Sit and Eat!

Third Sunday of Easter – April 6, 2008

Luke 24:13-35

Elena Delgado, preaching 
 

      This morning’s sermon title sounds like something Grandmother would say.  “Sit down.  Eat something!” Whenever my brothers and I visited our grandmother, after the regulatory hugs and kisses, Abuela would pull us to the kitchen at the back of the shot-gun house, pinching our cheeks, squeezing our arms, poking our ribs until she put us before the refrigerator, opened the door and commanded that we eat something.  We were much too skinny for her taste; moreover, we needed sustenance after our two-hour car trip to see her. We were obligated to eat something, usually sliced canned peaches or fruit cocktail (you know, the style with the soggy green grapes).   Sit down, rest a while – you’ve been traveling.  Eat, you need some re-fueling before the return home.

      More demanding than the most loving, overbearing grandmother, was the command of Cleopas and friend to the stranger accompanying them on their return trip home to Emmaus.  They knew the dangers of the road, the risks of traveling alone, especially after sundown.  “But they urged him strongly, saying, “Stay with us because it is almost evening and the day is now nearly over.”   Their invitation was not the social graces of well-mannered people.  They were not exhibiting good etiquette.  Hospitality coursed the blood of these two people whose religion identity and moral ethic was grounded in the offering food, protection and guidance to the stranger.  

      Had not the Stranger only now recounted their peoples’ flee before the advancing army of Pharaoh, and God’s protection from genocide as they trudged through the muddy waters of the Red Sea?  The Stranger had just gone into some length about the 40 years of dusty wandering, lost and hungry, in the Sinai desert to remind them of God’s provision of food in the stuff of manna and quail  As the threesome approached their destination, the Stranger recalled their nation’s slave march to yet another conquering army’s command and the long-expected Babylon-to-Jerusalem freedom walk that God had engineered. In their present shock and fear regarding “all those things about Jesus,” Cleopas and friend heard a familiar tale in the Stranger’s story.   Maybe it was the tone of his voice, it was so confident - God’s ancient mitzvah, commandment, “Do not to oppress an alien; you yourselves know how it feels to be aliens, because you were aliens in Egypt” sang in their hearts.  Their souls seemed lighter, their feet less tired.  The God of their past seemed so present, so alive.  Their step quickened as they approached the house, the hearth’s glow was so bright.  So they were eager to press upon the Stranger the ancient invitation, the lifesaving ethic to come in for a simple evening meal, rest for awhile before off again at dawn, to do with and for him what they remembered God had done for them.  “So he went in to stay with them.”

      After the table was set, the food brought to the table, Cleopas reached for the bread to bless it and his guests, when the Stranger guest took an odd peculiar liberty as the guest. Acting as the very one responsible for everything in front of them, assuming the role of host, in a four-part minuet of taking, blessing, breaking and giving, the guest became the host.  “Then their eyes were opened and they recognized him!”

      Centuries later, English poet George Herbert said it this way: 

Love bade me welcome: yet my soul drew back, 
Guilty of dust and sin. 
But quick-eye’d Love, observing me grow slack 
From my first entrance in, 
Drew nearer to me, sweetly questioning, 
If I lack’d anything.

A guest, I answer’d, worthy to be here: 
Love said, You shall be he. 
I the unkind, ungrateful? Ah, my dear, 
I cannot look on thee. 
Love took my hand, and smiling did reply, 
Who made the eyes but I?

Truth, Lord, but I have marr’d them: let my shame 
Go where it doth deserve. 
And know you not, says Love, who bore the blame? 
My dear, then I will serve. 
You must sit down, says Love, and taste my meat: 
So I did sit and eat.

      Sit and eat, my friends.  Your trail of tears has been long.  Many hearts are grieving.  There is anxiety among others.  Some of us have been trudging through some murky decision-making, mud heavy on your soul’s feet.   For others here, eyes are locked on the past.  No matter.  Love bides you to sit, sit deep and eat your fill from your deepest hunger, slack the thirst of mind in the company of the Guest become Host, the Stranger now Friend.  He will not stay long, not for lack of love for us.  No, the Risen One does not linger long, nor will we.  There are hearts to be mended, bellies to fill, a city to rebuild, grief to soothe.  But for right now, if only a short while, recline in the presence of Love.

 
 
 
 

   
 
 

'It is not for nothing that the central rite of Christ's religion is not a fast but a feast,

as if to say that the one indispensable requirement for obtaining a portion in Him is an appetite, some hunger--

is to be without what we must have and He can give.

--A. J. Gossip, The Galilean Accent, 1926