Sermon for April 19, 2026
Readings:
Jesus himself came near and went with them, but their eyes were kept from recognizing him.
I will let you in on a little secret. I often practice my sermons.
Now I want you to understand, it is not because a sermon is some kind of performance and I am up here trying to be overly dramatic. That is not the case. I practice, because to get written words off of the page and to make them sound the way that you mean for them to, well that involves more than just reading the words in front of you. You have to pay attention to how something sounds when you say it. That is why I encourage all of our readers here in mass, not just our young folks, but all of our readers, to read the scripture before the service, and yes to practice them. So I practice my sermons too. I want to make sure that what you are hearing me say is what I am actually trying to say.
One time a few years ago, I was in the chapel at the University of the South, where I went to study preaching. It was late one night and I was practicing a sermon that I had to give the following week. And while I was preaching I could see through the windows in this chapel, which is all clear glass, I could see a man I didn’t recognize walking around outside. So I got a little quieter. I was being a little self-conscious preaching to an empty room. And then I heard the door open behind me, and I just stopped preaching. The man came inside. Now, I wasn’t afraid of him, I just felt kinda weird standing there preaching to myself. And he said to me: “don’t stop on my account. You might say something I need to hear.” Well we smiled at each other and he wandered around looking at the chapel and I went back to my sermon, but instead of reading it out loud I started reading it silently. Like I said, I was being self-conscious and I also didn’t think it was that good of a sermon.
So after a while the man came back up to me and he said, “can you do me a favor? Can you tell me what you were preaching about?” Of course, I said. And I walked him through the whole sermon I was preaching which was about Moses and the children of Israel crossing through the desert on their way to the promised land. And I was talking about how they were always being tempted to give up and turn back, and were always worrying that God wasn’t with them. Anyways, that sermon isn’t really the point of this story. After I was done though, the man looked at me and said: “Thank you. I imagine if you preach it just like that you will do just fine. It really meant something to me.” And he stood there a minute and paused and said, “but how can you see in here?”
It was night time, so it was a little dark in the chapel. And I said well, there’s a light right here that shines down on my text. And he said, “well I can’t really see very well. Bad vision runs in my family. That’s usually what I am praying for whenever I come into a church.” And in that moment, I had this sensation come over me. It was a realization that I wasn’t just ministering to this man, but that he was actually ministering to me. He was talking about praying for better vision, but what was I blind to? He had asked me to keep preaching when he walked in, but I had stopped. He was making me realize that my self-consciousness and my awkwardness of openly talking about my faith (as a priest standing in a church mind you), well he made me realize that that wasn’t serving anybody. He needed a word of encouragement that night, or at least he said he did, but so did I. And he claimed to have bad vision, but the truth was, so did I. I could see the text in front of me, but when God was standing right in front of me, I was blind.
This was just a man that looked like any man, but we had this amazing moment where we touched each others’ lives and gave each other hope and strength. We shook hands, said goodbye and thanked each other. I returned to my text and he returned to the woods outside the chapel, but he stopped before he walked out the door and called back to me.
He said, “It’s a round world you know…we’ll meet again.”
And all I could say was “Amen brother, amen.”
And as the door shut behind him and he disappeared into the night, I thought “was that really just a man? Was that encounter I just had just some random conversation between me and a stranger, or was it something more?” I couldn’t help but feel that it was something more. In that moment all of the nerves in my body were convinced that something spectacular had just happened. My brain had an explanation for everything, but my soul was convinced that this was an encounter with God…or with an angel.
Now everything that I have just told you is a true story; it actually happened to me. You may recognize that there is nothing spectacular or dramatic about it. There is no fiery pillar or mystical bread floating down from heaven. No angelic halo; no floating in the air. Just a very ordinary looking encounter that I deeply suspect and believe was actually something very extra ordinary. In that sense it is a story very much like the gospel story we just heard a few moments ago.
In today’s passage from the Gospel of Luke, two of Jesus’s followers were walking down the road together on Easter Sunday afternoon. They had been through all of the trauma of Holy Week. They had been through the excitement of Jesus entering Jerusalem on Palm Sunday. I don’t know if they were at dinner with him on Maundy Thursday, but they knew all about his crucifixion on Good Friday. They had had high hopes for Jesus, and those hopes were devastated when they witnessed him being killed. But just that morning, Easter morning, they had heard a report, an unbelievable report, that his tomb was empty and he had risen from the grave, and they were struggling with what to make of that news. Was it a delusion? Was it a myth or a lie? Was it a cleverly devised story to get back at the Romans or the Temple Priests? These two followers were asking themselves questions that many of you have probably asked before: Did the Resurrection actually happen? Is this story true? Was Jesus actually the son of God?
And as they walk along an average looking stranger joins them and starts walking with them. They don’t know who he is. He starts asking them questions about what they are struggling with and what they are talking about. And they tell him the story of Jesus, at least as they knew it. But it turns out they didn’t know the whole story. They had missed many parts of God’s story, so this stranger walks them through the whole story of scripture. He highlights for them all of the times in our history where God has revealed himself to us; shown us who he is and what he is up to. Met us where we were. From the beginning, we have had encounters with this God. We have had encounters with God, only we haven’t always recognized God’s presence at the time. Sometimes it has only been looking back when we have realized: oh wait! That was God I just ran into! That was God that was leading me, or walking with me. The glory of scripture is that it records many of these encounters with God, and that is what this stranger is explaining to them. He is reminding them, that the God of scripture is a God who meets his people in real life.
And after this wonderful conversation they had, it seemed like the stranger was going to just walk on, never to be seen again. But the two disciples asked him to stay and be their guest. So they sat down to dinner together, and as this mysterious stranger, took the bread, blessed it and broke it, their eyes were opened. And they could finally see that this wasn’t a stranger at all. It was Jesus. And then he was gone. A piece of bread. A meal. A ritual action so ordinary. Nothing about this meal or this meeting was spectacular, and yet with opened eyes the disciples could see that God was present with them in that moment. This is something that our God does, over and over again. God meets us in very ordinary things. Yes, there are stories of amazing miracles in our scriptures, the Resurrection of Jesus being the greatest miracle of all, but there are even more stories of God encountering and shepherding his people in less showy ways. Only we don’t always recognize God when he shows up. You could say that recognizing God at work is a skill that takes a little practice. That is why you are here.
Practice, as I said earlier, in all things is important. You practice writing your alphabet, you practice your multiplication tables, you practice playing a musical instrument, you practice a sport. So many things in life require practice and yet for some reason so many people think that religion is just supposed to come naturally. No. You need to practice your faith. You need to participate in the rituals and memorize the stories. Not because there is going to be some quiz, but because we believe that God can and does still show up unexpectedly in this world. Will you be able to recognize him when you meet him? It might be in the eyes of a stranger. It might be in a simple piece of bread. It might be in a story that you think you know, but don’t really know at all. God shows up; God encounters us in simple ordinary ways, and we invite you here to church, each and every week to practice recognizing him. Recognize him in the scriptures. Recognize him in each other. Recognize him in the bread that he breaks to feed and sustain us. Practice recognizing him.
And if by any chance you don’t. If you miss God, and don’t recognize that you were in his presence until it seems like he has walked away. Don’t fret. Don’t panic. Just keep walking. Keep practicing. I promise you, you’ll get another chance. As the mysterious stranger that I met said to me before he disappeared: “it’s a round world, you know. We’ll meet again.”
Inwardly Digest 