Not like it was, but like it will be

Daily Devotion - April 26

I will send a brief message each day (except Mondays)
while we are pausing gathering in person.
- Kara

Our congregation has been journeying through a year of questions, asking, “Who is God and what is God up to?” and “What is a good life and how do we live it?” along with some of our ancestors in the faith.  

Here’s who we’ve joined so far: 

Today's Scripture was Luke 24:13-53, in which we meet up with the famous...Cleopas!
 You know, Cleopas…

I sort of love this because we don’t know. 2000 years later, we have no idea who he is, but he is name dropped here because of course the recipient of Luke’s letter, and everyone in the community of Jesus-followers at that time, would know Cleopas!  Nobody would think it necessary to explain who he is because it’s impossible for any of us to imagine that thousands of years from now, other people might be watching and learning from our lives and faith.

Based on a few different ancient historians from the early 100s, Cleopas is believed to be Joseph’s brother, so, Jesus’ Uncle Cleo.  According to John, Cleo’s wife, Jesus’ Aunt Mary, was standing by the cross with Jesus’ mother Mary when Jesus died.

We meet up with Uncle Cleo and his companion –maybe it’s Aunt Mary, or one of Jesus’ cousins, or maybe another friend from the group of those who followed “The Way.”

They are on a long slow walk from Jerusalem to Emmaus, seven miles away.  There is no rush, because, why?  When Jesus died the movement ended.  His friends and followers are hunkered down in in various locations, in a lockdown of grief and shock, reeling from the events of his death and the strange swirling rumors of resurrection.

And as they walking, they’re doing what Andy and I do every day now when we walk: discussing the latest news and gossip about what they’re facing.  Wondering what the rumors mean.  Trying to wrap their heads around the staggering loss.  Taking guesses about what life will look like after this.

And they are joined by a fellow traveler.  When he asks them what they are talking about, they stand still and stare at him, aghast.  What else would they be talking about? Everyone is talking about this!  How can you not know?  And he invites them to tell the whole story – from beginning to end, while Jesus listens to how all that felt normal is over.

I’ve maybe been living in some illusion that this stay home order and the virus and all of it will go from here to “over” – and we can go back to “normal.”  But they’re talking about waves – advancing and receding.   There is no telling what life is going to be for us in the coming months and years.  That normal we knew is over.

And as we figure out what’s next there will be lots of talk about restarting the economy, restoring the restaurant scene, reviving the art world, resuming sports - recovering what was lost, and resuscitating what may still be restored.  That’s all human work, and it will be good work, thoughtful and important work that will take cooperation, effort and energy on the part of all of us.  But it’s not resurrection.

Resurrection doesn't come to us sudden, sure and complete. Bam! – before becomes after!  Death becomes life! Old becomes new!  And it doesn’t come through our great faith – those early followers had basically none – or through our determination or effort or work to make it so – they didn’t have that either.

Resurrection leaks in through the ordinary moments of real life.  I love this resurrection story because they’re not doing anything dramatic.  They’re just trying to live their lives.  The things they do are human things, honest things, wondering together, grieving, walking, talking, eating, offering hospitality, sharing lodging, sharing food.  It’s almost excruciatingly ordinary.

Any resurrection-related action here is God’s, not theirs.  Even their recognition or not is God’s work.  Their eyes were kept from recognizing him; their eyes were opened and they recognized him.  They turned and asked each other, Were not our hearts burning within us while he was opening the scripture to us?

Jesus meets us in the normal, real moments of our regular real lives: walking along with us in our grief, inviting us to tell our story.  Sharing a meal, and there he is, suddenly hosting us a moment that just turned holy.

We most often recognize that something new is dawning not because it’s undeniable and grand, and fills us with total confidence and we know exactly what’s coming next, but because in the middle of the real right now, in times of unknown, loss and confusion, our hearts are strangely warmed.  Or for a brief moment, before it vanishes, our eyes are opened.  Or in a deeply familiar movement, something stirs in us and we recognize God right here with us.

This story reminds us that quite apart from anything we do or don’t do, can or can’t accomplish, God is doing something.  God is bringing something new out of impossibility.  Hope from emptiness, a future from nothing, Life from death: these are what only God can accomplish.

And when God does it, we don’t scramble to make it so, we do two things. 

First, we recognize and receive it.  Look what God is doing! Jesus is here!  The new thing is beginning!  And second, we go immediately to tell each other about it.  

This week it feels particularly poignant to me that we can’t be together.  It’s been too long, and things keep happening that we want to share with each other in person because that is what humans do.  

I’ve been to a couple drive-by and honk birthday parties, where the longing to reach out and hug each other feels like an ache.  Next weekend we will have an online funeral – which I know will be meaningful because the Church will be gathered together, and Jesus will be there - but it’s not how we’re used to seeing Jesus or being Church; it’s not like it was.

So in this time, we will be learning to watch for other ways Jesus is meeting us, ways we are not as used to.

And we will trust that God is going to lead us into something new, because God is. I am not asking each of you to have great faith about that. I am saying that is what God does, whether we believe that or not.  And as a community, together, we live this way – trusting God with our present and our future, being shaped by the Spirit into a people of hope.

It’s not up to you to somehow muster that faith alone.  Cleopas and the others didn’t believe those who told them about seeing a living Jesus after he died, they had their own encounters with Jesus and then God opened their eyes to see it, their hearts to trust it.

Cleopas and Aunt Mary or whoever are all settled in for the night with their visitor when they finally realize this is Jesus they’d spent the day with. When he vanishes, so do they; they grab their things and hit the road again, and rush all the way back in Jerusalem.

Deep night, the wee hours of morning, what does time matter now?  When they arrive they join in with everyone there who is awake and already talking about their own encounters with the Risen Jesus.

And suddenly Jesus himself appears among them, and still they think he’s a ghost.  It’s not until he asks for some food and they watch him chew and swallow this ordinary piece of broiled fish, like an ordinary person, that they feel comfortable enough to talk together with him, to begin to embrace the death of what was and start tentatively living into whatever this new resurrection way of being is going to be.

Perhaps thousands of years from now, followers of Jesus will be talking about the death and resurrection that happened to the Church in 2020.  When, for months at a time, the people of God could not gather together and worship as they had been accustomed to doing with each other for decades.

Buildings sat empty.  Programs shut down.  All business as usual came to a halt.  Lives and livelihoods were lost, and everyone together willingly gave up their ordinary lives to try and keep each other safe while the world scrambled to make sense of all that was happening.
And then, out of the death of what they thought it meant to be church, a new thing was born.

Because Jesus kept showing up in in their midst in ordinary ways.  And they kept recognizing him – not in all the ways they had grown used to seeing Jesus, but with all the essence, and truth, and luminescence that comes when the soul is awakened to the presence of God.  And they shared about it with each other, however they could.

And they let go of what was, and prepared to embrace what would be, trusting that God was bringing resurrection and life.

May it be so.
Amen.

(The sermons related to the folks we've joined this year are here: Hannah, Mary, Anna & Simeon, John the Baptist, Samuel, David (we had a theater performance, here's an older sermon about David), The Samaritan Woman, Mary of Bethany (preached by Pastor Lisa), Martha, Lazarus, Mary Magdalene, Thomas (preached by Pastor Lisa, follow up devotion here)

CONNECTING RITUAL:

Perhaps, today at bedtime, whatever time that is in each of our homes, we might pray again the Evening Prayer, and so join our hearts:

Lord it is night.
The night is for stillness.
Let us be still in the presence of God.

It is night after a long day.
What has been done has been done;
what has not been done has not been done.
Let it be.

The night is dark.
Let our fears of the darkness
of the world and of our own lives
rest in you.

The night is quiet.
Let the quietness of your peace enfold us,
all dear to us, and all who have no peace.

The night heralds the dawn.
Let us look expectantly to a new day,
new joys, new possibilities.
In your name we pray.
Amen.

(New Zealand Prayerbook)