A Sermon by Rev. Chris Jorgensen
April 8, 2018
Scripture: Luke 24:13-35
Some days, some weeks, faith is hard to come by. Whether it’s because we are experiencing brokenness or heaviness or despair, or whether it’s because we are just weighed down or overwhelmed by the banality, the sameness, the endless routine of everyday life; some days, some weeks, faith is hard to come by. It is hard to see the Risen Christ in one another. It is hard to recognize, like the poet Gerard Manly Hopkins says, that the “world is charged with the grandeur of God.”
This is one of those weeks. Now last week, Holy Week and Easter: those are easy. It is the climax of the story, the grandest week of the church year! We show up, we dress up, we give it our all for that one week… and then we fall off something of a cliff. Because, even though technically, liturgically, we celebrate Easter for fifty days, once the big day is said and done, it’s easy to fall back into the routine of same-old, same-old.
Some days, some weeks, faith is hard to come by. It is hard to see the Risen Christ.
But friends, we are not alone in this struggle. In our gospel reading today, we have Cleopas and his unnamed buddy, and they are having a pretty bad week as well. They had spent the week in Jerusalem for Passover with Jesus, and commentators tell us that their 7-mile walk to Emmaus was probably a walk home. They too had experienced the exhilaration of Palm Sunday, the community of Holy Thursday, the grief of Good Friday, and they have begun to hear rumors of the resurrection. But apparently, those rumors were not compelling enough for them to stay. They are going back to their home town, their old life, in Emmaus.
On the way, they are discussing all the things that had happened, and Jesus himself starts walking along with them. And they don’t recognize him. He talks with them, and he even explains to them how all of the scriptures were pointing to how the Messiah (in other words, HE) would have to suffer and die in order to save the people. Yet, even with him explaining all that, they do not recognize him.
Now I have said this before, and I will say it again here. Here are these two people who had physically been with Jesus, like three-four days ago. The Risen Christ literally is walking beside them, explaining who he is, and they cannot recognize him. Now, if it is that hard for those with immediate experience of Jesus to recognize the Risen, Living Christ; how much harder is it for us?! Some days, some weeks, faith is hard to come by.
At times, faith was also hard for John Wesley. As you heard me say in the Children’s Sermon, Wesley is our spiritual forbear. He is the founder of the Methodist movement, from which our own United Methodist Church has grown, as well as Methodist and Wesleyan churches around the world. According to the World Methodist Council, there are over 51 million people in the Methodist family of churches worldwide [1]. And all of them can be traced back to John Wesley.
Yet even John Wesley struggled with faith. He struggled most remarkably after he had spent some time in the American colonies. Early in his ministry, he had gone to Georgia with the hope of spreading the gospel to Native Americans and colonists alike. By all accounts, his time there was something of a disaster. He had failed at his goals.
But the thing that disturbed him the most was on the ship to-and-from the colonies. During those crossings, he experienced storms at sea. And in the midst of those storms, the ever-so-pious Wesley, found himself terrified of death. In Wesley’s mind, his own fear of death was proof of something being terribly wrong with his faith. Because, after all, if he believed in a loving and merciful God who would receive him after death, why should he be afraid to die?
To make matters worse, there were these Moravian missionaries on board. The Moravians were German Christians who also were headed to the colonies to spread the good news. And as Wesley cried out in terror during the fierce Atlantic storms, the Moravians calmly, peacefully prayed and sang hymns, with no fear at all.
Despite Wesley’s impressive credentials as an Anglican priest and pioneer of the Methodist movement, he struggled with his faith. After his fear on the ship and his failure in Georgia, he returned to England somewhat distraught. That is when he became friends with Peter Böhler. Böhler counseled Wesley about what to do in the face of his apparent lack of faith. One time, Wesley was so distraught that he told Böhler he was going to stop preaching because how could a man with such weak faith be an adequate preacher? And that’s when Böhler instructed him with the following words: “Preach faith till you have it; and then, because you have it, you will preach faith.”
So that is what Wesley did. Despite his doubts, he continued to act like a person of faith. He preached faith, he prayed, he worshipped, he served the sick and poor, he met with the bands and societies of Christians that he had established, and even when he didn’t feel like it, he showed up. And because he continued to act like a person of faith even when he felt doubtful, he was present and open to the experience of being assured by God one evening in 1738. This is when Wesley had what is called his “Aldersgate Experience,” possibly his most profound experience of God’s grace in his whole life. Here is what he says about it in his journal:
“In the evening I went very unwillingly to a society in Aldersgate Street, where one was reading [Martin] Luther’s preface to the Epistle to the Romans. About a quarter before nine, while he was describing the change which God works in the heart through faith in Christ, I felt my heart strangely warmed. I felt I did trust in Christ, Christ alone, for salvation; and an assurance was given me that He had taken away my sins, even mine, and saved me from the law of sin and death.” [2]
I think my favorite part of this description is that he went “very unwillingly” to a reading of Luther’s preface to the Epistle to the Romans. I mean, that sounds boring. I would have gone very unwillingly, too. But he went. Because he knew that when he was experiencing a crisis of faith, the thing he needed most was to be in Christian community with others, and to continue to worship and learn and serve, and as Böhler told him, “preach faith” until he had it.
Even the giants of our faith, like John Wesley, had doubts. Even those who knew Jesus, in person, were not immediately able to recognize the Risen Christ. I suppose one could find this alarming. But I find it strangely encouraging. When we have doubts, of course we have doubts! We are no John Wesley. We missed our opportunity to walk with Jesus on this earth by about 2,000 years. Even those folks had doubts. Of course, we do too! What a relief!
So how might we ever have a chance to see Christ, when in fact, we are no John Wesley, no first disciples?
Well, I think our eyes can be opened to the Risen Christ when we respond to God’s presence by living as if we have faith even when we are not “feeling” it. To paraphrase Peter Böhler, “Live like you have faith until you have it.” Live like the presence and power of the Risen Christ is real, and it will be. Live like the God-who-is-Love guides your life, and then you will find that the God-who-is-Love is guiding your life.
That’s what John Wesley did. And that’s how the disciples on the Road to Emmaus saw Jesus, too. Toward the end of our scripture today, Jesus is about to leave them. It says, “He walked on as if he were going ahead.” But Cleopas and his friend don’t give up on this stranger. They urge him to stay. In fact, their insistence that he stay is practicing the inclusion and hospitality that Jesus had modeled for them. Even though they thought Jesus was dead and didn’t know what the heck was going on, they were still going to act like his disciples. And so they say, “Stay with us.” They invited him into their home, and they invited him to their table.
And when he was with them at the dinner table, he took bread, he blessed it, he broke it, and he gave it to them. And their eyes were opened. They saw the Risen Christ. And when he vanished, they noted to themselves that he had been there all along. They said to one another, “Were not our hearts burning within us while he was talking to us on the road, while he was opening the scriptures to us?”
Like John Wesley, these disciples’ hearts were strangely warmed. Not because they saw Jesus immediately, not because they never had doubts, but because they stayed with him. They chose to follow in the way he had taught – even, maybe even especially – when they were discouraged.
It’s easy to lose sight of Christ in the disappointment, the struggle, even the banality of our day-to-day lives. When the Easter party is over, and we go back to the regular rhythm of our days, God can be difficult to see. It’s okay. It’s okay to have doubts.
But don’t be discouraged. Simply live like you have faith until you have it. Walk out of these doors and into the world as if Christ is risen in you and in every person you meet. You don’t have to be a hero who never struggles, just a person who is willing to spend one day – and then the next – living as if Christ is truly alive.
Do that enough, and you just might find that along the way, your doubtful heart has been strangely warmed.
May it be so.
Amen.
[1] http://worldmethodistcouncil.org/about/member-churches/statistical-information/
[2] Journal of John Wesley. https://www.ccel.org/ccel/wesley/journal.vi.ii.xvi.html
QUESTIONS FOR REFLECTION / DISCUSSION
1) Think about a time in your life when you felt incapable of doing what was expected of you (maybe in a job or role or challenge in your personal life). What was that situation? How did it feel? How did you get through it?
2) Think about your journey of faith. Were there times or situations in which you had doubts? What did you do in response to those doubts?
3) Who is one individual in your life who inspires you to become a more faithful person. What about that person is so inspiring?