Easter 3: "How Can You Stand Next to the Truth and Not See It?"
And yet, how often have I been unable to read the signs that in hindsight were all around?
Does anyone still watch “The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon?” A couple of years ago, I saw an episode in which former Mets pitcher Matt Harvey was walking the streets of Manhattan asking fans what they thought of him. Only, he wasn’t wearing his baseball uniform. He was dressed in everyday, casual clothing and no one recognized him. It was as if he had been transformed. (It’s not so different than if I were passing you on 7th Avenue without the collar. I’d say hi, and you’d reach for your pepper spray. Like Harvey, completely camouflaged!)
[Back to “The Tonight Show 😉 ] Assuming the role of an everyday interviewer, Matt Harvey asked passersby if Matt Harvey was any good or if he was just getting lucky. (Mind you, this is when it looked like Harvey might be great. It was his rookie season, and he had just been picked as a starting pitcher for the All-Star Game.) The skit really worked because Fallon got some die-hard Mets fans to do what New Yorkers often do: they talked smack about someone. Only, in this instance, they talked badly about a person right in front of them – a player they had gone to see in person or had watched on TV countless times. Not one fan recognized him until, as they began to walk away, he revealed his true identity. The stammering, red-faced result is a gleeful delight. (I hope none of you in this room were among the embarrassed victims of this late-night prank!)
This sketch came to mind after reading this morning’s Gospel lesson. In it, the resurrected Christ approaches two of his disciples, but they do not recognize him. Having overheard their conversation, he asked them what they were discussing, and they tell him about their dashed Messianic hopes. In his grief, one asks, “Are you the only stranger in Jerusalem who does not know the things that have taken place here these days? The things about Jesus of Nazareth, who was condemned to death and crucified. But we had hoped that he was the one to redeem Israel.”
Reading this, I couldn’t help but think of the fan wearing a Mets jersey who called Harvey an “overrated bum.” There he is, so close – right next to him – but he couldn’t see him. Similarly, the resurrected Jesus is in their midst, and the unseeing disciples unwittingly call him a disappointment. The one upon whom all of their hopes were placed was with them, and they didn’t recognize him.
I don’t know if you’re a U2 fan, but Bono raised the question we’re all asking perfectly a few albums ago, “How can you stand next to the truth and not see it?” And yet, how often have I been blind to the truth that was staring right at me? How many times have I been unable to read the signs that in hindsight were all around? I’m not talking about how I should have seen that airline stocks would bounce back from their pandemic lows, or that crypto would tank after going “to the moon,” I’m thinking of how often I’ve been oblivious to Christ and his redeeming work in the world all around me.
Most days, I require the obvious to be stated – I need the joke completely ruined – and even that doesn’t always work. Sometimes I need Kafka’s “ice-axe to break the frozen sea within me.”
It was this axe that fell upon the disciples. Only not in the form of what we’re used to: eye rolls, criticism, or wrath, but “in the breaking of the bread.” In the ordinary means of bread and wine and Bible study, the disciples were able to see the stranger right in front of them.
“Were not our hearts burning within us while he was talking to us on the road?” the disciples asked, as Jesus showed them how the Scriptures point to a Messiah who would redeem his people through suffering.
“Didn’t we know this whole time?” they wondered, after he “took bread, broke it, gave it to his disciples” and their eyes were opened.
My friends, I don’t know how you’re feeling about your spirituality or your relationship with God this morning, but I do know this, Jesus continues to reveal himself through the same ordinary means of Scripture, Sacrament, prayer, and community. I pray that as we hear his Word and eat his Body and Blood, you and I, like the disciples on the road to Emmaus, may see the stranger right in front of us, and know him as the risen Lord.
“Emmaus,” Bilder von Janet Brooks Gerloff, Kornelimünster Abbey
Yesterday I was to meet friends at great lawn Central Park. The first two to arrive as a prank posted a picture of where they were with a blanket and umbrella spread out (that layout belonged to some other group on other end of lawn) and then they sent their location. As I got to location I was looking for the umbrella that had been planted and not the faces of my friends. I practically walked past them when I realized oh there you are! Everyone else who arrived were also looking for the non existent umbrella and not our faces. In the end while we certainly meeting Jesus we did eat and drink together in communion on the great lawn. So todays reading and your sermon and the sermon I heard at my church today all resonated in light of yesterday’s little prank as part of the meet up.
Your sermon points out how relevant the gospel message is to us today, because we so often cannot see what is right in front of us,