“Stay With Us” (Luke 24:13-35)
April 6, 2008 – Third Sunday of Easter
Rev. Carol McVetty
“Stay with us” they said to the mysterious stranger. “Stay with us, for it is evening, the night is falling.”
Evening is the weary time, isn’t it? The day that brimmed with bright possibility as it dawned all too often ends with grouchy, head-achy, grubby reality, only made worse by a packed CTA train or traffic jam on Lakeshore Drive. It is in the evening that little things get on our nerves. What went poorly that day plays over and over in one’s mind like a bad commercial. What’s left undone nags at us. It’s in the evening that we just want to curl up and be left alone….or escape into the lights and noise that will drown out the anxieties, the loneliness, the haunting emptiness.
“Stay with us” they urged him. For it is evening, the night is falling.
For Cleopas and his companion on that first Easter, evening was not just the time of day, it was their state of mind. The story they told the stranger on the Emmaus Road was as despondent as the one UCLA and North Carolina fans are telling this morning after last night’s losses in the NCAA basketball Final Four. It was a story of failure, a story of crushing defeat. “Where have you been this weekend?” they asked stranger. “Under a rock? Jesus, our teacher, was surely a man of God. Surely he was a prophet. The things he said and did were full of power. He was the One…the One who was going to deliver Israel from the Empire. We were sure of it. But our leaders betrayed him. They had him tortured and executed. It’s been three days now. The women came this morning with a crazy tale about how his body was gone from the tomb… and a vision of angels. But the others checked it out. No one has seen him. We thought he was the One. But now it’s all over.
Then Jesus took their story, blessed it, broke it, and gave it back to them. He blessed it by retelling it in the light of the long, long story of God’s loving action in the world.
It’s a story of God’s good and holy creation…our world.
It’s a story of people created with the capacity for mighty achievement and heroic good, but also with the freedom and mysterious tendency to choose evil..ordinary garden variety evil, or unimaginably horrendous evil.
It’s a story of God’s loving relationship with a particular people, Israel
how he brought them out of slavery in Egypt, through the wilderness, and into a promised land.
It’s a story of God’s loving patience when this beloved people went astray again again: ignoring God, dazzled by wealth, cheating the poor, exploiting the stranger.
Jesus blessed their story by telling it back to them in the context of the stories of Eve and Adam, Sarah and Abraham, Moses, David, Ruth, Isaiah and Jeremiah.
Then Jesus broke their story. He broke it open, showing them how his suffering was for us. “He was wounded for our transgressions.” Jesus explained to them how God works in the world…that failure. heartbreak. dead ends, aging bodies, even graves are the place where God steps in to make a new beginning.
Finally, Jesus gave their story back to them. And their hearts burned within them. Their hearts burned because they could hardly contain a story so vast and rich and wise. And now they understood how their ordinary little lives were a part of it. They begged him: “Stay with us.”
Yesterday a number of us gathered in Howel Hall to break bread together. Well, actually, since it was a Filipino feast there was only rice and noodles, no bread. But you get the idea. We ate together and told stories. It was a “despidida”. “What’s a despidida, and what should we wear to one?” were the burning questions around here last week. We learned that a despidida is a time to say farewell, and also a wonderful party. We said goodbye to Rudy, who is returning to the Philippines for a year, and a final goodbye to his wife Loretta, who died in December. The stories that were told could have been stories of despondency…a loved one going so far away for so long. They could have been stories of despair, in that a beloved wife and mother, little Nicholas’ dear lola (grandma) has left this world for good. But Jesus stayed with us. If, when two or three are gathered together in Christ name, he is there, then by golly 60 will do just fine. Jesus stayed with us. We gathered as family and friends, but with a keen awareness that we were also sisters and brothers in Christ. In addition to blessing the food at the tables, Jesus also took this family’s experience of saying goodbye, and blessed, and broke, and gave it back to them. So the tears were not tears of despair, but of blessed memory. And the stories of the family’s heritage were treasured and lifted up. The pictures of Loretta’s life were cherished and affirmed. And there were stories that looked, not back in grief and loss, but forward to a life of promise and meaning for Rudy as he returns to the Philippines. The spirit of Jesus brought about that transformation. Jesus stayed with us. Jesus drew that families’ story into the great, vast Gospel story of God’s redeeming work in our lives.
“Stay with us” the two disciples said to the stranger. Stay with us…for it is evening, and night is falling. They welcomed him in, as a guest in their home. But suddenly Jesus became the host. His seat became the head of the table. And he took the bread and blessed it, and broke it and gave it to them. And they could finally see! Their eyes were opened…”It’s Jesus! Stay with us!” But he was gone, as ephemeral, as fleeting as any of our glimpses of the Divine.
Today we gather around this table set with the bread and the cup. We invite Jesus to be our guest, but then, again, he becomes the host. We will take and bless and break and give bread, but it is his table, his bread. We do all this in the very presence of Christ.
I urge you, during Communion this morning, to let Jesus take and bless and break and give back to you the story of your life that you have brought with you today. For our lives are not just our own little drama of happiness and heartbreak, of anger and love, of work and success and failure. Years ago in Detroit I saw an overpass that had spray painted on it: WORK EAT DIE. Well, yes, there is a kind of flat two-dimensional truth there. But it is ultimately false. Because our lives are a part of a rich, flowing story…a story that began before time with our Creator’s vast and mighty love for his creation and each precious life within it. When we ask Jesus to stay with us, and to draw that story into our hearts, then it reads us, not the other way around. The story of God’s redemption reads and transforms the story we tell about our own lives.
Despair becomes hope
possession becomes gratitude
struggle becomes challenge
boredom becomes joy
aimlessness becomes purpose.
But Jesus can only reshape our lives and show us how they are a part of God’s great story, if we learn the story…if we listen to it. That’s why we put in the bulletin each week the texts for the coming Sunday, so you can read them and listen to them throughout the week. That’s why we offer so many different Bible studies. That’s why I suggested to you this morning that you reread the Scripture for the day here in worship while it is being read in Karen, so that it can sink into your heart. Then you give Jesus the opportunity to take your life story…
to take it, bless it, break it open, and give it back to you.
It is in prayerfully opening up the Scriptures and coming to this Table that we say:
“Stay with us, Lord Jesus,
stay with us.”
Amen.
