Sermon: The 4-Fold Path to Emmaus

 

Hear our story again.
 Cleopas and the other disciple are gathered together,
two or three are gathered,
and guess what?
Jesus is there!

He is among them, even when they do not immediately realize that is what is happening!
Isn’t that what happens here in worship?
The buzz of its beginning,
yes we’re in the sanctuary to worship,
but before (and often during) the prelude we’re meeting the fellow faithful,
talking about everything that happened
—and in that encounter we happen upon Jesus,
who by the time Pastor Chris begins with, “Grace peace and mercy…”,
Jesus has been half a pew behind you the whole time!

 

“No man is an island/entire of itself./Each is a piece of the continent/a part of the main.” The opening words of John Donne’s famed poem.
Similarly, scripture says,
“It is not good for man to be alone,”
and likewise there is the African saying, “I am because we are.”
All a little trite perhaps,
or at least overworn,
but still fundamentally true. The good life involves other people,
it involves community.

This life is such that we can’t do it alone.
Yes, the radical individualism of our present society militates against this truth,
but ultimately
it breaks itself upon the unyielding rock of reality.
A society built to foster an atomized life, is no society at all.
It will fail, look around, it is failing.
I don’t relish that, but I do see the consequences of not acknowledging the world as it is. We need each other.

Now, worry not fellow introverts,
I’m not recommending the frenetic activity extroverts bathe in.
No, I am only warning against isolation or online-only community,
such a life is often disjointed. Just try to be a bit less skeptical of gatherings.
Community:
builds trust,
relativizes barriers,
rubs off the worst of our rough edges
and gives space to build one another up.
Yes, it can also be messy,
and sometimes it leans toward conformity in ways that we ought not abide,
but it is worth the energy and effort to find ways to connect.

 

“What are y’all talking about?” the stranger who is not a stranger, asks.

They respond by catechizing our Lord on the situation at hand,
telling the story of his life and death,
and even the “idle tale” of his resurrection.
Then he turns the tables on them,
or rather shares in that moment of testimony with them,
telling them what scripture had to say about what they had seen and heard about their Lord.

Jesus shows up when we tell his story and when we dive deeper into the larger story of God’s faithfulness.
Is that not the goal of
every sermon,
every hymn,
every devotion,
every bible study,
every reflection on scripture?

            Regular reading of scripture reinforces the Christian story. These days that is incredibly important.
You see, since the internet came into wide-spread use, the average American engages with 4,000 stories a day (some as simple as “buy our shampoo and everything will be good in your life”).

This glut of stories can swamp the good news about God’s love found in Jesus Christ.
Making sure the biblical stories are part of your daily consumption of stories, is vital for a strong faith life;
it is a way to practice the good life.

 

Then, Jesus feigns a farewell,
only to be invited in,
to share a meal.
In offering the blessing,
bread broken and given,
he is revealed!
There is a numinous moment of recognition,
and then it is done.
“Were our hearts not kindled?”
The receiving of this holy meal solidifies the sacredness of what came before.
The whole thing, an encounter with our risen Lord!
“The Body of Christ, given for you.”
Those gathered,
the body of Christ,
the sermon and confession witnessing to what we now consume!

            One of the phrases I use too frequently, but I just can’t stop it, is one from St. Augustine.
He describes Holy Communion as entering “The commerce of the City of God.” 
When we receive the gracious and precious gift of Christ’s body and blood,
we’re entering into a sort of economic transaction,
one that is completely one sided.
We open our hands and receive bread for the day,
we uplift an empty cup,
and are uplifted by its being filled with celebratory wine.
We were empty,
and now are filled with the bread of life and cup of salvation.

How can those same hands not be themselves open for others?
It is a movement from gift to giving, grace to response.
Our whole life is a response to the very gift of life,
in the meal we feel that again, we know that again.

 

And finally,
this epiphany having occurred,
they are sent out.
They go and witness,
for the Lord has come near to them.
And in witnessing,
in being sent out into the world,
they encounter Jesus again! “The Lord is risen indeed!” They are told and they tell.
The Emmaus encounter meets the women at the tomb encountering our Lord, and blossoms.
So too, when we are sent out into the world as servants and witnesses,
we encounter the Living God. Thanks be to God!

            All of these practices of worship are pointed to the last.
We practice for the sake of the world.
We are pointing our attention so that we might notice God at work in the world and how we are being invited into that goodness,
times of deepest meaning right before us
if we’ll only look with eyes that can see.
Our disposition toward the world is that of salt and light
—be flavored,
be seen for what you are!
Our whole lives lived within the rhythm of the Emmaus Road.

            Yes, having practiced all these things,
we are sent out to entertain angels unaware,
embody gospel in such a way that it actually is good news,
and to be thankful for it all! What a good life!
“Go in peace, serve the Lord. Thanks be to God!”

 

            Gathered together, sharing the Word of God with each other,
receiving the Lord’s Supper, and being sent out.
This fourfold movement of worship is an ongoing journey with Jesus.
The same way and path that Cleopas and his companion trod toward Emmaus.

Amen and Alleluia.

Found by the Good Physician, a Skit for the 2nd Sunday after Pentecost, Year A

 As always, please acknowledge that Pastor Chris from Jersey wrote the skit if you use or modify it. Sunday June 7^th 2026 is the next time this particular reading will be coming around in the lectionary.

Three Actors (Matthew, Woman, Child)

 

The Call of Matthew (Matthew steps forward)

              I didn’t know it, until I met him, but I was unwell, and I needed a physician.

              It was so simple, how it happened. The famed Rabbi was rambling along with his followers, and he turned to me and said, “Follow me.”

              And I did. But that mere act of tromping after him, walking down the street with them, the same streets I so often marched down, to shake down my neighbors on behalf of Rome. The looks people gave me, as we headed to dinner.

              It changed me, seeing them all from his perspective, and also being seen with him. Both shifted something in my core. I would give back all that I took, all that went beyond the awful task at hand—(smash fist) "indirect” tax collection. My success was built on them and their suffering, my time of ease on the awful extra I charged, and upcharged… my service fee was a sickness; the “one for Rome, one for me” method of extraction I’d perfected, was wrong, full stop. The occupation was too much, the rough blood money, was a wasting disease infecting my fellows.

              All that I thought, even before I sat down at Jesus’ strange table, the rowdy band of brothers, the sisters bankrolling the whole thing, nare-do-wells and the down-and-out—I was sitting at their table. The very people I’d bankrupted… if I was to sit at Jesus’ table, they were my people now. I needed to be healed to live with such a reality. I needed a good doctor.

              “Why do you eat with tax collectors and sinners?”

              “Because they need to be seated with me. They need mercy, healing, health.”

              There was more talk—why do you go around feasting not fasting—“because it’s a bachelor party, a wedding feast, a joyous celebration.” And so on... Eventually Jesus left us to make a house call, but wow. I’d been found by the Good Physician.

 

The Call of the Woman (The Woman steps forward)

              Unlike him, I long knew I was unwell. I desperately needed a physician… for 12 years. 12 long and bloody, stigmatizing, years… 12 lonely, years. 12 years as practically untouchable.

              And after 12 years, I saw him heading into that house with The Tax Collector. If he was comfortable cozying up to a collaborator… what other boundaries would he cross? Would he allow me to cross? What if I was welcome at his table too?

              When he came back out, I knew what I needed to do, I needed to be healed by a good doctor. I thought to myself, “Just a touch… even the fringes—his tzitzit—or just his outer cloak, just a touch. I will be made well. I knew it, I trusted it, to be true.”

              So carefully I weaved through the crowd, and my hands touched… brushed… the barest grazing of his outer garment.

He turned, and I explained what I sought, and he said, “Take heart, daughter; your faith has made you well.”

And I could feel it. Wholeness knitted my insides together. I was made well, I would be welcomed back into community. Surely, I’d been found by the Good Physician.

 

The Call of the Child (The Child steps forward)

              How unwell was I, sleeping the sleep of death. It seemed I needed a mortician, but perhaps there was still time—as long as my dad acted quickly—to find a physician, to pull me back from the grave’s grievous grasp.

              So he left me, and rushed out to find the Rabbi who would make a most excellent doctor—but Jesus was waylaid. A woman long sick, stole my miracle, at least that was my father’s fear. But the good doctor, he was sent to heal man. Jesus, arrived at my house—just as the funeral band and neighbors in mourning poured in.

              From that spooky space between death and life I heard them, offering my mother kind words and casseroles. Flutes playing their distinctive mourning notes—all in the minor key.

              “You all can leave. She’s not dead, just resting there.”

              Broken laughs broke out. This was no time to offer false hope, false comfort. No time to let religious ken trump reality. But, my mother, God bless her, she shooed them out of the house, and Jesus reached down to me, took me by the hand, and drew me out of death’s foul grip, and I got up. I was alive! I’d been found by the Good Physician.

 

All Three

              (The Child) Our stories spread, like a virtuous contagion.

(The Woman) Our testimony to the good things Jesus did rippled out into the community.

(Matthew) Our three voices amplified and built on one another.

(All Together)

We were unwell. We needed a physician. We needed a good doctor to be healed. We were found by the Good Physician.

Amen.