“Discussion with Jesus on the Road”, A Sermon preached by the Rev. Canon Dr. C. Denise Yarbrough on Sunday, May 8, 2011 at Church of the Ascension, Rochester, New York
17And he said to them, “What are you discussing with each other while you walk along?” They stood still, looking sad. 18Then one of them, whose name was Cleopas, answered him, “Are you the only stranger in Jerusalem who does not know the things that have taken place there in these days?”…. 21But we had hoped that he was the one to redeem Israel. (Luke 24:17-18;21)
What an incredible ten days we have lived through in these early weeks of our Eastertide season in this year of our Lord, 2011. Ten days ago I awoke early to watch the fairy tale royal wedding of Prince William and Kate Middleton, enjoying the British pomp and circumstance, the beautiful Anglican liturgy of their ceremony, and delighting in the scenes of dancing in the streets as people from all over the world gathered to celebrate with them, partying hearty in Hyde Park and on the Mall and the streets of London. Everyone loves a wedding, with all the promise of happiness and love and good fortune that it embodies, even for those who are not of royal blood. That same weekend, tornadoes ripped through the American South, killing hundreds of people in Alabama and destroying everything in towns and villages throughout Alabama and Mississippi. And later in the week, the waters of the Mississippi rose so high that levees had to be broken to save a town, flooding and destroying acres of farmland in the process.
Then on Saturday night, two 17 year old boys, one from Brighton High School and one from Rush, burned a swastika into the street on Edgemere Road, in Brighton on the eve of the Jewish Community’s commemoration of Yom Hashoah –Holocaust Remembrance. Our city awoke to that news in shock that in our multi-religious, multi-cultural community such a hateful show of bigotry, intolerance and malice could come from two young men, one of whom, I later learned, is a member of a Christian youth group in a local church, which youth group is led by one of our students at CRCDS. The Brighton neighborhood gathered last Sunday evening for a candlelight vigil to show solidarity with the Jewish community and to bear witness to our condemnation of such acts of bigotry and violence in our community. I spent much of this week in interreligious meetings – Christian Muslim, Christian Jewish, Christian Hindu, Interfaith Forum – where this incident was the subject of much discussion. The interfaith groups have sent statements addressing this event to the local media, wanting to be on record that the values that we all stand for do not countenance this kind of behavior in our community and calling for a restorative justice approach to this crime rather than retributive or punitive justice. We have also been involved as resources to the Brighton Schools and the local district attorney who are directly involved in the matter. Our hope is that these boys can be restored to right relations with the whole community through a process of repentance and reconciliation.
And then the crowning event, the assassination of Osama Bin Laden by our government on Sunday night. This was the second major topic of discussion in all of our interreligious meetings this week. We all struggled with our own emotional reactions to this momentous event. My first thought when I heard the news, particularly as the media began to show scenes of people gathered at Ground Zero, at the White House and all around the country dancing and chanting “USA! USA!”, was “Ding dong the witch is dead” immediately followed by the conviction that there are still more wicked witches in the world. Killing this one bad man has not rid the world of evil, so why are people dancing? And no matter how bad a person Osama Bin Laden was, and he was truly an evil man, I cannot rejoice at the death of a human being, nor be proud that we killed him, even as I feel relief that he is gone and the threat he personally posed to the whole world is somewhat diminished. In all of our interfaith conversations this week everyone of whatever religious tradition echoed that same sentiment. We cannot rejoice at the death of any human being, no matter how despicable we thought him to be, but everyone is relieved, most especially Muslims who suffered terribly from his distortion of their faith and the suspicion and malice that his actions brought upon millions of innocent, peaceful and God-fearing Muslims.
All of us struggled with the tension between the teachings of our religious faiths, that call us to compassion and mercy and steer us away from desires for revenge, and our all too human emotions that rejoiced at the death of someone who had caused so much pain to so many around the world. We were very much aware that living up to the values of our religious traditions is truly a struggle against our basest human nature that does not always run immediately to compassion and mercy when faced with threat and danger. The extent to which we all need God to imbue us with God’s grace and mercy as we work through human conflict and tragedy was made abundantly clear to all of us as we prayed and wrestled with this news together.
In the midst of all of these human joys and sorrows, I turned to the lectionary to prepare to preach today and read one of my favorite gospel narratives – the road to Emmaus story. Into this week of deep discussion and prayer, Jesus came and asked me “What are you discussing with each other as you walk along?” And I found myself responding, “Are you the only one in the world that does not know the things that have taken place here this week?” And I told him of all the things that have happened and of the concern and pain and struggle they bring to all of us in this community. And then I listened to Jesus’ response.
Jesus took me through the scriptures, beginning with creation and the call of Abraham and Moses and all the prophets. He walked me through the story of salvation history, the story we tell every week at the Eucharist, that we told in beautiful detail on the night of our Easter vigil. How God created the world and it was good and God created humankind in God’s image. How humankind repeatedly turned away from God and had to be called back again and again by God, through the prophets and uniquely, through Jesus himself. How God brought God’s people out of slavery and bondage in Egypt, through the Red Sea into freedom in the wilderness, and stayed with them during that long wilderness sojourn. How God blessed God’s people, feeding them with manna and leading them to the Promised Land. How God was with them in exile and called them back again when they returned to Jerusalem. How Jesus came into the world to walk with us, as God walked with Adam and Eve in the garden, to show us in a way we could see, touch, hear and feel, what the love of God looks like and how we are to respond to human conflict and pain. “Blessed are the peacemakers” he reminded me. “Love your enemies and do good to those who persecute you.” “Love one another as I have loved you. By this all people will know that you are my disciples, that you have love for one another.” How he taught us to pray, “Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven….forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us. Lead us not into temptation and deliver us from evil.” Forgiveness, repentance, reconciliation, peacemaking- these were the themes he reminded me of as he went through all the Scriptures with me.
And I said to him, “But we had hoped” – hoped that our young people had been raised to value the diversity and difference that is part of our community and that they would not perpetuate the hatreds and bigotry of their parents and grandparents’ generations, but then look what these children did. We had hoped that with the death of Osama Bin Laden the threat of terrorism might be taken away, but we’re not sure that killing him alone will make the world safe for everyone – soldiers and innocent civilians continue to die in Afghanistan, Iraq, Israel and Palestine. We had hoped that spring would come after a long and harsh winter and yet as it does it is bringing death and destruction in its wake. And he responded, “repentance and forgiveness of sins is to be proclaimed in my name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem.” And I realized that he was reminding me of my baptismal covenant and of my responsibility as his apostle to embody the gospel he came to proclaim. The gospel of peace, reconciliation, non-violence, and forgiveness. That last one is so hard when the ones to be forgiven are so easy to hate. But he was relentless in reminding me, and started once again to go through the scriptures. “Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us” he taught me again.
And like Cleopas and his companion, I asked him to stay with me. And he reminded me gently that he is with us all the time and most especially when we break bread together as disciples of the Risen Christ. He reminded me that when the pain of the human condition becomes as real as it has this week, with the many ways we humans can hurt each other made manifest in the course of our daily lives, and when the vagaries of the natural world wreak havoc on human civilization, we have our community of disciples to return to where, when two or three are gathered together, he is in the midst of us just as he was with Cleopus and his companion. And I remembered how right he is about that. I remembered that when I come to the Eucharistic table each week, he is here, however briefy, however ephemerally, and for a moment I am bathed in the power of his love and empowered to return to my rich, verdant, hopeful and hopeless, joyful and painful world, with my heart burning within me because of my sojourn with the sacred at the holy table.
Amen.
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