A Sermon for the Third Sunday of Easter
The Rev. Patricia Gillespie

Acts 2:14a,36-47
1 Peter 1:17-23
Luke 24:13-35
Psalm 116 or 116:10-17

When I was in second grade on a trip to the local grocery store a woman in the breakfast cereal aisle greeted me by name. I smiled sheepishly but didn't say anything because I didn't know who she was. Only later did I realize that the woman was my teacher. But she was dressed differently and it hadn't occurred to me that she had a life other than school. (So I "knew" she would never need to go to the grocery store because she had all her meals in the lunchroom.) I didn't recognize her because I didn't expect to see her there.

And it's not just kids that have these things happen. To my embarrassment I actually did one of those things that people make up jokes about: One summer during college I was working at a suburban swim club and studying physics downtown at University of Pennsylvania. Early one morning while studying on the commuter train, I looked up to see a vaguely familiar man getting on the train, and he greeted me by name. I knew that I knew him, but I was clueless as to who he was or where I'd met him. As I awkwardly struggled to come up with an appropriate response, he told me his name, which I recognized as a member of the swim club. And without thinking I blurted out: "Oh! I didn't recognize you with you clothes on!"

(Fortunately he was amused, and got a lot of mileage out of that story at the swim club.)

Recognition doesn't always come when we think it should. And recognition frequently depends on expectation -- something we live with all the time. We expect that when we put something in the refrigerator it will stay cold. We expect the alarm clock to go off at the time we set it to go off. When we put the key in the car's ignition and turn it, we expect the engine to start. Mary Magdalene expected Jesus to still be dead when she went to the tomb on the first Easter morning, so she didn't recognize him when she saw him in the garden, until he spoke her name. Jesus wasn't expected to be walking on the road to Emmaus, so his disciples didn't recognize him.

Too often we see only what we expect. For example, how do you picture the two disciples on the road to Emmaus? Guys with sandals, beards, and long robes? That's what we expect disciples to look like. Yet it is not unlikely that one of the two was a woman. A number or scholars think this because one is named and the other is not. Had they both been men, we'd likely have been given both names as witnesses of the Risen Lord.

Women, however, could not be counted as witnesses and are usually noted and left unnamed when accompanying the man to whose household they belonged.

How easily our eyes and imaginations become locked in to a certain image. We don't expect to see a woman as a disciple. And the disciples, whatever their gender, on the road to Emmaus certainly didn't expect to see Jesus as a fellow traveler. They finally recognized Christ by what was done not by how the stranger looked.

So, hear another retelling of the Emmaus story.

The Sabbath has ended, and on the first day of the week the apostles Peter, James and John, afraid that they would be arrested, fled from Jerusalem for their safely. At sunset, they stopped at a small inn in the village of Emmaus. Taking seats in the corner, they spoke in hushed voices about the death of their Master. A Greek slave woman came to their table and, while pouring wine into their cups, asked them, ‘Why are you men so sad? You look like you've lost your best friend.' ‘Woman,' Peter replied impatiently, ‘we have indeed, but that is no business of yours. Go, be about your work!' ‘Sir,' the serving woman replied, ‘I too know the great pain of losing a dear friend, and I also know the pain of a broken heart. But death is not the end of love!' Then, to their surprise, she lifted up a wooden drinking cup from their table, pronounced a blessing over the wine and said, ‘Take and drink, this is...' John jumped to his feet, saying, ‘Master! Rabboni!' In an instant, the Greek slave woman vanished before their eyes.*

So do we have God in disguise? God who is no more easily recognizable than a second grade teacher in the grocery store or a swimmer in a business suit. And, God, who when recognized, has a tendency to vanish.

Emmaus, it seems, is not any particular place. But the ordinary places and journeys in our lives where God shows up unexpectedly, often in disguise, and the Presence of God takes us by surprise.

So what, in God's name, are we to do about our inability to recognize God?

Recall from this morning's reading the advice Peter gives to those who did not recognize the messiah, those who had Jesus crucified because they didn't recognize him? When they ask what they should do, Peter replies. "Repent and be baptized." "Repent" – turn around toward God.

Turning toward God sounds like a good idea,. But just what direction is that when God seems to travel in disguise and then vanish as soon as recognized?

Now, we've talked before about where to look for Christ today. So you know one answer to that one: we look for the image of Christ in one another. In the poor. In the people who love us. In the pew next to us.

And I can see it easily in some folks, like, for example, Nancy. So if I'm to take Peter's advice and repent, I can turn toward God by turning toward Nancy. I "repent" and I recognize Christ in her. So far, so good.

But what happens if I try to hold on to that one particular image of God? If I try to limit God to being just like Nancy? God vanishes. As wonderful as she is and as clearly as she may reflect God's image, she isn't all of God. As soon as we take any one way of recognizing God and try to make it God, it becomes idolatry, and God vanishes.

Doesn't matter how "perfect" and holy that way of recognizing God is: it could be Nancy, or a bearded grandfather type wearing white robes in the clouds, or an abstract and brilliant theological concept. Doesn't matter: God is always more. And when we try to hold on to God in one way of recognizing God, God vanishes. It may feel as if God is dead when our image or idea of God fails us. And yet I suspect that God's "vanishing act" is a way to help us grow in our understanding of God.

What do we do when God vanishes? Listen to Peter: "Repent, turn around again, and be baptized."

What do we do when God vanishes? Look at the two disciples in Emmaus: They turned around and went back to Jerusalem.

They turned looking for God in community. Not in any one thing, but in the many ways that the community lived out their baptism: "devoting themselves to the apostles' teaching and fellowship to the breaking of bread and the prayers."

We can look for God in the actions of the gathered community. In, as Peter describes it, the "genuine mutual love." That is how the Real Presence of Christ is recognized in the breaking of the bread, in the compassion of a Greek slave woman, in the welcome offered by the travelers to Emmaus, and in the ordinary journeys of our lives.

Repent, we are told, turn to where love is genuine, where communities gather in fellowship and prayer, where bread is broken and shared, it is then that we recognize God.

Repent and live your baptism. Turn toward genuine mutual love and expect to see God. And when you recognize God there, don't cling, for then God will vanish. But keep turning for God is always there, resurrected and waiting in some new disguise for us to open our eyes to the Real Presence of God in our lives.

* Edward Hays, A Lenten Hobo Honeymoon: Daily Reflections for the Journey of Lent. 1999, Forest of Peace Publishing, Leavenworth, KS., pp. 139-140.