Sermons
Friends of Jesus
March 29, 2020 | Rev. Steve Willis
Meeting Christ Along the Way
March 8, 2020 | Rev. Steve Willis
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In Luke’s Gospel we find that on Easter afternoon two disciples decided to go for a long walk. One of them is named for us. He is Cleopas. So Cleopas and a friend leave Jerusalem on a seven mile walk to the little village of Emmaus. We don’t know why they went for this walk. The story simply says that they were talking and discussing all the things that had gone on with Jesus in the last few days. I don’t know about you, but this is exactly what happens when my family gathers together. Whether the gathering is a happy or sad occasion – a time of celebration or a time of loss – inevitably folks take time to go for walks and talk about all that is going on. So Cleopas and his friend are walking and talking and thinking about what they have heard on that Easter morning – about the angel’s appearance and the news that Christ is alive. And on their way to Emmaus they will learn more than they had ever guessed. But before we get there let’s back up and remember a little bit about the bigger picture of Luke’s Gospel.
Something important to keep in mind about Luke’s Gospel is that it is the first of a two volume work that the Gospel writer Luke put down on paper. We do not usually take the time to think about it this way, because in the Bible Luke and Acts are separated by the Gospel of John. But the Gospel of Luke and the Acts of the Apostles were both written by Luke. Let me just read the opening verses of Acts for you. “In the first book, Theophilus, I wrote about all that Jesus did and taught from the beginning until the day when he was taken up to heaven, after giving instructions through the Holy Spirit to the apostles.” So in the first volume which is his Gospel Luke tells us about the life and ministry of Jesus. Luke tells us about Jesus’ death and resurrection. Then in the second volume of Acts Luke tells us about the beginning of the church and how the Holy Spirit gives life to the church will become the people of God, who tell the world about Jesus and who live out the ways and teachings of Jesus in their life together. So Luke and Acts go together even if we usually only think of them as separate books.
The reason that I mention it this morning is because our passage today is the link between the two volumes – the connection between the Gospel of Luke and the Acts of the Apostles – in other words, the connection between the story of Jesus and the beginning of the church. The story of Cleopas and his friend walking to Emmaus is the important connection between the life and ministry of Jesus to the what comes next with the Holy Spirit beginning the church who will carry on the story of Jesus’ resurrection. So what we can see here on Easter evening are the first hints, the first signs of what is to come, namely the body of Christ, the church. So let us look this morning at what this story tells us is important about being the church today.
First, the Emmaus Road story is set in the context of fellowship. It starts out by saying, “Now on that same day (Easter) two of them were going to a village called Emmaus, talking with each other about all these things that had happened.” The reason for their walk together was a friendship that they shared. The relationship that Cleopas and his friend shared was one that was grounded in their relationship with Jesus. They needed to be together to work through all that they had experienced since his crucifixion. They weren’t locked in their rooms alone, trying to figure all this out by themselves. They relied on each other and supported one another. Surely they consoled each other about the loss of their teacher and friend. They shared their emotions of anger, confusion and grief about the injustice that had happened to Jesus on the cross. Then they pondered together the shocking news that the women had told them about his rising from the dead. The story begins with this fellowship, this friendship set in the context of faith. The New Testament has a wonderful word for it in Greek – koinonia – the loving, supportive fellowship of faith. Wherever two or three are gathered in my name – I will be with them. That’s what we are going to see in this story.
Second, we find that for Cleopas and his friend, their fellowship was not a closed circle. The faithful friendship and support that they shared was not something that they horded to themselves. They shared it with a stranger, with a newcomer, with someone they did not know. A man who they thought was a stranger approached them and these two friends invited the man to join them on their seven mile walk to Emmaus. Do you see how their faithful friendship was shaped by the teaching of Jesus? They welcomed a stranger. They shared the kind of hospitality that they had seen Jesus share with so many others. …… Quite honestly it would have been understandable if they had said “You know we are tired and worn out. We have just lost our best friend and we need to be alone to talk things over.” But their fellowship had been so shaped by Jesus that even in their grief and confusion they made room for a fellow traveler on the way to Emmaus. ……. Let me say briefly, I am not going to go on about it this morning, although I could. Y’all provide hospitality like this faithfully and constantly. Your Saturday morning mission outreach is a key component of this. Your mission commitment here in Danville and to the world is well-integrated into the life of First Presbyterian Church. ……… I’m hoping that you see this connection.
Now we know the rest of the story. This unknown stranger will turn out to be the risen Christ. And not until he takes the bread and breaks it will their eyes be opened and will they see that he had been with them on their long seven mile walk. It reminds us of Jesus’ teaching in Matthew 25. The faithful do not always realize that when they share hospitality and reach out to someone in need they are doing it for Christ himself. In that parable the faithful say, “Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry and gave you food, or thirsty and gave you something to drink? And when was it that we saw you a stranger and welcomed you, or naked and gave you clothing? And when was it that we saw you sick or in prison and visited you? And the king will answer them, ‘Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me.’”
So we see Cleopas and his friend in this early foretaste of what the church will be, sharing fellowship and amidst this fellowship, they offer hospitality to a stranger.
Third, we see these three discussing the Scriptures and talking through the meaning of what God had done in the past in order to understand what God was doing in the present. Jesus opened up the Scriptures, explaining the law and the prophets and how they pointed to the coming of the Messiah. And the two talked about how their hearts were burning as Jesus opened up the Scriptures. They were learning with the combination of both their heads and their hearts as well. Then finally the story reaches its height when the stranger breaks the bread and in the breaking of the bread the disciples recognize the risen Christ. So again we see a foretaste of what will be important for God’s people in their life together as the church of Jesus Christ. The Scriptures and sacrament. Word and communion. The worshipping life of God’s people that is centered on Scripture and sacrament.
We see the most important and foundational aspects of the church in this story: the fellowship of God’s people, hospitality to the new person and worship that is grounded in Scripture and sacrament. ……..
At the beginning of the story as they set on on their walk, how are Cleopas and his friend described? It tells us that, “They stood still looking sad.” Then what happens at the end? After their fellowship and hospitality, the scripture and sacrament – after having experienced these basic foundational aspects of what will be the church – they get up with excitement and purpose and they walk back to Jerusalem all over again. They walk back to tell their friends that the Lord is risen. And this time they are walking with purpose, confidence and joy.
This is such a wonderful picture of what the church is, even for us today some two thousand years later. In our individual walks with Christ, in our own journeys of faith we find purpose, confidence and joy as we walk with and support each other. The Christian faith is something that we do together by developing the face to face, personal relationships with others. In these relationships we open space for welcoming others into the whole. And the Scriptures shape our community together and the sacraments nurture the life of the people. It’s exactly how the early church worked. Think about all those individuals named in the Book of Acts – all these face to face, personal relationships that develop between the early Christians and their neighbors. Saul and Ananias, Barnabas, Cornelius, Simeon, Lucius, Manean, Timothy, Lydia, Dorcas, Silas, Jason, Dionysius, Damaris, Aquila, Priscilla, Apollo, Sopater, Aristarchus, Secundus, Gaius, Tychicus, Trophimus, Eutychus and let me stop there, but we could keep going.
This is how the Gospel grows as it is shared in face to face, personal relationships. ….. When we think about the early church, we often rush to Pentecost. Right?! The great big booming day of Spirit and fire. But when did Pentecost happen? How often did it happen? It happened in Jerusalem during the holy observance of Shavuot. Pilgrims from all over Israel and Jews and Gentiles from neighboring countries were there for the festivities. What were the disciples doing? Nothing. Well, still sort of cowering behind closed doors after Jesus had departed this world. There was no bulletin. No order of worship. There was no planning committee that set that day in motion. There was the Holy Spirit. The Spirit showed up and did something unprecedented that became the birth of the church. It was the ecclesiastical big bang! How often did this happen again in the Book of Acts? Not once. Never again.
How did the church grow? All those pilgrims, all those folks who were there at Pentecost and trusted the story about the life, death and resurrection of Jesus, they went back home – to their own towns and villages and they told the story to their families and friends. Churches started. Small Christian communities naturally came to be. Churches that were simply small gatherings of new Christians in homes, welcoming others to come and break bread. Small communities of Christian fellowship. Face to face, personal experiences of koinonia, sharing Scripture and sharing bread and remembering Jesus Christ. That was the normative pattern for the early church for the first three hundred and thirteen years. And just like Christians have done in many different seasons of change, understanding the way forward always has a little bit of going back to the future. Let us remember who we are as we remember our faith story. And let us take this opportunity this coming week to foster the Christian fellowship, the koinonia, the holy relationships between ourselves and with God.
In the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.
The More Things Change…..?
February 16, 2020 | Rev. Steve Willis
The US standard railroad gauge (the distance between two railroad rails) is 4 feet, 8.5 inches. That was the distance that was used by the English. And English immigrants built much of the US railroad system. So why did the English decide on 4 feet, 8.5 inches? Well, it seems that the people who built railways used the same jigs and tools that were used earlier for building wagons, which used 4 feet, 8.5 inches for wagon wheel spacing. O.K., we might ask, but why did wagon builders use this same length? It seems that the ancient ruts in Europe that were put in place by the Roman Empire because of Roman chariot’s wheels were - you guessed it 4 feet, 8.5 inches. So our modern railroad system’s railways are based on the old Roman chariot. ……… And why did the Romans use 4 feet, 8.5 inches as the standard between chariot wheels? Well, it seems that this length was just wide enough to accommodate the rear ends of two horses.
Now before the end of the federal NASA program our family had the opportunity several times to watch the Space Shuttle lifting off from its launch pad down in Florida as my wife’s family gathers every year in Cocoa Beach. If you ever watched, then you remember those two big booster rockets attached to the sides of the main fuel tank. These Solid Rocket Boosters were made in a factory in Utah. The engineers who designed them wanted to make them wider, but they had to be shipped by train from the factory in Utah to the launch site in Florida. The railroad line from the factory runs through several mountain tunnels just slightly wider than the railroad track. ….. So one of the most advanced transportation systems in the entire world was determined by the length of 4 feet, 8.5 inches that goes back over two thousand years ago and which as you know is about as wide as the tail ends of two horses. ……………..
The more things change, the more they stay the same.
I have to confess that I often find myself agreeing with that old saying. There’s another version that sounds like it that comes from the Bible. There is nothing new under the sun. You can open a newspaper or turn on the news and it doesn’t take long to see that it is true that, the more things change, the more they stay the same. But is that the end of the story? Is there any other good word that transcends the propensity for human beings to repeat themselves and their mistakes.
What we find in the Beatitudes and Jesus’ teaching in the fifth chapter of Matthew’s Gospel is the Good News that there is something enduringly better than the tired, ways of the world repeating itself. As Jesus taught the disciples, he utilized a conventional form of speech in the Sermon on the Mount, a form called the Beatitude. The beatitude form can be found in the Old Testament. People would have been accustomed to hearing it taught in the synagogue. There are a number of conventional beatitude or blessing forms from the Psalms and Proverbs like - Blessed is the one who walks not in the counsel of the wicked. A beatitude quite simply is a blessing. It is an announcement of God’s favor. The closest thing to compare it to is something that happens every Sunday. The benediction. The benediction which in Latin means good words is a pronouncement of God’s blessing. The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ. The love of God. And the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you now and always. Jesus was naming God’s blessing on people here in the Sermon on the Mount. ….. So the point to be made here is that these are not exhortations to Jesus’ disciples. It is not like Jesus was saying, “Go and be mournful. Let us be meek and hungry and thirsty.” Rather these very first words of Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount are a pronouncement about what is true about God’s blessing.
This is why the Sermon on the Mount is so surprising. It turns upside-down our assumptions of who we might think the blessed are. My guess is that if a Gallup Poll was taken asking the question about who is most blessed – a large percentage of answers would name the healthy, wealthy and happy. We might think of names of American figures who would be listed among the most blessed. But Jesus came announcing God’s favor and surprisingly he named among the blessed those who were poor in spirit, the mournful, the meek, those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, the merciful, the pure in heart, the peacemakers and the persecuted. …….. What a surprise! What a blessed surprise, …. truly.
Jesus was giving us a look into the nature of his compassion. He was giving us a look into the heart of God. This glimpse of the divine compassion shows us a God who cares for the poor, those in mourning and those harmed by injustice.
And in teaching this to his disciples of course, he was showing them that the way of Christian faithfulness necessitates care for the poor, the mournful and the injured. …….. Now the truth is that God also cares for those who are joyful, well-fed and rich as well. But the world rejoices with those who are rejoicing. ……..
Who announces blessing on those who are suffering? Jesus did. And this is Good News for everyone. Because the truth is that sometime in the life of every single human being we will be poor in spirit or we will be sitting on our mourning bench or we will be hungering for justice in a fallen world where sometimes the wrong prospers for a season. What Jesus’ beatitudes reveal to us is that there is Good News even then. Even when we most need it. Blessing still abides.
A decade ago, I was fortunate to visit the traditional site on the northern shore of the Sea of Galilee in Israel called the Mount of Beatitudes. I was on a Lenten Pilgrimage through Galilee and Jerusalem with twenty other pastors from a wide variety of denominational backgrounds. And the rural, pristine Galilee was the highlight of two weeks in the Holy Lands. Now we don’t know exactly where Jesus preached the Sermon on the Mount. Luke calls the sermon with the beatitudes, the Sermon on the Plain. But Christians have marked a spot at the northern portion of the Sea of Galilee and for centuries pilgrims have visited the place and remembered the words of Jesus’ teachings there. This portion of Matthew’s Gospel is one of my personal favorite sections of all of the Scriptures. So I was especially excited to visit the Mount of Beatitudes, to look out over the Sea of Galilee and to reflect upon Jesus’ words once again.
But I was disappointed to learn that the Mount of Beatitudes was closed in with wrought iron fences by a Christian order who owns and maintains the property. You couldn’t just walk up from the Sea of Galilee. Rather you had to enter through the gate and pay the money for a ticket. And then as I sat in the large Basalt stone church that marks the spot of the Sermon on the Mount, I discovered the patron builder of the church. On a bronze plated plaque I read who had made this church possible. Benito Mussolini, the fascist Italian dictator from WWII, had given the money and had the church built.
What a let down! As I looked over the lakeside setting it was then that I overheard an older American couple from Ohio talking with each other about this depressing bit of news. In fact I got my sermon title from the man’s comments about it. He turned to his wife, sadly shaking his head and said, The more things change. The more they stay the same. We’ve all been there and uttered the same kind of exasperated resignation. But it was there of all places that I saw Jesus’ teaching pushes us to see more than this.
Surprisingly this setting became one of the most moving of the entire trip. There in that Mussolini built church, surrounded by the imposing wrought iron fence amidst all the tourist trap trinkets and money-changing, the words of Jesus captured in the stained glass rang and sang out to me as something forever enduring, forever bearing light into the world. Hundreds of people just that very day had come to this spot to remember these words. This teaching has endured for two thousand years. Our group of twenty pastors and friends began singing the hymn, Fairest Lord Jesus, and the crowd joined in the singing. All the King Herods, the corrupt Emperors like Nero, vengeful dictators like Mussolini are long gone and dust. But this has remained.
Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Blessed are those who mourn for they shall be comforted.
Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.
This teaching is not naïve or wishful thinking. It simply gives us perspective from the kingdom. It gives us a much longer, eternal perspective. Because we know how the world works most of the time. The meek are overlooked. The mournful are avoided. And the poor in spirit are criticized. The more things change, the more they stay the same. But this is not the end of the story. There is a reality that is greater than the weary, tiresome, self-seeking ways of the world. The Beatitudes give us reason for hope. But in order to see this hope a person has to look from a perspective of faith, a perspective of the kingdom of God. This perspective can seem upside-down from the tired, old ways of the world. But from the perspective of God’s Kingdom, the beatitudes are actually rightside-up. The Apostle Paul put it this way to the Christians in Corinth, God’s foolishness is wiser than human wisdom, and God’s weakness is stronger than human strength. ……………………………….
Friends, may God give us the grace that as we hear Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount, we may live into his wonderfully surprising words. May God bless each one of us so that we may entrust ourselves and those we love to these unchanging beatitudes.
Then we will know that the more things change, the more the kingdom of God endures.
In the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.