Luke 24. 13-35 Eating with the risen Christ

It is good to be aware of your own biases and how they both blind you to things and make you notice things that others don’t. Some, for instance, will notice this entire piece is written with a heavy level of sarcasm. Others will get bogged down in their own ridiculousness and take everything at face value. It will be fun. Maybe people will actually leave comments. I’m optimistic.

Some days, our brain is in a critical mood. It wants to find fault in everything. On these days, no matter how much good we see, we choose to ignore it and instead see only what we think should be different. Notice I don’t say bad here, because it isn’t bad, it just isn’t what we want. We, as lowly human beings, are in no position to judge what is good and what is bad. We can only judge what we like and what we dislike. Just because we dislike it, doesn’t mean it’s bad and just because we like it, doesn’t mean it’s good.

Some days our brains are on information overload and we can’t absorb any more information or notice anything at all. It is as if our memory has shut down. Other days, we’re so distracted by distractions, we can’t focus on anything and our brain falls down a continuous series of rabbit hole dropping down into the next before it even has a chance to recover from the first, or finish the first fall. That’s where I’m writing to you from today. I’ve already fallen down a half a dozen rabbit holes in less than two paragraphs. I’m trying to not fall in the one that is noticing far too many contractions and attempting to find my way back to the first one, being blind or noticing.

Our passage begins “Now, on that same day, two of them were going to a village called Emmaus.” If we started reading at verse 24, we do not know which day or who two the author is talking about. Assuming, whoever compiled this gospel didn’t move things around, it is Monday, the day the women found the tomb empty. Yes, I am fully aware we celebrate Easter on Sunday but Luke 24:1 says “But on the first day of the week, at early dawn.” Sunday, the day of rest falls at the end of the week, at least according to Genesis, so it’s Monday.

Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary the mother of James, and the other women have all gone to tell the apostles “¹¹ But these words seemed to them an idle tale, and they did not believe them.” Doubting Peter, runs to the tomb, verifies there is nothing left but the linen clothes Jesus was wrapped him and “then he went home, amazed at what had happened.”

Seriously Peter? The women find an empty tomb then immediately seek out the disciples to tell them the Good News. What does Peter do? He goes home, by himself, to enjoy the good news all alone in his amazement. See what happens when men run the church? Why spread the good news to the world when you can just go hide it inside of four walls. I’m in a very feminist mood this morning. Prepare for a lot of pointing out the ridiculousness of the men who think they’re supposed to run the church and the glorification of the women who actually do, like nuns.

We then read on Luke 24:13 “Now on that same day two of them were going to a village called Emmaus, about seven miles from Jerusalem, ¹⁴ and talking with each other about all these things that had happened.” I don’t know about you but I haven’t the foggiest who “Two of them” are. It only gets more confusing when we learn one of them is named “Cleopas.” I don’t remember a disciple named Cleopas, do you?

Whoever these two presumed disciples are, Cleopas and… that other guy, they are walking along talking about how crazy the women are that are diligently going around telling everyone that Jesus Christ has risen. But, we can trust that they don’t actually believe it because who walks up beside them? Jesus Christ himself, and they blame their inability to recognize him on what I presume to be God.

Jesus strikes up a conversation. Maybe it’s a test to see if they’ll tell him the good news if a stranger assumes the initiative and asks. That’s probably not the best ministry strategy either. So far we’ve got two important lessons in discipleship. 1. Keep the Good News inside a building and 2. Only tell people who ask you about it. Hmmm….

Even more fun is about to happen when they respond to Jesus. Luke 24:19-21 “¹⁹ He asked them, “What things?” They replied, “The things about Jesus of Nazareth, who was a prophet mighty in deed and word before God and all the people, ²⁰ and how our chief priests and leaders handed him over to be condemned to death and crucified him. ²¹ But we had hoped that he was the one to redeem Israel.” I appreciate how they blame the chief priests and leaders as if they weren’t standing there shouting “Crucify him!” when Pilate asked if Jesus was guilty what should be done with him or later on, when he asked which one should go free.

Step 3 of Discipleship: Downplay your role in the whole thing. It’s all the pastor, anyway, right? Those chief priests and church leaders are the ones responsible for everything that is wrong with the church today.  ^“25 Then he said to them, “Oh, how foolish you are and how slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have declared!”

Kudos to the random disciple here, though, at least they offered him hospitality. Then suddenly, they recognize him. Personally, I don’t think it’s coincidence that when these bumbling fools finally do something right, extend hospitality toward a stranger, the can finally see Christ for who he really is. Provide shelter for rest, food and water, then suddenly, their eyes were opened.

Step 4 in Discipleship: Extend hospitality to meet the basic needs of a stranger to see them as they really are.

Step 5: Lie again like you already knew but were pretending you didn’t… here’s where you hit your head on your desk or smack yourself in the forehead. They had it for the briefest of moments… and then lost it again. “³² They said to each other, ‘Were not our hearts burning within us while he was talking to us on the road, while he was opening the scriptures to us?”

Return to a variation of Step 1: Hang out with your companions who are already believers and talk about Christ together amongst yourselves, then on to Step 2: Share the Good news only with those who initiate it.

Don’t worry, Jesus is going to try again tomorrow, as he always does.

Isn’t that just like us, though? I cannot count the number of church meetings I have been to where someone should do something about something, but no one does. Or, where we talk about, why is that church growing and ours isn’t? I don’t know, maybe it’s because we’re sitting here in a 2-hour-long meeting amongst ourselves speculating about what other people in the world need or are doing instead of leaving this building and going out into the world to spread the good news and invite people back to our homes to break bread together.

Sure, we might invite them to church (although let’s be honest, that’s pretty unlikely), but what are the odds we demonstrate hospitality to them and treat them like a human being? Maybe once they’ve proven themselves to us, but we sure aren’t going to take the initiative.

I believe the problem lies in who we’re learning from. We are learning discipleship from those who spent their days walking behind God, arguing about who was the greatest. We are learning from disciples who have self-proclaimed themselves “the disciples” despite the fact that they are doing very little discipling. We are choosing to learn from bumbling fools’ actions rather than the group of women who saw something amazing and immediately went to tell EVERYONE about it.

God did something, and the first thing they did was spread the news. They didn’t care who they spread it to. They told everyone they crossed paths with, whether they listened and responded or not, was irrelevant; they just kept going in order to tell as many people as possible what they had personally witnessed. Now, those were disciples. Those are who we should learn the steps to discipling from.

How to disciple in 2 easy steps:

Step 1: Witness something God does

Step 2:  Bear witness to others what you just saw