At the Breaking of the Bread

Luke 24:13-35

Easter 3A

There is something rhythmic, ritualistic, holy about the process of baking bread. In every culture in the known universe there is a practice of baking bread that is passed on from one generation to the next. From abuelas sitting in concinas showing their grandchildren the proper way to pulverize corn into flour, the right ratio of water, the correct heat for the pan in order to fry tortillas, to the old folks gatherer around a clay oven demonstrating the best methodology for tossing naan against the side of the heated vessel to ensure the best flavor, consistency, bubbles to even Scottish grans teaching their children’s children the proper way to make the shortbread of the old country the way my grandmother McLeod did when I was a wee one as she might have said. Moreover, there is a ritualized manner in which we consume bread as well. On Friday evenings our Jewish sisters and brothers break challah bread together, a yeasty sweetbread that helps them move into the practice of sabbath during the coming day. Just as in Ethiopia, a process of making injera that began early in the morning comes to full celebration as it becomes the lone vehicle by which food moves from plate to mouth maintaining a constant and mindful relationship with one’s meals. I love the practice of baking bread and my family usually, unless I have gotten a little too experimental, loves the results. There is also something exceedingly forgiving about the creation of bread. It need never come to a conclusion until one is totally satisfied with the stickiness, the density, the feel of the dough. Too dry and one need add a tablespoon or two of water. Too wet and one need only work a small handful of flour into the mixture. Too sweet, add more salt. Too salty, add more sugar. It is always a work in progress until one is completely satisfied with the results. And then comes the waiting. And watching. And waiting some more and watching some more until the dough has risen and is ready to be punched down and start its journey a second time. Eventually it is formed into the shape of loaves like you would use for sandwiches or woven like with challah bread or allowed to rise on its own like a rustic loaf until he goes into the oven where a combination of scent, touch, and taste is brought together to rediscover again and again that God is indeed good because there are few things in this world as heavenly wonderful and divine as the smell, feel, taste of fresh baked bread. And its a miracle every time. Every time one takes common elements that in and of themselves don’t possess much sheer goodness (flour, water, yeast, salt, sugar). Every time you bring those together in the proper ratio and ritual? The results are magical. And you always taste homemade bread, fresh out of the oven, as if it were the first time. And you can’t believe that something this good could exist in this world.

We are told that there are two disciples that are making their way back from Jerusalem to Emmaus in the evening of Easter Sunday. And it would seem clear that they don’t really know what to do with the collection of feelings that they are experiencing in that moment. It would seem that they have been present for all the major events that take place during the week that we typically call Holy Week. From the spectacle and excitement of the grand entrance on Palm Sunday in which Jesus arrived at Jerusalem as the conquering ruler. From the gut-wrenching sadness of Good Friday, in which the trials, the torture, and the death of their teacher made the whole of the world turn dark, the curtain separating the Holy of Holies from the rest of the world having been ripped by some supernatural force, the stone cold nature of a freshly hewn tomb speaking to the finality of death. From the hours spent in utter confusion following his death trying to figure out what to do next or if doing anything was safe or even worth it. From all this to the whisper of a rumor of that same tomb being empty, angels appearing, “why are you looking for the living amongst the dead?” “He is risen!” It would seem that all this has left these two previously undisclosed followers of Jesus in a state of confusion, shock, and sadness as they make their way back home to Emmaus with any sense of joy that we so commonly associate with Easter Sunday still not yet apparent for them. And in their sadness, their confusion, their shock, the person of Jesus, as if out of nowhere, appears to them and starts to travel the same path that they are trodding. And he begins to question them as to why they are experiencing this hurricane of emotions as they walk along. And you kind of have to imagine that both the disciples must have looked at Jesus with a great degree of incredulity as they ask him the equivalent of “have you been living under a rock?” And then start to recount all that has happened over the past week. And in my mind’s eye, I see Jesus looking at me the same way my wife does from time to time, with a combination of all the love in the world and at the same time, like, “you are such a fool.” At which point Jesus begins to interpret all that has happened to them, all that has happened in scripture, all that has happened since the creation of the universe, and in an instant, all the disparate events, all the words of prophets and storytellers, all the brokenness and chaos and confusion and sadness and mystery and seeming loss all snap together and what just a moment ago had seemed a jumbled picture of this history of the cosmos with lines and angles and criss-crosses becomes a singular strand that runs through all of time. A connection from the beginning of time with God that is never fully disrupted. And surely this was just the message that each of these downcast followers of Jesus needed to hear at that moment. Surely this must have lifted their spirits and given them a degree of hope with which to enter into an unknown future. We are told that the now three travelers arrive at Emmaus and just as it would seem that Jesus was going to proceed on, the two men, alive with love and hope, invite Jesus to stay the night, to have a meal, to be sustained by their kindness. And like a repeat of just a few nights ago, of Jesus gathering with his disciples in the upper room—of Jesus taking bread and say it is his body for each of them. Of taking the cup after dinner and pouring it and saying that this cup is the new covenant in his blood, offered for the forgiveness of sins. Jesus gathers with these disciples that he encountered on the road to Emmaus. Gathers around this new table and prays over the meal and looking at each one with deep and abiding love takes the bread set before him and blessed it, broke it, and handed it over to each one. Blessed it, broke it, transformed a common everyday meal, a common everyday occurrence, into the passion of Christ played out in their midst. Blessed, broke, given, and instantly their eyes were opened and they saw. Perhaps for the first time in their whole time of following Jesus, they see the Christ, the risen one, dwelling in their midst. They saw, and recognized, and just like a whisper, he was gone.

We do much the same thing in this space. We gather with one another. We speak words of peace and reconciliation. We share signs of love and acceptance. We hear some guy stand up here trying to make sense of all the brokenness and hurt and pain in the world and still reaffirm the presence of the love of God holding all of it together. And then, at a certain point in the service, we gather around table, like the disciples on the night of Jesus’s arrest, like these two formerly unknown followers of Jesus, and we break bread and we believe that in this ritual, our eyes can be reopened, opened again, opened anew to the presence of the risen messiah in our midst. In the breaking of the bread, we take our place alongside those first followers, those first disciples. In the breaking of the bread we take our place alongside Paul and Silas. In the breaking of the bread, we take our place in ritual with the early church that survived persecution and loss, that gave their lives before Caesar and God to their faith. In the breaking of the bread, we take our place alongside the prophets of every time and place from King and Fannie Lou Hamer to Dan Berrigan and Thomas Merton. In the breaking of the bread, we take our place in a practice that is as old as the faith, a practice done by our ancestors in every familial line. Each time we gather at this table we are given the opportunity to both dwell with Christ in body and essence but also to dwell with Christ as the body of Christ united from all over the world. And as we all unify at this table, we are given the opportunity to find rest when we are weary, sustenance when we need to be fed, but more importantly, to find hearts on fire beating at the center of each of our souls. Hearts that reach beyond all the stuff we put in between one another. Hearts that overcome the brokenness of our lives and the world. Hearts that fill in the deathly dark hole that resides in our souls that nothing but the love of God can ever fully fill. Each time we gather at this table we are given a center, a balance, a mission, a love, to go out into the streets and bring in the lost and the lame, to bring in the blind and the hungry, to bring in those who seek to hear the still quiet voice of the one on whom all creation rests, to bring in that tired and the confused, the hurting and the crying, the one who thinks that nobody cares, and the one who looks nothing like you. Here at this table we are all brought together to be one people, one body, one creation, one image of God, replicated a billion times over in each person we meet. Each time we gather in at this table we find ourselves, we find Christ, and we find that they are one in the same. May we be fed for the journey, now and always. Alleluia, amen.