On Mission: Discovering Jesus in Community

We're going to be in Luke chapter 24 today, verses 13 to 35, and that is printed in your bulletin and up on the screen behind me. It's our custom to read God's word aloud together. So if you would join your voices with mine.

That very day, two of them were going to a village named Emmaus, about seven miles from Jerusalem. And they were talking with each other about all these things that had happened. While they were talking and discussing together, Jesus himself drew near and went with them, but their eyes were kept from recognizing him. And he said to them, "What is this conversation that you are holding with each other as you walk?" And they stood still looking sad. Then one of them named Cleopas answered him, "Are you the only visitor to Jerusalem who does not know the things that have happened there in these days?" And he said to them, "What things?" And they said to him, "Concerning Jesus of Nazareth, a man who is a prophet, mighty in deed and word before God and all the people, and how our chief priests and rulers delivered him up to be condemned to death and crucified him. But we had hoped that he was the one to redeem Israel. Yes. And beside all this, it is now the third day since these things happened. Moreover, some women of our company amazed us. They were at the tomb early in the morning. And when they did not find his body, they came back saying that they had seen a vision of angels who said that he was alive. Some of those who were with us went to the tomb and found it just as the woman had said, but him they did not see." And he said to them, "Oh foolish ones and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken. Was it not necessary that the Christ should suffer these things and enter into his glory?" Beginning with Moses and all the prophets, he interpreted to them all the scriptures the things concerning himself. So they drew near the village to which they were going. He acted as if he were going farther, but they urged him strongly saying, "Stay with us for it is now toward evening and the day is now far spent." So he went in to stay with them. When he was at table with them, he took the bread and blessed it and broke it and gave it to them. And their eyes were opened and they recognized him. He vanished from their sight. They said to each other, "Did not our hearts burn within us while he talked to us on the road and opened the scriptures to us?" And they rose at that same hour and returned to Jerusalem. And they found the eleven and those who were with them gathered together, saying, "The Lord has risen indeed and has appeared to Simon." When they told what had happened on the road and how he was known to them in the breaking of the bread. — Luke 24:13-35

This is the word of the Lord. Thanks be to God.

A Letter to God

Alex Renton is a journalist in England, and he and his wife were surprised several years ago when their six-year-old daughter named Lulu came home from school and wrote a letter to God. And here's how the letter went:

To God, how did you get invented? From Lulu. Hugs and kisses.

The Rentons, the couple who are non-religious people and didn't raise their daughter in the church, they had a couple of options here. They could have pretended. They could have tried to answer her questions themselves. Instead, Alex Renton, her dad, took her letter and sent it to various churches and church leaders in the area. He emailed her letter to the Scottish Episcopal Church—no response. To the Presbyterian Church—no response. To the Scottish Catholics—got back a really nice but theologically way too complex answer. But then he also sent it to the head of the Anglican Church, the head of theology of the Anglican Communion based at Lambeth Palace. And this was the only satisfactory answer he got back, and it's from Archbishop Rowan. And here's what he wrote:

Dear Lulu, your dad has sent on your letter and asked if I had any answers. It's a difficult question, but I think God might reply a bit like this.

Dear Lulu, nobody invented me, but lots of people discovered me and were quite surprised. They discovered me when they looked at the world and thought it was really beautiful or really mysterious and wondered where it came from. They discovered me when they were very quiet on their own and felt a sort of peace and love that they had not expected. They invented some ideas about me—some sensible, some not so sensible. From time to time, I sent them hints, especially in the life of Jesus, to help them understand more of what I'm really like. But there was nothing and nobody around before to invent me. Rather like somebody who writes a story in a book, I started making up the story of the world and eventually invented human beings like you who could ask me lots of awkward questions.

And then he probably said you his love and signed off: I know God doesn't usually write letters, so I have to do the best I can on his behalf. Lots of love for me too. Signed, Archbishop Rowan.

Now I have to say, well done, Archbishop Rowan.

That's a great response. And what I love about that note is that he articulates something there that I think is really important language for us to grasp. This language of discovering more about Jesus. Now, as Kathryn said earlier, this is part of our new mission statement, which is really a recycled old vision statement. Discovering more of Jesus in community, it's written here behind me on the wall. And I want to be honest about this. I know that the language of discovering Jesus may sound really bizarre to us. It makes it sound like Jesus is some deep sea underwater creature that nobody has right now in the list of all the species or an outer moon in some distant galaxy that we've never explored.

How do you discover Jesus? Well, I think it's really important language and helpful language because it describes what really is the experience of getting to know an infinite being. The God of the universe is not someone we can size up and sum up. And getting to know an infinite being will take more than a lifetime, take all eternity. We will spend eternity learning more and understanding more and more of who God is.

Now we see us in a mirror dimly, but then we will see face to face. — 1 Corinthians 13

This idea of discovering more about Jesus in community, this is central to what we're here to do as a church. What we're about as a church. And today, I want to look at this passage from Luke 24 because I think it's really helpful to look at two people who knew already a lot about Jesus and how they discover more of Jesus together in community.

The Emmaus Road

Let's look at this passage briefly together. It takes place on the Sunday afternoon after the resurrection. This is after Jesus has died on the cross and has appeared early on that Sunday morning to his disciples. And two disciples here, one named Cleopas, the other one unnamed are walking away from Jerusalem going to a town called Emmaus, about seven miles away. And this is the point that I really want you to understand. They're walking away. They're walking away. Do you get it? They're walking away not just from Jerusalem as a city, they're walking away from this whole Jesus enterprise.

See, they say we had hoped, we had thought this was the one who was going to redeem your people. They're walking a sad road and when Jesus asks them the question, hey, what's going on? What are you talking about? They can't even continue walking. Do you notice that detail? They stopped dead still to be able to describe the sense of loss, of confusion, of sadness. This is life on the Emmaus road and this is actually normal life for many of us. We know what this feels like. We live in a world of death and decay, where things fall apart, where entropy, things losing steam, things not working out, that's normal for us. We know what it's like to be like these people.

I want to ask you to get in touch this morning with your inner Cleopas. Where is God? Where did God come from? What is God doing? Can you feel some of that? Some of the loss. We had hoped. We had hoped he was the one. We thought he might be the one and yet it's all fallen apart.

This past year, one of my favorite books that I read was called Demon Copperhead. It's written by Barbara Kingsolver and it's a rewrite of an old book by Charles Dickens. Dickens' book, David Copperfield tells the story of a boy growing up in abject poverty in London in the eighteen hundreds and kind of the decay of that society. Kingsolver took that same story and placed it in the modern day in Kentucky and Tennessee in the opioid crisis. And the main character's name is Damon and yet he has bright red hair. So people call him Demon and they call him Demon Copperhead. And so, one of the lines though, he's growing up in this world right now in the opioid epidemic as it devastates his town, his family, his relationships and he gives this one statement about faith in that kind of place. He says this: Counting on Jesus to save the day is no more real than sending up the Batman signal.

Do you hear the sense of despair and despondency in that statement? Counting on Jesus to come in and save the day is no more than sending up the Batman signal hoping somebody is going to respond. That's the world we live in. This is the world these disciples are walking away from, a world without resurrection, a world where the crucifixion was the end of the story.

Now, if you're a student of the Bible, you'll recognize what happens next. They are walking together on the road. Now, that phrase walking. Walking with God is a very common phrase in Scripture to describe the life of faith. And I love that phrase. It's in Genesis where God tells Abraham, Walk before me. In Leviticus, God says, I will walk with you and be your God. Walking is so pedestrian. It's so normal. It's not running. It's not skipping. It's the everyday pace of this life.

And this is where the disciples are going to meet Jesus. But this is a great picture for us of what Christian community is. People walking together. People walking on the road together. And this is where God meets us. Jesus shows up and there's a strange detail in this. They're walking along and they meet Jesus, but they don't recognize him. Says their eyes were kept from recognizing him.

I don't know what that means. I don't know if that means Jesus was like, abracadabra, you can't see me but he's got holes in his hands. He's got holes in his feet. We know that this is true in eternity now. So I don't know why they couldn't recognize Jesus. I doubt it had to do with some kind of magic trick. I think more so, it's what happens to us.

What happens to us is we don't see God where we don't expect to see God. We don't see God at work in the world where we don't expect to see God at work in the world. They didn't expect to see the risen resurrected Jesus on the road together. And yet Jesus comes and appears right in front of them. They don't see Him. This story is about sight. It's about both what we see and what we don't see. They can't see Him even though He's right there in front of Him.

Physical and Spiritual Blind Spots

Do you know that we have physical blind spots? Let me show you this slide. You can do this later on today. You can find this image on the Internet, you can print it out or you can use your computer screen and what you do is you take your hand, you put it over your left eye, you stare at the dot and you move the paper or the screen back and forth and eventually the dog, you won't be able to see it, it disappears. That's where your optic nerve joins the back of your eyeball. Same thing you do with the other side. You can't do this where you're sitting here, but you can put your hand over your right eye, look at the dot and move the screen in and out and you'll hit one spot where the cat will disappear. That's a physical blind spot.

Now, the reason we are not aware of that regularly is because we have two eyes and they compensate for this. So you don't regularly miss the dog or the cat. Our eyes work together. It takes two to compensate for our blind spot.

Do you know that you also have spiritual blind spots? You have ways in you that you don't see. Things about you that you are not aware of. I'm going to show you this next image. This is called the Johari Window and it's a very simple little table here and it describes to us the things that we know and other people know.

So if you look at the first column, those are the things that I know and then the second column, what I don't know. The first row, what others know, second row, what others don't know. So things that I know and other people know, that's what's obvious. It's just I'm wearing a black colored jacket and jeans, right? That's obvious. But the things that others know and I don't know, that's my blind spot. That's when you're like, hey, you got some spinach in your teeth right here? That's a blind spot. I don't see that about me, but you do. Hey, you can be kind of argumentative. Oh, I didn't realize. You don't listen well. Oh, that's your blind spots.

Other things here, what I know and others don't know, those are my secrets, that's what's hidden. And there's lots of things that I don't know and other people don't know, that's what only the Holy Spirit knows about me. But my point is this, all of us have spiritual blind spots. And one of the gifts of walking together is that we compensate. It takes two to compensate for the other. We need Christian community to help us to see the things that we don't see about ourselves.

But this is also true with regard to the Lord. Because brothers and sisters, the things that I will underline in my Bible are different from some of the things that you will underline in your Bible. The things that you have understood and learned of God are things that maybe I haven't. This is why even walking with somebody who is a much younger Christian than you can be enlightening. You can learn things about God's Word by opening up scripture together and studying together because we see things that the other person doesn't see.

Why does God meet us in community? I mean, why does He do this? Because again, just like with our blind spots in our eyes, it takes two. It takes two to compensate. Every person has predispositions, different aspects of the Christian faith that we see that other people don't.

So what are these people doing on this road to Emmaus? They are discovering Jesus in community together. He appears before them. This is one of the core aspects of what it means to be the body of Christ. Why we need the body together.

I think one of the problems in America though that's very different from churches all across the world is that we think of Christianity as a solo sport. We think of this as something that we do in private, our faith. There's an author Scott Carron's in his book God With Us.

He says this: for most of my life, I assumed that each of us must struggle with their faith internally, intellectually and alone. More recently, however, I've suspected that this is all a big error. And it's an error that keeps us both divided and conquered. To the extent that we fail to realize our connection, our need for mutual interdependence, my need for you, your need for me, we languish in a faith that's like sleepwalking. I love that phrase—like sleepwalking. I'm missing out on what's in front of me. I'm not aware.

So here's my question: Will you have the humility, people of God, will you have the humility to say of one another, to say to another person in your life, "I need you to help me see what I don't see. To walk with me on this faith journey"? This is one of the most critical things for us as a church. Can you walk with one another? This is where Jesus reveals himself.

Jesus Opens the Scriptures

When the disciples explain the reason for their sadness, Jesus responds by teaching them from the Bible. Did you notice this in verses 25 through 27?

Beginning with opening the scriptures, starting with teaching from the Old Testament, beginning with Moses and all the prophets, he interpreted to them in the scriptures all things concerning himself. — Luke 24:25-27

Now, what does that mean? Jesus does something here that you may not recognize because you read a Bible in English. The way the Jewish scriptures work—if you had a Jewish version of the Old Testament, a Hebrew Old Testament (I've got one back in my office)—first of all, it starts with the left-hand side. This is the front cover and it goes this way instead of the other way.

But the other thing is it's organized completely differently. It begins with the Torah, the first five books of the Bible, which are the same as in your Bible. But then it goes to the Nevi'im, which are the prophets, and the Ketuvim, which are the writings. And some of the books that you think of as prophets or history are in different places in their Bible.

But what Jesus does here is he says, all of that—the Torah, the whole of the Old Testament, A to Z, front to back, front this way to back this way—is all about me.

Now, we need to hear this for two reasons.

Reason One: Scripture Points to Jesus, Not Away from Him

First of all, there are ways that people use God's word that don't take people to Jesus. You know, that may sound weird to some of you, but for others, you know exactly what I'm talking about. There are churches, there are groups, there are families that have used God's word in a way to beat up people and to hurt them. That it doesn't take people to Jesus but instead loads them with guilt, manipulates, controls. That is not the right use of God's word.

And if God's word is taught in this church or another church in a way that doesn't take you to Jesus himself, to what he's done for us, then that is in huge error and you should walk away. That's dangerous to your soul.

Because the Bible is meant—this book is always meant to take us to Jesus and every part of it. This is why I love to preach numbers and weird parts of the Bible that you haven't heard before, because all of it tells a single story about Jesus. His death, his resurrection, why we need him, what he's done for us.

Reason Two: The Bible Is About Him, Not About Us

The second reason we need to hear this is because it's not about us. It's not about us.

Now, Katherine talked a moment ago about teaching children and our vision for our children's ministry and discipleship of our children. When I was growing up, I grew up in the flannelgraph era of the church. Does anybody know what a flannelgraph is? Okay, a couple of you old people with me, right? We know. So a board—you cover it in flannel—and this is what the Sunday school teacher would do. We would take cutouts of buildings and animals and people and retell the story up on the board.

Each of the little cutouts had sandpaper on the back that allowed it to kind of stick onto the board, and they'd move it around. This was my favorite part when I was a little kid in Sunday school. And one of the funny things about this way of learning about the Bible is the thing I noticed over and over again: there was one character that was never on the flannelgraph. That was me. I was never on the flannelgraph.

You know, there's something about this life where we think that this life is all about self. It's all about me. And of course, some of it feels like a flannelgraph life. There are lots of sets and people who are coming and going in and out. But the reality is, all of this book is about Him. And it's really important for us to remember this.

I can think of no other piece of literature where we get so confused about this. For example, many of you read the newspaper. Do you ever get confused reading the newspaper into thinking it's about you? No. The newspaper is about other stuff that's happening out there. You read a self-help book—now that's about you, right? You pick up a novel.

Are you confused about who this is about? No one's confused reading a novel. But then your instructions for how to do your taxes? Sorry. That's about you. That's about you.

See, life makes us feel like it's all about me. And one of the things that we find when we open up Scripture is if the main hero of this book is not me but is the Lord Jesus Christ, it's liberating, it's freeing. It reminds us this is what God has done for you in Christ. And therefore, it takes weight off our shoulders. It says, this is who you really are. This is what God's up to in the world. But if you read this word and you make you the central point, this becomes a burden. This book becomes a burden to you.

Beginning with Moses and the prophets, he interpreted to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself. — Luke 24:27

This is what we need regularly. This is what it means to be a part of Christian community—for us to be walking on the road together with His word. God speaks most powerfully to us through His word. When we come together, there are promises. When two or more are gathered in His name, He is here among us. The power of God at work in His people is not just us walking together but us walking together and opening His word together, allowing Him and what He's done to speak into our lives.

This encounter with Jesus for these disciples was absolutely transformational. Listen to what they say:

Did not our hearts burn within us when He opened up the Word? — Luke 24:32

Do you all have some of those experiences in your past? Either in a sermon or opening up God's Word or a Bible study where it was like, did not our hearts burn within us? I felt like everything that was said was all directed right to me right then, so that I would know God's power and His presence. Anybody have those experiences in your past?

This is what the Lord is up to when we open up His word together—is that we might be drawn to Him and transformed by Him. This is what we need in our community life.

A Vision for Discipleship

Here is our vision for discipleship in our church. It's three tiers and it's based on the earthly ministry of Jesus. We didn't make any of this up. This is not that complex. But we see Jesus in His earthly ministry teaching the crowds, teaching the twelve disciples, and then taking some of His disciples—Peter, James, and John—off like one-on-one. And this has been our model for discipleship together as a community.

First, one-on-one Bible reading—that you would, at your own schedule, find someone else to read God's word aloud or out with together. To open up His word together and allow it to speak into your life. Why? Because you're going to underline things that I'm not going to underline. I'm going to underline things that you're not going to underline. It takes two to compensate for each other.

And we have a lot of freedom around this. You can do this with another person in the church. We're going to give you permission to do this with somebody outside of our church, even if you wanted to do that. You could even do this with an unbeliever if you wanted to. But the power of opening up God's word together and allowing it to speak into us—that's what matters.

The second layer of this is what we do in our community groups. This is like Jesus' ministry with the twelve, where they gathered together. And we know community groups are not perfect. Ours took a real big hit during the pandemic. But community groups work really well, not for everything, but for being a spiritual family together. For being people who know what's going on, praying for one another, bearing each other's burdens, helping each other move, helping care for each other in times of crisis, walking with each other, praying, rejoicing with each other, sharing each other's burdens and sorrows, experiencing Jesus together midweek in these little pockets all over our city. And we're calling you again—step back in, step back into one of those.

And finally, we can't wait to offer adult Sunday school. We have no place in our church right now where we're offering teaching and training and equipping and topical series where there's room to discuss things. We're really excited about offering this.

But all of this is for what? Allowing us to discover Jesus in community together, walking together with His word. And nobody is above this or beyond this. Nobody graduates from Rabbi Jesus School. We never learn all there is to know of Jesus. He's an infinite being. There's always more to know, so He's revealed in His word.

Jesus Revealed in the Breaking of Bread

The other thing we see in this passage is Jesus revealed in the breaking of the bread. Look at verses 30 through 31:

When He was at the table with them, He took the bread and blessed and broke it and gave it to them and their eyes were opened and they recognized Him. — Luke 24:30-31

Jesus is revealed in the breaking of bread. Now, of course, we emphasize this and I will in a moment when we go to the Lord's table. This, of course, leads us to think about the Passover and the Lord's Supper.

But more fundamentally than that, I want you to notice how often eating and food are mentioned in the Bible. Even in the resurrection appearances of Jesus, there's lots of eating together that happens. It seems like God really enjoys people eating. One of the things I noticed about our church is so does our church. One of the things you guys most talk about together is where you're eating, what you ate, where you're planning to eat, right? We talk about restaurants and meals. Why is that? Because food that the Lord has created is not just for fuel, it's for our enjoyment. And it's for our enjoyment together.

There's something that happens around the table. The early church was known for its radical hospitality, for its welcoming and table fellowship. People eating together and that's not something we look back and say, "Well, that was great that they did that back then." The reason we emphasize that is that's a foretaste. That's an hors d'oeuvre for where we're headed. What is the second coming of Jesus often compared to? A great banquet. A lavish feast that the Lord lays out for us where he can't wait to eat with us at the table and we eat with one another.

Have we forgotten? Here's one of my concerns. Have we forgotten as a church how to do hospitality? How to open up our homes? How to have people over? I know that we've spent years not doing this and it feels awkward and weird and maybe we don't know what to do. Maybe you've got a little apartment and you're like, "I don't want to have anybody over to my little apartment." God can work even in your little apartment. One of my favorite stories about the early days of this church is something called Spaghetti Tuesdays where a group of people had this amazing idea and it involved both Tuesdays and spaghetti. We gather and we eat spaghetti together on Tuesday nights and anybody can come. And there's something about that that laid a deep foundation in this congregation for fellowship together.

Here's my call for us. What if this summer was the summer of table fellowship in our church? Can we remember how to welcome one another? Can we remember how to feast together? It's so important.

Can I be honest with you? One of my roles, one of our roles as pastors in this church is the care and cure of souls—spiritual doctor. And one of the common diagnoses I'm finding in our congregation is how isolated and lonely and honestly discouraged we are. And you're not going to like what Doctor Jeff has to say this morning. I put on my stethoscope. I'm going to tell you here's what you've got to do. It's not going to come to you. You're going to have to take a step and open up your life and open up His Word with one another. God is able to do amazing things when His people open ourselves up to one another and His Word together. Open up our homes, open up our lives.

Let me give you this by way of closing. I could end the sermon there but that's not the end of the story. You know, they go along this road to Emmaus, Jesus appears, He's revealed in the breaking of the bread and He disappears in front of them. And what do they do? They suddenly get up and say, "We've got to go back." They just walked seven miles and they're sitting down for a meal together and suddenly they've got to go back and tell the others. There's something about experiencing Christ together that is disruptive. It changes your course. They were on their way walking away and God draws them to go the opposite direction.

This is what I long for for our church: experiencing Christ together in community in a way that's disruptive to the normal patterns of our life, that calls us to go places we weren't planning to go and do things we weren't planning to do because God has disrupted our status quo wonderfully, gloriously, beautifully. Because that's what he's up to.

Let me close with this invitation for us to discover Jesus on the road together. N.T. Wright wrote this about the Easter story:

Without Easter, the cross was just another political execution of a failed Messiah. Without Easter, the world is trapped between the shrug of the cynic, the fantasy of the escapist, the tanks of the tyrant. Without Easter, there's no reason to suppose that good will triumph over evil, that love will win over hatred, or that life will win over death.

But with Easter, we have hope because hope depends on love and love has become human and died and is now alive forevermore and holds in his hands the keys of death and Hades and it is because of him we know—we don't just hope, we know—that God will wipe away all tears from all eyes and in that knowledge, we find ourselves to be Sunday people living in a world of Good Fridays.

Brothers and sisters, may God give us the courage to live together, discover more of him that we might be a people who are Sunday people living in a world of Good Fridays. Let's pray together.

Father, we come to you this morning and we confess how much we need your word to change us.

Where we are cynical and despairing, we are weak and tired. Lord, we pray, Lord, make us hungry. Father, I pray that you would make us hungry for more of Christ, that you would make us hungry to discover him, to open up your word in our homes and our lives to one another, to experience you together. We pray this in Christ's name. Amen.