There is a debate going on in the church that has nothing to do with sex. Every Sunday we get a glimpse into that debate as the invitation to communion in our bulletin says, “All baptized Christians are welcomed at the Lord’s Table.” This is dictated by canon. The General Convention of The Episcopal Church has decided that communion should be made available only to baptized Christians. It is often said that we practice open communion in that we allow Christians of any denomination to the Table, but some say we are not quite open enough as we do close the door on those not baptized.
It is an interesting debate between hospitality and due reverence. The Exhortation from the Prayer Book asks us to consider that “as the benefit is great, if with penitent hearts and living faith we receive the holy Sacrament, so is the danger great, if we receive it improperly, not recognizing the Lord’s Body.”[1] And so the debate goes on.
The text for today is one of the key texts in that debate. These two followers of Jesus seem unprepared to share in the breaking of the bread with Jesus – not even recognizing who it is they are with until after – and yet they are made aware in that act and the Truth of the resurrection is made known to them in that moment. I bring up this debate not to add more to our already full plates of theological debate, but instead I think it is something important to consider as we approach the Table each week; what is the significance of this most sacred action? Do we receive it understanding fully what it means to us or is the mystery of it all a part of its great benefit? I for one am a fan of the mystery. There is no more special moment for me in my ministry than stooping down to offer the body of Christ to a bright eyed toddler. She in no way understands what it is I am offering, but the look in her eye tells me that God is at work. She is hungry for a piece of the divine. Jesus is made known in the breaking of the bread. I feel somewhat vindicated in the story of the couple on the road to Emmaus as it seems to allow for a lot of mystery.
Tom Wright, bishop of Durham, sees that mystery wonderfully:
Think of the first meal in the Bible. The moment is heavy with significance. ‘The woman took some of the fruit, and ate it; she gave it to her husband, and he ate it; then the eyes of them both were opened, and they knew that they were naked’ (Gen 3.6-7). The tale is told, over and over, as the beginning of the woes that had come upon the human race. Death itself was traced to that moment of rebellion. The whole creation was subjected to decay, futility and sorrow.
Now Luke, echoing that story, describes the first meal of the new creation. ‘He took the bread, blessed it, broke it, and gave it to them; then the eyes of them both were opened, and they recognized him’ (31). The couple at Emmaus – probably Cleopas and Mary, husband and wife – discover that the long curse has been broken. Death itself has been defeated. God’s new creation, brimming with life and joy and new possibility, has burst in upon the world of decay and sorrow.
Jesus himself, risen from the dead, is the beginning and the sign of this new world. He isn’t just alive again in the same way that Jairus’s daughter, or the widow’s son at Nain, were. They, poor things, would have to face death again in due course. He has, it seems, gone through death and out the other side iot a new world, a world of new and deathless creation, still physical only somehow transformed.[2]
Jesus Christ has risen from the dead, he has opened the Scriptures and shared a meal with two of his followers. In so doing he has begun the great mystery that is the Church. Jesus, though now ascended to the right hand of the Father is still alive and at work in the life of the Church. We act as Christ’s hands and feet. Together we read and interpret the Scriptures. As a community we share in the breaking of bread. And just as the resurrected Jesus is able to be touched and yet enter locked rooms, so too is the life of the Church one of mystery and paradox. Thanks be to God that he is beyond our understanding. Thanks be to God that we share in his mystery each time we share communion for just as it was with Cleopas and Mary so too will we have our eyes opened in the breaking of the bread.
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