What Pastor Jon Preached on Sunday, May 29, 2011

Sixth Sunday of Easter
Acts 17:22-31 • Psalm 66:8-20 • 1 Peter 3:13-22 • John 14:15-21

Then Paul stood in front of the Areopagus and said, "Athenians, I see how extremely religious you are in every way. For as I went through the city and looked carefully at the objects of your worship, I found among them an altar with the inscription, 'To an unknown god.' What therefore you worship as unknown, this I proclaim to you. The God who made the world and everything in it, he who is Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in shrines made by human hands, nor is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all mortals life and breath and all things. From one ancestor he made all nations to inhabit the whole earth, and he allotted the times of their existence and the boundaries of the places where they would live, so that they would search for God and perhaps grope for him and find him--though indeed he is not far from each one of us. For 'In him we live and move and have our being'; as even some of your own poets have said, 'For we too are his offspring.' Since we are God's offspring, we ought not to think that the deity is like gold, or silver, or stone, an image formed by the art and imagination of mortals. While God has overlooked the times of human ignorance, now he commands all people everywhere to repent, because he has fixed a day on which he will have the world judged in righteousness by a man whom he has appointed, and of this he has given assurance to all by raising him from the dead."

The apostle Paul was in a strange and unfamiliar place. He had had success spreading the mission of the gospel in southwest Asia and Greece. Threats to Paul's life dictated that he would go to Athens, and await his partners to return to let him know it was safe to travel again. Like any sensible tourist, Paul saw the many sights of Athens, and, eloquent preacher he was, he soon found himself holding forth before one of the centers of Greek culture, the Areopagus. It's as if Paul stumbled upon a lecture hall at Princeton, Harvard, or perhaps closer to home, the University of Chicago--a place of great, great prestige and honor, and a place that worships the rigors of the intellect. He began to speak of the love and power of Jesus, and naturally, the Greeks ask him, "May we know what this new teaching is that you are presenting...we would like to know what it means." (Acts 17:19-20)

And in response, we have Paul's speech as today's first reading: a counter- cultural proclamation that Christ is not found solely by what we know in our head, nor solely in our heart. To these Athenians who worship an “altar to an unknown god,” Paul proclaims: Christ is found by his total encompassing of our whole lives in God's embrace because of the life, death and resurrection of Jesus. Paul, missionary par excellence that he is, observes the religious culture permeating Athens, a culture based on the belief that God is not knowable. After all, they worship an altar to an “unknown God.” Paul sees worship to such a 'god' as perhaps a failsafe in case the 'known' gods—the gold, silver, stone or artistic idols he sees the Greeks worshiping—do not live up to all they promise.

Paul preaches that as unknowable as God may seem, God is not found in an idol or an altar. God is found in the one God has raised from the dead. "We too belong to this God...as God's offspring, God's family," Paul says. (Acts 17:28, 31) After Paul's sermon, a handful embrace Christ and follow Paul to his next mission. But most do not. Perhaps its because this learned philosophic crowd only can only embrace God if God is kept purely as a clean concept--a distant, perfect idea, an unmoved mover, the first cause. Perhaps the risen Christ Paul proclaims is so challenging for this gathering to embrace, because they have such difficulty accepting a God who has taken on the messiness of our own existence.

But this is precisely the God that Paul proclaims, and it is such a knowable, real, incarnated God whom Paul proclaims when he says, "God is not far from us." Like the Athenians we too hold up gods that get in the way of God becoming incarnate in us. When we walked or drove or biked to church this morning, what god did we come longing to worship. Is it the idol of experience, that God can't be worshiped unless we've felt it? Or is it the idol of intellectualization, that God can be found if we just take one more Bible study, or just get our questions answered. Idols not only can distance us from Jesus, they can divide us from each other.

But the God who raises Jesus from the dead is not a concept nor an idea; nor is Jesus an emotional high who entertains us. God is a lover of flesh, of human history, of Creation's history! God loves the embodied, lived circumstances and contexts of our lives. Such a God, in whom we "live, move and have our being" (Acts 17:28), comes to adopt us just as we are--as people who are paradoxically at the very same time both sinners and saints. Bound up as we are in this mystery, this paradox, Christ knows us as members of the same genus, species, offspring—heirs of God's eternal life.

Lest we think that Jesus is an idea only in our heads, an "opiate for the masses" (Marx), God comes and reveals Christ through our weakness and imperfectness--not as an idea we need to discover, not as a way for us to escape from our life's responsibilities. Jesus' empty tomb has freed us from intellectual assent as a requirement to be Christian.

And lest we feel that Jesus can only live in our hearts, God comes and feeds us with the true story of Jesus that breaks open our attachment to the god of our emotions. For as they rise and fall with happiness and sadness, we, as sinners and saints, will continue to find ourselves fed by Jesus, whose resurrection we have the opportunity to put into practice every single day of our lives.

For all the ways we create idols that push God away, Jesus finds a way to break through, to form us, to unify us, to gather us in the diversity we find in his presence among us. Together as people formed by Jesus' story and by one another's stories, we find Christ breaking into our human life, present just as much in our sinfulness as our saintliness. (Lathrop)

ELCA Pastor Rachel Larson, the wife of the late Pastor Ben Larson who died in the Haiti earthquake last year, says that the ways she experiences resurrection come in lived, paradoxical ways that express the hope of new life for Ben, but also honor the pain of his loss. (Click here to see her testimony.) "Where do you find resurrection?" she was asked. In hugs. In smiles. In offers of dinner. In invitations to coffee, she said. Rachel sees resurrection in the hope of a lived invitation to see new life even amidst the pain of death. This is an invitation that the love and power of Jesus give to us as our opportunities to witness to resurrection again and again. Sinners and saints like Rachel give us the opportunities again and again to witness to real resurrection—as we witness the gospel's power to the hurts of this world with our lives.

I leave us today with a story that recalls the service men and women our country will remember tomorrow. It's a story that speaks of the reality that we both carry as sinners and saints. At the end of the American Civil War, the Confederate Army surrendered at Appomatox, Virginia in the spring of 1865. As this bloody, brutal war, which had raged for four years, finally came to a close, the soldiers still alive felt a mixture of sadness and relief at the conclusion of such struggle. When Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain, the Union General in charge of the surrender ceremony, saw the Confederate Army coming towards him, he did something no training would have ever told an officer to do to a surrendering enemy. He ordered his Union troops to shift from order arms—a position where the guns sit on the ground at the soldier's side—to carry arms, where the guns are held in their hands. This was a position of saluting, of honor. The Confederate General Gordon, when he saw this, he made his men do the same. Here at a moment when the two armies should have been divided into winners and losers, when the Union could have been cheering, and the Confederates could have been ashamed, humility allowed them to see themselves in each other.

It is on that level—the level that sees us all as wounded and yet whole people of God—that we see Christ, not as unknowable, but as real and present in our midst. It is on that level, the level where we all stand as sinners and saints, that we are freed from striving after idols, and the risen Jesus changes us forever. It is in that freedom that we have the opportunity to reach out in word and deed to embrace our neighbors' heads, hearts, and hands—their whole sinner & saintly selves. In coming to us, the risen Jesus' embrace has made God known to us, so that with the apostle Paul and the whole body of Christ, we can embrace the world too. Amen.

What Pastor Jon Preached on Sunday, May 22, 2011

Fifth Sunday of Easter
Acts 7:55-60 • Psalm 31:1-5, 15-16 • 1 Peter 2:2-10 • John 14:1-14

[Jesus said:] "Do not let your hearts be troubled. Believe in God, believe also in me.In my Father's house there are many dwelling places. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, so that where I am, there you may be also. And you know the way to the place where I am going." Thomas said to him, "Lord, we do not know where you are going. How can we know the way?" Jesus said to him, "I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. If you know me, you will know my Father also. From now on you do know him and have seen him." Philip said to him, "Lord, show us the Father, and we will be satisfied." Jesus said to him, "Have I been with you all this time, Philip, and you still do not know me? Whoever has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, 'Show us the Father'? Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me? The words that I say to you I do not speak on my own; but the Father who dwells in me does his works. Believe me that I am in the Father and the Father is in me; but if you do not, then believe me because of the works themselves. Very truly, I tell you, the one who believes in me will also do the works that I do and, in fact, will do greater works than these, because I am going to the Father. I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If in my name you ask me for anything, I will do it."

It's really is good to see all of you here today. Really. I am so glad to be here and not to see an empty room. I was a little bit worried there for a minute yesterday, but... Thankfully there was no “rapture” yesterday, May 21st, as had been predicted by Family Radio personality Harold Camping. The so-called "rapture" was invented by a British preacher in the 18th century named John Nelson Darby. It is not biblical―there is no word for “rapture” in the bible. "Rapture” theology picks and chooses biblical verses that create what can become a fear-based belief that says, "if you are not saved, you not a true Christian, and will get 'left behind.'” Many live in fear, captive to this belief system, popularized in the Left Behind novel series.

A few years ago, Dr. Barbara Rossing, one of my seminary professors, wrote a book called The Rapture Exposed to deal with the unscriptural basis of “left behind” theology. She herself faced this fear on her college campus in the 1980's, after the book Late Great Planet Earth came out, pronouncing a similar end of the world date. She feared for her life. “Would I get left behind?” When these stories become popularized in the media, we can wonder too, “will we get left behind?”

At one level, “left behind” fears get at our fear of our mortality, and death is indeed a scary thing! It's something that our rapidly aging culture is being forced to deal with in a very real way. But how can we talk about the end times without being Scripturally or spiritually abusive and fearful?

One way that we often talk about death and the afterlife is in terms of our behavior, and our rewards in the afterlife for that behavior. "Has so and so been a nice person? I am sure they are going to heaven." The following story supports of this popular belief about heaven being a "reward" for "being nice instead of naughty."

Three men died in a car accident and met Jesus himself at the Pearly Gates. 

The Lord spoke unto them saying, "I will ask you each a simple question. If you tell the truth I will allow you into heaven, but if you lie....Hell is waiting for you. 

To the first man the Lord asked, "How many times did you cheat on your wife?" The first man replied, "Lord, I was a good husband. I never cheated on my wife." The Lord replied, "Very good! Not only will I allow you in, but for being faithful to your wife I will give you a huge mansion and a limo for your transportation. 

To the second man the Lord asked, "How many times did you cheat on your wife?" The second man replied, "Lord, I cheated on my wife twice." The Lord replied, "I will allow you to come in, but for your unfaithfulness, you will get a four- bedroom house and a BMW. 

To the third man the Lord asked, "So, how many times did you cheat on your wife?" The third man replied, "Lord, I cheated on my wife about 8 times." The Lord replied, "I will allow you to come in, but for your unfaithfulness, you will get a one-room apartment, and a Yugo for your transportation. 

A couple hours later the second and third men saw the first man crying his eyes out. "Why are you crying?" the two men asked. "You got the mansion and limo!" The first man replied, "I'm crying because I saw my wife a little while ago, and she was riding a skateboard!" (jokesaboutheaven.com)

As funny as this story is, it isn't biblical, of course. The Gospel of John's 14^th chapter, however, gives us a promise that offers us hopeful promises and images of heaven that we can put our trust in. They give the world the hope in God's future that we are craving. "In my Father's house there are many dwelling places. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you?" (14:2)

The good news about our future is that Jesus prepares a place for us in heaven. He does it by going through the cross of death, to bring us new life. He does it by coming again, to take us to himself, so that we can stand with him in newness of life. The King James Version translates "dwelling place" in verse 2 as "mansion". This can promote an image of heaven as us as individuals in a huge empty space. A heavenly “mansion” is a place that gives us a material reward, rather than a spiritual one. But the Greek word here means a dwelling, a home, an abiding household full of a community that God has gathered together. Jesus' promises here that the place where he dwells isn't a physical place―it's a relationship, an abiding presence that will not end, even in death. He is our way, our truth, and our life to God's dwelling place.

But lest we see that spiritual reward as something awaiting us, the abiding presence of Christ isn't just for us to experience in death. The home Jesus prepares for us, is an abiding relationship of trust that we get to experience now, as Easter people redeemed by Jesus' own death. He bridges the divide of death and life not based on our right behavior, but on whether we 'trust' that Jesus, in who he is, comes to make a way for us to God. He comes to make a relationship with a merciful God possible for us.

Jesus does not let anything or anyone separate us from one another or from himself. We will not get left behind in Jesus' presence. Communion with God, and with each other is possible because the cross has made us no longer belong to ourselves--we belong to one another, to the body that the risen Christ creates among those who hear his voice and follow him.

We will always begin with our sinful nature as the truth of our lives: that there is a gap separating us from God, neighbor and Creation. But Jesus uses trust to trump the gaps that come between us. He does it by doing what any of us does to build trust. He takes a risk. He puts it all on the line, so that we can be given life in his name. So that we can stand with him. In Christ we no longer belong to ourselves. We belong to one another.

So, it is very good to see you all here today. The rapture has once again been exposed! But more than that, heaven as our reward has been exposed as a lie. We get to dwell together today in the presence of Jesus who promises to go before us, to give us the experience of eternal life in relationship now...and forever.

Because of this, we can trust taking the risk to love one another faithfully as Christ loves us. We can take that risk because we have all been made one in him. This is possible, because that way to faithful relationship has been paved for us by Christ. In his name, let the heavenly community present here today say...Amen!

What Pastor Jon Preached on Sunday, May 15, 2011

Fourth Sunday of Easter
Acts 2:42-47 • Psalm 23 • 1 Peter 2:19-25 • John 10:1-10

[Jesus said:] "Very truly, I tell you, anyone who does not enter the sheepfold by the gate but climbs in by another way is a thief and a bandit. The one who enters by the gate is the shepherd of the sheep. The gatekeeper opens the gate for him, and the sheep hear his voice. He calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. When he has brought out all his own, he goes ahead of them, and the sheep follow him because they know his voice. They will not follow a stranger, but they will run from him because they do not know the voice of strangers." Jesus used this figure of speech with them, but they did not understand what he was saying to them. So again Jesus said to them, "Very truly, I tell you, I am the gate for the sheep. All who came before me are thieves and bandits; but the sheep did not listen to them. I am the gate. Whoever enters by me will be saved, and will come in and go out and find pasture. The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly."


What voice is the voice that we will follow that will lead us to life lived at its deepest level? What is the voice that we listen to that for us, reminds us that someone truly cares not just that we exist, but about the quality of our lives?

Jesus offers our hungry ears this promise: "The sheep hear my voice. I calls my own sheep by name and lead them out." (John 10:3) With so many voices in our families, friends, on television, in advertising...it can be hard to separate out what is the voice of Christ that leads to abundant life.

For Harold Crick, a quite literal voice was drowning out every other voice he heard. Harold was single, and worked in an IRS office. He went about his day counting the same number of brush strokes in his mouth on each side and how many stripes are on the crosswalk as he crosses to get across the street to get to the bus. He began to hear a voice describing his every move back to him. A voice coming from inside his head. The voice quickly helped him see his life is empty, full of dull routine.

Harold is the main character in the 2006 film Stranger than Fiction. Played by Will Farrell, Harold's character is the subject of an unfolding novel being written by the voice in his head, a writer named Karen Eiffel. As the voice of this writer continues to describe his every move, Harold struggles with the questions: is this how I'm meant to live: a life of safety, and predictability? Is this truly living? Is this what life is all about?

Jesus cannot help but call into question such a life that abides strictly to safety and security, rules and expectations. He calls such a life into question in the chapter that immediately precedes today's gospel reading in John chapter 9, the story of the man born blind. Remember our encounter with this a few weeks ago in Lent? Jesus asks the Pharisees whose voice are they following, as they drive out the man born blind—whom Jesus healed—away from the Temple? Is it God's voice? Or is it their own voice adhering to what they are familiar with, the new life given to a sinner, that has been revealed in front of them?

What voice can Harold and the man born blind follow into the pasture of abundant life—life that is fully alive, thriving and gives glory to God? It is the voice of Jesus, who shepherds us to life under his care, life that needs or wants nothing but his mercies, life that risks everything for the sake of the one whose voice promises to always lead us home. Jesus gives us the kind of life that we seek. Not a life of merely existing. Not a life that is without the risk of the thief or bandit threatening to take us away. Not a life that comes from our own manipulation. Not a life that consists of an abundance of possessions. Jesus comes so that we may have life in abundance in his name, life with a capital L, given as a free given gift.

So often the Christian faith is seen in the world as a life of rules and regulations for us to abide by. Jesus offers us a corrective for such an understanding. Jesus says that he comes not to rob or take away life from us. But to give it to us, and to give us life abundantly. As Irenaeus, the second century Christian bishop and writer once said, “The glory of God is the human person fully alive.” The abundant life Jesus comes to give is a life of freedom: freedom from sin, the forces of evil, and the power of death. The next time someone is asking you about what difference faith makes in your life, suggesting that Christianity seems such a legalistic and judgmental faith, share Jesus' promise of John 10:10—of why Jesus says he comes: “I come that they may have life, and have it abundantly.”

Recently I heard our Bishop, Wayne Miller, say that the question people are wondering most in our culture right now is, “What does it mean for me to live well?” I would argue that the church is the place for us to wrestle with this question. Here we can recognize that we have been given the greatest gift of all—abundant life in Jesus Christ—and ask, “How can our lives best express our thanks to God for this gift?” We will find that our answers to this question in the context of the body of Christ have more depth, breadth and possibility for life-sustaining answers than the answers we will find in all the other places we often look for seeking life abundant. We won't truly find it elsewhere, whether it's buying this product, taking that vacation that will make it all better, or finding that perfect job. Here we are given the promise of a home that proclaims the promise that is the foundation of an abundant life: a promise that Jesus' commitment to his flock is so unwavering he will even lay down his life for us, and in so doing he provides us with true life that does not end, spiritual life that feeds us our souls with the nourishment, community and care we so long and hunger for.

One pastor expresses the abundance of a life lived in the pastures Christ provides for us in this way, a proclamation he gave to a newborn member of his church. These words may speak to the many in this congregation who are expecting or who have recently given birth:

Dear child, life is worthwhile, because we belong to the flock for whom Christ is shepherd! Life cannot be always as safe and protected and sheltered as it is in the womb. But the abundant life given freely by God is a life where Jesus gives us the power to live in this world, to struggle and resist death and destruction. It is a life where we have been shepherded from death to life, and given a home to dwell in forever. It is the life lived under the care of the Good Shepherd. (Kysar)

The life we live together in Jesus' pasture is not a life free, however, from responsibility. Abundant life is a life we live not as a fantasy, but together with those around us whom God has placed in our lives. Together we practice the freedom of abundant, communal, “pasture” life in ways that over time build up into a life lived in abundance—ways that we live out right here at United Lutheran. Together we practice abundant life as we embrace weekly rhythms of rest and worship, tell stories, care for one another in injury and illness, and steward the resources of our households, our church, our society and our planet.

Harold Crick eventually found the way to abundant life. Without giving away the film's ending, he discovered abundant life not in striving to control and manipulate his future. He discovered abundance not by listening not to his own voice, or the voice of the novelist in his head. He found abundant life by listening to those around him in need. Harold found that abundant life given away to the other sheep in his pasture, laid down for the sake of others in the sheepfold, seems stranger than fiction. But in the end it is true abundant life we will find in giving away the life Jesus gives for us, just as Francis of Assisi proclaimed, “it is in giving that we receive...it is in pardoning that we are pardoned...and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.” Amen.

What Pastor Jon Preached on Sunday, May 8, 2011

Third Sunday of Easter
Acts 2:14a, 36-41 • Psalm 116:1-4, 12-19 • 1 Peter 1:17-23 • Luke 24:13-35

Now on that same day two of them were going to a village called Emmaus, about seven miles from Jerusalem, and talking with each other about all these things that had happened. While they were talking and discussing, Jesus himself came near and went with them, but their eyes were kept from recognizing him. And he said to them, "What are you discussing with each other while you walk along?" They stood still, looking sad. Then one of them, whose name was Cleopas, answered him, "Are you the only stranger in Jerusalem who does not know the things that have taken place there in these days?" 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, and how our chief priests and leaders handed him over to be condemned to death and crucified him. But we had hoped that he was the one to redeem Israel. Yes, and besides all this, it is now the third day since these things took place. Moreover, some women of our group astounded us. They were at the tomb early this morning, and when they did not find his body there, they came back and told us that they had indeed seen a vision of angels who said that he was alive. Some of those who were with us went to the tomb and found it just as the women had said; but they did not see him." Then he said to them, "Oh, how foolish you are, and how slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have declared! Was it not necessary that the Messiah should suffer these things and then enter into his glory?" Then beginning with Moses and all the prophets, he interpreted to them the things about himself in all the scriptures. As they came near the village to which they were going, he walked ahead as if he were going on. But they urged him strongly, saying, "Stay with us, because it is almost evening and the day is now nearly over." So he went in to stay with them. When he was at the table with them, he took bread, blessed and broke it, and gave it to them. Then their eyes were opened, and they recognized him; and he vanished from their sight. 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?" That same hour they got up and returned to Jerusalem; and they found the eleven and their companions gathered together. They were saying, "The Lord has risen indeed, and he has appeared to Simon!" Then they told what had happened on the road, and how he had been made known to them in the breaking of the bread.

Two friends were walking down a road. They were out of sorts. Their lives had been turned upside down. They were not yet able to comprehend what they had been told. Jesus had been their teacher, their Rabbi. He had been crucified. But they had heard that morning from some women they knew that they had seen angels at Jesus’ tomb. And the angels told them, “He’s alive!” No one had seen him, though. The two people could not yet believe that God had changed Jesus’ fate. Not even the words of angels could pull them from their disillusionment that their master was missing. “Where is he?” they said. “What are we to do?”

A man approached the two on the road, and without even hesitating, he walked up alongside them. The two men were astonished that he had the audacity to come to them, but something about his eyes said he truly wanted to talk to them. So they let him walk with them a while. He said to them, “What are you so frantically talking about?” They replied, “don’t you know, don’t you understand?!” And they told the stranger what had happened to Jesus, their Rabbi. “Our friend is gone!”

However reluctant or unwilling we are, Jesus is here today to walk with us. Jesus is here to be with us no matter where we are at, wherever we may be on life’s journey. Maybe you’re at that point today where God feels distant and dry. You just want Jesus to become real again. Maybe you’re super excited to be here, and think, “I get to hear God’s Word today! I get to be transformed by God. Yay!” Maybe you are just fed up with all pain and suffering in the world, and are saying, “Why God, why don’t you do something?

For some, we find it easy to believe Jesus knows where we're at today. And for others, we might be saying to him, “you don’t understand! It’s so hard! I’d rather not be here! Where are you?” All are acceptable, neither is better or worse than the other—they are different. They are where... we are at… today. And Jesus walks with us wherever we are at.

The man who had asked the two what they were talking about walked with them for a little while on the road they were traveling on. And while they were walking he interpreted the Scriptures to them. As they walked together, this man taught them that Scripture revealed a God who was a God of love who loved all: healthy, sick; rich, poor; women, men; the in, the out. Their spirits were lifted. During this stretch of their journey, the stranger had welcomed them. For no reason, he had taken time to be with them. He made them realize the God of Scripture cared for them.

And as they came closer to their destination, the man started to walk ahead of them. They said, “wait, wait! Don’t go!” Night was coming. They didn’t want this man whose companionship had brought them comfort to leave them. They they couldn’t face another night alone. “Please, come stay with us, for the day is almost over. Night will be here soon. Come and stay with us.” So the man went with the two.

Jesus is here today, and every time two gather in his name. We gather, and hear, speak and sing and pray words that all point to Jesus. In the Scriptures we read, Jesus reveals that he dwelt among us mortals. God is not a far off God who is “out of touch” with our experience. In Scripture, we hear that God reveals who God is in human form. God has walked on the Earth “in our shoes”. In Scripture, we hear that Jesus walks right beside us because Jesus experiences our condition—our fear, anger, sadness or gladness.

Not only has Jesus walked in our shoes, Scripture promises us a liberating Jesus. They proclaim to us a risen Christ. In Christ, God forgives us and renews our brokenness with his Word of transforming love.

As the resurrected Jesus walks with us, and interprets his promises to us in Scripture—our hearts get set on fire! We are not alone! The burning fire of a real, alive loving relationship with God burns within us. We don’t want this to end! “God, why can’t it be like this all the time? Please don’t let the light of your love leave us! Don’t leave us to our perils by ourselves! Don’t ever let us go!”

When the stranger and the two friends came to one of the friends’ homes, they were tired from their journey. So one of the two friends—the one whose home it was—offered them something to eat, and something to drink. So he brought before them a simple meal, which included bread. As they were about to start eating, the stranger took a loaf of the bread, and offered a blessing:“This is my body, given for you. Do this in remembrance of me.” It was only four days earlier that they had heard these exact same words spoken by this man. And instantly they realized who it was. Before they could even utter a word, or even touch him, Jesus—a stranger no more—rushed out of the house.

“HELLO! Were we blind? How did we not recognize him?” the friends thought. “Were not our hearts burning within us when he walked with us on the road, while he opened up the Scriptures to us?” Jesus had been with them only a short while, but he had liberated them from their fear, from the ambiguity they had been feeling during their journey. He was alive! Would they ever see him again? They couldn’t be sure. But what mattered was that they had seen their master, the one for whom death was not an obstacle. Jesus had set their hearts aflame. What would they do now? All they wanted to do was go and share this good news to everyone they knew. They could not contain this burning in their hearts. They had to share this all-encompassing love with everyone. And so they went back home, and did just that.

In Holy Communion today, Jesus invites us to his meal. Although we might still wonder if we’re worthy, Jesus welcomes us. Today, at this table, Jesus gives us a tangible, earthly form of himself. He feeds us. This is not an “untouchable” Jesus. Jesus touches us, and lets us experience him, so that our faith is not “out there” but right on our lips ad in our bellies...and it feeds us with resurrection.

Gathering, Word, Meal, Sending. This is the arc of the Road to Emmaus story. It is the story that shaped the way of life for the Gospel of Luke's community. It is the same four-part story we the church proclaim, in our weekly worship and in our way of life. As we complete that four-fold arc of worship today and every Sunday, we leave empowered to walk with all who long to experience a heart burning with the promise of the gospel. As the two were Gathered by Jesus, who met them where they were at and who fed them, in Word and Meal, Jesus then Sent them to share the good news. Today, Jesus today has Gathered us where we are at, formed us in Word and Meal, and he Sends us out, nourishing us the burning hearts we need to walk with others, and to feed one another with the good news of God's resurrecting love! Amen.