Known to Us in the Breaking of Bread

The Rev. Kathi Johnson

Easter 3 – 30 April 2017

Text: Luke 24:13-35

Our Redeemer Lutheran Church, Grand Prairie, Texas

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Happy Easter – again! On this, the Third Sunday of Easter, we have another post-resurrection appearance by Jesus. This story from the Gospel of Luke is another story set on the day of Jesus’ resurrection. It’s funny – we hear the big resurrection story on Easter morning, and then, maybe we forget that the rest of that day, Jesus kept busy, meeting up with his various disciples in various ways.

In today’s story, two disciples are walking along to Emmaus, and they are discussing the weekend’s events. To them, the events we remember on Good Friday are still fresh in their minds – Jesus’ crucifixion would’ve happened only three days before this. As they walk and talk, Jesus appears to them, but they don’t recognize him.

He asks what they’re discussing and they sadly recount Jesus’ trial and crucifixion and death. They talk about their hopes for Jesus, too: “we had hoped that he was the one to redeem Israel” – in other words, we had hoped that this was the promised Messiah, or anointed one from God. Then, in their limited understanding, they even tell Jesus about the resurrection as presented to them by the women at the tomb.

It’s worth noting here that - according to the Gospel Writer Luke - earlier in the day, when the women tell the other disciples about the resurrection, the disciples think that the women are full of it and telling an idle tale. So, as they are talking with Jesus on that road to Emmaus, they tell him, “Some of those who were with us went to the tomb, and found it just as the women had said; but they did not see him.”

The disciples still aren’t really sure what’s going on. And here is Jesus’ opportunity – after rebuking them for their foolishness and slowness of heart, he begins to teach them, interpreting things about the Messiah that they know from their Scriptures.

At this point, the narrative hits a little bump as they near the village. Jesus seems to be traveling on, but they ask him to stay – that strong hospitality ethic is at work here. So he goes into the home with them, and at the meal, he takes the bread, he blesses it, he breaks it, and he gives it to them.

And they know – this is Jesus.

Then, just like that, he’s gone.

And these disciples are left with their questions, but with new-found enthusiasm, they return to Jerusalem to find the eleven disciples and their companions and give them the news: “The Lord has risen indeed!” Then they tell what had happened on the road, and how [Jesus] has been made known to them in the breaking of the bread. And I wonder if they ever ate bread again without thinking of this meal that they shared with Jesus.

When I was growing up, my mom found a recipe for lemon-honey cookies in the Little Rock newspaper. She cut it out – it’s a tiny scrap of newspaper. I still have it, after all these years, amazingly. Almost every year of my life around Christmas time, Mom and I would pull out the recipe on the little scrap of paper, pull out the flour sifter and all the ingredients, pull out the rolling pin and the cookie cutters and the baking sheets. We’d mix up the ingredients and eat the dough. Every year, we’d forget to make the dough ahead of time so it could chill in the fridge overnight, so every year, we’d wrap it and carefully stick it in the freezer for a while instead. It was our ritual of love and companionship.

To this day, when I pull out the recipe on the scrap of paper, and pull out the same rolling pin and cookie cutters and flour sifter, and mix the ingredients, all I have to do is smell the lemon and the honey, and I participate again in the ritual of love and companionship that I shared with my mom all those years. It’s different now, of course, but the love is still there. The sense of companionship has changed, of course, but, whenever I make these cookies, I still feel a connectedness to my mom, to our years of baking, and to my history.

Now, what do lemon-honey cookies have to do with Jesus?

Today’s Gospel story gives us the beginnings of our ritual of love and companionship that we share with each other each week. Luke tells us: “[Jesus] took bread, blessed and broke it, and gave it to them.” Does this pattern sound familiar at all? This is the beginning of our own pattern of Holy Communion – taking something as simple as bread, blessing it, breaking it, and giving it out to anyone who is hungry for Jesus.

If we think that this is only about us in this room, we are wrong. We share this ritual of love and companionship with each other, but also with those first disciples, and with disciples of Jesus all over the world today, and with many disciples of Jesus in between.

The past two days, Renee, Mel, Hattie, and I attended our annual Synod Assembly – a gathering of hundreds of Lutherans from North Texas, North Louisiana, one congregation in Clovis, New Mexico, and one in Durant, Oklahoma. Bishop Gronberg invited many bishops and pastors from other Christian denominations to greet the assembly, and one was from the Roman Catholic Church.

Father Williams was tasked with speaking about the Reformation from his Roman Catholic perspective, which he did beautifully, and in the light of recent agreements made between our own Lutheran church body and the Roman Catholic Church. We still have areas of disagreement, of course – the role of women in ordained ministry being one of those areas - but we are working toward greater unity.

At the end of Father Williams’ speaking time, Bishop Gronberg opened up the floor for questions, and one of my colleagues lovingly asked Father Williams if he thought we would ever share Holy Communion, officially, as Lutherans and Catholics together. His answer was hopeful, and so greatly based on a theology of love and companionship, for he said that it is in Holy Communion where we truly find our unity as Christians.

At that meal in Emmaus two thousand years ago, Jesus was made known to his disciples in the breaking of bread. At our meal here in a few minutes, Jesus will be made known to us in the breaking of bread. In this meal, we find love, we find companionship, and we find the Lord, giving us hope and strength that we may carry on, and giving us the very love of God for us to share with others.

The Lord has risen indeed!

Amen.

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