeli’s took control of the West Bank and in 1991 Israel declared it “State Land.” They have demolished their farm buildings, water cisterns. The Nassars have been fighting the theft of their land in Israeli courts since 1991 and have had postponement after postponement in an attempt to break their finances. Meanwhile, the Israelis have put settlements on all the hills surrounding their property, they built an Israeli only road and put huge boulders to block their road. Settlers have burned a thousand trees, the military bulldozed fifty trees for being too close to the Israeli only road, they have been physically beaten. Then a year ago two of the brothers were attacked and stabbed by Palestinians. Peacemakers are often disliked by both sides.
We had Daoud here at St. John’s a couple years before we went, but as we sat at his farm and heard his story, I found myself becoming angry and feeling helpless. It wasn’t even my situation. But Daoud said, “We are tempted to give up and leave, to hate or to fight, but we refuse to be enemies. He went on:
“Christian tourists come here from all over the world, and they go visit these great stone structures, churches and monuments where Jesus and the disciples walked and lived. They go to the cemetery and visit the tomb. But the tomb is empty. Christ is alive, in the flesh, in you and me as we live out the Gospel of love.” I don’t know about the rest of the group, but as Daoud interpreted scripture and broke bread with us, my heart was burning within me.
Martin Luther King Jr speaks of the goal of the beloved community, a community with Christ alive:
“The ultimate end of violence is to defeat the opponent. The ultimate end of non-violence is to win the friendship of the opponent… the end is reconciliation; the end is redemption. And so, the aftermath of violence is bitterness, the aftermath of non-violence is the creation of the beloved community.”
(MLK. Justice Without Violence,” April 3, 1957)
In both our daily lives and intimate relationships, and in our politics and larger conflicts, may we have the heart of the risen Christ. May we refuse to be enemies. May we work for reconciliation rather than destruction. May we recognize the image of God in all people. May we live with the kind of faith and assurance that no matter what happens, God’s love is supreme. It is the highest goal, the greatest treasure, our reason for living and the reason death is not the end. Love is our connection to the everlasting God. Love is Christ alive in us and among us.