Stop the Killing Heal the Hurting
The story in Luke’s gospel, chapter 24, begins in this way. Two followers of the way of Jesus were walking down the road going toward the village of Emmaus. They were talking to each other about all the things that had happened recently in Jerusalem. The setting and the conversation are important. In the Roman Empire roads were used primarily to move troops. That’s why the Romans built them.
We did the same in this country, President Eishenhower signed legislation to create the federal interstate highway system in 1956. He wanted to create a transcontinental highway system to ease transportation for the military during the Cold War, and to ease the evacuation of urban areas if war broke out.
So the followers of Jesus are walking down this road, which the Romans built for the benefit of the empire, and they are talking about the death of Jesus. They are saying, “We thought for sure he was the one.” And they are wondering about what they are going to do now. It’s a doomsday scenario. The end has come.
One of the reasons I thought about this scene in this way is because the Bulletin for Atomic Scientists recently set the Doomsday Clock for 2024 to 0 seconds before midnight. The organization was started in 1947 at the end of World War II and at the start of the Cold War. Every year since then they publish the Doomsday Clock, to show how close they think we are to some kind of Armageddon—some world ending catastrophic event. Bill Nye, the science guy, is probably the best know member of this organization, but it includes scientists, politicians and leaders in different fields. And they have their critics to be sure. But this year is the first time ever, since 1947, that they have moved the hands of the clock to just 90 seconds to midnight. What these leaders are telling us is that if we keep going the way we’re going, we keep doing what we are doing, the future is bleak.
The reasons for their warning are well-known. The war in the Ukraine, the Sudan, and the Middle East, the climate crisis, and the use of AI are some of the reasons they list. Last year, 2023 is the hottest year on record. The Atomic scientists are particularly concerned about the possibility of nuclear war and, I would add, the possible use of what we used to call the “neutron bomb.” Now that the Arizona Supreme Court has decided to use a law from 1864, fifty years before Arizona became as state, to regulate women’s health care, and other states are writing new laws regulating all matters relating to our sexuality and gender, a lot of us may feel like the disciples on the Emmaus Road. The world is closing in and the options are few.
But then a funny thing happens on the way to Emmaus. The disciples highjack the Emmaus Road. They turn swords into plowshares and spears into pruning hooks. And they do it in a very particular way if we read the text closely.
First, a stranger whom they did not recognize came among them and walked with them. This encounter is the beginning of a new movement. The disciples shared with the stranger news of all that had happened. This is where the movement to social justice begins. It beings with a clear analysis and understanding of the situation. The Doomsday Clock is 90 seconds to midnight. But as we do that analysis, we must apply the light of the gospel. The Disciples of Christ, as denomination, describes itself as “a movement toward wholeness in a fragmented world.” We do not deny that the world is what it is– a fragmented world, but don’t stop there. We define ourselves as a “movement toward wholeness.”
Here are three simple questions for doing social analysis—who makes the decisions? Who benefits? Who bears the cost? Who makes the decisions? The text is clear: “Our high priests and leaders betrayed him and got him sentenced to death.” They are the ones who benefit. Some women went to the tomb. They tell us they saw an angel and the body of Jesus is not there, but we are just confused.
Then Jesus says to them, “You are so thick-headed and slow-hearted.” And he reminds them of their tradition beginning with Moses and the prophets. Last week we started remembering some of our tradition—we took mission trips and built houses, we welcomed the Muslim community, we started an interracial school, we celebrated lesbian weddings, we welcome trans people. This is our movement toward wholeness.
As they approached the village, the stranger acted as if he were going to go on, but the disciples convinced him to stay with them, and they broke bread together and their eyes were opened. The text is about radical hospitality. It’s about breaking bread with the stranger. It’s about looking around and asking ourselves, “who’s not here?” And then, not asking, “why aren’t they here?’ but rather, “what can we do to invite them to the table.” Jesus was not going to stay, until they invited him.
Chef Jose Andres started the World Central Kitchen in 2010 as a way to feed people, empower communities, and strengthen local economies. Chef Andres was named Humanitarian of the Year in 2018. Famously he said, “We don’t need higher walls, we need longer tables.” The recent killing of seven World Central Kitchen workers in Israel drew global outrage and has changed the conversation about the war—but significantly while the killing of the seven workers has created lots of press coverage, almost nothing has been said about the Palestinian driver of the car who was also killed. There is still an implicit anti-Palestinian racism blocking coverage. The longer tables need to be made longer.
The breaking of the bread, the sharing of the meal, is a defining act of solidarity. On April 11, Pope Francis spoke to the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences. In that address he challenged the global church to create what he spoke of as “a new culture of inclusion.” “Vulnerability and frailty are part of the human condition,” he said. We have created what he called “a throw away culture” that excludes the “Other,” people who are too frail, to different, too this or too that. Even more forcefully, the pope said, “A Christian without courage, who does not bother anyone, is useless.”
The disciples’ eyes were opened in the breaking of the bread. The text, as I read it today, calls for a two-pronged strategy. With one hand we need to respond to human need with ministries of inclusion, compassion, and affirmation. With the other hand, we engage in ministries of institutional and social transformation.
In closing I want to remember Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., who was killed on April 4, 1968, 56 years ago. In a sermon On Being a Good Neighbor, he said “more than ever before [people] of all races and nations are being challenged to be good neighbors.” In order to be good neighbors, we have to transform the Jericho Road. It is faith to say, the same applies to road to Emmaus. It is time.