Third Sunday of Easter
April 10, 2005
Year A
Title: The One Who Could Not Stay
Theme: Jesus vanishes in resurrection stories, reminding us that all gifts
are gifts meant for the moment.
When I started seminary or graduate school back in 1993, I remember
being a little hesitant about the whole experience, for a lot of reasons,
but one of the major reasons was that I was now being thrown into a
situation where I would have to make a whole new set of friends,
something I hadn’t had to do in awhile. I mean, I had a good set of
friends in college, and remained close with a few of them, but I wondered
whether I would have that same experience in graduate school, where
the age ranges of the students were wider and the life experiences more
varied and diverse. I remember meeting my seminary roommate for that
first semester, and thinking, after a few minutes, “this is going to be a
long, long year.” But then I started meeting people and eventually a
smaller group of us developed a close-knit set of friendships, and that
first year was survivable because of them and their grace and support.
For me, seminary was such an intense experience, academically, but
mostly spiritually and emotionally, and I can’t imagine having that
experience without those fellow travelers—Tracy who eventually married
a Methodist minister, Dan, who grew up Jewish, but eventually became a
Buddhist and who, oddly enough, found himself getting a graduate
degree from a Christian seminary, Beth, one of the smartest people I’ve
ever met and who eventually got her PhD. at Emory, Tony, who has
jumped in and out of ministry over the years, and who now serves a
Lutheran church in rural Kansas, and Christine, whose experience in
seminary was so bad that she never, ever wanted to serve a church, and
hasn’t been active in church in years—actually, she works at a hospice
now. At the time, my intense friendship with each of them, and our
intense relationship with each other, it seemed strong and unbreakable
at the time, as if we would never lose contact with each other because
the intensity of going through the seminary experience together was so
profound for us. And yet, we have lost touch and I have come to realize
that our friendship during that time was meant for that particular time—
the experience of seminary itself bonded us together more than our
individual friendships with each other, though I still remain close to a
couple of those folks.
We’ve all had those kinds of experiences, friendships that were meant
for the moment, a space in time when we came together and found
ourselves being intensely close to each other during that time, and we
were there to teach other and to support each other, but when that which
bonded us together ended, that time which we experienced together was
over, the relationship changed, maybe not ended, but changed, and
became something different, something new, and definitely less intense.
These friendships, these loves, they were meant for the moment, gifts for
the present, but not for the future—they were what they were, and
though I miss the friendship of some of these people profoundly, and I
miss the intensity I shared with many of them, I don’t regret them nor
really regret not having them in my life at this moment, or, to be honest,
even have a desire to replicate that experience again. I was given what I
needed at that time in my life, and they were gifts given to me by God,
and by each of them, and there can be no going backwards—they were
meant for that moment in my life and that is just fine with me.
I suspect that the disciples had a similar experience when they
experienced this moment in the text I just read to you a few moments
ago. It is still the day of the resurrection, it is Easter day, in Luke’s telling
of the story, and these disciples are on their way to Emmaus, for
whatever reason, and they are in the midst of an intense discussion
about the events of the last 3 or 4 days. And then a stranger joins them,
a stranger who is no stranger, of course, but one whose identity was
divinely kept a secret from them, the text says. This stranger asks them
what they are debating between themselves, and they explain to him that
they are struggling with the meaning of the life and death of their spiritual
master, this Jesus of Nazareth. They go further and say that some of
their fellow disciples, a group of women have claimed that they saw a
vision of this Jesus outside of his tomb, a vision of angels as well, though
they themselves have not seen this risen Christ. But then this stranger
explains to them that this was all meant to be, as foretold in the Jewish
Scriptures, and he clarifies and helps to interpret the passages from
Moses and the prophets that seem to hint at the story they have seen
unfold before their eyes.
But the conversation seems like it will come to a natural ending point
when these two disciples reach Emmaus, because this stranger goes up
ahead of them, as if he was going on further. And yet, these disciples
don’t want the conversation to end, they want it to continue, and so they
ask him to stay with them, to stay the night, because it was almost
evening. He accepts, and at the dinner table, in a movement reminiscent
of another man at another table they had been at only days earlier, in
the breaking of the bread, this stranger is revealed to be no stranger at
all—it is the Christ, the risen One. And the moment of recognition is
described as the experience of eyes being opened, of a world dimly seen
all of a sudden being seen with incredible clarity. Before them is the one
who had died, and yet who is no longer dead, the one who has
conquered death itself—the breaking of the bread, how ironic that it is in
that moment that they recognize the one before them!
And it is a moment that has been a favorite of artists throughout the
centuries—look at the cover of your bulletin this morning, at this poor
reproduction of Caravaggio’s Supper at Emmaus. Notice the seated
disciple on the left grabbing the armrests of the chair, as if he is going to
quickly raise himself in his startled amazement of the one who is before
him, his chair thrust out beneath him. The standing servant just looks
puzzled, and he clearly does not understand what is happening—he only
looks at the one who is the source of the disciple’s amazement. And
then there is the Christ, his right hand outstretched towards us, the
viewer, his face young, and plump almost, some have said even
feminine—notice that there is no beard: Caravaggio based the absence
of the beard on a small remark in the Gospel of Mark where it says that
Christ came to the disciples in another form and so he interprets that as
the Christ coming to them as a much younger man. And, though it is
hard to see this in the bulletin reproduction you have in your hands,
notice how still everything is on the table; chaos reigns, people are
jumping out of their seats, arms are flaying, but the center of the painting
remains still—art historians have noticed that despite the emotional and
spiritual chaos and surprise that is happening here, the table and its
contents remain almost erringly still, serene almost. .
But I tell you what actually caught me eye the first time I saw this first of
two painting Caravaggio actually did on the Supper at Emmaus—it is the
disciple on the right that drew my eyes, more than anything or anyone
else. Look how both of his arms are stretched out beside him, as if he
was stunned and startled with the profound surprise at the one who he is
sitting next to—his left hand almost looks as if it is going to reach out of
the painting and lay of hold of us! But it’s that right arm, the one with the
hand that looks as if it going to grab hold of Christ that interested me the
most. He falls forward, grabbing us, the viewers, with his left hand, and
with his right hand, he is about to lay hold of the Christ whom he has just
now recognized, in Christ’s all too familiar act of breaking bread.
But it is an “almost” moment, a “just about to” moment, because the
narrative in Luke’s Gospel says that the instant they recognized Jesus
for who he was, he simply vanished, he disappeared from the room, as if
he was a ghost. I can imagine the disciple on right hand of the painting
reaching for Christ with his right arm, but only grabbing air in the end,
and the disciple in the painting who is about to push his chair away and
stand up, only to be staring into thin air, the room itself now thick with
silence. This resurrected one does not stay; the moment of recognition
seems to be the last thing Christ gave to these disciples in this
encounter with him. In the latter part of this text, in Luke’s Gospel, Christ
shows him his body, his hands and feet, and allows them to touch and
see him, something that he does not allow in this moment at Emmaus—
this one is no ghost, this one can be touched and felt, this one can be
held--but not at this table in Emmaus, not at this moment, not for our
disciples at this table, for whatever reasons.
You know, there seems to be a theme in the resurrection stories about
the holding and touching of this Christ that runs throughout most of the
Gospel accounts of this story. I have no doubt that there are apologetic
or defensive reasons why these stories about touching and holding are
included—first, to share with the communities to come who would hear
this story for the first time that this resurrected Christ was no ghost, that
he was flesh and blood in life, death, and this life after death. But,
secondly, it was important for some in the early church to answer those
who sought to demonize the human body as the embodiment of all that
was wrong with the universe, the center of all that is unholy in this world,
a Greek or sometimes Gnostic understanding of the world. The church's
answer was to affirm the body, and especially to affirm the flesh of this
particular Jesus of Nazareth, both in life, death, and now in this
resurrected state, this life beyond life.
But there is something else here, I think, beyond the historical reasons
why the narratives are written the way they are written—there seems to
be a tension in the Gospel accounts where the disciples, both male and
female, they seek to hold onto this risen Christ, they grab or hold him
close. Mary Magdalene, in the passage from John that I preached on
during the 9 AM Easter service, she grabs and holds Christ fast the
moment she recognizes him (again, the moment of recognition!), she
doesn’t want to let him go. But who can blame them: who doesn’t want to
hold onto what was so good from one’s own past—she and the other
disciples want to hold onto Christ as they have always known him, as
they have loved him and been loved by him. And it is understandable,
isn’t it? I mean, who can’t understand them in these moments, their
reaching out towards what used to be, towards what was so good at one
time in their lives, before the chaos of the present moment…
And yet, the gifts of the moment, of the present, they really are only
meant for that particular moment, aren’t they? Friendships, lovers,
mothers, fathers, children, they were the gifts given to us in that moment,
given to us to help us see ourselves in a new way, or to see the world for
the way it was and is, or maybe even to see God for who God is, or
maybe they were just given to us for no reason, for no reason other than
that God was so incredibly generous with us at that time. The gifts of
particular people, they were the fellow travelers meant to go with us on
particular parts of our journeys--but no farther, for whatever reasons. I
think of my friends in seminary that I couldn’t imagine not being
connected with throughout the rest of my life—but here I am,
unconnected to many of them, almost a decade apart and many
experiences now between us. The great danger, of course, of looking
backwards too much is not being able to look at the present, of being too
nostalgic about the gifts of the past, but never being able to see the
present, the present moment with particular and unique and good gifts.
The way the disciples have always known their Christ would not be they
would know him in the future—that is why I think Christ in the resurrection
accounts is always trying disentangle himself from the grasp of the
people who truly loved him. If they got too attached to this gift of the
present, this gift of being with them this particular way only days after his
murder, this particular way of comforting them, the danger would be that
they would never be able to recognize him again in the future, in the new
ways he would chose to meet them in the coming days and years. This
one does not stay, at least not like this, though in the coming days and
years he will come again to them, over and over again, giving them gifts
for the particular journeys they each will be on, each gift right and maybe
even perfect for the moment they are experiencing, the particular part of
the journey they are on.
But let me be clear—looking backwards is a good and gracious thing,
and I remember those seminary friends with incredible fondness and
joy—they are reminder to me how incredibly faithful God has been to me
through the years. And yet, looking backwards is best done when we
seek to be reminded of the ways God has been faithful, reminded of the
God who, thankfully, cannot seem to let us go, despite our best efforts to
disentangle ourselves from God. The gifts needed for this part of this
journey, for your life, my life, the life of this church, and the life of the
world, they are present, right here and right now, and they will be forever
present, as long as we do not mistake the gifts of the present for the gifts
of past or even the future, as Mary does in John’s Gospel, or as disciple
does as well in Caravaggio’s painting. Our hands are already full, but
they are already full with present gifts, full of God’s faithfulness to this
present moment in our lives, and for that we are to be forever thankful.
Amen.
