Speaker 1: Because you can't open a seat at the table and then say now think this, believe this, feel this, appreciate this, and do it all in this way on this timeline the way that I like in a manner that makes me feel good about my welcome. That's not hospitality, that's social transaction. Welcome to the commons cast. We're glad to have you here. We hope you find something meaningful in our teaching this week.
Head to commons.church for more information. Welcome today. Thanks for being here. It means a lot to us, and we really do appreciate the chance to worship together on a Sunday. My name is Jeremy, if we haven't met IRL.
But today, we are wrapping up our making room series. Because if you can believe it, next Sunday is actually the beginning of Advent. And all of that seemed a little bit closer this week with all of the snow. However, next week we actually officially dive into the season of Advent and the season of preparation for the arrival of the Christ child among us. So we're pretty excited about that.
This Christmas Eve we have six services in two neighborhoods we're preparing for. And it also means that beginning next week, we will be rolling out our annual advent campaign. So, every year, we try to take some of the generosity engendered by the Christmas story and redirect that toward those most in need. And, this year, especially given the economic climate here in the city, those most in need are often those immediately near us. And, so starting next week, we will be rolling out our priorities this year as we attempt to share the goodness of this Christmas story as best we can with those near us.
Today, however, we have one final story of welcome to Engage. And hopefully, you've been enjoying this series so far. We have had three really different and also really compelling images of hospitality. And maybe you've picked up on this already, but the artwork for this series was very specifically designed to evoke the narrow traditional image of hospitality that's often portrayed to us. That sort of white nineteen fifties image that pervades our social consciousness the same way that certain ideas and memes dominated Jesus social world.
Yet, in every encounter that we've seen so far in this series and again today, we see Jesus taking our limited conventional images of welcome and then making more room at the table for more of us. So hopefully, you picked up on the juxtaposition of some of our words and stories and images over these last few weeks. And if not, then perhaps that's one more lens through which you can engage these conversations. All the ways that Jesus challenges us to new move beyond what comes naturally to us. However, before we jump in today, let's take one last look at back.
Because so far we have had Zacchaeus, men excluded for good reason. He has not treated his neighbors well. Given the chance now to return to the table. To return to community and ultimately to return to himself. We had a woman burst into the room to see Jesus, a woman who was unwanted but undaunted and who refused to allow social convention to define her access to Jesus.
She's honored and welcomed and then reminded by Jesus that if this table doesn't want you, there will be others that desperately need you. And then last week, we saw a man with paralysis whose disability prevented him from getting to Jesus in the first place. And there we saw hospitality extended beyond just who we welcome into our space, but now to all of those we work to ensure our welcome into all the spaces where we are welcome. But, we also saw an example there of what I referred to on YouTube this week as performative forgiveness. A paralyzed man is brought to Jesus and the first thing that Jesus says to him is you are forgiven.
Now, I joked last week about reading the room because clearly this man is not here looking for forgiveness, but that is Jesus' point. Of course, Jesus wants to forgive this man. Of course, Jesus wants to welcome him home and return him to God, but this moment is as much about the audience watching as it is about the man at the center of the scene. This is a performance that offers grace to the man in the middle and also names something needed in those watching as well. You see, by forgiving a man before he is healed, Jesus says to everyone there watching that sickness is not sin, that difference is not damage.
That exclusion based on bad theology however, absolutely is. And so Jesus declares publicly from the start that religion can no longer be used as justification for the exclusion of this man. And you see sometimes forgiveness needs to be performed in this way for each other. Because when we say these things out loud and when we declare them publicly, when we perform them for each other, when we tell each other that we are loved and embraced, This is never a question about whether we get to dole out or hold back God's forgiveness. The question is whether we will become the kind of people who actually believe in making room for each other.
So here's my advice, when you forgive someone, tell them. Don't just assume that it's all okay and it's water under the bridge. Let people know that you've put the past behind you and you're ready to move forward together in new ways. Because that kind of performative forgiveness and the public expression of everything that is beginning to happen inside you already, that can be a remarkably powerful symbol in the world to community. But, let's pray.
And then today, have one final story of welcome. God of grace and peace, welcomes us with open arms, who extends the table in surprising ways. May we also be shaken from our comfortable images of hospitality. We awaken to the beauty and the diversity, the expansiveness of your kingdom all around us all the time. If we have ever found ourselves feeling like we have been left on the outside, Unwelcome at the table excluded from your story by our story.
Might you be present by your spirit even now. Helping us to see the world with new eyes and the story that surrounds us with new awareness of your grace. Might we recognize your arms wrapped around us in this moment? For those of us who have always known our seat secure, might we now be willing to offer it to another? To step back, to provide space, to be your forgiveness, your embrace, your love in the world to those standing near watching.
Might hospitality become our narrative in the world. In the strong name of the risen Christ we pray. Amen. Okay. Today, we are jumping to the end of Jesus story and we need to talk about being named and unnamed, kept from seeing, lessons in irony and walking out our hospitality in the world.
But, it is a longer story today and so we are gonna jump straight in. This is Luke 24 starting in verse 10 where we read that it was Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary the mother of James, and the others with them who told this to the apostles. But, they did not believe the women because their words seemed to them like nonsense. Now, what's going on here is that Jesus has been murdered and his body laid in a tomb and a group of disciples, all of them women have gone to the tomb only to find it empty. And upon discovering an empty tomb, the women are then met by two angels who tell the women about the resurrection of Jesus and commission them to go and preach this new good news.
Well, we're going come back to the men, explain what has happened and they are met with this response. No comment necessary, at least not from me. A simple apology here on behalf of all men will have to suffice for now. However, we do read that Peter got up and ran to the tomb bending over he saw the strips of linen lying by themselves and he went away wondering to himself what had happened. Now look, Peter is the butt of a lot of jokes in the gospels.
And, he is in a lot of ways our stand in as we stumble our way toward grace. But here, we can give him at least partial credit. He at least takes the women seriously enough to decide to run to confirm what they had said. However, upon reaching the tomb and having been told exactly what to have expect and having found exactly what he was told to expect, he then wanders away wondering what possibly could have happened here. I mean Peter, you were doing so well and yet this.
However, this is life sometimes. Two steps forward, one step back, and sometimes celebrating the plus one is how we keep ourselves moving forward. But, with that as our setup, we now get to the heart of our narrative for today. Verse 13 says, that the same day two of them were going to the village of Emmaus about seven miles from Jerusalem. They were talking with each other about everything that had happened.
And, what's interesting here is that immediately after the writer of Luke goes out of his way to name the women as Mary Magdalene, Joanna, and Mary the mother of James, we now get the disciples referred to as two of them. And we are going to later learn in the story and that one of these disciples is named Cleopas, but understand here that this is not innocent. The purposeful introduction of characters which we get with the women. And then referring to the disciples as two of them are two very different narrative choices. In fact, Jesus is going to appear and interact with the two of them before we ever find out who they are.
And, in fact, we never find out who one of them is. And, all of that is an intentional choice by the writer. Point is that this here could be any of the disciples. The point is that this could be any of us who often miss the moment and find ourselves wandering away from what we know to be true. Joel Green in his commentary, in his passage says that the idea here is to identify these travelers only as persons from among those who earlier discounted the women's testimony.
That's their identity in the story. In other words, they have been as close to good news as one can possibly get and yet somehow still miss it. But, their story is not done yet. And so we read that as they talked and discussed these things with each other, Jesus himself came and walked along with them. But, they were kept from recognizing him.
Now, couple things here. We can read this through a supernatural lens. That they were stopped somehow, kept perhaps by the spirit from noticing or recognizing Jesus with them. That is probably at least part of what is going on here in Luke's mind, but there are actually lots of stories in the Hebrew scriptures where people meet angels unaware. And in fact, there's an entire genre of Greek drama that is referred to as anonorosis.
And, the genre is all about people meeting people and not recognizing them until the climactic moment in the story. I mean think back to high school. Basically every Shakespeare play that you had to read was dependent on the idea that someone somewhere along the line would mistake someone they know very well for someone they have never met. And I really never understood that part about Shakespeare, but usually in these stories the inability to recognize someone is indicative of a flaw in the character. And here, whether you choose to account for this story supernaturally or psychologically, I think the intent is exactly the same.
Because this story is meant to illustrate how pain, grief, frustration, sadness, disappointment, sorrow, depression. How all of these threaten to rob from us our full awareness of the world around us. And, just look at the way the writer is building the story here. Jesus has died. His followers are crushed obviously, but then there's some good news.
Maybe some reason to hope. It's possibly too good to be true, but the tomb is empty. There's been an angel sighting. Maybe he's alive after all. The women certainly think so.
But these two here, they can't see it. They can't even muster the energy to check the tomb with Peter. They just walk away. And, I'm not sure I blame them. Because the simple truth is the more that we invest ourselves in anything the harder it all is when it all falls apart.
Right? And imagine, you had found your Messiah. You had encountered the divine only to have all of it incontrovertibly, undeniably taken away from you. Imagine falling in love and it doesn't work out. Or pouring yourself into a startup that goes bankrupt.
Imagine putting your reputation on the line for someone that it turns out wasn't worthy of that kind of trust. In fact forget imagining, just remember that moment when your heart broke and you weren't sure if you were going to be able to put it all back together again. Most of us here in the room know our family and our story. That our son, Eaton, is adopted and that it took a very long time for the right family to intersect with ours and bring our son into our lives. Well, Rachel and I have been considering adopting again for quite some time, We've actually been on the adoption list for about a year this time.
About a few weeks ago, we got a call about a little girl. And she had been born and she was in the hospital and she would need to stay there for some time with complications from opiate withdrawal. Her mother had been the victim of this methadone crisis for reading about, and this baby was now suffering through this terrible withdrawal and would have a long process of recovery ahead of her. And, the call to us was whether we would be open to adopting her. And, we had thirty minutes to let them know because they were on their way to the hospital to finalize the adoption plan.
And, so I was in my office and I grabbed my phone and I called Rachel. We talked about this and we consulted with some people here in the community with a medical background so that we understood what it was that we were facing into and then we said yes. And we waited. Then about forty five minutes we got a text that said actually things are going in a different direction but thanks for being open we'll call you next time. And that is normal.
It's part of the process. We've been there before. Likely we will be there again. And, if you are thinking about adoption please do not let that scare you. It is beautiful and we are happy to share about our story anytime.
But, the more you invest and the more you open yourself up and the more you begin to imagine the possibilities and dream about what things could look like the harder it is when it all doesn't work out. Right? And so, I understand why these men walk away. It's not because they're cold. It's not because they don't care.
It's because they desperately do. And right now, they're not sure if they can risk what these women are saying. Maybe there is reason to hope. Maybe there is more than this. Maybe the story isn't over yet because that that is more than they can bear right now.
And so when Jesus appears to them and walks with them and speaks with them and they can't recognize him, we We can imagine this is supernatural if we want to. My guess is the writer of Luke does, but given the genre of ononorisis, it doesn't really matter because everyone reading this story understands what the point is. That these men can't bring themselves to recognize Jesus here. That would be too much for them. You see the writer, the contrast he's building here between the women and the men and how they respond to this news is about the courage to believe all over again.
And hear me, it's hard to believe in the first place. It takes incredible strength to look at this world and choose to believe that goodness wins and love reigns and peace is and will always be stronger than war. I don't discount any of that. That takes real strength, but what takes real courage is to believe in all of that and then hold it up against our experience of the world. And, all the suffering and violence and pain that you have gone through and still choose the good all over again anyway.
There is nothing to be ashamed of in looking at the world and having a hard time finding the divine. There's nothing to be ashamed of in looking at church and straining to find God in it. There's nothing to be ashamed of in looking at your life and your struggle and struggling to notice Jesus with you, beside you, walking with you right now because sometimes that inability is a learned survival instinct that keeps you from getting hurt again. And, it's okay, but I promise you it won't scare Jesus away. Because, look at how this story unfolds.
Jesus appears and walks with them, but they don't notice him. And, instead of being offended or insulted, Jesus begins to ask them questions. He says, what are you discussing together as you walk along? And, of course, Jesus already knows this, but sometimes we still need to intentionally make room for each other to tell our stories. And so, does.
And, they stopped walking their faces downcast. One of them named Cleopas asked him, are you the only one visiting Jerusalem who does not know the things that have happened in these days? The phrasing in the NIV here is a little awkward, but the word here is literally stranger. So the idea that Cleopas is asking is something like, are you a tourist? Like are you so out of touch that you don't know what has happened to Jesus?
And of course the irony of the moment is that he is talking to Jesus. A week or two ago at our last team night for volunteers I was speaking And I told a story about how I was speaking at our parish in Inglewood at the end of the summer and someone afterward came up to me and said, that was excellent. Are you in the new intern that's coming this fall because you're a really good speaker and you've got a lot of potential? And I said thank you. And first of all, there's a great window into what our Inglewood Parish has become on the other side of the city.
And second, I realize now that in this story I am the stand in for Jesus and I probably could have chosen a better illustration, but the irony here is the point for Luke. And even though believing again is hard, even though our fear is sometimes justified, our fear doesn't actually help us see the world clearly. Sometimes it actually obscures reality from us. And these men are standing in front of the Jesus that they are so deeply missing, and yet here they are missing him all over again right now. And I think the point the writer wants to make is that it's understandable they're not ready.
It's understandable that they can't bring themselves to see what's right in front of them. It makes sense that you might be too afraid to open yourself up to what's possible, but that doesn't mean it's good for you to stay there for too long. Because sometimes what protects us from being let down is also what stops us from seeing what's possible. And in this moment Jesus is very very possible. And so he says, what things?
What things they reply, things about Jesus of Nazareth and they go on and they pour out the story, they rehearse it all for Jesus and then Jesus says to them, how foolish you are. How slow to believe in all that the prophets have spoken. Did not the Messiah have to suffer these things and then enter into his glory? So beginning with Moses and all the prophets, he explained to them all that was said in the scripture concerning himself and I do not love this translation. Now for one, it makes Jesus sound kind of like a jerk.
I think the writer of Luke is actually being very gracious with these disciples. He understands why they are so disheartened. I think he wants us to identify with them as the story unfolds. So I don't think the idea here is Jesus now castigating them. That's not how the original text comes across.
And there's two important reasons for that. First, this word foolish, how foolish you are. The word is. What's difficult here is that the word carries an idea something closer to dulled or blinded than it does to a straight up insult like foolish. Except the tricky part is that this is the only time this word is used in Luke or in Acts and so we don't really have anything within this writer's corpus to compare it to.
And so what happens is we expand the search and we find that Paul does use this word on a few occasions and he does like to use it as an insult. So that's probably where this translation choice is coming from. But for one, Jesus and Paul are two very different people who speak very differently. Two, if you expand your search beyond the bible you find that this word is used in Greek with a lot of range to it. And three, the full phrase here is literally how foolish you are, how slow your heart to trust in all that the prophets have spoken.
And when you take into account the larger use of and you consider the full phrase from Jesus, I think the tone of it actually begins to shift quite considerably. Jesus is not disparaging them for not getting it, he's empathizing with them here. How blinded you are by your slowness of heart. This deep aching hurt that prevents you from trusting in everything you already know to be true. And that is a Jesus that I recognize.
One who has come back to me over and over again throughout my life helping me to come back to myself. And so what does Jesus do? He rehearses the story for them. He goes over the material again. He walks them through everything they need to hear one more time.
Then when it's time to go and they urge him to stay, he agrees to walk a little bit farther. He accompanies them to the hotel. He sits with them for dinner until finally we read that just when he took bread, gave thanks, broke it, and began to give it to them. Their eyes were opened. They recognized him and he disappeared from their sight.
Now, first of all, Jesus knows how to make an entrance. He certainly knows how to make an exit. Always leave them wanting more. Classic JC, but second. I'm not exactly sure what I know is going on here.
I'm not sure whether we are supposed to read this literally or whether this is a spiritualization of the realization that Luke is inviting us to see. But what I do know is that we can learn something once again from the remarkable hospitality Jesus extends in this interaction. Because so far in this series, we've seen Jesus extend hospitality in unexpected directions. A man who's been excluded from the community for good reason is invited back to the table. A woman who's been pushed to the edges by prejudice and rumor is welcome to find her own seat at her own table that welcomes her story unconditionally.
A man who's been ostracized by weaponized religion is now freed from the expectation to be normal and then healed as a bonus. But all of these stories are external to Jesus. They are examples of the ways he chooses to push the boundaries out just enough to include others. This story though is different. Because this is a story about those who are already on the inside with Jesus and who still almost miss the moment.
And it would be very easy to imagine a Jesus who finds himself too frustrated to make room all over again for these men. I mean, they have had every opportunity. They knew Jesus. They learned from Jesus. They ate from Jesus.
They had women in their lives who had been with them from the beginning and still they couldn't bring themselves to trust someone their bias told them not to. My goodness, they stood face to face with resurrection and still somehow missed it. Because fear got the best of them. And, what made sense stole possibility from them and despair slowly drained away the wonder of God's kingdom all around them. And, yet Jesus still comes back to them.
And he doesn't scold them, he doesn't embarrass them, he doesn't rush them or push them or hurry them along. Instead, he actually asked them questions about what's on their mind. And he listens to their stories, and then he tells them his story. He journeys with them, he sits with them, he eats with them until finally it all begins to make sense again. I can imagine it would have been very easy for Jesus to take this moment in their story personally as an affront to him, but he doesn't do that.
Instead, he accepts that this moment and this pain and this despair is theirs, not his. And so he leans in instead of backing away. He trusts that they're not fools. They're not faithless. They're hurting and it's hard.
And so he assumes that they are doing their best and he decides to walk with them as long as they need him to. And this is what hospitality is at its essence. It is welcome that makes room for our stories to be honored exactly as they are. Because you can't open a seat at the table and then say, now think this, believe this, feel this, appreciate this, and do it all in this way, on this timeline, the way that I like, in a manner that makes me feel good about my welcome. That's not hospitality, that's social transaction.
Hospitality is when we are willing for everything that we think, believe, feel and trust to be born out of the welcome that is extended in free grace. And that's what Jesus does for us over and over again. He appears to us, he answers us, he walks with us, and he will for as long as we need him to. And for those of us who have begun to believe all over again to recognize the Christ near us even now, this is the only response that will ever make sense of the story. Because this is what making room for someone else looks like.
Their story given room to be their story, not ours. And so even if you are not quite ready to recognize Jesus yet, may you somehow begin to trust that Christ is only moments from appearing to you. And that is you do your best to show up in someone else's story even if they're not ready to recognize your effort yet. May you trust that Jesus walks with you particularly when you walk with another. Because when we make room for someone's story to be their story, at their pace, on their timeline, in their words, for their journey.
This is where we find Jesus making room for us. Let's pray. God for all the ways that you have shown up near us, and you have walked with us, you have stood by us, you have answered us, and we have not noticed you. God, thank you that you continue to journey. That you are willing to take as long as we need until we are ready to recognize you.
Even if we're not there yet, Lord we acknowledge that you are here. We trust that you love us. And for all of those moments where we have extended welcome and made room for someone else and then expected them to take their seat the way that we wanted. The way that we expected, the way that made us feel like our welcome was worth it. We're sorry.
May your graciousness freely given to us infiltrate us, change us, allow us to welcome others on their terms. That their story might be given room and space to grow and evolve and become the journey you are taking them on. As we make room for each other, may we trust you are making room for us. In the strong name of the risen Christ we pray.