Eleventh Sunday after Pentecost

31:41 Would you pray with me? Most holy God, speak now, as you always have, to the hearts of your people. Quiet in us every voice but your own, that we will hear you clearly and follow you closely. Amen.

32:05 This summer, Fifth Avenue Presbyterian Church has been taking time to pause with Jesus at the table. We've looked at episodes of the life of Christ where he sits with people to share a meal and ends up sharing so much more. We've seen him with tax collectors, with people he shouldn't have eaten with. We've seen him with his close friends and those who were drawn to the magnetism of his personality. And so far we've seen Jesus as a prominent person, or at least someone who's familiar. But set before us today is an episode of Jesus in anonymity. Jesus appears to us here hidden, veiled. He's served to us as a stranger who is welcomed in by a pair of disciples who offer him what they have, and they end up receiving much more than they could have imagined.

33:07 Before we begin our look at today's passage, a little background to set the scene for you. It's Easter Sunday, and two disciples, one of them is named Cleopas, and the other's name we don't know. It's lost to time. They're on the road, a seven-mile journey from Jerusalem to a village called Emmaus. As they journey, they're discussing the bewildering events of the past seven days regarding their rabbi, Jesus of Nazareth. As they trek, a stranger approaches them and begins eavesdropping on their conversation. This mysterious figure feigns ignorance about all that had been going on in Jerusalem over the Passover weekend. And so our two hiking buddies fill in this nosy man on everything. They tell him that Jesus had been murdered by the religious leaders in a conspiracy with an occupying army.

34:10 They share their dismay that this great prophet of God was gone. They're despondent that Jesus' mission to restore Israel had apparently failed. the powerful had once again defeated the righteous, or so they thought. They also share some rumors that had begun to spread that very morning before they set out. Some of their compatriots claimed that they had gone back to Jesus's tomb and found it empty, casting confusion and perhaps a sliver of hope across the whole situation. And upon hearing this, our stranger on the road becomes indignant at their ignorance. Don't you get it? He says to them, Moses and the prophets told us all this was coming. The stranger launches into a seminary lecture of the Hebrew Bible, pointing to all the moments that should have tipped them off. It was always going to happen this way. God, the stranger says, is not as surprised about all of this as you are.

35:24 As the lecture concludes, darkness begins to fall, and the village of Emmaus becomes visible on the horizon, which is where we pick up Luke's account. Listen now for the word of God as it comes to us from the Gospel of Luke, chapter 24, beginning with the 28th verse.

36:58 This is the word of God for you, the people of God. Thanks be to God. College was a fruitful season of community in my life. I attended undergrad close to my hometown at Arizona State University. So sorry to the University of Arizona fans in the room, Jesse, Darby, if you're here, if you're watching later. I'm sorry. But because I didn't venture far from home, I grew up nearby, I was able to stay closely connected to my family, my friends from high school, and my local spiritual community, the place where I had grown to know Jesus. I was a volunteer leader with a youth ministry that I had been involved with as a high school student when I was a teenager. And from a spiritual perspective, though, the place, the location of richest growth in my life was the back porch of one of my mentors, a guy named Mark. Mark hosted a small group Bible study every Thursday night. He was an elder in my community, and he delighted in having younger folks over to his place to study scripture.

38:14 He lived in my hometown. He was a professor of communication at ASU, my college. But before that, Mark had spent years doing ministry with U.S. service members on military bases in Europe. But before that, Mark was, get this, an Air Force fighter pilot. So as a 20-year-old man with a new passion for Jesus and a hunger for knowledge, of course, this was the place I wanted to be. I wanted to learn from the fighter pilot. So me and a group of other zealous young men, predominantly, would sit on his back porch, even in the dead of an Arizona summer, for three hours or more every week. We would read, we would pray, we would talk about life and faith.

39:07 And we sat outside because Mark liked cigars. A lot. And so for those few hours, the rest of us did too, or at least we pretended that we did. I think most of us wanted to come because we wanted to know what he knew. He had a library full of thick, leather-bound books about theology and biblical studies, and we knew that he was pulling them out every week to prepare for our time together. And we wanted just a little bit of what he had mined from those texts. We thought of him as a guy with all the answers and a cool story to share with us along the way. But as we sat together, wreathed in heavy cigar smoke, we discovered something that was much more valuable than knowledge.

40:00 Intimacy. Mark shared what God was doing in his life as we read scripture together. He confessed to us the ways that he had fallen short that week as a father and as a husband. He gave us a model for life that's based on God's grace and fed by a closeness to Jesus.

40:23 And that made a safe place for me and my peers to do the same. On Mark's back porch, I shared deep secrets, things that I worked to hide all the rest of the week. And I would come to discover what I think is the jewel of Christian community and the key to abundant life. to be completely known, to be completely loved, and to extend that to others.

40:54 This wasn't the last time that I would seek knowledge and God would surprise me with community. That group of people on the back porch that got to know me deeply, they ended up being the group that encouraged me on to seminary. They saw in me a hunger for knowledge, gifts for ministry. But as it happened, the seminary where I would end up was not close to home. It is all the way across the country, of all places, New Jersey. And in that strange wilderness, I found the same thing to be true again. I went to Princeton Seminary seeking knowledge, primarily, but I found a community of friends with whom I shared the most intimate moments of life. In those three years, I endured breakups and medical emergencies, and together with my friends endured dark nights of the soul.

41:52 I learned a lot there, but once again, what really developed in me was a taste for life lived together, authentically, with Jesus as our focal point. Okay, so hear me on this. Don't get me wrong. These two things, knowledge and intimacy, they're not mutually exclusive. Knowledge of Jesus, knowledge of the Holy Spirit, understanding of theology, of history, these are not bad things. They're really important things. They're an invaluable way that we can grow in our love for Jesus. As these two disciples say in our reading, our hearts can burn with devotion as we study. Last week, I hosted Bible trivia at this church.

42:43 I love that stuff. But compared to intimacy with God, all of that is just that. it's trivial. Okay, I have a question for you just to get a sense of where you might be sitting right now as you listen to me speak. If you are thinking about the account that I've laid out from Luke today, if you had to choose, would you rather hear Jesus's teaching on the road or sit at the table with Jesus.

43:17 If I'm being honest, most of us, most of the time, I'll just speak for myself, most of the time, I would rather hear the lecture. I would rather Jesus teach me all these cool hidden secrets about the Bible. I want to know that Jesus went into his study and pulled out his thick leather-bound books and was telling me everything that could possibly be known about the secrets hidden in the universe. Spoken like a true seminarian, I guess. And I still find myself wrestling with this. I still wonder if it's because I'm pretty comfortable accruing knowledge. I can just take it in.

44:00 But being known and knowing others, it costs me something. There's risk there. And I want you to hear me on this, too. There is wisdom in knowing which places are safe enough to share yourself, where it's okay to be guarded until you have more information. Not every place and not every person has earned the right to your story. Here in this passage, though, we see Jesus is made known to these disciples in the breaking of bread. they see in this moment of intimacy the face they had been longing to see. They see it when they exercise care for this stranger on the road.

44:47 And I think that's something Jesus wants us to linger on. I think that's why he hides himself. To reinforce this lesson that we have intimacy with Jesus when we build intimacy with our neighbors. We learn about God, we learn about ourselves, when we are known and loved as we know and love those around us. I wonder if in this moment of revelation at dinner, these two disciples suddenly remembered the words Jesus taught throughout his ministry. I wonder if they heard his voice echoing in their hearts. The person who tries to protect their life will lose it, but the one who gives themself away will find life.

45:34 Whatever you do for the least of these, you do for me. Where two or more are gathered in my name, I am there with them. Cleopas and his companion experienced this. They had all the knowledge about Jesus it was possible to have straight from the Son of God himself, but they still couldn't see him. but then they bring him in. They offer shelter, hospitality, sustenance to this stranger on the way. When he sits to eat and takes their bread, he blesses it, thanks them, thanks God,

46:16 breaking the bread, the spell breaks too. They see him, the one they thought they had lost in this moment of connection. They learn something about Jesus that he appears in the midst. In the midst of pain and loss, in the midst of community. There was no amount of knowledge about Jesus that would do this. It had to happen in this connection. Knowledge is not a substitute for intimacy. Knowledge about Jesus is not the same thing as a relationship with Jesus. So how do we get that relationship with Jesus? Where does it come from? At least one way we see here is caring for those whom Jesus loves. As a Christian family, this is part of our inheritance. The first generation of followers and many generations after were very committed to this.

47:12 They lived their lives expecting that they would someday host Jesus or one of his angels without even knowing it. They were absolutely committed to hospitality, to a kind of welcome that came with inconvenience even. In a time when most people lived in a one-room home, it wasn't uncommon for the followers of Jesus to have a bed made up, a loaf of bread ready for an unexpected stranger who may need accommodation. Because, as the author of Hebrews said, you never know when you might host an angel and not even realize it. I've been part of this community now for 18 months as your Director of Engagement. It's my job to wake up every day thinking about how to expand and deepen our community here at Fifth Avenue Presbyterian Church. It's a calling that I am so grateful for.

48:07 It's one that I take very seriously because I know the impact this kind of community of faith can have on individuals and neighborhoods and the world. So let me tell you what I've noticed about us in my time so far. This is a community of Christ followers who are fiercely committed to caring for those in need. Especially those who bring their needs here to us on our corner. Those without enough to eat. Those without a safe place to rest their heads. those who are wrestling with addiction, caught in the gears of oppression, or suffocating in the grip of loneliness.

48:53 Every single week, we, each of you, and all of us together, we welcome Christ as we welcome those who come to us seeking shelter of all kinds. Every Wednesday afternoon, the Rita Arlen Room becomes a space for those in need of space to find respite. and members of this congregation, some of you sitting here, are there with them. And if you're not there, you have sent those people to be there, to build relationships and to share themselves, to share us with our guests if they desire that. And Christ is made known in the breaking down of those barriers. And today, after this worship service, we will gather in that same space on the fifth floor. and via the holy gift of Zoom.

49:46 And we will welcome those who are with us for the first time. We're going to learn names, and we're going to share what life has brought us over the last week or the last few weeks or months. I've seen coffee hour become a place of new friendships forming, a place where physical and spiritual needs are shared and mutually carried. And it's beautiful. Christ is made known to us there. at coffee hour in the breaking of some of Rodrigo and his team's confections. On weekday evenings, community groups meet together to share stories, to read scripture, and to develop the kind of friendships that sustain abundant life for decades. You pray for one another. You carry one another's burdens. One of our community groups that started last Advent, a group of people who didn't really know each other. They are still meeting regularly. Tomorrow night, in fact, they're going to meet again as a reunion. Christ is made known in the breaking of busy schedules to prioritize time together. In these ways and in so many others, we say to those seeking intimacy, stay with us.

51:03 I am so proud to be part of this community. And while I'm here, I want to say to all of you, well done, good and faithful servants. And I know that we've gotten to this place by always asking, how can we do this better? How can we grow in this? And so I want to give you a small answer to that question that you can put in your back pocket and take with you today. Here in this community, we have a way of doing things. There are thoughtful and faithful reasons why we do what we do. We have designed our worship in a particular way. We are a deeply contemplative community. And even now I know that you're pouring over my words with a great deal of focus and attention and discernment. And I'm only a little bit joking.

51:58 But over time that creates expectations. I think that's a normal, natural phenomenon. It's to be expected. But it also creates a point of concern as we strive to follow Jesus' calling. I think as we grow in intimacy together, it's often easy to forget what it's like to be a stranger.

52:22 One shape intimacy takes is a knowledge of rhythms. You know when to stand up. You know when to sit in worship. You know where the bathrooms are. You know where you can take a fussy child if you need a place. by the way, that's out the back doors and to the right if you're looking for it right now. You have friends that you always sit with. I know where to look for some of you in this room because you're always in the same place. To put it succinctly, you know the deal. If that's you today, the reminder that I have for you and for me and for all of us from Scripture, from the Old Testament where God commands God's people to remember that they were once strangers too.

53:04 I challenge you to ask yourself, maybe next Sunday, what would it be like to be here for the first time? What would it feel like to not know where to go for coffee hour? Maybe you missed the announcement. Where do you drop off your kids? How can we build a sense of empathy and understanding for those who are seeking community in a new, fresh way? that's how we can honor jesus and welcome him as we welcome others so some of you i just saw are here with us for the first time some of you have entered this place as a stranger and maybe you're new to the city you happen to be walking by and saw the brownstone walls and curiosity bit you maybe you had left church or maybe more likely in my experience you felt that church had left you and you're dipping a toe back in, following a quiet voice that you're deciding to trust once more.

54:02 If that's you, I want to say welcome. We're so grateful that you're with us. We hope that you'll stay with us and find a place to be known and loved. Some of you this morning have been members of this community for many years and something is happening in your life right now that's leading you to seek shelter in a new way. Maybe you find yourself facing a crisis of health of employment, crisis of relationship.

54:31 If that's you, I want to say welcome. We're so grateful that you're bringing this moment of your life to us. And we hope you'll stay with us and let this beloved community tend to you. Jesus tells us the kingdom of God is like a seed that's planted. And when it grows, it becomes an enormous tree. And all the birds of the air land and make their nest in its branches. That's us. We are the birds. We found a space within these branches for safety and joy and abundance. as we sing together from that joy with the hope that other birds that are searching for a place to roost, that they will stay with us and join our chorus as well.

55:25 Amen. Before we stand and read our prayer for the day, I want to join you in a moment of quiet reflection where we invite the Holy Spirit to come and stay with us and speak to us. And so for this moment of reflection, I say, come Holy Spirit. Would you stand now as you're able as we recite the prayer for the day which is found in your bulletin or on your screen. Traveler, we ask that you stay with us as a stranger. Though we may not know your face, your words burn our hearts within us.

56:27 As we look around our tables, may your eyes be opened to see you in every face gathered. May we desire more and more of your company and expect to find you in every stranger. Amen.