(3/28/26) Luke 24:13-35
Oh Cleopas, and the fellow without a name. This is a very hopeful story, because Jesus is spending time with these two random guys wandering along - not magically or anything, but just like... walking the seven miles to Emmaus. You're going this way, I'm going this way, we've got seven miles, let's chat. Fine. Before I get into the actual thing I want to set up, though.
I am not much of a talker, and certainly not one to talk to strangers - I would rather dash here and there because it turns out I actually don't have a lot of drive to communicate with people - a few exceptions but honestly not very many. I would much rather write than talk (perhaps obviously). But on the way back from No Kings 3 I ran into a woman who was sure I looked like someone she knew - or maybe that's how she introduces herself to everyone, I don't know, but it worked. We walked about half of Franklin Street, and she spent a lot of the time complaining about white Christian men doing terrible things, and how they are ganging up and scared of immigrants and tormenting homosexuals and so on.
Now as it happens I am a white Christian man, but I was coming from No Kings holding a sign - as was she - so I don't really think she meant to lump me into the bad guys. But it was the kind of conversation I can imagine Cleopas having, along the lines of 'are you the only stranger who does not know the things that have taken place?' Eventually she asked what I did, and then I mentioned I had applied to Duke Divinity, and then... very shortly we took our leave.
Now, I think she is right about white Christian men, there are many white Christian men who are systematically doing terrible things in the United States, and I really wish they didn't go around claiming to be Christians while doing them, and I trust that God will judge them all the more harshly for it. So from my perspective - random Chapel Hill lady, we're on the same page, go with God. But I can also totally get her embarrassment, since how could she possibly know that she didn't just totally offend me in my white Christian man-ness?
Okay so I've said some humdingers, and I've regretted my fair share I suppose (hence, don't talk much). But I can imagine doing this - maybe I visit my sister while she's in Tennessee and meet Ann Patchett* out and about, but I don't recognize her because I have no idea what she looks like, and somehow we get to talking about one of her books, and I tell her a summary of it. I am sure she would be amused, and probably curious why I remembered such-and-so and not so-and-such, and inevitably I would remember something wrong. I might even argue about it, which would be absolutely hilarious and terribly embarrassing in hindsight! I would certainly spend the next few days thinking over exactly what I had said and how silly I must have sounded.
Now imagine Cleopas! He's telling Luke this story, or his kids are - years later anyway - and this is how he remembers the thing. 'Okay, so I met Jesus on the road, but I didn't know it was him at first. It was me and this other guy, and we were walking home and talking about Jesus with each other. Then somebody walks up behind us and asks us what we're saying. We both stopped and looked sad, I guess, and it got a little weird, so I said to the fellow "are you the only one who doesn't know about this stuff?" And then I told him all about how he had died and then people were saying he was alive - like, all the stuff he was actually there doing, like he had no idea. And he was just walking along listening, just letting me blather on and on!' Talk about putting your foot in your mouth!
But that's not the end of the story. Jesus does start into them, and he really starts into them. "Oh how foolish you are and how slow of heart!" What a response from the stranger who has been listening to you talk. I am not sure what I'd have thought if Chapel Hill lady had said that to me. 'You're worried about your kids not being safe if they exercise their right to protest? Oh, how foolish you are and how slow of heart!' 'You're worried about the economy, and how AI is affecting your job? Oh, how foolish you are and how slow of heart!' Cleopas doesn't report being offended, but the man remembered it verbatim for the rest of his life.
Fortunately Jesus doesn't stop there, and good thing. He began with Moses and all the prophets, and interpreted to them the things about himself in all the scriptures. And now this is where I go... oh Luke. Luke! Come on man, you're going to leave us with 'so then Jesus explained God's perspective of all Messianic theology in the whole Hebrew scriptures' and then withhold any other details? See, I just want to have the next few chapters devoted to exactly what Cleopas and this other fellow could reconstruct from that! What a sermon, to hear Jesus talk about himself after the resurrection, with no more secrecy or dissembling in play. I guess Matthew picked up a lot of this, but even still - seven miles, probably going pretty slow, maybe two and a half hours; that must have been an amazing sermon. Thanks for the summary?
I could spill some ink on the breaking of bread, but I'm not. Instead I'm going to be grateful, again, that Jesus showed up for these two not-disciple fellows, who just happened to be distraught at his death. Not only did he show up, he explained to them the whole of the scriptures! As a not-disciple, who never had to wait for Jesus to go to the bathroom or to finish washing his hair, this is very encouraging. Not only does Jesus care enough to show up for these two random guys, but he doesn't excoriate them for very long - he spends hours, of what is frankly a very short time between death and ascension - to help them understand why everything had to be as it was. "Hearts burning within us" certainly calls the idea of the Spirit for those of us who have come after, and thank God for that gift after the evacuation of Jesus himself. May we all come to the understanding that we need through the Spirit's explication of the scriptures as a whole, and may it drive us to run through the darkness to share our perfect joy.
* I call out Ann Patchett because I've read all her fiction but quickly and without great discipline, so it is certain that I hold stupid opinions about it. It's also unlikely that I will never meet her socially without an introduction so I don't expect to look back and be -more- embarrassed because the thing happened after I suggested it. There are other authors that I do know live nearby, and that I know disconnected from their books, and I don't mean to call any of them out but I have named at least one in other writings here, and I'm quite sure he'd play out plenty of rope to hang myself with embarrassment. It's even possible this has already happened to me; God tends to have a funny sense of humor.