Jeremy Duncan: Christianity is not the middle ground between the peace of Jesus and the weight of scripture. Christianity is believing that all of scripture, all of history points to Jesus, leads us to Jesus, and it's Jesus' way in the world that we follow unreservedly. Alright. We're also in our fall kickoff series. It's called grounded, and the idea is to start this new season by rehearsing some of the core commitments we hold together as community.
If we're gonna take those big swings this year, we want to do that with our feet firmly planted. And so two weeks ago, we talked about doubt and Thomas, how sometimes both our doubt and our identification with Thomas in that story are actually key parts of our faith journey. For me, acknowledging that aspect of how I believe is about intellectual honesty. Denying my doubt is not very honest. But pressing forward toward what I hope for, particularly when I'm not sure I can get there.
That's the kind of faith I want to stick with. In fact, it's the kind of faith that I trust is gonna help me in a lot of areas of my life because rarely do any of us accomplish anything without learning to welcome and then push through our doubts. And then last week, we talked about the intensity of our faith experience. In our language, we often talk about being spiritually passionate, and I loved what Scott did with this story about this woman who comes and pours perfume on the feet of Jesus. I think he really nailed the key of that story in my mind, which is that while the onlookers there imagine this woman as a sinner trying to buy the grace of God, Jesus knows this scene is very different than that.
First, I think he knows that grace cannot, by definition, be transactional. But second, he understands that this moment is not offered in anticipation of something to come. This moment here is a response to something that's already happened. In fact, he says this woman has already been forgiven from any sins, real or imagined. What we are witnessing is not desperation.
It's gratitude, and joy and passion, and that's beautiful, but it brings up some really fascinating implications about this story. Because it seems to mean that Jesus and this woman have already met. He's already reminded her that she is loved, already offered her forgiveness. She's now had time to process that gift and return with gratitude. All of that story was just for her, not for us.
It happens off the pages of the gospel. And for me, I kind of love these little moments in the story where we realize that the life of Jesus was so much bigger than just what was captured for us. A lot of his life and ministry was for those he was interacting with. Today, we're gonna talk about Jesus at the center. But first, let's pray.
Gracious God, you pause in this moment to recognize your presence among us even now. You're the one who has carried us, who has guided our steps, who continues to open new opportunities for us that we could not have imagined possible. And so as we dream together about our future as individuals, our shared story together as commons, we give thanks for every little act of grace we've encountered along the way, every hand that has helped us up, every life that has contributed to this shared narrative. We ask now that you would steady our hearts in renewed trust, root us in strengthening the gratitude, and give us new courage to take bold steps forward wherever you might lead us tomorrow. And through it all, we pray that Christ remain at the very center of who we understand ourselves to be.
Shaping our vision, forming us in community, leading us home along your way of grace and peace. In the strong name of the risen Christ we pray. Amen. Today, we're gonna look at a really intriguing passage near the end of the gospels where a risen Jesus interacts with two disciples that we have perhaps not met yet in the story. And to get there, we'll cover riding a bike, what's in a name, honest questions, good interpretations, and real encounters.
But we're gonna start with a bit of a story. Because one of the things that I want to argue today is that the heart of the Christian story is not actually something you can think your way to. And, yes, I fully understand the irony of that when the first value that we hold together is intellectual honesty. And I think we are a community that likes to do some good thinking. So, I'm not saying thinking isn't important.
I spend a lot of time in my own head, maybe a little bit too much. What I'm saying is that for human beings who are so much more than just our thoughts, the Christian story will eventually need to be embodied for us, and we'll get there. First, let me show you something. This is my daughter absolutely booking it through the neighborhood last week. And, yes, she's already outgrown this little bicycle.
We got her sized up this weekend and ready for next year. But this was new for us this year, learning to ride on two wheels. We're we're a biking family. We use them pretty regularly to get around the city. But my daughter has been confined to the trailer bike for the last couple years.
She graduated from the trailer, chariot to the seat that we had on the bike onto the trailer bike that clips onto the back of my seat post last year. This year, she was dead set on learning to roll on her own. Two wheels, no help, I can do it myself, dad, to quote her. I told you, she's never had a doubt in her life. But the thing is, I learned years ago with my son that while I can ride a bike, I am not well equipped to teach anyone how to ride one.
I wrote about this in Dirt and Stardust. The fact that pushing my son down a hill and yelling, just pedal, turned out to be, let's say, not as effective as I had hoped it would be. And so being the second child, my daughter got to learn from my failures the first time, got to skip my best efforts, and go straight to bike camp this summer. Now I don't know what magic they sprinkle on those kids there. But in one day, she came home, sans training wheels, which I'm told is French for, see, I can do it myself, dad.
I told you. Absolutely incredible. Worth every cent here because we are now doing full fledged family bike rides through the neighborhood even if I am riding alongside with my phone out like a proud dad. But the reason I like this as an analogy for faith is that riding a bike is one of those skills that you just know instinctively once it clicks. You can ride a bike without thinking about it, And yet cycling is actually an incredibly complex operation.
You're converting leg extensions into rotational movement using a crank. You're balancing yourself on two contact patches that are actually incredibly small. You actually steer in two different ways when you ride a bike. You might not even realize this, but at slow speed, you turn your wheel in the direction you want to go. At high speeds, you're actually doing the opposite of that.
You know, you don't even think about it, but when you lean your bike to corner, you're actually pushing your steering wheel in the opposite direction of where you want to go. And then inertia pulls you into a dive, and it pulls you around the curve. You don't think about any of that when you do it. You just feel it. Kind of like my daughter, by the way, who is absolutely feeling herself every time she goes to the neighborhood.
She loves it. My argument is that faith is a lot more like this than we realize. And that just like learning to ride a bike, learning the physics of our faith can be really important, particularly if we wanna get better and we want to be as good at faith as we can possibly be. But rarely are the physics the first step in that journey. For that, sometimes you just you gotta get up and pedal.
And to illustrate that, I wanna go to a pretty interesting story near the end of the book of Luke. In this part of the tale, Jesus has been crucified. He's risen from the dead. In fact, he's even interacted with a number of people, namely Mary Magdalene, the first to see him, his disciples, and of course, our boy Thomas who we talked about in the first week of this series. But that wasn't all because Jesus actually kept pretty busy in that period between resurrection and ascension.
And so, in Luke 24, we get this really interesting little story where on the very day that Jesus' tomb was found empty, we also find Jesus appearing to two quite unexpected witnesses to resurrection. This is starting in verse 13. Now that same day two of them were going to a village called Emmaus, about seven miles from Jerusalem. They're talking with each other about everything that had happened, but as they talked and discussed these things, Jesus himself came up and walked along with them. But they were kept from recognizing him, and he asked them, what are you discussing together as you walk along?
Now, next verse. We're gonna find out the names of one of these disciples. He is Cleopas, a disciple of Jesus though not one of the 12 and a name that we've not come across yet anywhere in the gospels. So first question here is, who is this guy and his unnamed companion? And well, the simple answer is we don't know.
Which makes this story even more fascinating in a way. Right? Like, two unknown disciples who have thus far been so unremarkable as to have remained anonymous now get not only a vision, but they actually get to spend an entire day with the risen Christ. It's kinda wild, really. Like, do you know how much energy we put into Christian celebrity?
Trusting that follower accounts and book credits actually mean something only for Jesus to spend one of forty resurrected days chatting with two nobodies. Every once in a while, I find myself reading the gospels and realizing that my priorities are so wildly out of step with Jesus' that they need something like a complete reset. A clout means less than nothing to God, which is a nice reminder actually. However, we do have a bit of a theory about these two because we don't know who they are. But over in the book of John at the crucifixion, we do hear about a man named Clopas.
Specifically, we read that near the cross of Jesus stood his mother, his mother's sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene. Now, yes, that does mean that at the cross, the only disciples brave enough to show their faces were Mary, Mary's sister, Mary of Clopus, and Mary Magdalene. Chances are if you're named Mary, you're already in the good books already. Just keep doing what you're doing. Obviously, it's working for you.
So there. Still not a lot to go on here, but in both the Eastern tradition and the Catholic tradition, Clopas is understood to be the brother of Jesus's dad Joseph, and importantly here, the same person identified as Cleopas over in Luke. Now that doesn't come out of nowhere. It comes from a guy named Eusebius who became the Bishop of Caesarea in 03/14. He wrote a book called Church History in which he quotes a second century Christian leader named Hagisippus who says that Clopas was Joseph's brother making him Jesus's uncle.
And so for most of church history, Cleopas and his unnamed companion on the Emmaus Road have largely been understood to be Clopas and his Mary. Now who exactly is married to him? Well, it's either his wife or his daughter. We don't know that one for sure either. All the text says in John is that Mary of Clopus was at the cross.
And Mary of Clopus could mean Mary wife of Clopus or Mary daughter of Clopus. Honestly, we just have to flip a coin at this point. What that means is that on the Emmaus Road, the two nobodies that Luke didn't recognize, one of which he might even get the name wrong for, could have actually been Jesus' uncle and his daughter making Mary perhaps even a cousin that Jesus grew up with in Nazareth. So what's the point of all that? Well, I think it's just to say that the Bible, just like our lives, is full of all kinds of stories and relationships that no one on the outside would even give a second glance.
And yet, that's where our lives really take place. Not on social media or in tales that someone would want to remember to write down, but with our crazy uncles and cousins that we grew up with and memories that have shaped us probably far deeper than we know. I think sometimes we are spending a lot of our energy chasing moments, things worth posting online or bragging about when life is actually happening all around us in bike rides with our daughters and summer vacations with our cousins. If we could just slow down long enough to pay attention to each other while it's happening between us. I think it's actually quite interesting if that is indeed where Jesus goes back to in his resurrection to walk with his uncle and his niece.
Now, let's follow the story. Because Jesus asked, so what are you guys talking about? And the traveling disciples replied, look, are you kidding me? Do you not know what's been going on the last three days? And Jesus says, tell me about it.
Like, the line is what things? And I kinda like this moment too because you can almost hear this as a rhetorical question. Right? It kinda feels a little perfunctory, but then I wonder about that because Jesus is famous for asking questions throughout the gospels. One of his favorite judo moves is to answer a question with a question of his own.
By some counts, Jesus asks 307 questions in the gospels. Far more than the 187 that he's asked, significantly more than the very few of those that he actually answers directly, which makes me think that maybe this question isn't just a placeholder. Maybe he wants to hear their answer. This summer, I went home to visit family. I have a sister that lives in Ontario, another that lives in Australia.
My parents live near Toronto. But this summer, we were all together in one city at the same time, all the cousins hanging out. But, of course, whenever family is together, one of the key moments is always to sit down around a table and hear stories from your childhood narrated back to you from another participant in those tales. I remember my teenage years very differently than my parents do, for example. And I'm not here to adjudicate whose version of the story is more true to life.
I can't imagine that my teenage brain would remember anything but the unvarnished objective truth. Don't just say that. But I do think the way we tell a story and the way we remember things, the moments and the details that we choose to hold on to, maybe even the hurts that we carry or the things that make us laugh. Listening for that from someone else, maybe even in a story you already know for yourself. That tells us something really important about each other.
Maybe Jesus just legitimately wants to know how these two would tell his story. Because it does seem that Jesus has something specifically to say to these two. And so after they tell their version of the story, Jesus jumps back in with a bit of a critique. And I'm gonna warn you here. It's a little harsh.
He says, how foolish you are. How slow to believe all the prophets have spoken. Did not the Messiah have to suffer all these things and then enter into his glory? And so beginning with Moses and all the prophets, he explained to them what was said in all of the scriptures concerning himself. Now, we'll get to the end here, but let's start with this opening line.
How foolish are you? Because honestly, that's a little rough. The word foolish here is essentially the word for mind or thought or even intellect, but has a negative prefix on it. So foolish or thoughtless is absolutely a fair translation. There is another way to use this word though.
It's attested to in Greek literature. It is less common, but the word can also be used in the passive sense of not well thought about, which would make this line something more like, haven't you thought clearly about this? Why are you hesitant to believe? Don't you see how everything has been pointing to this moment you are walking in right now? Now, honestly, which is a better translation?
Probably the rendering that we have in the NIV as I read it. But I just wanna point out that at the very least, there are different ways this phrase could have been taken. And if we're paying attention to the story, they don't seem to take any offense here. In fact, these two seem to really like this guy, and they want him to stay for dinner. So maybe that's worth keeping in mind when we read.
Still, this is where the story takes a turn for me. Because from there, Jesus goes on to explain that everything in scripture points to him. And I think what he's really saying here, if we pay attention, is that the story of the Bible has two layers to it. There's the scriptures. As they unfold, kings and nations, laws and prophets, history as it happens.
But then there is the formative narrative arc that gives it all meaning. Not just the moment by moment detail, but the big picture, the end game, where all those moments have always been going. And this is really important for me. They're really important for us at Commons actually. Because, yeah, we we try to be intellectually honest and we want to be spiritually passionate, but when we say Jesus at the center, this right here, what Jesus talks about, that's what we mean.
Because I don't think Jesus is just talking about prophecy here. Like specific verses that can be read in particular ways to point to him. I think he means something far more significant than that. I think he's arguing that the arc of the story has been always leading to what he shows us about God. Now all the way along, all throughout our history, we have been learning about God, getting glimpses of God, noticing where God has been.
Perhaps in the words of Saint Paul, as if seeing through a glass darkly. But now in Jesus, in the cross, in resurrection, we can see finally and clearly what God has always actually looked like. So where we thought that maybe God was violent, now we see that God is self sacrificing. Or we thought that God played favorites. What we realize is that God is all encompassing.
When we thought that God might actually hate us, what we know now absolutely is that nothing could be farther from the truth. And this is what the New Testament picks up with and runs. They take the ball, and they take off with it. Jesus, is told to be the word of God by John. Everything the divine wants to say to humanity is in Jesus.
The writer of Hebrews says, he is the exact representation of God. Our clearest view of God's character is Jesus. Paul says, he is the image of the invisible God, divine love on perfect display for us to follow in Jesus. But importantly here, Jesus says that realization, once we grasp it, now changes how we look back, how we read everything that has come before. Everything in scripture, but I would say also everything in our life.
Jesus changes how we see it all. Christianity is not the middle ground between the peace of Jesus and the weight of scripture. Christianity is believing that all of scripture, all of history points to Jesus, leads us to Jesus, and it's Jesus' way in the world that we follow unreservedly. Except here's the thing about learning to ride that bike. I could quote that scripture at you.
I could break it down for you. Jesus Christ himself could show up here and explain the Bible to us personally. And yet all of that theory in the world still would not be enough to get us peddling. You see, even after he explained to them everything that was said in scriptures concerning himself, they approached the village to which they were going, and Jesus continued on as if he were leaving. So they begged him, stay with us.
It's almost evening. The day is almost over. And so he agreed. But when he went inside and was at the table with them, he took bread, gave thanks, broke it, and was about to hand it to them when finally their eyes were open. And they recognized in that moment who they were sitting with.
This is one of the most beautiful and also perhaps one of the most revealing moments in scripture. Because look, I don't know how this worked. Like, did Jesus honestly look different? Was this some kind of spiritual blinding? Is this moment really just a metaphor for something that's far more important happening here?
I don't know. But I do know the story is working really hard to tell us something. And the best guess that I can come up with for why this story was included in the Bible, a story of Jesus and two disciples that Luke can't even remember, is the reminder that knowledge, theory, bible studies, even bible studies led by Jesus, none of that will accomplish what an encounter with divine life will. Like, I don't know how to take this story as anything other than a clear and intentional statement that understanding the Bible, thinking the right things, studying the right passages, even interpreting them correctly is not the same thing as sitting and eating a meal with Jesus. Listening to Jesus, watching Jesus, following along on the way of Jesus so completely as to shape your path in the world that it actually looks like you begin to ride with him.
What this story tells me is that I could get up here and I could quote scripture at you till I'm blue in the face. None of that would guarantee I would even notice Jesus if he walked in the back of the room. For that, I would need to be able to show you to demonstrate that Jesus is truly at the center of my life. And yes, that means at the center of how I interpret the Bible. But importantly, more importantly, it means at the center of how I view my neighbor.
At the center of how I imagine who God is. At the center of how I imagine what God is trying to accomplish. At the center of how I think God would accomplish that in the world. Because if that doesn't look like Jesus, then somehow I've missed the point through all my study. Anything less than that, even if it comes wrapped in a Bible, it is less than the heart of the Christian story.
It is less than the heart of the God who looks upon us with nothing less than the grace and the peace of Jesus. And so my hope in this new season, every season we enter actually, is that every time we gather together, we would bring our full intellect to bear, and we would study and interpret and understand the scriptures that point us to Jesus. My hope is that when we gather, we would bring whatever passion we can muster to worship and to sing our hearts out, to pour whatever perfume we have at our disposal at his feet. But my real prayer is that we would always be cognizant of the centrality of Christ in the way that we think about who God is. But the way of Jesus, the peace of Jesus, the grace of Jesus that shapes us and turns us back toward each other.
Yes. We'll continue to do our best to understand the physics of our faith. But before that, we have to endeavor to keep our feet moving on the way that brings us all the way back home. The way that helps us see God as God truly is. Let's pray.
God, for all the ways that we bring our full selves to you, with our intellect to study, to understand, to make sense of context, to see how the scriptures point us to you. The way we bring our passion as we serve, as we worship, as we offer everything that we have of ourselves to you. In all of that, might we keep you at the center of every image that we carry about the divine. That God is love and that Jesus is we share we see what God looks like. Self giving, self sacrificing, the ways that invites and walks with us, gently guides us to understand, but ultimately encounters us with grace and truth, who sits with us, offers us a meal, walks with us, helps us to learn, and invites us then to get up and ride, to move forward, to follow that path all the way back to the heart of God.
God, help us to keep you at the center of our imagination of all things For how we understand ourselves and how we understand the path that we follow. In the strong name of the risen Christ we pray. Amen. Hey Jeremy here and thanks for listening to our podcast. If you're intrigued by the work that we're doing here at Commons, you can head to our website commons.church for more information.
You can find us on all of the socials commonschurch. You can subscribe to our YouTube channel where we are posting content regularly for the community. You can also join our Discord server. Head to commons.churchdiscord for the invite, and there you will find the community having all kinds of conversations about how we can encourage each other to follow the way of Jesus. We would love to hear from you.
Anyway, thanks for tuning in. Have a great week. We'll talk to you soon.