A reminder about Shred-it coming up on May 3, 4:30pm-5:30pm. Bring your items to be Shred, $5 a box, and rest assured they will be destroyed securely. Extra space at home or work will be yours. The event is a good demonstration of the readings this week which emphasize Christian community
Today’s readings invite us into fellowship with the resurrected Christ and with each other. The reading from Acts tells how faith in the resurrected Jesus empowers the fledgling community of believers. 1 Peter further explores the redemptive work of Jesus, who ransoms us from emptiness and exile. Finally, the risen Jesus teaches two disciples from the scriptures and shares a meal with them, establishing a pattern we still follow in our weekly liturgy.
The reading from Acts is the first of the major summaries to link together the specific events and teachings of Luke’s narrative. These verses give an overview of the Church’s life and growth. Verse 42 mentions four aspects of that life. The “apostles’ teaching” was carried on both in public and within the community. Likewise the community continued to offer “the prayers” both at the temple and in the community.
The “fellowship” (Greek, koinonia) was apparent especially in the sharing of resources. This probably meant not an automatic divestiture of all possessions, but the placing of one’s assets at the disposal of the community to be used as needed. The “breaking of the bread” probably indicates a common meal that included the Lord’s Supper at which the table-fellowship of the apostles with the risen Lord was extended to the community.
1 Peter further explores the redemptive work of Jesus, who ransoms us from emptiness and exile. Believers are exhorted to a standard of life that reflects what God has done for them. The appropriate response to God’s greatness and goodness is behavior pleasing to God.
The image of ransoming, or redemption, is taken from the Old Testament where it has both a secular and a theological use. In Hebrew society an enslaved person or alienated land was bought back by the next-of-kin, and the first-born was bought back by the family. In the New Testament, the metaphor of the legal transaction of redemption is of great significance. Jesus applies the term to his death, and Paul also speaks of the price of Jesus’ blood. The term redemption is used most often, however, in the general sense of paying the price.
In the Gospel reading from Luke the risen Jesus teaches two disciples from the scriptures and shares a meal with them, establishing a pattern we still follow in our weekly liturgy.
The image above is a wonderful Tiffany stained glass window at St. George’s Episcopal and is based on the Gospel from Luke, showing Jesus and the two companions going to Emmaus. This window is loaded with most of Tiffany’s techniques of glass and color. Christ faces toward us, but the men are turned inward, a compositional device that gives the illusion of depth. The robes are made of drapery glass which shows the folds in their garments. Glass while molten thrown onto an iron table and rolled into a disk. The glassmaker armed with tongs manipulated the mass and by taking hold of it from both ends like dough and pulling and twisting till it fell into folds. The faces of Christ and the two individuals were hand painted with enamel.
The window shows the disciples are clearly perplexed about this stranger they encounter along the road. The two disciples on the way to Emmaus share the popular view of Jesus as a prophet and point to the hope that Jesus was in fact the expected prophet-like-Moses, "to redeem Israel" which in their mind would lead to the elimination of the Romans. In the window above they are stunnded the unknown traveler doesn’t know what has happened in Jerusalem.
As Cleopas and his companion walk toward Emmaus, they ache with an enormous void. It is a measure of Jesus’ vibrant personality that his death creates such emptiness. Clearly he was no shadow who passed unnoticed through the disciples’ lives. His exchange with these disciples bears the marks of honest speech: it is blunt, the language of rough roads, not the polite conversation of cocktail parties. They address him like the village idiot: “Are you the only stranger in Jerusalem who does not know the things that have taken place there in these days?” (Luke 24:18). He responds in kind: “Oh, how foolish you are, and how slow of heart…” (Luke 24:25). Not much political correctness here!
There is also a gradual shift in images. As Jesus interprets the scriptures, the disciples start to forget the bloody face and the bruised corpse. They are drawn into a clear understanding of the prophets and the necessity for Jesus’ suffering. Their hearts burn again, this time not with the persistent ache, but with the joy of recognizing the risen Lord.
The breaking of the bread was the epiphany as they now recognize Jesus. This postresurrection table fellowship with Jesus links the feeding during his early ministry and the pledge at the Last Supper with the eucharistic experiences of the early Church. Although Jesus’ physical presence is withdrawn, his self-revelation in scripture and his manifestation in the eucharist remain. The pattern of word and sacrament in the story becomes that of the Christian liturgy and life that we enjoy today.
After an exhausting seven-mile trudge, they are energized to repeat their steps: without resting, they return to Jerusalem, their feet barely touching the ground. Clearly the community is revived with what they tell them about their encounter with Christ.
Father Frank Sokol finds in their story a paradigm for us all. Jesus’ question, “What are you discussing with each other while you walk along?” (Luke 24:17) translates to “What are your daily concerns?” Jesus then injects this ordinary stuff with divine light. He shows them how scripture has direct bearing on their present sorrow and he reveals himself in the breaking of bread.
The disciples model the Christian response by offering hospitality to the hungry, homeless stranger late at night. In the stranger, they then discover the face of Christ. We, too, hearing the gospel, ask ourselves, what does it call us to do? The roads we travel, like the one to Emmaus, are holy paths.