Bread of Life in a Gluten Free World

I have no clue how I managed to keep forgetting to post this sermon BUUUUT here it is! It's from May 4th, 2015.

The Bread Of Life in a Gluten Free World

Rev. Penelope Erin Taylor - May 4^th, 2014

Our scripture today comes from the Gospel according to Luke, chapter 24, verses 13-35. I am reading from the New Revised Standard Version.

“Now on that same day two of them were going to a village called Emmaus, about seven miles from Jerusalem, and talking with each other about all these things that had happened. While they were talking and discussing, Jesus himself came near and went with them, but their eyes were kept from recognizing him. And he said to them, “What are you discussing with each other while you walk along?” They stood still, looking sad. Then one of them, whose name was Cleopas, answered him, “Are you the only stranger in Jerusalem who does not know the things that have taken place there in these days?” He asked them, “What things?” They replied, “The things about Jesus of Nazareth, who was a prophet mighty in deed and word before God and all the people, and how our chief priests and leaders handed him over to be condemned to death and crucified him. But we had hoped that he was the one to redeem Israel. Yes, and besides all this, it is now the third day since these things took place. Moreover, some women of our group astounded us. They were at the tomb early this morning, and when they did not find his body there, they came back and told us that they had indeed 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 women had said; but they did not see him.” Then he said to them, “Oh, how foolish you are, and how slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have declared! Was it not necessary that the Messiah should suffer these things and then enter into his glory?” Then beginning with Moses and all the prophets, he interpreted to them the things about himself in all the scriptures.

As they came near the village to which they were going, he walked ahead as if he were going on. But they urged him strongly, saying, “Stay with us, because it is almost evening and the day is now nearly over.” So he went in to stay with them. When he was at the table with them, he took bread, blessed and broke it, and gave it to them. Then their eyes were opened, and they recognized him; and he vanished from their sight. They said to each other, “Were not our hearts burning within us while he was talking to us on the road, while he was opening the scriptures to us?” That same hour they got up and returned to Jerusalem; and they found the eleven and their companions gathered together. They were saying, “The Lord has risen indeed, and he has appeared to Simon!” Then they told what had happened on the road, and how he had been made known to them in the breaking of the bread.”

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The Word of God, for the people of God. Will you please pray with me?

May the words of my mouth and the meditations of each of our hearts be acceptable in your sight. As we dive into these ancient words, in them may we find a living word. Amen.

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We’re friends right? And I can tell y’all something with little to no judgment… right? Okay… here it goes… I, Penelope Erin Taylor, still sleep my teddy bear. Yes. It’s true. I got my teddy bear, Megan Bear, for my first Christmas in December of 1989. I was 11 months old and she was fresh from Santa’s workshop. We have been inseparable ever since that glorious Christmas morning. I’m not kidding. Megan Bear went to the Rose Bowl – though not to the actual game as tickets were quite expensive – she went to Scotland with me, she goes to camp, she goes on mission trips, she spends the night at the Sutton’s house with me… anywhere I go, Megan Bear goes too. We’re like a modern day, female version of Christopher Robin and Winnie the Pooh. As a kid, I would strap Megan Bear into my supped up Power Wheels Jeep and we would cruise around the neighborhood at a brisk 25 mph. As a teenager I would cry into the loving paws of Megan Bear when things just wouldn’t go my way. I have even considered making a graduation cap and hood for Megan Bear for when I graduate from Brite & TCU – which for the record is in 369 days – but that may be difficult to do considering Megan Bear has a disproportionately large head in comparison her furry little body. Needless to say, I REALLY love my bear.

There was, however, a month or so where Megan Bear and I were separated… and I still have a hard time talking about it. I need a minute. Whew, okay… so… When I was a senior in high school, some of the boys at a fall church camp retreat thought it would be funny to “borrow” Megan Bear and take her back to Pine Bluff, AR. Apparently they had taken her out of my parent’s car and as I was about 4 hours into my 8 hour drive home from camp, I got a text message with a picture of Megan Bear sitting at their church. I WAS LIVID. I exchanged some choice words with them that I’m not proud of and they probably weren’t appropriate for Megan Bear – or my parents – to overhear but I didn’t know what else to do! I was in complete distress! When their youth minister, Chuck, found out about the hostage situation that was transpiring 325 miles from Megan Bear’s REAL home, he immediately seized her and promised to mail her back to me as soon as he possibly could. A few days later, I got a call that said Megan Bear was being mailed back home and that there was a tracking number and insurance for the cardboard box that would soon deliver my best friend back to Louisiana. I waited for about a week and she still hadn’t made it home. We found out that Chuck had gotten my address wrong and Megan Bear had found her way BACK to Pine Bluff, AR. We were about 2 weeks away from our regional assembly at that point and out of fear of her getting lost in the mail AGAIN I opted to wait and get her back at regional assembly. The anticipation built and finally that weekend came only to find out that Chuck had accidentally forgotten to bring her down. Devastated, I sat there in shock – and a little embarrassed that at this point I was 17 years old and crying because I wanted my teddy bear – and Chuck assured me that I would get her back as soon as he got home from regional assembly. Alas, about a week later, a brown cardboard box greeted me on our front porch. Megan Bear had finally made it back home.

That month was incredibly hard for me. I kid you not, I cried almost every night and while I have many other stuffed animals that I love, none of them could take Megan Bear’s place. It may sound silly, but at 25 years old, I still cannot sleep a night without my teddy bear. For a month I wondered about the whereabouts of my best friend. I feared for her safety. I longed to see her little black nose and disproportionately large head to be safely back in my room where she belonged. I waited and waited and waited, praying that I would see her again soon.

As we join the two disciples on their walk to Emmaus, our eyes begin to sparkle, the wheels begin to turn, and in the voice of precocious child with an exciting secret, we can confidentially say, “I know something you don’t know…” At this point, the disciples are feeling hopeless. They have just lost their teacher, their friend, their hope… or so they think. With every step, they kick off the dust of Jerusalem and all that had transpired that weekend from their sandals. With every step, the reality that Jesus may never come back starts to set in. With every step, they wonder about whereabouts of their friend and fear for his safety. They long to see him back where he belongs. They’re waiting and waiting and waiting. I imagine that they told and retold the story of Jesus’ crucifixion and empty tomb to one another, hoping that in the retelling, they may find an expression of hope or the answers they desperately seek. The sun is beginning to set and the dusk is drawing near as they prepare for yet another night of no answers. They’re soon joined by another traveler – one who they don’t recognize but we, with our sparkling eyes and mischievous grin, know exactly who this mysterious traveler is. The traveler, perhaps with the same sparkle and mischievous smile, asks what they are talking about. We know by now that one of the two disciples is Cleopas and Cleopas, taken back by the question, begins to talk about the shattered hope of Israel, the agony of promises broken, and the frustration of the disciples.

As the sun continues to set, the disciples offer their hospitality to the traveler and insist that he stay with them through the night. I like to imagine that at this point, Jesus is smiling on the inside and checking off “I was a stranger and you invited me in” on the disciple’s syllabus. Still, completely unaware of whom their dinner guest is, the disciples assume a familiar position – they gather around a table and prepare to break bread. As their dinner guest takes his place at the head of the table, offers a blessing, and breaks the bread, the disciples see that brown cardboard box on their front porch. Their best friend has finally made it home.

Our narrative ends here, but our story is just beginning. It is in that moment that the disciples realize the scriptures have been fulfilled. As they were walking, Cleopas references what the prophet Isaiah had said – he calls Jesus the redeemer of Israel. And as he does so, the traveler recognizes that Isaiah was not talking about the death of Jesus as the promise waiting to be fulfilled – but the resurrection… Jesus entering into glory… THAT was the redemption that so many longed for and placed their hope in. When Jesus broke bread at the table in Emmaus, he was not celebrating the Eucharist but instead reminding the disciples that EVERY meal has the potential to be hospitable and sacred. He was reminding the disciples that he can ALWAYS be recognized in the breaking of the bread. When they felt like their hope was lost, their dreams had been shattered, and that their world was over, Jesus broke one more thing – he broke bread. When we break bread, we welcome Christ at our table.

We may not be faced with the same hopelessness that was prevalent in first century Jerusalem or the despair Isaiah longed to be released from, but we are plagued with many things that make recognizing the face of Christ seem sometimes impossible. In a world where 55 colleges and universities are under investigation for not handling sexual violence against men and women properly, where do we recognize Christ? In a world where school shootings and bombs make headlines more often than stories of peace and reconciliation, where do we even hear a blessing? In a world where the number of bruises on children is dramatically increasing while the number of meals in a home quickly decline, how can we even celebrate with bread? We live in a world that celebrates scandals, turn a blind eye to the exploitation of women and men, and we dehumanize anyone who may look or be different than what we see in the mirror. Our youth learn geography not from a globe, but from news headlines that tell us of the latest attempt at genocide or the rising death toll in the Ukraine. No, it’s not the same as Jerusalem or Emmaus… but we too are in desperate need of bread… and to make matters worse, bread has been deemed unhealthy or an indulgence by the majority of the latest diet plans. How can we recognize Christ in the breaking of the bread when bread is hardly in the grocery store?

The day that I finally got Megan Bear back was one of the best days of my life. As silly as it may seem, I saw the face of Christ in Megan Bear’s disproportionately large head that mid-November afternoon. And I wish it were as easy as opening a cardboard box or sharing a loaf of bread when it comes to recognizing the face of Christ… But let’s go back to the dirt road on the way to Emmaus. Even after all of the heartache the disciples and the followers of Christ had endured over those few days, the disciples still embodied the words of Jesus. He was a stranger and they invited him in… He was hungry and they gave him something to eat. Even in the midst of uncertainty and hopelessness, the disciples clung to the teachings of Jesus and allowed him to light their way – no matter how much the candlewick struggled and almost burnt out. Yes, our world is undeniably overwhelmed with tragedy but there is still a flicker of hope, there is still the presence of Christ, and there is still bread on the table.

For those 55 colleges and universities to finally be investigated meant that someone had the courage to speak up. Someone recognized an injustice and instead of remaining silent, they chose to speak out for those men and women who have been silenced. If we leave the news coverage on just long enough to get past the horrifying details of a school shooting, we hear parents offering words of hope and forgiveness and teachers willing to lay down their own lives so that children’s eyes may continue to sparkle as they smile mischievously.  We take something small… like a mason jar… and will it with spare change to help our neighbors buy a few extra bags of groceries when they go shopping. We open a cardboard box to find that a youth minister placed a glow in the dark necklace on our long lost teddy bear so she wouldn’t be afraid on her epic journey home. Our world is far from perfect, but that doesn’t have to mean that all hope has been lost. It doesn’t mean that we have a shortage of bread.

We NEED the bread of life. We NEED to recognize Christ in our world. We complain that Christ is being systematically taken out of our schools, but how can we say that when children whose grandparents were denied a desk at their neighborhood public school are now enjoying recess with their new friends all because a handful of brave people chose to combat hate with peace? We claim that the church is a dying institution, yet churches facilitate 70% of the food banks and 27% of the emergency shelters or halfway houses in the United States. We even go as far as saying that television is the catalyst of our society’s moral downfall but I challenge you to watch the complete series of Boy Meets World and tell me that Mr. Feeny and Shawn Hunter are not examples of a Christ figure!

Yes, our sandals may be dusty… and the road to Emmaus may be long… but that doesn’t mean that Christ isn’t walking along side of us throughout the journey. There will always be grief. There will always be hopelessness. There will always be unanswered questions… BUT there will also always be sparkling eyes and mischievous smiles. There will always be mason jars to fill, recess games to be played, cardboard boxes to open, and examples of Christ in the chaotic midst of our lives. Most importantly, there will always be bread on the table. We are given the opportunity time and time again to make our gatherings sacred and invitations of hospitality. We are invited to take and eat, to rejoice in the bread of life. We set the table, but in the breaking of the bread, we KNOW that Christ joins us there. No matter what diets we may try, allergies we may suffer through, or grocery store we visit, bread needs to be a priority. Recognizing the presence of Christ needs to be a priority.

So let us put on our sandals, let us walk together, let us gather around the table, let us offer a blessing, and let us break bread.

Amen.