Third Sunday of Easter, "Downcast on the road," April 26, 2020

A Easter 3 BFC 2020[1]

Luke 24:13-30

April 26, 2020

Cleopas had told Valeria he knew of a small backroad to get to the

rebel stronghold of Emmaus.  Cleopas said there was a halfway house along the way.  They could hide out there for the night.  But the more they walked, the more animated Cleopas became about the events over the last few days.  Unusually so.  She had seen him act this way before.  This was the way he acted when he knew he was wrong.  He would just go on rambling trying to cover up the fact that he had made a mistake.  Should she call him on it so they didn’t end up far down a strange road when night fell?  It was hard to tell.  They were both tired and hungry, both looking over their shoulders wondering when a Roman centurion might see them, hear the fear in their voices, and take them back to Jerusalem.  Roman soldiers didn’t need a reason.  Rome thought all Jews as prone to sedition, a barbarous and rebellious lot.   

           Rome and its colonizing law and order was not kind to the Jewish people.  It got inside their heads and made the Jewish community believe they were as Rome saw them.  For a moment, the prophet had helped them to see as Creator saw them.  For a moment.

           At times Valeria and Cleopas would both break into tears again.   They believed in this movement and now it was over.  They had staked their lives on this prophet marching into Jerusalem, creating a renewal for Israel when all around them they saw poverty, hopelessness, disease, and despair.  That was the norm.  Roman violence was like the hum in the background—reminding everyone to accept their fate, don’t question the Shadow of Death found around every street corner, etched into every piece of architecture dedicated to Caesar, and known in every legion of Roman troops that might be making their way on a rural road.  More than Valeria, Cleopas seemed to be sick at heart, hopeful as he described the communities of care the prophet had helped them to carve, despondent as he realized that they should have never made the movement more public by going to Jerusalem. 

           All of a sudden Valeria realized there was another presence walking alongside of them, like someone had snuck up on them.  She was about ready to go into full sprint when she just caught sight of the stranger.  The Romans had done a number on him.  His face was bludgeoned and it looked like he had been bleeding.   Cleopas just kept on talking in his bewildered back and forth between hope and despair.   The man came even with them and asked, “Sounds like you two have had a rough couple of days.  What happened?  Why are your hearts on the ground?”

           Cleopas went right into telling the stranger everything that happened.   Valeria looked at him in disbelief.  The guy was clearly a Jew but they knew little else about him. What if he was a Judean who might hand them over to the city authorities?  She elbowed Cleopas, trying to get him to hold his tongue, but he engaged the stranger in conversation.  “Whaaaat?  How can you possibly not know the events that occurred in Jerusalem this past week?  Are you the only one who doesn’t know?”  The stranger seemed to take Cleopas’s snide reaction in stride.  “What things?” he asked. 

“There was a great teacher and prophet that our religious leaders collaborated with the Romans to have assassinated.”  Cleopas went into vivid detail about everything Jesus did and said, how he got us to see the beauty in the world through ravens and lilies, how we stopped sniping at each other and lifted each other up to care for our sick, forgive debt to keep our farms intact, distribute what little we had so all of us began to thrive, and how he challenged the Shadow of Death found all around us.

“See,” Cleopas said, now verging on tears again, “we thought he was the one who might free our people from the domination and violence of Rome.  He had done it in Galilee.  We thought the next logical step was to go public with it in Jerusalem.  We were wrong. They killed him.  It’s been three days since this happened.  Now some of the crazy women who were part of our group went to his tomb, couldn’t find his body, and shocked us when theysaid they had seen a vision of angels.”  Valeria glared at Cleopas.  Only because the women saw it first, would anyone call them crazy.  She knew it was his way.  He was a little better than most men but he still assumed the same story told by women made it “crazy” . . .  and told by men made the story “amazing.”

“Men followed out to confirm what the women had said.  They couldn’t find the body.  This is all disheartening, and crazy, and scary and now we’re just trying to make sure they don’t hoist us up on a cross next.  He was a prophet for our people.  Now he is gone.”

           “This all sounds very familiar,” the stranger said. 

           Valeria interjected, “What?  I mean . . . how does any of this sound familiar to anybody?” Cleopas elbowed her back, reminding her that only in our Galileean communities had it become popular for women to be part of the conversation. 

           But the stranger seemed to take it in stride.  “I know this can be hard to understand.  Rome puts out its messages every day and we have come to accept them as the truth because they just put them on repeat.  What is your story though?  What is our story?”  Valeria and Cleopas looked at each other, dumbfounded, and then back at the man. 

           “Tell me what happens when the prophets challenge the Shadow of Death in each age?  Tell me what happens to them?  Beginning with Moses?  Does it go well with them?”

           “Well, yes,” Cleopas said, “they are the ones who are memorialized and given glory in our holy Scriptures.  That’s how it should be!”

           “Do you just lack the courage to see these things plainly?” the stranger said.

           “What?” Valeria said, “I mean, Cleopas is right.  That’s how it happens in the stories.”

           “That’s not how it happened.” the stranger went on, “In each age, prophets are ridiculed, thrown in jail, exiled, accused of treason, or executed.  They stir the pot, interrupt business as usual, speak truth to power, make trouble, question authority, organize a different vision, and refuse to settle.  Prophets are an inconvenient conscience.  Their glory comes later when the people come together to decide that it is not the Shadow of Death that carries the day.  Our people come together to say that God was and is in the prophet.  Why should your Galileean teacher and prophet be any different?  Was what he did true?  Did he bring the people together?  Did he seek their healing?  Did he give you eyes for seeing beyond the Shadow of Death that the Romans tell you every day?  Does that end with his death?”

           “No, no it doesn’t,” Valeria said, beginning to warm to the stranger’s challenge.  Cleopas looked more suspicious.

           So the stranger went on, “Look, I get it.  It is hard to understand because Rome’s repetition makes us believe that is the only truth out there.  The prophets tell us to defend the poor, but we lionize the rich. The prophets tell us that horses and chariots cannot save us, but we are transfixed by the apparent omnipotence of Rome’s shiny weapons, chariots, and war horses. The prophets tell us to forgo idolatry, but we compulsively fetishize the work of our own hands, Above all, the prophets warn us that the way to liberation in a world locked down by the spiral of violence, the way to redemption in a world of enslaving addictions, the way to true transformation in a world of deadened conscience and numbing conformity is the way of nonviolent, sacrificial, creative love.  Creator’s Word forever challenges empires and their pharaohs, kings, and Caesars to change and, for reason, that Word is forever opposed and met with violence.  This is inevitable—not because Creator wants it but because this is what the Shadow of Death does to those who speak hard truths.  They don’t want to change.

           “That’s our story, right?  It sounds like that’s what your Galileean prophet was all about.  He stood hand in hand with the poor, the sick, the dying, the outcast, and the sinner—like most prophets do.  How does the Shadow of Death and Domination treat them?

“Moses spoke the truth about all that and Pharaoh chased him with chariots and the people whined about his leadership style.  Miriam speaks up and the people turn on her.  Jeremiah had his words ripped up by the king and he was thrown into prison.  Elijah wins against the Baal prophets and the powers of that age threatened to kill him.  Even Esther risks her own life to speak truth to the Sovereign. Tell me, during their lifetime, what prophet gets all this glory?”

           The stranger looked both of us in the eye and said, “The Shadow of Death has been around for time immemorial.  Sounds like the question for you is not whether the movement dies with the prophet.  Sounds like the question for you is whether the movement dies with you?” 

Valeria reached for Cleopas’s hand, grabbed it, and squeezed.  They both turned from the stranger to look at each other.  Tears started to fall from Cleopas.  Valeria reached up with her right thumb to brush them away and smile. 

           Cleopas cleared his throat and turned back to the stranger.  “Thank you.  You have helped me to pick my heart up off the ground.  I think I was even harming my dear friend, Valeria, with my desolation.”  Valeria leaned into Cleopas and smiled.  She thought she could see the stranger smile as well but his face was so disfigured that it was hard to tell. 

           “These were hard things,” Valeria said.  “You spoke them well.  Thank you.”

           He nodded. 

           The halfway house was just ahead as night fell and the road forked just before it.  The stranger appeared to be going on, taking the fork on the road.  Valeria and Cleopas convinced the stranger to come with them. 

           “It is our way,” Valeria said, “the way of our people.  You certainly know this.  Abraham and Sarah grant hospitality to the Divine.  Lot and his family grant hospitality to angels.  Who knows what you may be?  It is getting dark.  Abide in the protection that God gives us.”  She smiled and extended her arm.  Cleopas shook his head in agreement.  Valeria was sure she saw the crease of a smile from the stranger. 

           As the night fell and the day began, the stranger reached into the small bag he carried with him and pulled out bread.  Cleopas and Valeria

had left Jerusalem with such haste that they had given no thought to food.  But the amount he had seemed only to be right for him and they both worried that if they stared too long he would feel obligated.  Instead, he said, “This is my way.  It is the way of my people in Galilee.”  The stranger then said a prayer over it, broke it in half, and gave half to each of them. In that moment, in the sharing of bread, both Valeria and Cleopas knew who he was.  He vanished from their sight as they knew they had been in the presence of the prophet. 

           “My heart burned within me, Cleopas, when he told us our people’s stories.”

           “Yes,” Cleopas said.  “He is alive.  The Shadow of Death may be immemorial.  But the movement will not die with us.  We must go to Jerusalem.”

           With a new day beginning and the sun setting, Valeria and Cleopas began the long walk back to Jerusalem.  To tell the others.  Tell our stories.  Grant hospitality.  Distribute bread.   Valeria held the hand of her good friend as they began.  And their hearts were warm and full.  Amen.

            

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[1] Based on an article from Ched Myers, “Easter Faith and Empire: Recovering the Prophetic Tradition on the Emmaus Road,” Challenging the Christian Right for the Heart of the Gospel, edited by Peter Laarman (Boston:  Beacon Press, 2006), pp. 51-67.