Sermon

St. Philip's Episcopal Church, Durham, NC

April 6, 2008 - Third Sunday of Easter (Year A)

The Rev. M. Jonah Kendall

Luke 24:13-35

Well, it hasn’t happened yet.  Today, April 6^th, is my daughter’s due date.  But, it’s true the day isn’t over yet.  Regardless, however, the coming of this date has made things pretty frantic since Easter around the old Kendall household.  I think we have quite possibly done more since then than we had in the past nine months put together.

Take yesterday.  We spent the entire morning with a lactation consultant.  I didn’t even know such people existed.  Isn’t that all just a natural process?  But, it was really helpful.  I particularly enjoyed learning about a phenomenon called rooting.

Apparently, newborns have this innate desire to seek out their feeding source.  And no matter whose holding them, male or female, a baby will bob its head around trying to make that connection they have been created to search for.

The consultant said that they eventually grow out of this.  Now that may be true, they may stop bobbing their heads around, but I’m not so sure we ever lose that instinct – that inherent desire to bond, to be joined, and to be fed by others.

The other day I was talking to a member of St. Mark’s A.M.E. Zion church just south of us on the other side of the Durham Freeway.  He was telling me how torn up his parish is over the number of youth in their community that get involved in gang activity.  Feeling no connection with anything in society, feeling as if there is no place for them, they drift and drift, root and root until their need to belong is finally fulfilled by a gang that takes them in, gives them an identity, and feeds their need to feel safe, secure and a part of something.

He and others in his church are currently working to go out and, as he said, “put their arms around them, pull them close to guide them, give them support and the encouragement they seek.  It’s community, it’s belonging, it’s that connection – that’s what they want.”  “And that’s,” he continued, “something we’re all equipped to give.” 

I think there’s really something to this and I want to focus on this in relation to today’s Gospel.  For God has not only bestowed upon us the physiological gifts to create life.  God has also endowed us with the capacity to sustain, nurture and even restore life.  And God has given us this power in our ability to break bread.

On the day of Christ’s resurrection, Luke tells us that two disciples left Jerusalem to walk to Emmaus.  Now this is essential to understanding what this story’s about.  You see, Luke’s gospel is all about the journey of discipleship.

Walking and traveling are prevalent activities in his Gospel.  Christ, the disciples, even those who read his words, travel with Luke into the heart of Jerusalem, into the heart of God and the gift of new life found there in Christ’s resurrection.

And so in having these two walk way from Jerusalem, walk away from the other disciples, walk away from the events of the resurrection, Luke is making the point that these two are literally adrift – cut off and disconnected – that, for whatever reason, they are not a part of all that had come to pass.  They can’t even see Christ.  Instead all they can talk about is what others have seen and said, the peace and hope others have experienced, giving us the sense that they long for such things themselves.

It’s interesting to note here that Emmaus is the Greek form of a Hebrew word, Hammat, meaning, “warm spring.”  And, as the name suggests the town was named this because there were these restorative springs there that were renown in the ancient world for their healing properties.  And so the two disciples – cut off and adrift – are literally rooting for comfort and restoration, something to feed their needs and ease their longing.

Yet what happens?  They encounter a stranger, someone who takes the time to walk and share with them.  And it’s through this that they find their way back to Christ.

But it’s not the stranger’s words and ideas that restores them and sends them back to Jerusalem to be one again with the other disciples.  It’s the stranger’s fellowship in the breaking of bread.  The miracle here has nothing to do with magical waters, or Christ’s healing touch.  It’s the simple act of breaking of bread – the sharing of our lives and hearts that redeems.

As you come forward today to receive communion, open your eyes and behold the mystery shared.  In this, our principle act of worship, we celebrate the Divine Love made manifest in the simplest act of fellowship: sharing.  Christ’s body is sharing in the world.

The challenge is whether we can see ourselves in this bread, to be ourselves, his body going forward as those endowed with the very essence of his wonder, the wonder of hospitality and fellowship.

It’s at this point that I usually ask you all to think about your lives.  But, today, I’m focused on our life here at St. Philip’s.

Last weekend we had a Journey to Adulthood re-envisioning workshop here at St. Philip’s.  As I hope you know, J2A is a curriculum celebrated and used throughout the Episcopal Church that Amanda Smith and others here at St. Philip’s created.

J2A encourages youth to celebrate God’s gift of manhood and womanhood, while supportive and encouraging adults of the congregation help them claim their own gifts so that they may grow into the responsibilities of adulthood.

While there I got to talking with Charlie Steel.  Charlie’s a J2A veteran.  He’s been on pilgrimages to Alaska and Russia, not to mention the countless movies he’s seen.  To be sure, Charlie isn’t the only adult who’s given a lot to this program, but I’ve gotten to watch Charlie work on the vestry with one of our young adults, Jonah Binstock.  And I’ve been amazed by their relationship.  And so I asked him about it.

He told me he’s committed to the program because he was so thankful for how it helped his own children – and how he has discovered, for himself, the powerful impact these relationships can have.  How meaningful it can be when, to borrow that phrase from the man I spoke to from St. Mark’s, whenever we extend our arms out to others.

My friends, if you haven’t yet been a part of this program, I encourage you to see it as a wonderful way to break bread, to share your story and your heart with another, to make connections and discover meaning and hope.  I’m not saying this because our youth need this from us, they do, but because in truth it’s what we’re all rooting for.  I mean when I watch Charlie and Jonah together it’s hard to tell who’s feeding who.

What was it those two travelers said just before the risen Christ appeared to them?  “Stay with us, because it is almost evening and the day is now nearly over.”

My friends, if there’s one thing you need to do to be a faithful Christian it’s break bread, break bread, break bread.  For it’s all ...  It’s all…  It’s all in the sharing.

In Christ’s name, Amen.

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