“Breakfast with Jesus”
Luke 24.36-48 The Rev. Hal Chorpenning, Plymouth Congregational UCC Fort Collins, Colorado 14 April 2024 Eastertide keeps on rolling with this story about the disciples’ encounter with the Risen One. Just so you know the time frame for today’s text, it happens on Easter Monday. Previously, Luke’s gospel offered us the wonderful story of Jesus meeting a couple on the road to Emmaus on the previous evening, a Sunday, and how they didn’t initially recognize Jesus, but “he was made known to them in the breaking of the bread.” And just as rapidly as the couple recognized Jesus, he vanished. That couple hurries back to Jerusalem, they find the disciples and fill them in on what had happened and shares the news that Jesus was alive. So, the disciples receive the news, and then Jesus appears before them. Now, imagine if Jesus were to appear to you. In Luke’s gospel, he tends to show up around mealtimes. So, imagine him appearing while you’re preparing lunch. Wouldn’t you think that he was a ghost or a spirit, even if he asked for a BLT? (Okay, maybe not a BLT since bacon isn’t kosher.) I would certainly assume it was a spiritual presence. What Luke describes is a mystical encounter with the risen Christ. Most of us protestants don’t like dealing with mystery because it’s difficult to quantify, observe, or measure. But that doesn’t mean it isn’t real. I don’t know how many of us have sensed the presence of Christ in our midst, but I am aware that some of us have. For me, the most significant encounter I had involved my call to ordained ministry 30-some years ago. I was sitting at our dining room table in Boulder reading a book that was recommended to me by my mentor, Bruce MacKenzie, who was senior minister at First Congregational UCC in Boulder. The book was a key work by John Dominic Crossan called, Jesus a Revolutionary Biography, a book that stirred up a lot of public controversy because it described the historical Jesus in ways that many Christians never imagined him. At the time, I still had my own communications business, but I could sense that change was on the horizon. So, as I read, I had the distinct sense that there was a hand on my shoulder, and I heard the words, “You can do this.” I had the distinct sense that it was Jesus speaking to me. The experience was life-changing, which is why I am where I am this morning. For me, there was no visual encounter…just a touch and a voice. I had no sense that Jesus was PHYSICALLY present. He certainly didn’t sit down and have a meal with me, and I was not in the company of others who could have vouched for the experience I had. I am certain that there were a lot of post-resurrection experiences the disciples had individually of the risen Christ. But is it any wonder that Luke chose to describe two scenes — at Emmaus and with the disciples in Jerusalem — that involved Jesus appearing to multiple witnesses and that both involved a meal, thereby proving that they were not experiencing a ghost, but rather one who has a body, even eating with them? Among Jews in the first century, there were different ways of interpreting resurrection, but for the Pharisees, it clearly involved resurrection of the body. Classical Judaism understood resurrection of the dead as God’s ultimate vindication of the righteous. Interestingly, Paul of Tarsus was a self-described Pharisee, presumably one who believed in the resurrection of the body. Yet, Paul’s flash-of-light experience on the road to Damascus was a forceful, spiritual experience of Jesus that involved a voice but no body. The plot thickens further in Paul’s first letter to the church in Corinth: “So it is with the resurrection of the dead. What is sown is perishable, what is raised is imperishable. … It is sown a physical body, it is raised a spiritual body. If there is a physical body, there is also a spiritual body.” Wait a minute…Paul the Pharisee is saying that we are born into a physical body, but that we also will have a spiritual body? This sounds like a divergence from the tenet of Pharisaic Judaism that it is our physical bodies that are to be raised. Paul was born and raised in Tarsus in today’s Turkey, speaking Greek rather than Aramaic like Jesus. The culture that surrounded him meant that he was immersed in Greek philosophical assumptions, including the dualism of Plato, meaning that one’s physical body and soul are separate entities, and that the soul lives on after the death of the body. This is an idea that is common even today in the west. (How many of us think that we are both body and soul?) But, it was utterly foreign to the Judaism of Paul’s day, which saw no division between body and soul. “In classical Judaism, resurrection of the dead was a central belief, essential to defining oneself as a Jew. ‘Today,’ writes Jon D. Levenson, professor of Jewish studies at Harvard, ‘that fact comes as a shock to most Jews and Christians alike.’”[1] I appreciate what the great preacher, Fred Craddock, has to say about the biblical record on resurrection: “The resurrection was not an unambiguous event that could have been captured with a video camera, but was a mysterious phenomenon that could have been interpreted more than one way and could evoke doubt and fear as well as faith and joy…. The New Testament pictures the reality of the resurrection in different ways that are not to be harmonized [or blended]. Each image brings out some theological meaning of resurrection…a divine mystery that cannot be captured in one representation.” That allows us plenty of latitude for interpretation. Yet the question arises with Easter, what will happen to US? I grew up in a family that was quite antiseptic about death: no visitation or viewing or open caskets. No funerals…always a memorial service. (I don’t recommend this!) So, the first time I saw a dead body outside of a college anatomy lab was when I was a Stephen Minister in Boulder. I had been paired with Roy Bramell, a lovely 95-year-old man who had been the founding dean of the School of Education at UConn (which has more than just great basketball). After Roy’s death, I went to the visitation with his family, and as I looked at his lifeless body, it was obvious to me that it was an empty shell. Yet at his memorial service, his adult children read selections from his voluminous writing about topics ranging from family to education to faith to patriotism, and as they read, tears began streaming down my cheeks. For me those tears flowed because the ideas and emotions Roy’s words expressed revivified him. His spirit was no longer attached to a body, but the essence of who he was continued on without interruption. I sense that this is true for all of us: that we continue to exist in a different plane or realm. I don’t know whether we will experience an embodied resurrection or a spiritual resurrection or something entirely different. I’m not interested in ruling anything out in this great mystery. I take this seriously: “With God, all things ARE possible.” I know what happens to our bodies when life ends: they degrade or are cremated. And I know that we are not alone but still are within God’s love. I don’t know what happens to the life force, the spirit, the soul, the divine spark when life ends, but I know we are not alone. God is with us each step of the way, within us, among us, and infinitely far beyond us. God has brought us this far on our journey, so why would we imagine that God will not be with us beyond death? Why should we be surprised by anything that happens after death when every one of us is a first-hand witness to the miracle of life? Think about it: we are self-aware, sentient beings, and we are sitting here on a Sunday morning because we know that there is something greater than we are, that there is more to life than can ever meet the eye. That’s miraculous! And miracles are everywhere if we take the time to listen and look and feel with our hearts as well as our eyes and ears. Resurrection is a powerful metaphor for us as we continue to live this life. It is a metaphor for new beginnings, for ultimate liberation, for ongoing presence of those we love, and the continuing presence of Jesus in the world. May we live fully as people whose lives are empowered and made beautiful by the presence of God. And may we be always on the lookout for mystery and everyday miracles. Even at the breakfast table. Amen. © 2024 Hal Chorpenning, all rights reserved. Please contact hal at plymouthucc.org for permission to reprint, which will typically be granted for non-profit uses. [1] Peter Steinfels, “What comes as a shock…” in NY Times, September 30, 2006.
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