The Third Sunday of
Easter
Transcribed from a
sermon given
May 8, 2011 -
Mother’s Day
at
St. Barnabas
Episcopal Church
By Rev. Valerie Hart
Once upon a time there was a king and the king decided that
he wanted to honor the greatest citizen of his country. He wanted to give an
award to that one person who best manifested all that was good in their
country. So he sent out his advisors to scour through the country, talk to
people, ask and find out who is deserving of that honor. Well a few months
later they came back to the king and they had four nominees. It was up to the
king to choose which one of these four would get this great honor.
So the first one came in. He was a successful businessman
who had made a fortune but who continued to live quite simply and gave his money
away. He was a wonderful philanthropist, had helped thousands of people by
sharing all of his resources. Ah, indeed, someone worthy of the award.
They brought in the next person. The next person was a
doctor. He had spent his life serving the poor. He would share his gifts of
healing with anyone, regardless of whether they could pay. And while he had
been doing that he had also been studying and learning and finding new ways to
heal people. He had touched thousands of lives. Ah, indeed, someone worthy of
the award.
The third one was brought in, and this was the main judge of
the country. And this was a judge that was respected by all. Anyone who came
before him knew that they would receive justice, that they would be listened
to, that they would be heard. He had a wisdom and dignity and integrity that
everyone respected. Some people compared him to Solomon, which he, of course,
in his humility said that was not at all true. Ah, indeed, another worthy
person.
And then the king said, would you bring me the fourth. And
they brought in the fourth. And this was an older woman, dressed simply, humble
but carrying herself with dignity. He had never seen her before and he asked,
“what is it about her that you would think that she would be deserving of this
reward?” And his advisors said to him, “Well, sir, she was the teacher of the
three others.”
Sometimes we don’t recognize Christ when Christ is with us.
That’s the message of the journey to Emmaus. And sometimes we don’t recognize
greatness when it stands among us, especially when it comes in the form of
someone who nurtures, like a mother, or a teacher, or a Sunday School teacher,
or a nurse, or a friend or a sponsor, or someone else who helps us, who teaches
us, opens up the world to us in ways we couldn’t have imagined. We sometimes
don’t notice them, don’t acknowledge them, don’t realize how incredibly
important they are in the world. Sometimes we don’t recognize Christ in other
people.
The story of the journey to Emmaus is one of my favorites
and it is the favorite of many people. The reason it stands out so strongly is
because it is really the story of all Christians. It is our story, not just
those two disciples. See those two disciples were leaving Jerusalem. Jerusalem
was seen as the place you encountered God. They were walking away from God. And
they were unhappy. They were going through a dark time. They had seen someone
that they had hoped was going to be the salvation of their country arrested and
crucified. They had lost hope. They were grieving. They were confused. You
might have said they had bottomed out.
Here is one thing to remember as disciples on our journeys,
because we are all on a journey. It is those times when we are broken and
grieving and hurting and confused that we are most likely to be open to hearing
about hope and love.
As they walked along suddenly there was a stranger with
them. Now the stranger doesn’t preach at them, and he didn’t tell them what
they were supposed to believe. Instead it says that he opened up the scriptures
to them. He spoke to them in a way that they began to understand for themselves
another truth. They began to suspect, to realize, that there was much more
going on then they had ever imagined.
That’s what happens on our spiritual journey. Someone,
something, comes into our lives and we begin to say, “Maybe things aren’t
exactly the way we thought they were.” Maybe there is hope. Maybe God is real.
Maybe there is something more.
Then disciples on the road demonstrated their hunger for
more. When Jesus went to leave they invited him to stay with them. They wanted
to learn more, and what they got was the next step on the spiritual journey.
When we open up to the possibility that there is hope, to
the possibility that God works in amazing ways, we may have that moment when
our eyes are opened and we experience the presence of the risen Christ.
It can happen in a lot of different ways. We can experience
the presence of the risen Christ when we are reading scripture, or when we are
on a mountain top, or when we are deep in loss and praying at the hospital. One
of the ways that the church has constantly remembered and reflected the
presence of the risen Christ is in the breaking of the bread.
That’s how I came to know. That’s how I came to have no
doubt. When I went to college I got away from the church for about 15 years. I
was just beginning to start to go back a little bit, exploring, you know,
tentatively putting my toe in but not committing. Then one day at church, when
it got to the Eucharist, and priest broke the bread, and all of a sudden I was
surrounded by love. And the love was profound and around me, and in me, and
through me, and it was one of those mystical experiences that I will never
forget. At that moment I knew the presence of the risen Christ. No one will
ever convince me that Christ is not with us, because of that one experience in
the breaking of the bread.
The church gathers together every week to open the possibility
for people to experience the risen Christ in the community of the believers, to
experience the risen Christ is scripture, and to experience the risen Christ in
the breaking of the bread. And that makes all the difference.
As the letter from Peter says, once you’ve decided that
there is a reality there, once you have committed to God the father of Jesus,
once you have come into that community, then you have a responsibility. You
have a responsibility to love one another - to love as Christ loves - to love
and be an instrument of the risen Christ - to be Christ for one another.
Christ comes to us in many different forms. Most of the time
we don’t recognize him, but every now and then our eyes are opened. Sometimes
we experience Christ through nature, sometimes we experience Christ through a
book, or a movie. Sometimes our eyes are opened by a song or a friend, or a
teacher, or a mother.
Amen
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