|
|
|
by Reverend Deborah R. Fair
Luke 24:13-35; 1 Peter 1:17-23 Christians have been sometimes called a “company of strangers,” and that was no more evident than this past Friday when so much of the world gathered around television screens and in St. Peter’s square to witness the funeral mass in celebration of the life of Pope John Paul II. Strangers greeted one another in the passing of the peace during the Eucharist, and world and religious leaders shook hands across divides that could only be transcended through the tangible grace of Jesus Christ present in Word and Sacrament. What an amazing thing it was, and of all this man did in his lifetime it is perhaps for this gathering that allowed the world to recognize the presence of Christ in the guise of a stranger, that the words have surely been spoken to him by God, “Well done, good and faithful servant.” When Jesus appeared to the disciples walking home to Emmaus, it was during a period of mourning. Their sadness and confusion about the events of the preceding days preoccupied their hearts and minds. They weren’t prepared to recognize the resurrected Lord. The troubles of the world weighed heavily upon them, and it was with sadness that they responded to Jesus’ question. The proclamation of the gospel was not yet “good news” to them, because they were missing a vital piece: an assurance of the resurrection. Still, they recited what they knew, incomplete as the story was, and they invited this stranger along the road into their company. What if Cleopas and his companion had not stopped to talk to the stranger on the road? What if they had heeded the admonition we so often impress upon our children and ourselves, “Don’t talk to strangers”? I’ve thought about that a lot this week. How much do we miss by being afraid of strangers, by not talking to them and welcoming them into our company? This was brought home to me last Sunday afternoon as my husband John and I went to visit Burnett Thompson at Washington Hospital Center. On the elevator on our way out, John began talking to a stranger. He said to the man, “How’s it going?” and then, “Are you visiting parishioners?” The man replied that, yes, someone had had a serious operation. John responded that we were also visiting someone who was recovering from major surgery. The elevator doors opened and we parted company. As we walked away, I asked John if he knew the man, thinking that maybe he was someone he remembered from having done his clinical pastoral education there several years ago. John said that he didn’t know him, but saw a tiny cross on his lapel that I had missed. I realized how often we pass up the opportunities we
have to become a company of strangers everyday. Those moments are fleeting
and unless we pay attention, we miss them, and the world becomes a more
narrow, dangerous, and frightening place. As Christians we are supposed to talk to strangers, because we are strangers ourselves. The word Luke uses in this passage to describe Jesus is paroikeis—stranger, alien, sojourner. Another form of the word is paroikia, from which the words parochial and parish are drawn. We are parishioners—strangers, aliens, sojourners, like Jesus, journeying on earth, yet citizens of heaven as Paul writes in his letter to the Philippians (3:20). When we allow ourselves to become frightened, despondent, or preoccupied by the cares of the world our eyes are restrained from recognizing the presence of Christ in our midst. Likewise we miss the chance to be Christ for others. Jesus walked with Cleopas and his companion along the road to Emmaus and opened the scriptures to them. He accepted their invitation to stop at their home for the evening. Although a guest, he quickly became the host at their table. As he took the bread, blessed it, broke it, and gave it to them, he was revealed, and then he vanished from their sight. They got up, went out into the night that no longer seemed frightening and returned to Jerusalem to report what had happened. The gospel was now, indeed, “good news.” As I watched the celebration of communion at John Paul’s funeral, I wondered who would be invited to receive the bread and wine. I thought how marvelous it would be if the sacrament was offered to everyone. I was encouraged to see that priests were being sent out into the vast crowd with the body of Christ, but was disappointed that it was offered only to “the faithful,” meaning Catholics. Still, in ways unknown to us, I know that the mystery of Christ’s body was present in ways that surpass our understanding even to unbelievers there and around the world. Perhaps one day we will all commune together. We come together in this place week after week to hear the word of God and to have the scriptures opened to us through the power of the Holy Spirit. We join together around the table and Christ is revealed through the taking, blessing, breaking, and giving of bread. We are a company of strangers, parishioners, sojourners, and citizens of heaven who for a time are living in exile in a strange land that is not our own and is not supposed to be our own. We gather around a table as strangers and become friends, sisters, and brothers. Our hearts are warmed, and we are compelled to rise and go forth in peace. We are commissioned to spread the good news not just as gossip among acquaintances, but as strangers with strangers. We are to share the bread of Christ, the body of Christ as companions—literally, “with bread”—to a world of strangers who do not yet know him. I think that’s one of the reasons why United Methodist ministers do not stay in one place for very long—why we itinerate. Francis Asbury, the first American Methodist bishop didn’t want his preachers to get too comfortable. He admonished them to stay away from settling in cities and kept them moving from place to place. We’re tending to rethink that with longer pastorates, still whenever I reflect upon the history of God’s people, I know that we are never supposed to get too comfortable in any one place, for we are forever on a journey, becoming strangers in new places and encountering strangers along our way. As we prepare over the next few months to part company, having come to know one another, in some cases very well, I’m going to try to remember, and I hope you will, too, that Christ travels incognito. As new pastors come to you, they will be strangers. You will welcome them in as guests at first with the hospitality of your table, but on their first Sunday the guests will become hosts, standing in for Jesus, as they serve you the sacrament of Holy Communion from this table. You will gather around the table as strangers, Christ will be revealed, and you will go away as brothers and sisters. The same will happen for Jack and Marianne, and John and me. We will go to new places and offer the body of Christ to strangers who will welcome us in. Christ will be revealed in the opening of the scriptures and in the breaking of the bread. I don’t know if we will ever again in our lifetime see Christ revealed in such a magnificent and moving way as in the company of strangers around the world this past Friday. I can only imagine the long-term impact of the sharing of the good news in such a global context. We cannot know how many people’s eyes were opened as they recognized the risen Lord in the strangers around them. What we can know is that Christ was present, is present, and will continue to be present whenever we gather in his name and open our eyes, our hearts, our minds, and our arms to the strangers we meet along the road toward our true home. Prayer:
|