Christopher Thomas
Sermon for Third Sunday of Easter, Year A – 4/26/20
Acts 2:14a, 36-41
Psalm 116:1-3, 10-17
1 Peter 1:17-23
Luke 24:13-35
One of the most fascinating and engaging classes I had the opportunity to take during my three years in seminary was a course taught by Dr. Benjamin D. Sommer, Professor of Bible and Ancient Semitic Languages at Jewish Theological Seminary in New York. The course was titled “Prophecy in the Second Temple Period,” and while I didn’t know much about the Second Temple Period, or Judaism for that matter, I was tantalized by something that would eventually resonate deep down into my very core, something that drew me in, beckoning me into and onto this journey toward the intersection of prophesy and exile. In retrospect, it probably was a very significant part of my priestly calling.
Now, I’ve always perceived myself something of a prophet, but that has more to do with being a highly-opinionated person, rather than a prophet in the sense of being a charismatic individual endowed with the divine gift of giving and receiving divine messages. In the truest sense of the word, prophets did not, do not, chose themselves, but are chosen, even many times against their will, to translate these divine messages into the understanding of the people, all the while maintaining their own identity and individuality. Prophets are mediators, standing in the gap, in the very best sense of the word, in some pretty sticky-wicket situations. (Think Moses, or Jeremiah, or Isaiah, Ezekiel, or my favorite, Amos, with his fat calves of Bashan comment!)
And it’s in that gap, that place where sin, this relationship between God and God’s people, has become severed, undone, for whatever reason, that prophets rush in, and stand, and turn, and plead in both directions. It’s those exilic places that necessitate prophesy.
Exile happens when we lose, or have taken away from us, what’s known as our axis mundi, that centering place we’ve found, maybe where heaven and earth come together, where we know we can go to find the divine in those moments when we are joyful, and more importantly, in those moments when we are scared and afraid. For Jews, prophesy took place in the temple. Temple was the axis mundi. Temple was the place heaven and earth came together. Without temple, how could you expect to hear from, and more importantly, connect with, and to, Yahweh?
That exile, and prophesy, and the absorbing interdependence of one upon the other, holds such fascination for me should ultimately be of no great surprise, I imagine. As the child who was always somehow different, who blossomed into a youth and then young adult who found his “queer-ness,” his exile, separation from, at least, the norms of the world, seemed almost the norm. To be in exile was in fact my “normal.” (Who knows, maybe it was yours as well?) My axis mundi, my place where heaven and earth came together, the place where divine was revealed to the one in exile, seen in glimpses, was that little green church on the corner of Greenwood Avenue and Second Street in Morgan City, Louisiana, Trinity Episcopal Church.
I guess that’s where and why I became so familiar with, and quite frankly, so used to, and assumed I’d always be able to find Jesus, the axis mundi of we Christians, right, at the table, in the church building.
Now on that same day, Cleopas and his friend Lisa, or Joe, or Stephan, or Christopher, or Annie, or Tim, or Dan, or Laura (you get the picture here) are walking, down the road, away from all that’s happened, away from the devastation, the loss of their axis mundi, Jesus, away from Palm Sunday, from Passover meal, from scourging, from crucifixion, from empty tomb, from…
COVID-19, Corona…
… toward Emmaus. “Can you believe everything we’ve seen and witnessed and experienced in the last week or so?” “I don’t know how to even begin to process this.” “Let’s head home to Emmaus, to something, anything familiar, to try to figure it out, or forget about it, to find some sense of “normal.”” Exile.
In that moment, on the road, they encounter axis mundi, Jesus, but they don’t recognize it, him. “Their eyes were kept from recognizing him!” It’s as though he’s masked! (Don’t miss the irony there!) The two, Cleopas and (you and I) are so focused on our Emmaus, on absolutely anything, or nothing, that marks our escapism from reality, from whatever has just happened, or is happening, that we cannot see the Jesus who is standing right before us! You know what I’m talking about. I’ve done it; you’ve done it. We’re so focused on some panacea we’re sure will help us to forget something else that we don’t even notice that Jesus is standing right before our very eyes!
In the midst of his “stranger-ness,” Jesus ministers to the two of them. He is their axis mundi, even in his unrecognized state! In their helplessness and their hopelessness, Jesus ignites that with which they are so familiar, and when it comes time for their journey paths to part, they reach into their own storehouse of hospitality, and beg him to conjoin to their table fellowship. “Please come be a part of us!” “We want you to be a part of us!”
Of course, as we’ve become so familiar, Jesus upends societal roles as “the stranger” becomes “the host” at their table in his own blessing, breaking, and sharing of the bread. And it’s in that most ordinary, and yet so completely unordinary, that the masks are removed, that Cleopas, and you and I, get to see, if even for a brief and fleeting moment, the Risen Christ!
And so, is sharing table with stranger axis mundi?
What does it mean to be a people in exile, divorced from place?
W
e too became a people of diaspora, living in exile, away from our axis mundi, six or so weeks ago. I went back to the church (small c, the building), for the first time on Friday, to pick up a few study resources. Now remember, I had only been there, as your Rector, about five weeks, when we went into exile, and it was still the dead of winter. There were no leaves on the trees; things looked quite a bit different!
It was strange to be in that place, without you! Everything was as it was when we left; the altar was still dressed for Lent. But the trees have blossomed and the gardens are now alive with spring! Easter has come to Inwood and Mockingbird, in spite of our not being there!
And Easter has come to us, in spite of our not being there! We gathered in the most unusual of ways, virtually, and witnessed, and experienced all the events of Holy Week and resurrection. We know, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that love comes again, and again, and again, in so many different, and varied, and sometimes masked, forms.
So what does it really mean, then to “live in reverent fear (in awe), during the time of (y)our exile,” as Peter, in his letter so emphatically implores? What does this mean for us Doubters of Great Faith, as we too are exiled from Inwood and Mockingbird, from what we have considered our axis mundi, the place where heaven and earth come together?
We know that we have been ransomed from the futile ways of our past, not through perishable material things that even viruses can take away, but through the sacrifice of Jesus Christ, giving us the ability and the access to live radically transformed existences. We get to go meet the Risen Christ, now, in every single one of the (hopefully) masked individuals we meet wherever we go.
It is in the doing, the hospitality of fellowship that we offer to the stranger, that these masks will fall away, that the Risen Christ will be uncovered and encountered and revealed. We just have to get creative in how we do that, in the face of COVID-19. I want us to come up, together, with new and creative ways that we can encounter the Risen Christ in the stranger around us that help us to have those axis mundi experiences even as we are exiled from our property. There is important learning in this process that I don’t want us to miss. The Risen Christ has been, is and will always be all around us. We must be willing to see him. And deal with him. And be open to him. And welcome him in to our tables!
Because…
Christ, in fact, is Risen!
The Lord is Risen, Indeed! Alleluia!
Amen.
