The Rev. Clare Fischer-Davies
St. Martin’s Church
April 26. 2009
Easter III B
“What if God were one of us? Just a slob like one of us? Just a stranger on the bus, trying to make his way home…”
That’s the chorus of a song by Joan Osborn, a song I’d never heard of until Wednesday – when Lindsay and Deborah both mentioned at our weekly staff meeting bible study. This wonderful story from Luke’s Gospel about an encounter with the risen Christ on the road to Emmaus made both of them think about the song – because that’s exactly what Cleopas and his unnamed companion think about the man they meet. That’s he’s just one of them – just an ordinary person – just another face in the crowd trying to make his way home.
Cleopas – who is never mentioned anywhere else in the New Testament – and his anonymous friend are heading back to Emmaus from Jerusalem. It is late in the day. The gospel introduces Cleopas and friend as “two of them”. That means, two of the inner circle of disciples that had heard the news of the empty tomb early that first Easter morning. Remember – no one at this point according to Luke, has seen Jesus. The women who had gone to the tomb to care for Jesus’ body find it gaping open and empty, and encounter two men in dazzling white who say “Why do you seek the living among the dead. He is not here. He is risen.”
The women run to find the eleven remaining apostles, and what Luke calls “the rest of them” – other disciples whose names are never given to us – and the women tell them what has happened – but the apostles and the rest, dismiss the women’s story as an “idle tale”.
So Cleopas and friend must decide that nothing more is going to happen that day, and they head home to Emmaus. What is it like for them? They have been afraid for their lives – afraid that their association with Jesus might mean their own crucifixion – they have been grieved at the death of their beloved rabbi – and they are bewildered by this extraordinary story the women tell of empty tombs and glamorous messengers.
They have plenty to talk about. And when this stranger begins to walk along with them, and asks what they are discussing – they pour out the whole strange, sad story – amazed that this person on the road from Jerusalem hasn’t heard it. The gospel says “their eyes were kept from recognizing him” – but it doesn’t take supernatural explanations to understand that. We all know how stress and sadness can overwhelm us, can make our brains work slowly – can keep us from seeing and comprehending what’s right in front of our eyes.
This man walking along with them seems to them just one of them – just an ordinary stranger trying to make his way home.
When they do tell the stranger their story, he dares to rebuke them – to call them “foolish” and “slow of heart to believe”. And he does with them what faithful, observant Jews still do today – he plunges them into a minute examination of the Law and the Prophets – a bible study – a midrash – to teach them that everything that happened in Jerusalem was done to accomplish God’s redeeming work.
But still, this learned stranger seems like just one of them – another footsore and weary traveler – and when they get to Emmaus, Cleopas and his companion urge the stranger to break his journey. “Stay with us – because it is almost evening and the day is over.”
And it is only then, when they are gathered around the supper table, and Jesus takes bread, blesses, breaks and gives it to them that their eyes are opened and they recognize him. And at that blessed moment of recognition – Jesus vanishes from their sight.
It’s odd, isn’t it – that Jesus appears to them first as a stranger. As just an ordinary person making his way home. I mean, wouldn’t it make more sense for Jesus to make a dazzling, unmistakable, unambiguous appearance to assure his grieving disciples that he is risen, indeed? Wouldn’t that make them pay attention to his teaching about what the scriptures foretold? Wouldn’t that establish his resurrection bona-fides once and for all?
In the past, I’ve always considered the heart of this story to be the moment at the supper table when Jesus is revealed to the disciples in the breaking of the bread. But this week, I read an article by an ethicist at Baylor University who framed this Emmaus story in a new way. The author emphasizes, not what Jesus does in this story, but what Cleopas and his companion do as they walk along the road. He emphasizes their hospitality.
Like many words that were once full of meaning and significance, hospitality has been somewhat diminished in modern usage. A conference provides “hospitality breaks”, which means you get a cup of indifferent coffee and some stale pastry. We talk about the “hospitality industry”, which means the business of running restaurants and hotels. We have, at least in our secular culture, long lost the sense of hospitality as a solemn and sacred responsibility.
Cleopas and his friend give Jesus and invitation. It is an invitation to come in off the dusty road, to wash the dirt of miles of foot travel off hands and face and feet – it is an invitation to drink cool water and then later a little wine – an invitation to eat something – and then an invitation to sleep, not out on the highway, but in safety and comfort within.
But there’s more to the invitation than just refreshment and comfort.
The Greek word that we translate “hospitality” is filoxenia – literally, the love of the stranger. In the Ancient Near East, the culture of the Old Testament and the great stories about our ancestor Abraham, hospitality was much more than offering a cup of water to a passing stranger. To offer hospitality was to take a stranger into one’s home and to offer both provisions and protection.
We, of course, would never do such a thing. When Gerry and I were in New York last weekend, we rode the bus from midtown all the way up to the Cloisters at the very northern tip of Manhattan. We saw lots of strangers on the bus. Never once did I think about taking one of them into my home, and promising to protect and provide for them. No – in our culture we are all about protecting ourselves. We are wary of strangers – wary that they will be a threat to us, wary that they will make a claim on our ever-diminishing resources. We think it would be height of foolishness to invite a complete stranger to come into our homes.
Well, it was certainly the height of foolishness in the ancient world, too. There was every reason then to consider a stranger a threat – to be wary that accomplices might lie just outside the firelight, ready to storm the house once one of their number was safely inside. There was every reason to hoard one’s resources in a subsistence economy stalked by famine and disaster.
But still, hospitality was a sacred responsibility – a divine imperative. It was at the heart of Jewish ethics, to care for and to love the stranger. Abraham welcomes three strangers in the book of Genesis – takes them into his tent and provides a feast for them – and they turn out to be God’s messengers, carrying to Abraham and Sarah the news that they will have a son. Abraham and Sarah, by offering hospitality to these strangers, entertain angels, unaware.
And part of the practice of the ancient sacrament of hospitality was not to ask a stranger’s identity until after the guest had been welcomed and rested and fed.
Cleopas and his friend initially think that this stranger walking along with them is a pretty dim bulb. How can he possibly not know what’s been going on in Jerusalem? How can he possibly not know about Jesus of Nazareth – who had filled so many hearts with hope, who had done so much good, who had been cut down by the religious and political authorities before he could redeem Israel.
When such a stupid and uninformed stranger begins to rebuke them, Cleopas and his friend might understandably cut that stranger off – what does he know? How dare he call them foolish and slow to believe!
But instead they listen. As they walk along, even thought they don’t know who this stranger is, they believe they have a responsibility to listen to him, to receive whatever the stranger might have to offer them. They don’t need to know who he is in order to practice hospitality. It is simply enough that he is a stranger, alone on the road as the day comes to an end.
What the Baylor article helped me understand is that hospitality is just as much about listening and learning as it is about food and shelter. If Cleopas and his friend had been unwilling to listen to the stranger – to walk along with him and receive whatever the stranger had to offer them – they would never have seen and recognized the risen Christ. They would have gone their own way much earlier, eager to distance themselves from this odd stranger who seemed to know nothing and yet dared to rebuke them.
One of the things I love most about St. Martin’s is this parish’s gift for hospitality. We really do try to welcome strangers, to offer ourselves to people as they walk through doors without asking first who they are. We are willing to offer ours resources to others – to share ourselves – and heaven knows we have a gift for enjoying each other.
But thinking about the Emmaus story this week has made me wonder if perhaps we would do well to cultivate hospitality among ourselves – to learn to listen to each other with more attention and consideration. We are, as a whole, a very extroverted group – we talk a lot and we have strong opinions. I have a feeling that if Jesus came to a vestry meeting, and started telling us that we were foolish and slow to believe, we’d show him the door pretty quickly.
What if God was one of us? Just a slob like one of us? Just a stranger on the bus trying to make his way home?
As we offer hospitality to the strangers that walk through our doors, what might it be like to at the same time, offer hospitality to ourselves? Perhaps we are more strangers to one another than we realize. Perhaps we have dismissed each other because we’re so sure we know what the other thinks, or because our own opinions are so fixed. Perhaps there is revelation to be seen, new inspiration to be offered, new understanding to be received if we can practice a little more hospitality with one another.
Hospitality is both a spiritual gift and a spiritual discipline. Cleopas and his friend offer hospitality to the unknown stranger long before they invite him into their home. They offer hospitality by listening and receiving what he has to say, by walking along the road with him and not dismissing him as ignorant and obnoxious. It is only at the end of that long day’s journey that Jesus reveals himself to them in the breaking of the bread.
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