Luke 24:13-35
May 4, 2014
Sermon preached by Rev. Donald Ng at the First Chinese Baptist Church in San Francisco.
One of our most faithful strengths at FCBC is our welcoming hospitality. Visitors and guests who have come to our church would always remarked on how friendly you are. There are people like Joel Jang who makes it his responsibility to meet a newcomer and even inviting the person out to lunch.
Since 1980, almost 35 years ago, you created this intimate and inclusive sanctuary space that permits everyone here to see everyone else in the room. And since the retrofit was completed, our major appliance repairman Joe Chan who probably always wanted to open a breakfast coffee shop started cooking breakfast at church on Sundays. I told him that he can’t retire until I do because Joe’s Café is a hospitable place.
When someone visits our church, each guest is welcomed numerous times before sitting down for worship. These first impressions are critical for guests deciding whether or not to come back before the pastor speaks his/her first words.
In Luke 24, we have the only account of two disciples, Cleopas and an unnamed disciple on their way away from Jerusalem to Emmaus. Along their journey, the Risen Christ meets them in three different roles: Stranger, Guest, and Host. Jesus appears to his disciples first as a stranger, then as a guest and finally as a host. And if we want to do a better job of welcoming and including people in the life of our church, we can learn from what Jesus did.
Stranger
When the two disciples are traveling to the village of Emmaus on Easter afternoon, the risen Jesus comes near and walks with them. But their eyes are kept from recognizing him. Jesus asks about the events they’re discussing, and one of them says, “Are you the only stranger in Jerusalem who does not know the things that have taken place there in these days?” (v. 18).
Jesus is initially depicted as a stranger, giving his disciples the challenge of showing hospitality. The New Testament word for hospitality means, “love of the stranger.” This stands in stark contrast to the attitude so prevalent in society today—xenophobia, “fear of stranger.”
What would it mean to practice hospitality in our congregation? We do it every time we teach immigrant students in our Friday Night School. We do it when we open up our sanctuary to tourists and neighbors at Reception Ministry, which by the way, is going to take place this afternoon. We do it when we invite Chinatown children to our Day Camp. We do it every time we speak to strangers in the vestibule or on the sidewalk after worship, instead of chatting only with our friends. We do it every time we make an effort to get to know a person from a different race, culture, nationality or sexual orientation.
This is what Christian hospitality is—love of the stranger. When the two disciples met the Risen Christ and thought that he was a stranger, they welcomed him. When we practice it, we discover that strangers really aren’t so strange after all.
Guest
The two disciples on the road to Emmaus rise to this challenge. As they near the village that is their destination, Jesus walks ahead as if he is going on. Jesus wasn’t being presumptuous thinking that he would be invited to anything—keeping to himself. But the disciples urge him strongly, saying, “Stay with us, because it is almost evening and the day is now nearly over” (v. 29). So Jesus goes in to stay with them, and he becomes their guest. They welcome and include him in their lives, and invite him to stay with them.
When we invite guests to our home, we surely want to take good care of them. If they have a food or diet restriction, we want to prepare a meal that they can eat. Thank you for always making sure that I have a vegetarian dish to eat! We are constantly checking to see if our guests have something to drink or are feeling comfortable. When guests come to our house, we seat them facing the bay so that they can enjoy the scenery. Jesus wants us to take good care of the guests who come to us.
Jesus challenges us to feed the hungry and welcome the outcasts as he did throughout his ministry. Since we, the members of the church are the physical body of Christ in the world today, we’re supposed to be his hands and feet to continue his work. We show his presence in the world every time we practice hospitality in his name, whether we’re feeding the hungry at Friday Night School or at Sunday breakfast or welcoming a guest to Sunday worship.
Guests are important to Jesus, which is why he played that role on the road to Emmaus. He wanted to challenge his followers to see him as a guest and take care of him.
There’s a scene in the Matthew that stresses the importance of this kind of care. In the final judgment of the nations in Matthew 25, Jesus announces that he frequently appears to us as a guest. Specifically, he comes in the form of people who are in need of food, drink and a warm welcome. He says to his followers, “Come, you that are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world; for I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me” (vv.34-35).
But the followers of Jesus hear these words and they’re confused. They don’t remember seeing Jesus and helping him, so they ask, “Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry…thirsty…a stranger?” Jesus answers them simply, “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” (vv.37-40).
Jesus comes to us as a guest, even today. When we help a person in need, we’re really helping Jesus. When we are serving breakfast to Bobby, we are really serving Jesus. And this happens not only in church, but on the street, in school, and in the workplace. This can be tough to do at the office, because the workplace has become such a competitive and anxious place, with everyone forced to do more with less. But even there, when you help a colleague in need, you’re helping Jesus.
Host
But notice what happens next on the road to Emmaus. Jesus, the stranger, becomes the guest of the disciples when he accepts their invitation to stay. But then he quickly changes roles. When Jesus is sitting at the table with them, he becomes their host—he takes bread, blesses it, breaks it and gives it to them. Then their eyes are opened and they recognize him—and he vanishes from their sight (vv.30-31). The disciples discover that when they welcome a stranger, they welcome the Lord.
The role of Jesus changes from stranger to guest to host when he sits at the table and breaks bread. When Jesus Christ nourishes us through the ordinance of the Lord’s Supper, we’re invited to open our hearts to the presence of Christ. He comes to feed us, and to fill us with his power and his presence.
It’s critically important for us to permit Jesus to be our host; to eat his bread, drink his cup and allow his body and blood to become part of our body and blood; to accept the forgiveness he offers and to allow ourselves to be strengthened and inspired.
Honestly, we all rather be playing the host; decide who we would welcome, decide what we’ll eat, control the conversation for the evening. It’s easier for us to help others than to receive help for ourselves. We would rather be a host than let someone else be a host. But, at the Lord’s Supper, permit Jesus to be your host. Open yourself to what he wants to give you. Like the disciples on the road to Emmaus, your eyes will be opened and you’ll recognize him.
The passage ends with the two disciples racing back to Jerusalem to share the news of their experience with the other disciples. They tell them what happened on the road, and how Jesus “had made known to them in the breaking of the bread” (v.35).
Encountering Jesus
If you were to encounter Jesus, would you be able to recognize him? What if you made an appointment to meet Jesus down at Starbucks? Jesus says, “Yeah, come on down, we’ll chat.” So how would you know him? Would you look for a guy in a toga? Somebody with long blond hair like the picture of Jesus we grew up with? Chances are, you’d have trouble, like most people, recognizing Jesus.
Easter is when Christ comes to us, speaks to us, breaks bread with us and we become believers. It’s not when we come to him through our collective imagination. It’s not that we have such a fear of death and dying that we refused to believe that Jesus is dead and came up with this terrific story that he rose from the grave.
The modern world says that we, in our great fear of mortality, project a God who is raised from the dead and who raises the dead. As Christian believers, we believe that in his resurrection, Jesus had no more important business than to return again and again to his own followers who had been his own betrayers.
Christ rises from the dead and comes to us. We do not come to him through our good works, our imaginings and creative fantasies of who God ought to be for us. On the road to Emmaus, Christ comes to us, thus revealing who God is. God is God for us. At Easter, Christ comes to us on the road to Emmaus, on your way to FCBC, on your commute to work tomorrow, on your life journey until you have completed your service on this earth and Christ welcomes you home with God.
When we to go out again into the world this morning, remember that Jesus came to his disciples as a stranger, as a guest and as a host. Emmaus is where we learn how to welcome one another around a table, and then go out into the world with the proclamation of Good News. Emmaus is where we come together and strengthen our bonds with Jesus and with each other.
When we practice Christian hospitality, we become part of a mighty spiritual movement—one that can overcome divisions in a terribly polarized world. It all begins when Jesus breaks the bread, our eyes are opened and we recognized him.
Let us pray.
We thank you, God, that each of us may sing of the Christ of the Emmaus road, believing beyond doubt that you walk with us. We can be assured of Christ’s presence among us as we worship. We especially praise you for the witness of the saints and the church before us who attest to the ever-present Christ, and for our own experience of the fulfillment of Jesus’ promise to be with us always. Amen.