Loving God, as we gather around this story today, open our hearts and our minds. Give us the wisdom to hear what we need to hear and understand to see the things we might otherwise miss. Meet us in this moment just as we are. We pray this in your holy name. For you are our rock and our redeemer. Amen.
Well, most of us have probably heard this story before. It’s simple. It’s pretty basic stuff. It’s walking and talking, something we probably do all the time. But, you know, it can be very profound. Is it real? I don’t know. I’ll let you decide that maybe, but I don’t think that’s the important question. I think it’s what lives inside of the story is where the truth lies.
You know, we are told there are two disciples walking from Jerusalem to Emmaus. It’s about seven miles and a stranger shows up out of nowhere. They don’t recognize him and they don’t know who he is. Now, one of the two disciples is Clausius Cleopas. I’ll try that. Cleopas. Now, he’s a disciple. He comes in first this part of the Bible, but he’s not one of the big twelve. And actually, I love that detail because it means that he’s an ordinary person. He’s a follower just like us. He’s someone that’s just trying to make sense of things. And yet, this simple person, this ordinary person becomes a witness to the resurrection.
Now, the other disciple is not named. Now, some say it could have been Cleopas’s wife, and I would love that because I don’t think there’s enough stories about women in the Bible, but as you heard, it was mentioned the very first evangelists, the women that came to the tomb were both women, were all women. And so, there is that part of the story. So maybe some say that perhaps that second disciple, whether it was the wife or not, was purposely left unnamed so we can step into the story. So we can imagine what it would have been like for us.
Now in Corinthians, Jesus had already appeared to Simon Peter. So these two are not even the first to witness. So they’re not special. They’re not first. They’re not even insiders. They’re just walking. And now this is something interesting about two people because in Jewish culture, in Jewish law at that time, there needed two witnesses to confirm if anything really happened. So even in that detail, it fits two people.
And then what stands out to me that we heard that this stranger Jesus was listening to the accounts of his own death. So people were telling him about what happened to him. And that’s a human thing too. Having somebody else tell us how things are in our own lives or us telling others, you know, how their situation is, what it means, how they should feel, what they should do without ever really listening without really ever asking what is it you need? Who are you? Without ever wondering what that person might be having to go through during that time.
Just like them, we assume that we know it all and they did. And they assumed he was a stranger. Did they ask anything about him? Did they show curiosity? Well, the scripture tends to tell us no. They just start talking. And it’s clear from the text they’re disappointed. Jesus didn’t do what they expected. He didn’t redeem Israel the way they wanted it. Instead, he was crucified like a criminal. In a way, if we’re being honest, they were doing what we now call mansplaining. They were telling somebody something they probably already knew.
But then Jesus responds and basically after he tells them what had happened, it’s like saying, “You weren’t listening. All of this had already been said. It’s been part of the story forever and they completely missed it.” And I think about the times in the other scriptures where Jesus told the disciples things. Don’t be afraid. It will be all right. We have enough. And they still worried and I think we do that as well.
So maybe that’s the theme here or at least part of the themes. We don’t always listen. Not to God, not to each other. Maybe even not to what’s right in front of us. So perhaps, just perhaps, this story is inviting us to do something simple. Simple yet kind of hard. Maybe it’s saying slow down. Maybe it’s saying be quiet. Maybe it’s saying just listen because there might be something, there might be someone right in front of us that could change us only if we made space.
And then there’s that disappointment. They were upset because things didn’t go the way they expected. But here’s the uncomfortable truth. They weren’t just disappointed. They were attached to their own version of how things should go. Does that kind of sound familiar? It does to me because we do this. I do this. Especially in prayer.
Later on, we’re going to say, “Your will be done.” But let’s be honest, at least for me, that might be the only time of the week I really mean it. Because most of the time, I’m putting in an order. God, do this. God, please fix that. God, I need this and I need it soon.
See, we want God’s power, but we want it aimed at our plan. There’s that saying, man plans, or in this case woman plans, and God laughs. Because when it doesn’t happen we just walk away like those two, just like they did because that’s what we do. They were walking away from Jerusalem, walking away from hope, walking away from a story they thought they could manipulate. They thought they knew the ending, the ending they wanted.
And 2,000 years later, not much has changed. But Jesus shows up. And we heard a sermon about showing up a few weeks ago. And he did it not with fanfare, not with power, and not to prove anything. He just shows up and he walks with them and he listens to them and he stays with them. No judgment, just presence. And maybe that’s the good news that Jesus is there with us with them.
Even in our disappointments, even in our confusing times, even when we are walking the very wrong direction, Jesus is there. And maybe sometimes he shows up in other people. And I know because I have felt that from many of you and this church. I have met people who care, people who listen, and people who will just sit with us when life is pretty darn hard. I have that experience and maybe you do, too. But I didn’t think, “Oh, that’s Jesus.” But maybe it really was. And maybe it’s up to us to show others that love of Jesus by just doing the simple things that many of you already do. And isn’t that what we’re called to do? Isn’t that who we are called to be when we say we are followers of the Christ?
You know, in my 20s, I struck up a conversation with a woman who was much older than me, probably my age now. We were talking and it was going really well. We were conversing and connecting and it was actually kind of fun. And she looked at me and she said, “Hey, why don’t we continue this? Let’s go grab a cup of coffee. Let’s sit down. Let’s talk some more.” But I got into my head and I hesitated. And then those thoughts kicked in. You know, we’re not the same age. I really can’t relate to her. we’re too different. You know what? What’s going to come out of this? We’re never going to be friends. You know, we don’t have anything in common. So, I told her, “No, you know, I don’t really have the time and I was nice talking to you, but you know, maybe some other time.” I said, “No.” I could see the disappointment in her eyes. And I’ve thought about that moment a lot over these decades because the truth is maybe she had wisdom to share. Maybe she needed somebody to talk to. Maybe, just maybe, there would have been a point of connection and I would have seen a little bit of Jesus. Maybe in that moment, the sacred could have happened. But I didn’t bother to see it because my mind wasn’t open, my heart wasn’t open, and my eyes certainly weren’t open.
And I wonder now, how many times in my life have I missed it? How many times have you missed it? Because we were not looking, we were not listening, and we were not open. So maybe in this scripture we heard maybe that is the true invitation today to pay attention to be open to listen to see because you never know who may be walking beside you. Amen.