The Third Sunday of Easter, May 4, 2025

Holy Cross Monastery, West Park, New York

Br. Robert James Magliula

The Third Sunday of Easter, May 4, 2025

• Acts 9:1-6, (7-20)
• Revelation 5:11-14
• John 21:1-19

John begins today’s gospel (John 21:1-19) by telling us that Jesus “showed himself in this way.” He sets the third appearance of Jesus to his disciples amidst ordinary circumstances. The disciples have returned to their old routines: the same boats, the same nets, the same water, the same work. John gives a lot of small, seemingly unnecessary and even strange details in which Jesus showed himself. I suspect we’ve all returned to the routine of our lives since Easter Day. Perhaps John is pointing us in the direction of where we might recognize resurrection in the small details and routine rhythms of everyday life. 

John tells us that they fished through the darkness, but their nets were empty. The darkness, however, was not just about the night. The darkness was also in the disciples. In the same way, the empty net is not only descriptive of their fishing nets, but also of the disciples themselves. They are as empty as their nets. We all know what it’s like to experience darkness and emptiness especially in the wake of loss. Those are the times when we come to the limits of our own self-sufficiency, with nothing to show for our efforts and nothing left to give. I suspect that Peter, whether he knew it or not, was fishing for answers more than fish, when he returned to his routine. All the others were quick to join him. We can leave the places and even the people of our life, but we can never escape ourselves or our life. Peter may have left Jerusalem, but he could not get away from three years of discipleship, the last supper, the arrest, the denials, the cross, the empty tomb, the house with locked doors. In the context of the failures, losses, and sorrows we have all struggled with the same questions as Peter, looking for some sense of understanding and meaning. When life gets difficult, when we become lost, confused, and afraid, when the changes of life are not what we wanted or think we deserve, we tend to run away. We try to go back to the way it was before, something safe and familiar. Often, we revert to old patterns of behavior and thinking. Even when we know better and do not want to go backwards it seems easier than moving forward. That’s when and where we can expect Jesus to show himself to us. Resurrection doesn’t happen apart from our life but in it. Resurrection is not about escaping life but about becoming alive.

Nets cannot be filled unless they are first emptied. In the same way we can never be filled with Jesus until we are first emptied of ourselves, until we come to recognize our limits. Emptiness is not the end or a failure but a beginning. The miracle begins when the nets are empty. That’s when Jesus, still unrecognized by the disciples, says, “Children, you have no fish, have you?” That’s not so much a question as it is a statement, naming their reality of emptiness.

As soon as Jesus is recognized by the beloved disciple who tells Peter, a naked Peter gets dressed and jumps in the water. Peter’s nakedness is a strange detail, telling us more than that Peter wasn’t wearing any clothes. In our stripped and naked state is when we are most available to respond to Jesus, Peter clothes himself in a hopeful urgency and rushes in toward Jesus. 

What places or circumstances of your life need to be clothed with urgent hope today? What new possibilities would be open to you? How do you need to enliven your outlook on life and the world? Whatever your answers might be they are the places in which Jesus is waiting to show himself to you. John offers us another detail which is important to remember. He says that Jesus is “only about a hundred yards away,” reminding us that wherever we find ourselves, he is always within reach.

When Peter went ashore and saw a charcoal fire, I wonder if he recalled the one where he warmed himself in the High Priest’s courtyard when he denied Jesus? Was he overcome again with regret as we often are with our guilt and betrayals. Whatever Peter might have been thinking or feeling was interrupted by Jesus saying, “Come and have breakfast.” Jesus invites and sustains us even in our guilt, regrets, and betrayals. 

Peter and Jesus then share a conversation about love, freedom, and moving forward. “Do you love me?” Jesus asks Peter, not once but three times. One question for each of Peter’s denials. Three times Peter gives the same answer, “Yes, Lord; you know that I love you.” I have no doubt that Jesus knew that Peter loved him, but I think that Peter needed to know that he loved Jesus. He needed to understand that he was not bound to his past. How many of us also need to hear and experience that again and again? With each question and answer Jesus drew Peter from his past and freed him to become himself and more fully alive. That’s what today’s gospel is about.

Jesus showed himself in the empty nets that were filled with 153 fish, darkness gave way to light, nakedness was clothed with hope, betrayal gave way to welcome, and three denials were forgiven with three affirmations of love. In resurrection we discover that we have a future. It’s a commitment to hope and being reborn. It’s a commitment to creativity, to the Spirit who “makes all things new” (Rev. 21:5). The resurrection event isn’t the end of the story but a new beginning. 

As with the other evangelists, John leaves the resurrection as a story to be continued with something left to do, something more to happen. It’s a call awaiting a response, insisting you and I give existence to more life, for ourselves and others. 

 To be resurrection for another we need to first be resurrection for ourselves by listening deeply, to the hopes, needs, and pain of our own lives and then act to create life for others.  We are the ones to continue the story of resurrection. That’s the way John describes it in today’s gospel with Jesus saying, “Follow me.”  +Amen

Easter 3 B - April 14, 2024

Holy Cross Monastery, West Park, NY

Br. Francis Beckham

The Third Sunday in Easter B, April 14, 2024

 

Acts 3:12-19

1 John 3:1-7

Luke 24:36b-48

 Click here for an audio of the sermon

May the words of my mouth and the meditations of my heart be pleasing to you, O God, my sustainer and my comforter. Amen.

In his 2002 novel Kafka on the Shore, Japanese author Haruki Murakami writes,

“And once the storm is over, you won’t remember how you made it through, how you managed to survive. You won’t even be sure whether the storm is really over. But one thing is certain. When you come out of the storm, you won’t be the same
person who walked in. That’s what this storm’s all about.”

Murakami is writing in the context of a fantasy novel, but to my mind, he might just as well be writing about the experience – the storm – of the Easter journey.

And what an experience it is! Such a rich mystery with so many layers. It’s a lot to take in, and one hardly knows where to begin in processing and understanding all the pieces, let alone the fuller picture – including its meaning for us, and what we’re supposed to do with it.

There was Lent, for a start, where we saw Jesus preparing the disciples and himself for the great work of Holy Week, where his earthly ministry reached its culmination, the words of the prophets were fulfilled, and the hopes of Israel were (temporarily) seemingly dashed.

Then Easter morning dawned, with those holy sisters coming out to the tomb from Jerusalem, prepared to perform what they thought was going to be the final task of a failed, finished saga, only to discover that what had seemed to be the death of a dream was, in fact, merely the opening scene of its second, even more thrilling, act. Through all of it, we experienced a whirlwind of characters and events including
fasting; ominous warnings of betrayal (and the acts of the betrayers themselves); triumphant donkey rides; a night of fellowship and feasting followed by unbearable loneliness and anguish; mocking and abuse at the hands of soldiers; perversions of justice and the cowardice of religious and government leaders; state-sponsored murder and the silence of the tomb; and just when all seemed lost, the surprise and
disbelief of the Resurrection.

Little wonder, then, that over the following weeks the disciples – and we – might struggle to make sense of it all. Our hearts know one thing, our minds perceive another, while all around us rages a storm of events unprecedented in all of history, filling us with awe, sorrow, wonderment, and confusion.

And so it is that we find the disciples this morning, still uprooted, disheveled, and reeling from the experiences of such an emotional – and, indeed, traumatic – storm, back inside the Cenacle as they struggle to understand “all of the things that have taken place … in these days.” They aren’t holed up there because they don’t want to carry on proclaiming the Reign of God; rather, they’re simply unsure now
of how to do it.

Before, they had Jesus with them. They were active partners-in-ministry, boots-on-the-ground, drawn to the movement by their shared love of God and desire to serve. But now, things are different. The disciples are different. Like the speaker in Murakami’s book, they aren’t sure what has even happened, if it’s really over, or what they’re supposed to do about it. So, they gather and wait for a sign.

I suspect it’s what most of us would’ve done. In fact, it’s exactly what I have done during seasons of uncertainty and unsettledness. When we know that what has worked in the past – be it a job, a city, a relationship, an identity, even a religion – will no longer be useful to us on our journey because of some shift in the lived reality of our lives (but long before a vision of how to move forward becomes
clear) we often find ourselves returning to our own Cenacles – our places of previous divine encounter and nourishment – to shelter, reflect, contemplate, integrate, and await answers.

So then, it’s no surprise that Jesus, working out of his own experience of earthly Life, Death, and Resurrection, decides to pay the frightened and discouraged disciples a few visits, first with two of them on the road to Emmaus, and then with everyone gathered in the Cenacle – the place of their last happy supper together before everything (and everyone) was going to change forever – to offer comfort,
assurance, and understanding:
“Peace be with you,” he begins. He has come to replace their disquietude with calmness.“Why are you troubled? Look at me and see for yourselves. You know ghosts don’t have flesh and bones. It really is I, myself. You know me.” He has come to replace their fear and doubt with confidence and certainty.

“Have you anything to eat?” He has come to replace their feelings of loss with a sense of familiarity and communion through memories of the meals they shared. Then finally, “These are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you. I’d already told you that all these things were going to happen – it just all seemed abstract until now.” He has come to replace their confusion with the knowledge that God is still in charge, and has been this whole time, even if it hasn’t felt like it.

These reassurances are important because, for the disciples, the real work was just about to begin, though not quite yet. In the verse immediately following today’s Gospel reading, Jesus promises them they won’t have to take the next step until they’re ready – and that God will make them ready through the power and
presence of the Holy Spirit: “And see, I am sending upon you what my Father promised; so stay here in the city until you have been clothed with power from on high.” Having visited and reassured them, Jesus knows they’ll still need a bit more time to process everything if they’re going to be his ‘body, hands, and feet on earth’ as so beautifully imagined by Saint Theresa of Avila.

There was a time (not very long ago) when I thought that fifty days of Easter was a little much. “Okay, I get it,” I thought. “Easter’s a big deal, but all these extra ‘alleluias’ in the Daily Office are starting to get really old.” Now I’m beginning to understand that, just as Jesus couldn’t expect the disciples to be ready to charge headlong out of Easter Sunday into Pentecost, neither are we able to fully recognize, appreciate, and integrate the Resurrection into our own lives without taking time to rest in it, have it remembered and re-explained to us over six more Sundays, and begin to form a vision of how we’re being invited to use our newfound insight and wisdom in proclaiming the Reign of God when the Holy Spirit draws us from our Cenacles at Pentecost.

We, like the disciples, have journeyed through the tempest of Holy Week and Easter – and, no doubt, many other storms as well – and are now gathered, discovering how we’ve been transformed and made new, and waiting for a sign of what to do next. It is now that Jesus reminds us of the mission we were born to undertake: “Repentance and forgiveness of sins is to be proclaimed in his name to all.” And we’re just the people to do it, because we’re all “witnesses of these things.”

May peace and all that is good remain with us during this Eastertide, and always.
Amen.

Easter 3 A - April 23, 2023

Holy Cross Monastery, West Park, NY

Br. Adam McCoy OHC

The Third Sunday of Easter, Year A - Sunday, April 23, 2023

 

Acts 2:14a,36-41

1 Peter 1:17-23

 Luke 24:13-35

Click here for an audio of the sermon

 

 

I love today’s gospel.  Of all the accounts of the resurrection appearances of Jesus, it is my favorite.  Until Jesus vanishes from their sight, it seems quite ordinary.  Two disciples are walking back to the village which is likely their home.  They are saddened and perplexed by the events of Jesus’ betrayal, trial, execution and death, and by the reports that he is in fact alive.  Luke beautifully captures their emotional state in the aftermath of these events, and all the better by having us accompany them as they walk those seven miles.  Luke’s skill as a writer invites us to join them as they trudge along, in no great hurry, talking with each other.  When a stranger appears, they are open to his presence and include him in their conversation.  The most natural scene in the world. 

          And another realistic touch.  When the stranger they have included begins to instruct them in detail about the scriptural anticipations of the passion and resurrection, they don’t seem to catch on at all.  They, like most of us, are not perhaps the brightest bulbs in the sign.  Imagine having a daylong bible study led by Jesus.  Of course they don’t know it’s Jesus.  But perhaps there might have been a clue or two.  Jesus’ response to them is a pretty big breadcrumb of a hint: “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.”  But our two friends don’t pick up on this at all.  And that too is realistic!  How often do we hear something that is the key that will unlock something for us, and we just don’t get it?  Cleopas and his friend are Everyman.  They could be anyone.  They could be us.  In fact, they probably are.

          They certainly don’t know their scriptures, that’s for sure.  Virtually every angel story in the Hebrew scriptures follows the same pattern as this story: In the context of some crisis or other, perfectly ordinary people are going about their business when someone appears.  Always a stranger.  But a stranger who seems to know what is going on.  The stranger introduces something new into the situation which changes things.  Then, only as or after he disappears, do they realize it was the Divine One.  A seemingly quite ordinary human person is revealed to be the presence of God come among them.  The story of the road to Emmaus is in this sense very much a of piece with God’s older angelic revelations to his people.  They are smack dab in the middle of one and don’t know it till it’s over.  And I think that has been the point of the story for Christians throughout the ages, and for us today.   It seems altogether ordinary when it is happening, and only later do we realize the truth.

          If Cleopas and his friend are Everyman, then we are invited to identify ourselves with them.  We may take it that if this is a story about how the risen Christ appeared to his quite ordinary disciples, then it is also a story about how we can encounter Him in our ordinary lives as well.    

          There is something attractive to me about Cleopas and his friend.  They are clearly stunned by the events that have just happened, but they are open to them.  They remember and recount the data but can’t piece them together.  They can’t find the meaning or the solution of them.  They are also emotionally open: they are obviously deeply moved.  But more than that, they are open to this stranger joining them.  In the culture of their time, that says something.  In their culture you just don’t invite strangers to share in confidence your deepest concerns.  But they do.  They are big hearted people, ready to invite a stranger in.

          “As they came near the village to which they were going, he walked ahead as if he were going on.”  I absolutely love this little detail.  There is a fine politeness, a gentility, about this action  of Jesus.  He’s not one of those who hangs around hoping to be invited.  We all know people like that - it is time to separate, and it is embarrassing to exclude someone who  obviously wants to be included.  But Jesus does the gentlemanly thing and moves ahead, avoiding being a possible cause of embarrassment to his new friends.  But thick as these two may be in some ways, they immediately understand the situation, and they invite him to join them for supper and the night.  An ordinary human kindness.  It is this act of kindness that makes opening their eyes to the Risen Christ among them possible.

          This story tells us that God is gracious.  The Lord does not press his new friends to invite him in, but gives them the space to open themselves to him.  It is as though we are being told that God will be close at hand, wanting to join us, but only when our hearts are big enough to reach out and invite Him in. 

          This lovely story has a clear message for all Christians.  It is telling us that we will find the Risen Christ already in our midst.  In Matthew 25, Jesus tells his disciples where to find him: “Inasmuch as you did it to one of the least of these, you did it to me.”  He is already and always here with us. 

          As we trudge along our daily seven mile journeys, pondering the things that have happened around us and to us, someone may unexpectedly join in our conversation.  Perhaps we should welcome that new voice.  It may be that our openness to including someone new in our lives, as the two on the road to Emmaus did, will open to us a new and unexpectedly blessed presence.  It would seem that the resurrected Lord is already here, waiting for our openness and welcome. 

          For monks - and after all, this is a monastery - this story of the unexpected presence of Christ has a special significance.  One of the most famous passages of the Rule of Benedict is in chapter 53, The Reception of Guests, referring to Matthew 25: “All guests who present themselves are to be welcomed as Christ, for he himself will say: I was a stranger and you welcomed me.”  This statement commands an act of loving charity to someone in their need.  The context of this act is the  resurrection.  All Christians, and especially monks, live in the expectation of the New Life of Easter.  To welcome Christ in every guest is to expect that New Life will in fact come right to our door.  We are invited to live in constant expectation of the inbreaking of the resurrection life in the most mundane of circumstances, in the person who comes to us hoping to join in some small way with us in our daily life, hoping to be included in our conversation as we journey on our way, if even ever so briefly.  The business of being a monk is the business of readiness for the inbreaking of the Risen Christ.  We should be trying to create an expectation of a wonderful greatness about to break in.  We should be practicing to recognize the signs of it when it starts to happen.  Our monasteries should be places where that energy of loving expectation is the light we see by and the air we breathe.

          Which leads me to share a final thought, perhaps a bit wild.  If we are to welcome every guest as Christ, what sort of expectation does that put on a guest?   We are all of us guests in different ways, at one time or another.  What does it mean to a guest that our hosts think that we might represent Christ?  Perhaps we should consciously try to bring Christ with us as we are welcomed. 

          Perhaps we are all called to be both Christ-welcomers and Christ-bearers.

Easter 3 B - April 18, 2021

Holy Cross Monastery, West Park, NY

Br. Aidan Owen, OHC

Easter 3 B  - Sunday, April 18, 2021

Acts 3:12-19

1 John 3:1-7

Luke 24:36b-48

Click here for an audio version of this sermon

In the name of the One God, who is Lover, Beloved, and Love Overflowing. Amen.  

Two or three times a year, often at the changing of the seasons, I look around me and begin to feel suffocated. The need to clean and clean out my space begins in my gut and my throat. I take almost everything out of my cell—furniture, clothes, books, even the pictures on the walls. I clean, and then I add things back in, though fewer things than had once filled the space. 

I do realize that I’m acting out an internal process. But that’s at least part of what liturgy does, too. As I repopulate my cell or my office, I try to pay careful attention to the hair-fine intuition that tells me when I have just enough but no more. I sometimes imagine that I’ll reach a point where I don’t need pictures on the wall anymore, where I can bask in the spaciousness of the expanse of white wall. I’m not there yet, and I’m mostly okay with that. 

This impulse to strip down to just enough is hard-wired in me and therefore part of the weird makeup of the strange person that I am. But it’s also an essential impulse to the spiritual life. John Cassian asserts that the entirety of the spiritual quest lies in purity of heart, which we often translate as singleness of heart. For us Benedictines, that is what conversion looks like. To purify ourselves—or, really, to allow God to purify us—until God can see her reflection in our eyes. That doesn’t mean we need to get rid of all the dirty bits. Really, it means that we need to drop the weights and the preoccupations of our lives so that we can breathe more freely, so that we can stop and really see Jesus standing before us. 

We see some of this experience in the Gospel accounts of the last few weeks. The disciples are all huddled together, in fear or grief or agitation. Then Jesus appears to them. Despite his walking through walls, he doesn’t do anything extraordinary. He doesn’t show off his superpowers, as if to say, “Hey, I’ve actually been God all along.” No, after telling them not to be afraid, he simply shows them his hands and his feet. He says, “it is I myself.” Then, as if to emphasize his humanity and his enduring relationship with his friends and disciples, he does what he has always done with them—he eats.  

It is all so simple. Just Jesus, holding out his still human hands, revealing himself yet again, and inviting his friends to a meal. 

When I was working in the hospital, I got a call that a woman in one of my units wanted to see the chaplain. As soon as I’d introduced myself to her, she said, “I want to convert to Christianity.” I was a little taken aback with the abruptness of her statement, so I asked her for some background. She was raised Jewish and had identified as a Jew, at least culturally, for most of her life. About a decade before, Jesus began appearing to her on the street and in her home—it turns out he still has little respect for walls. Eventually this woman found her way to an Episcopal church where she was going to Sunday Eucharist and participating in the education events. 

She repeated her question to me: “How do I convert to Christianity?” I paused for a moment before telling her that she had already converted. Jesus had come to her and called her. That was the conversion. I encouraged her to talk to her priest about baptism, but the conversion was already done. 

Like this woman, and like the disciples huddled in their room, whatever our past experiences it is the appearance of Jesus in the midst of our ordinary, worrying, harried lives that calls us deeper into the heart of God. We may have been raised within the Church, but I guarantee that we are monks or committed Christians today, not because of the way we were raised—though that may have helped—but because one day or over and over again Jesus appeared to us, held out his hands, said “touch me, know me,” and invited us to sit down and eat. 

It really is that simple. 

This Easter, I find myself called or recalled to that simplicity. I find I long for Jesus in a way that I haven’t since I was a child. My heart keeps whispering his name. The Cosmic Christ, Sophia, and the Lord of Creation are all lovely and beautiful. They all have their place. But deep within me, I want Jesus. That is why I am a Christian, and that is why I am a monk. It’s really that simple. 

The great Anthony Bloom connects this stripping down to the work of prayer: 

There is a degree of despair that is linked with total, perfect hope. This is the point at which, having gone inward, we will be able to pray; and then ‘Lord, have mercy’ is quite enough. We do not need to make any of the elaborate discourses we find in manuals of prayer. It is enough simply to shout out of despair ‘Help!’ and you will be heard. 

Very often we do not find sufficient intensity in our prayer, sufficient conviction, sufficient faith, because our despair is not deep enough. We want God in addition to so many other things we have, we want His help, but simultaneously we are trying to get help wherever we can, and we keep God in store for our last push. […] If our despair comes from sufficient depth, if what we ask for, cry for, is so essential that it sums up all the needs of our life, then we find words of prayer and we will be able to reach the core of the prayer, the meeting with God. 

Bloom speaks of despair, and that word might fit. But we might just as easily say “need” or “longing” or “desire.” Eventually, we find that even good things clutter up our lives and distract us from our need of God. To hold out our hands in supplication, to take Jesus’ offered hand in ours, those hands must be empty. They must be free. Another way of putting it is that we have to quiet our lives to such a degree that we can hear the whisper of Jesus’ name reverberating in our hearts. 

The promise of Easter is that he will come to us. He does come to us. Walls will not keep him out. He can push the clutter aside. He will hold out his hands to us, look us in the eyes, and say, “see, it is I myself, the source and the end of all your longing. Reach out, touch me.” 

It really is that simple. 

The Third Sunday of Easter - April 26, 2020

Holy Cross Monastery, West Park, NY
Br. Luc Thuku, OHC
The Third Sunday of Easter - April 26, 2020

Acts 2:14a,36-41
1 Peter 1:17-23
Luke 24:13-35

Click here for an audio version of this sermon.

Spirit of the risen Lord, fall afresh on me. Mold me, shape me, enlighten me, use me; that every word that comes from my mouth may be what you want said for the Spiritual nourishment of your people and for the greater glory of your name; you who is Father, Son and Holy Spirit.  Amen.

In one of her quotable quotes, Pema Chodron says, "When there is a big disappointment, we do not know if that is the end of the story... It may just be the beginning of a great adventure."

This is true of two of the disciples we encounter in today’s gospel, popularly called the disciples of Emmaus. They are going away from Jerusalem, Mount Zion, the Holy City, the Lord’s ‘holy mountain’, God’s dwelling place, built strongly compact! (Psalm 2:6, 122:3) The disciples are on a descent, both topographical and spiritual, from this very city, the city of God. They are going the wrong way: they have left their hopes in Jerusalem! The two have given up hope of, or at least are disappointed with, the Messiah that they thought Jesus was and are headed back home to Emmaus.

As disappointed people usually do, they are talking to each other about it. As he always does by making the first move, approaching without intrusion, Jesus invites himself to their discussion and journey. One of the disciples has a name, Cleopas, and the other one is nameless. We will come back to these two in a moment. First let us consider some broad thoughts or messages that today’s gospel passage is presenting to us.

One: The story is happening later in the afternoon of the Resurrection Sunday, and death has been defeated, but the news goes unknown and unheeded. The world is mute and filled with fear. Life has made a full circle from Palm Sunday. On Palm Sunday, the city was welcoming a messiah with jubilation and pomp. The Messiah has been crucified and the question is…what now? Unfortunately for them, they were looking and hoping for a different type of a Messiah, one who would reign from the throne of David. They conceive the wrong throne and in their eyes death remains the apparent king. The good news however is that God gives us the Savior we need, not the Savior we want. Israel has just been redeemed, rescued, and saved in a way way bigger than was expected. It can be compared to a teenager expecting his wealthy parents to buy him a used Subaru when he gets his driver's license, but dad buys a Ferrari instead and the kid doesn't know how to deal with the situation...mainly because the responsibility on his part will be bigger!

Two: There is a profound difference between knowing something and believing something. These two gentlemen know their scriptures well. In fact if they are the average Jew, they have the majority of the Old Testament memorized. The issue here is that they know in their mind. The problem is that the movement from knowing to believing is a supernatural act that they were not engaging with. The point of the Bible is not to know the Bible but to know God. You can know something without believing...you can know the resurrection happened but deny it every day with how you live. I can know that sin will kill me but not believe with my being. My behavior will tell you what I believe. There is always a chasm between what I know in my head and the way I walk with my feet. It is therefore understandable when Jesus scolds the two and by extension you and I: "Oh how foolish you are, and how slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have declared!" Jerome teaches that ignorance of scripture is ignorance of Christ. The Lord affirms the converse: Knowledge of scripture is knowledge of Christ.

In our Gospel today, Luke is wrestling with answering a question that we have found ourselves posing to ourselves… more than once I guess… if we are genuine Christians: How do I know that the resurrection really happened? How is it not a fairy tale like that of the Easter bunny that lays eggs, or the magical man that comes through the chimney bearing gifts at Christmas, or even those of the one eyed giants that were supposed to come and eat us as children if we lived short of expectations?

Luke gives us three discernible marks.

The first one is Scripture. In verse 25 of our gospel passage Jesus, beginning with Moses and all the prophets, speaks to them, all in scriptures written about himself. The point where Jesus starts should tell us something! Another author of quotable quotes, the Presbyterian theologian Tim Keller asks, “If Jesus didn’t think he could live life well without knowing scriptures inside out, why would we?”  Well, if you look carefully at everything from Genesis all through the Old Testament, the ties of activities and stories point to one thing: a life story, a face and a name: JESUS!

One of the Prophets that Jesus quoted at length at the commencement of his public ministry is Isaiah. (And I would imagine Isaiah was Jesus' favorite prophet because he happens to be my favorite, and Jesus and I have a lot in common!) Isaiah gives the people of Israel the hope of redemption by a loving God, who came to redeem us in the form of his only begotten son. This God loves us unconditionally; he is with us and continues with us in and through the small or great things that happen in our day-to-day life. It is he who is reassuring us (in Isaiah  43:1-12, a passage that I would recommend we individually read and do lectio divina on) that we should not fear because he has called us by name, he has redeemed us, we are his! He assures us that when we pass through the waters he will be with us and the waters will not overwhelm us! He tells us that when we walk through fire we shall not be burned and the flames shall not consume us for he is our God, the Holy One of Israel, our savior! He tells us that we are precious in his sight, honored, and loved! He continues to assure us not to fear for he is with us to the end of times. You and I are his chosen Witnesses. We are his servants, the chosen ones; so that we may help others know and believe in him. Before him there was no God and beside him there is no savior. Our two disciples are in for a lecture that doubles up as self-disclosure!

The second discernible point is the Eucharist. In verse 28, we hear that as they approached the village, Jesus pretended to move on but when invited did not decline the invitation. God takes our little gestures of love and makes them occasions for Salvation. He joins them for a meal and then breaks bread and their eyes are opened! When we gather at the table together and invite Jesus in our midst, something happens deeper within us, something mysterious, something mystical, something bordering crazy, something that you and I cannot put a finger on; but one thing it does is to enrich our individual and communal faith. We get courage to do the impossible.

After inviting Jesus and having this intimate encounter that opens their eyes to recognize him. He vanishes from them, yet he only departed in bodily form, for he remained nonetheless present, then as now, under the form of bread. Our two disciples took a seven mile return journey to Jerusalem at night because their doubt, their disappointment, and the fear that doubt and disappointment brings, had been lifted up! The word used for their setting out at once for Jerusalem in Greek is anistanai …"to rise up"... the very same word that describes Christ’s resurrection. They too, like Christ, have been raised to new life and filled with the glorious news, like Mary the mother of Jesus at the Annunciation and the Magdalene earlier in the day at the tomb; they cannot contain themselves! Converted, they make an about-turn and dash off to announce the victory of the Lord.

We hear the same in today’s first reading from the book of Acts. We see Peter also transformed by the resurrection event and of course the Spirit of the Risen Lord to overcome his fear, a fear clearly depicted at the passion, to become bold. He too “rises up” from the death that fear causes and preaches filled with courage, and this led to a mass conversion of about three thousand people! Something happens when we celebrate the resurrection together. Our collective spirit shouts from the rooftops… “He is alive and I know it….not because I have read it but because I have experienced it!”

The third discernible point is that You Meet a Person who has Met Jesus. In verse 31, we hear when the eyes of the two disciples were opened, they recognized him, he disappeared and they asked each other: "Were our hearts not burning within us?" They rose up, returned to Jerusalem and found the eleven and said "It is true; He is alive!" Earlier on, Peter, I guess had said, “I think he is alive,” of course from Mary Magdalene’s account, but seemingly nobody was believing him. The disciples are now confirming: Peter was telling the truth because we had this experience as well!

Now, If I were there when these two guys came back, in my mind I would be saying, Good for you, Peter; good for you, Cleopas; good for you, Nameless guy...but what about me? When do I get to meet Jesus? Maybe some of us are saying the same thing and asking the same question.

The good news this morning, however, is that you have met Jesus, maybe without knowing, because you have met someone who knows the resurrection is real because he or she has met the resurrected Jesus!

If you have never met someone who has met the resurrected Jesus, this morning I want to serve as your proxy. Some of you I know and some of you I don’t know, but I can tell you as certain as the sun will go down this evening and rise tomorrow, that I have met Jesus and the resurrection is real. I will testify about a few times out of many that I have met Jesus and mostly for me it happens when the battle or darkness in my life is at its thickest. However, it is important for you to recognize that it has nothing to do with me. It is all about Jesus. It is all about what he has done in my life, just as he has done in the lives of numerous others including all (or at least most) of you listening to me this morning, and if you haven’t met him yet, I hope today is that great day for you to meet him!

I was with the resurrected Jesus in March 2005 when I was leaving a beloved vocation and religious congregation. All looked bleak, lost and hopeless; but Jesus was there whispering to me all the time that all will be well,  I heard the following words very clearly in my heart one morning after a very agonizing and tearful moment of prayer: "I am preparing you for a life that will draw you even more closer to me because I want your undivided attention!" It never made sense at the time but I believed! Wasn’t my heart burning all the way as he led me to contemplative Benedictine Monasticism!

In November 2009, I had what appeared like a mild stroke and it was diagnosed as TIA (Trans-Ischemic Attack). I was terrified that I would get paralyzed on my left hand side that had weakened considerably. However the main issues were resolved within a week. I did receive a lot of visits at the Hospital and prayers were said almost round the clock by the Missionary Sisters I was working for at the time and by friends and relatives. In the midst of the fear, wasn't my heart burning because deep within me and from those who visited and called I kept hearing the voice of the resurrected Jesus assuring me that all will be well!

I met with the resurrected Jesus about two years ago when I was severely depressed and doubt about matters of faith assaulted me, but my heart was burning within me because he was there assuring me: “I am with you...there is grace for you because I am still here”... Words that seemed to come from nowhere! Wasn't my heart burning within me because I knew he was there and it was HE speaking those words to my heart!

I met the resurrected Jesus about two years back when he gave me a job that proved to be exactly what I needed. Not the money-making endeavor I was hoping for, or the rescue I wanted, but the rescue that I needed; a time of rest and healing combined with serving the needy so that I do not lose focus on the calling he had put in me a long time ago of service to the poor and needy! Wasn’t my heart burning within me throughout the duration I was on the job because he was right there with me and in the midst of it, drawing me back to him and back to his plans for me while I was busy taking the direction to Emmaus rather than persevere in Jerusalem!

Dear people of God, there is a difference between a heartburn and a burning heart! And I know from experience that people and events especially in the world, country and times we are living in at the moment, are capable of giving us both with a lethal dose of the first at times! I am however speaking of the later, a burning heart, that only comes from love or a realization that we are loved even when we don’t deserve it, and unconditionally!

Like Paul, I do not come to you with persuasive words, clever arguments, or anything of substance other than this: I have met Jesus. He is alive. He is risen from the dead just as he said! He is with us, He is in this church this morning and in a moment we are going to acknowledge him in the creed, and encounter, worship and receive him in the Eucharist, because if He is risen from the dead and He is God, we can’t do anything else but adore, worship and celebrate Him!

One question to ponder as we take a moment of reflection this morning and for as long as it lingers is...Is your heart burning within you? And if not, what is holding you back? 

Thine be the glory, Risen conquering son.
Endless is the victory, thou o’er death has won!
Amen.

Third Sunday of Easter - Sunday, May 5, 2019

Holy Cross Monastery, West Park, NY

Br. Aidan Owen, OHC
Third Sunday of Easter - Sunday, May 5, 2019

Acts 9:1-6, (7-20)
Revelation 5:11-14
John 21:1-19

Click here for an audio version of the sermon.

+ In the name of the One God, who is Lover, Beloved, and Love Overflowing. Amen. +

Our attachments will destroy us.

Whatever we cling to becomes a kind of rope to bind us and bring us before the judge, as surely as Paul did the early Christians. It’s easy to see how we make idols of our fear, our pain, our desire to have what we want, when we want, as we want. But our so-called “good” qualities can just as easily, and much more subtly, become links in the chains that bind us. Our desire to be good, to be right; our sense of justice and our outrage and injustice; our striving for spiritual gifts; even our love of the people and places that form the foundations of our lives—all these and more can numb and paralyze us, lock us into place like thicket of brambles.

Peter and Paul, the two great pillars of the early Church, and, for that matter, of the Church today, learned what we must all learn if we are truly to become Christians. We must, to paraphrase Tolstoy, learn to renounce the fantasy of a freedom that is not real and to embrace a dependence that we do not feel. Or, as Dorothee Sölle so beautifully put it: we must learn to be empty in a world of surplus.

We could all live the rest of our lives as good, loving Christians, which is to say as people who profess the name of Jesus and avoid at all costs the demand that name makes on them. Or we could consent to our total dependence on the one whose very name is Love. And we could allow that One to guide, correct, empty, and fill us however and whenever we need to be guided, corrected, emptied, and filled.

Part of the problem for those of us who call ourselves Christians today is that the story is too familiar. It doesn’t often blind us with its radiance. It wasn’t familiar for Peter, and it wasn’t familiar for Paul. And so they have something of an advantage on us.

Walking down the road to Damascus, on his way to persecute more of the early followers of Jesus, Paul was overcome by a light so bright it revealed the blindness in which he had been living. He knew he must change his life. And so he did, never turning away from that light again, so that he could write to Timothy, “I am already being poured out like a libation. […] From now on there is reserved for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, will give on that day, and not only to me, but also to all who have longed for his appearing.” (2 Tim 4:6-8)

Peter had denied his friend and lord three times before that friend’s brutal death. And so his joy at Jesus’ appearance colors around the edges with regret and longing and a love so poignant we can’t help but be swept up in its wake. He’s so overcome that he loses his sense and puts his clothes back on before lunging into the water to touch Jesus. He, too, knows that he must change his life. And he does, never again denying the One who fed him bread and fish on the shore of the lake, witnessing to the transforming love of the Resurrected One, even in his own death on a cross.

In their encounter with the Risen One, both of these men recognized that their entire lives would have to change. But still they consented to those changes. They still said their “yes.” And they renewed that yes every day of the rest of their lives, until they could, when it counted, pronounce their greatest “yes” and die in witness to the love of the one who had already died and risen for them.

And how could they lay down their lives? Because they had already given those lives back to the one who had given them in the first place and who had renewed them day by day.

All this talk of death may seem somewhat macabre, but it isn’t. Surrender to God, the willing return of one’s life to source of life is the consummation of the greatest love story we know. This death and the new life in the spirit it enables begin and end in love.

Father Alan Whittemore, perhaps the greatest mystic our Order has produced, had much to say of this topic in an essay he wrote on the real reason for becoming a monk or a nun. I quote at length:

The real reason, the only truly sufficient reason, for becoming a monk is to be crucified. That is what happens. The religious life is a contrivance of the Divine ingenuity whereby the soul may be crucified with Christ. The vows are the nails with which we are nailed to the cross. Incidentally we may spend many years in the religious life before the full significance and the dreadful pain of these nails is brought home to us.

That all sounds very grim. But it is true. Do not attempt to become a monk or nun unless you intend from the bottom of your heart to surrender yourself wholly to Jesus, to hang up with Him on His Cross in perfect submission to the will of the Father and on behalf of the souls of [all].

Still, there is a beautiful secret which I have saved to the last and which makes all the difference in the world. It does away with the grimness and renders of the religious life the dearest, sweetest, blessedest thing in all the world. The religious life is a love affair.

All souls are invited to become the brides of Christ. But the religious does not wait for the life beyond the grave. He steals a march on the others. 

Earlier in this chapter I gave several reasons for becoming a monk or nun. Did you notice that I omitted that which many folk outside the religious life imagine to be the true one? I have the feeling that most people think that monks or nuns were “disappointed in love.” 

Perhaps some of them were. God has many means of drawing souls to Himself. All I can say is that, though I have known a great number of monks and nuns very intimately, I never have happened to strike one who came to the cloister because he or she had been disappointed in love. 

On the other hand, I have known very many—please God, it is true of all of them—who were successful in love beyond all dreams or imagining. For they have heard in their hearts the whispering of the perfect lover. And it has been their deepest passion and their joy to surrender themselves to Him unto death, even the death of the Cross.

What Father Whittemore has to say of the monk or nun is equally true of all who would bear the name of the Crucified and Risen One. Bound up into the great love affair with God in Christ, we find that the choice to surrender all our lives to the one who poured out his life for us, who pours it out still, is not dreary after all. It is the most beautiful way we could live, the best and, really, the only way, to enter the flow of divine love within and all around us.

It is, finally, only love that enables our response of love. Jesus comes to each us in the most ordinary and the most extraordinary moments of our lives, reach out his scarred hands to embrace us, and says to our souls, “Yes, I love you more than these. I love you more than your fear. I love you more than that your joy. Now come, follow me.”

Third Sunday of Easter- Year B: April 15, 2018

Holy Cross Monastery, West Park, NY

Br. Joseph Wallace-Williams, OHC

Third Sunday of Easter- Sunday, April 15, 2018

To hear the sermon in its fullness click here.

"When you walk down the road. Heavy burden, heavy load. I will rise and I will walk with you. Walk with you. Until the sun don't even shine. Walk with you. Every time."  -----Touched By An Angel: Theme Song.

Third Sunday of Easter - April 30, 2017

Holy Cross Monastery, West Park, NY

Br. Josép R. Martínez-Cubero,OHC

Third Sunday of Easter- Sunday, April 30, 2017

Br. Josép R. Martínez-Cubero, OHC

Much of our faith as Christians is based on the Resurrection stories, and these stories are full of uncertainties and confusions. These uncertainties lead the characters of the stories, and us to ask questions. Questions are not just a stage on the journey towards solid faith, but a vital part of the work of the Holy Spirit. Spirit leads us by our questions. We need questions to grow, and a life of faith is a life of questions and of living in the unknowing. After all, if we had all the answers, we would not need faith. The Resurrection stories are about what we come to believe, and how we come to believe through confusions and doubt.

The early church referred to the Christian faith as “the way”, and the gospel lesson this morning is a story about what happens on the way. Jesus meets Cleopas and his companion on the way. He meets them where they are, on the road, amid their journey, in the middle of all the pain, frustration, and despondency that threatens to overwhelm them. They are on the road to Emmaus. And where is Emmaus? American writer and theologian Frederick Buechner describes it as “the place to run to when we have lost hope or don’t know what to do, the place of escape, of forgetting, of giving up, of deadening our senses and our minds and maybe our hearts, too.” The disciples dashed hopes are voiced: “… we had hoped that he was the one to redeem Israel…” Had hoped. We invested our hopes in this Jesus, but he was not whom we had hoped he would be. They are allowed full expression of doubt and disappointment before Jesus redefines, through the scriptures, their understanding, helping them to see how God is at work even through suffering and death.

Jesus leads the two travelers through a process of greater awareness. As they talk, and as they listen to Jesus, their hearts burn within them. It is the practice of hospitality, a practice that requires us to open our hearts even to strangers, and even when we don’t feel like it, that helps Cleopas and his companion to be open to the possibility of recognizing the risen Christ. As they approach their destination, and notice that Jesus seems to be planning to keep walking, they insist that Jesus stay with them. They offer hospitality to one they believe to be a stranger. Recognizing the risen Christ is an unconditional gift given by the Holy Spirit, not earned, not figured out, and not having to do with intelligence, but we have to consent. It is the practice of hospitality that helps the disciples to be open to receiving the gift.

At the table, Jesus, the stranger, their guest "took bread, blessed and broke it, and gave it to them". With this passage the gospel of Luke recalls the first meal in the book of Genesis, when Adam and Eve eat the forbidden fruit. In that case, "their eyes were opened" and they knew they were naked.  In this instance, "their eyes were opened" and they recognized Jesus. This is the eighth meal in Luke's gospel and thus, the meal of "the new creation." The long journey out of Eden is over. The new creation has begun. Later, in the Acts of the Apostles, Luke will describe the church as being a community devoted to "the apostles' teaching and fellowship, the breaking of bread, and the prayers".

Christian faith is nurtured where people share in worship through the scriptures, proclamation, and sacrament; with earthly means, such as water, bread, wine, and with gesture, and expressions of hospitality: the clasp of another's hand, the embrace.

“Emmaus always happens,” writes biblical scholar John Dominic Crossan. It is in this story that the early Christian community describes its life in those days, months, years, and decades after Jesus was crucified. It was in their engagement with strangers, with the scriptures, and in the blessing, breaking, and sharing of bread as he had done, that they encountered the Risen Christ in their midst, over and over again. It was by traveling two by two, from home to home, sharing meals, telling the story, bringing healing and good news, that those disciples experienced Jesus’ presence, saw His face, and then He vanished from their sight…only to turn up again as they walked down the road, sat at table, told the story, again, and again.

The story reflects the pattern of the Christian life as we, on our journey through life, live it out. Cleopas speaks of Jesus as paroikeis, which means one who dwells in an area as a sojourner. It is a spiritual truth that we are all on a pilgrimage through life. We are all sojourners, traveling on a spiritual journey, and that journey is communal. We cannot do it alone. Jesus offers to meet us where we are, share the scriptures so that we can make sense of our lives in light of God's mercy, gather us to the meal that we might be nourished by Christ's own presence, and send us on our way to partner in God's work and to share God's grace.

The journey of faith is the road to Emmaus, and that road is wherever we are. We are all on this journey of faith and questions. Jesus is beside us in the stranger, in the person in need, in the person at our table. Christ is waiting for us to notice him. He won’t barge in uninvited. That’s not the kind of power God wields. But Christ is available to be in relationship with us at all times, in all places, through all people, and through all the events of our daily life, our joys, our passions, our pains, our sufferings. Hospitality and openness make transformation possible, our transformation, our community’s transformation, our country’s transformation, and our world’s transformation. ¡Que así sea! ~Amen

References:
·      Frederick Buechner, The Magnificent Defeat (Harper Collins, 1985).
·      Cynthia Bourgeault, The Wisdom Jesus (Shambhala Publications, 2008)
·      Louis Weil, Charles P. Price, Liturgy for Living (Morehouse Publishing, 2000)
·      John Dominic Crossan, The Power of Parable (Harper One, 2013)

 

Easter 3 C - Apr 10, 2016

Holy Cross Monastery, West Park, NY
Br. Robert James Magliula, OHC
Easter 3 C - Sunday, April 10, 2016

Acts 9:1-6, (7-20)
Revelation 5:11-14
John 21:1-19

The miraculous fishing - Duccio di Buoninsegna 1308-1311
Museo dell'Opera del Duomo, Florence, Italy

The portion of John’s Gospel we just heard records Jesus’ third post- Resurrection appearance. The disciples have returned to their Galilean home and work. It’s Peter who announces this return to business as usual. After a long night of fishing and catching nothing, a stranger calls to them from the shore. As with other accounts of the risen Lord, he isn’t recognized immediately. After inquiring about their catch, he tells them to lower their nets to the right side of the boat. Having nothing to loose they do it. The net fills at once and becomes too heavy for them to haul aboard.

It’s in that moment of abundance that the beloved disciple recognizes Jesus. Peter, still naked from fishing, puts on his clothes and swims ashore. An impetuous and dramatic gesture which, unfortunately, leaves the others to struggle with the enormous catch. When they finally arrive on shore, they find a fire burning with fish and bread baking. Jesus then invites them to add some of their catch to the meal. The story concludes with a shared meal and a commission.

The roller-coaster ride of the disciples through the last week of Jesus’ life was filled with emotional highs and lows, culminating in the news of the empty tomb and the appearances that had to be seen to be believed. Experiences of emotional overload overwhelm the human spirit. At such times we often seek comfort, almost mindlessly, in familiar activities. We can fill in the blanks for ourselves. We all know those activities and things that we are drawn to for comfort. Peter’s announcement about going fishing can sound quaint and quirky, but the return to his former life and trade is not so surprising.

What is surprising is the point made that there is no escape. Wherever they go, the Risen Lord will be with them. The ordinary and routine will no longer be ordinary. Jesus is there waiting to serve and nourish them. This story is how the first Christian community recognized how God made provision for them in Christ. Throughout the centuries it has served to invite believers to that same realization. Through Jesus we are shown that God’s bounty takes in what we ourselves are and have. We too are invited to engage the rich truths of this encounter.

There are times in our lives when it is hard to recognize Christ. Situations and circumstances can overtake and overpower us. Senseless violence and injustice can shake our belief to the core. Great disappointments can rattle the foundations of our trust. At such times blindness rather than sight seems to be the norm in our lives. It is in that darkness that the Risen Lord claims us, not with cheap and easy answers, not with sentimental or magical solutions, but with the power of one who knows us and loves us as we truly are. In this encounter, there was no trumpet, no fanfare. He sees them, their condition, their situation, and in the act of being seen, the beloved disciple recognizes the Lord. Never underestimate the power and effect of being seen and accepted for who we are.

The lectionary today couples this text with the story of Saul’s conversion. Like Saul, we can be so sure of our mission, purpose, and ourselves one minute. The next minute, in a flash, we are thrown. The false self is shattered, clarity of sight and purpose are gone. All our plans and schemes vanish in the dust. We are left with our confusion, our blindness, and our loss. Conversion begins with restlessness in the heart. Often our disenchantment comes not from failure but from success. It is success that disappoints us because we had so expected it to be the high point of our life. We get what we want and we find it lacking. 

Saul was at the peak of his power. Yet, the story isn’t so much about Saul as it is about the way God works to change lives. That includes Ananias. In our need to control it’s easy to identify with Ananias. He felt the need, as we so often do, to run a competency test on God. “You must be kidding. This guy is out to get us! Are you sure you know what you’re doing? Are you sure you want me to do this?” Experience teaches us to be cautious about people’s ability to change. The story is a helpful reminder that conversion is not primarily about us but about God. Our task is to remain open to what God is doing in and around us, even when it makes us uneasy. A consistent theme in Scripture is that when God is the agent of change, all things are possible 

Whether with the disciples or Saul, these resurrection stories have power to transform us only if we encounter them in terms of our own lives. Christ is risen now. He touches our lives today. We are his; he feeds us as often as we choose to receive that gift in the Eucharist. He strengthens, heals, and sends us out to accomplish his purpose, whether we comprehend it or approve of it. Let this Easter season not be a time of celebrating the encounters of others with Christ, but a time for each of us to strive to meet Christ in the ordinary, to meet him in the unexpected, and even in the darkness. 

Of course, we have to have eyes to see. Only the beloved disciple recognized Jesus. It is the one who rested on Jesus’ heart. The relationship between resting in Jesus, being the beloved, immersing us in his presence, is key to recognizing him. Our most impetuous inclinations, keeping busy or seeking comfort, in whatever form, keeps us blinded to his presence in our lives and in the faces of those around us. There is a beloved disciple and an impetuous Peter in each of us. Resting in Jesus’ heart sharpens our spiritual vision and helps us recognize his nurturing presence in all circumstances. Having thus been fed, tending and feeding his sheep is a tangible way of staying in relationship with him, as well as expressing our love for him. Our religious experience is not a private affair. Whatever shape or form it takes, it is for the building of the kingdom

This story is a sort of epilogue tacked on to the end of John’s Gospel. It’s a dramatic appeal to us not to consign Christ to the past. This epilogue awakens memories of the darkness of our hunger, our flight from our true self, our failure and denial to recognize Christ in ourselves and others, but at the same time reminds us that none of this darkness has overcome the light. John’s epilogue affirms what his Prologue affirms. “The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.” (1:5) The Risen Christ still sees, still calls, still feeds, still empowers all of us, doubters and deniers. The real-life drama of Christ continues into the present moment and beyond.  +Amen.

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Easter 3 B - Apr 19, 2015

Holy Cross Monastery, West Park, NY

Br. José Folgueira, OHC

Easter 3 B – Sunday, April 19, 2015

Acts 3:12-19
1 John 3:1-7
Luke 24:36b-48

Pop-In Jesus

The resurrected Jesus appears to the disciples

In several resurrection appearance stories, Jesus pops in and he pops out. People respond in a variety of ways to his appearances. The variety of responses to Jesus’ popping in throughout all four gospels is hard to miss. Some people worship him immediately. Some don’t recognize him until there is some word, or action that reminds them of their former time with him, a calling of their name, a breaking of bread, a miraculous catch of fish. Some react with a combination of joy and doubt. In Luke the disciples responses to Jesus pop in appearances  vary. Once on the Emmaus road, disciples recognize Jesus in the breaking of bread, with hindsight they say that “their hearts burned” while he talked to them on the road. Yet, a few short verses later, they seem to join the other disciples in responding to his next pop in visit with terror, as if seeing a ghost. After seeing his hands and feet, there was a joy, but still disbelief and wonder. 

Jesus pops in and people worship, tremble with fear, rejoice, wonder and doubt. And, just when they get used to the idea that he is back, he has to leave again. How is that for a pop-in / pop-out appearance?

I have mentioned that people respond to pop-in Jesus in varying ways. He responds in varying ways to them as well, meeting them where they are, with what they need. He offers peace to the fearful. He offers a challenge to the slow of heart and the persistently doubtful. He offers teaching to the uninformed or the forgetful. He offers a blessing and a purpose to those he is about to leave.

When somebody in everyday life has a startling habit of popping in unexpectedly, we are tempted to say to them, “Next time, how about giving me some warning?” When they leave suddenly, we are tempted to say “Next time, how about saying goodbye and not just disappearing?”

In the odd plot of our lives in which people come and go, pop in and pop out, it is good to have one person we can count on and introduce to everyone we know. The resurrection appearances in Luke say to us, in effect: Consider yourself warned. Jesus is coming back at a time we cannot predict. And Jesus has said goodbye only to say hello. Jesus is with us in the presence and person of the Holy Spirit. He only left so he could stay.

Luke’s story of Jesus popping in to his disciples in Jerusalem is less well known, but is equally important. It revolves around a table instead of a tomb.

A meal is familiar territory for Jesus. He is famous for feeding the crowds of five thousands, notorious for eating with tax collectors and sinners. His hospitality reveals his desire to nourish people both physically and spiritually.

At a table, he eats with a Pharisee and forgives a sinful woman and institutes the Lord’s Supper. He later hits the beach to cook a fish breakfast for his disciples. Jesus offers a welcoming table and instructs his followers in the nature of hospitality with the words, “when you give a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame and the blind. Jesus welcomes everyone to his table.

Meals are not just about food. They are about companionship. The resurrected Jesus is a hungry Jesus. And Jesus is not hungry because he has been in the tomb for three days, but he is hungry to share a meal and celebrate life, hungry for them to become a new community of faithful, courageous living; hungry for them to break bread together and with strangers everywhere  until strangers are strange no more. This hunk of broiled fish that they offer to Jesus is real and physical and present, it becomes a tasted and smelled symbol of the love that binds them together, the love that binds us together, a sign of how God has gathered us and how God feeds us. And in the breaking of bread together, in the eating together, their eyes are opened, and they see Jesus for who he truly is. 

This resurrection account in Luke was so powerful for the early Church that in many places they seem to have included fish in their celebration of the Eucharist, as part of the resurrection meal. Even after the practice died out, the symbol of the fish became a sign for the resurrected Christ, and altars and church windows are adorned with the fish. Even bumper stickers. 

Every week as we gather here in this place, we live out this story over and over again. We come as friends, as family, to gather around this table, to hear the scriptures and to have our minds opened to new understandings of them, just as Jesus did with the followers in this story. 

When we share the peace in a few moments, we will speak to one another just as Christ does, saying “Peace be with you.” We speak to one another in all of our fear and doubt and disbelief, and we hear that peace spoken back to us in our own doubt and fear, mixed with disbelieving joy. As you reach to shake the hand, look carefully.... the hand you grasp may bear wounds. And then we gather around the table to eat and drink, to share a meal, and in the breaking of the bread and the pouring of the wine, to have our eyes and hearts opened to the ways that the Risen One is truly present among us, showing up to walk alongside us in our journeys along all the roads we travel, even though we do not always recognize him at first.

We gather at this meal for companionship and community, to hear one another’s stories of where we have seen the Risen Christ in the unexpected places in our lives, and to remind one another to look for Christ in the face of the stranger. That is why we include young and old, stranger and friend, in the meal. We eat not because we have already figured out who Jesus is.... we eat so that in in the breaking of the bread, Jesus can be revealed to us in new ways. And then we go out fed, but we also go out with Jesus resurrection hunger, hungry for the same things that Jesus is hungry for. We go out to bring others to the banquet, to feed others both physically and spiritually, and to offer companionship and love and community. We go out to look for the Risen Christ in the face of the stranger, to know him in the breaking of the bread in all of our eating, at this table or at our own. We go out from this table to be witness to the power and reality of resurrection.

Christ has no body but yours,
No hands, no feet on earth but yours,
Yours are the eyes with which he looksCompassion on this world,
Yours are the feet with which he walks to do good,
Yours are the hands, with which he blesses all the world.
Yours are the hands, yours are the feet,
Yours are the eyes, you are his body.
Christ has no body now but yours,
No hands, not feet on earth but yours,
Yours are the eyes with which he looksCompassion on this world.
Christ has no body now on earth but yours.

                                                               Teresa de Avila