Stay with Us
Luke 24:13-35
There are people today who will try to tell you that the Bible is an irrelevant text. They will confess that they can’t relate to it, and that they don’t see how it could ever apply to their life. There is no connection between what’s in the Bible and what’s going on in their world. It just doesn’t speak to them.
Stories like our reading for today would be a front-and-center example of this disconnect. We just don’t experience strangers suddenly showing up to explain away all our questions, and then having that stranger disappear just as we are sitting down to dinner.
But I think there is a lot in this passage that anyone could relate to. Who hasn’t known the confusion of the disciples? Who hasn’t failed to recognize Jesus present with us? And if those questions sound too religious, then who hasn’t had the desire to spend more time with a new friend?
Our reading shows that the two on the road know the facts about Jesus, but that they do not have faith in Jesus. With our culture’s emphasis on facts, even if those facts are based in “truthiness,” we often forget the distinction between facts and faith.
A fact is a fact, whether I look at it or you look at it. Faith becomes faith when we are invited into it, and when we accept and grow into a relationship with God through the grace of Jesus Christ. A fact is complete, all by itself, whether it fits with other facts or not. Faith always carries with it a sense of being incomplete apart from the relationship. A fact is about what can be verified. Faith is about hope.
Perhaps that is why when Jesus walks with them, they do not recognize that it is Jesus. These two have questions, and Jesus gives them answers, but for them it is little more than collecting facts about how the life of Jesus aligned with the prophecies of the Old Testament. All this can be verified independently as factual, but the facts are not the same thing as faith. What these two need, in order to see Jesus, is hope.
Hope is a recognition that we are incomplete, but that we do not expect to remain incomplete. We do not, however, always recognize that feeling of incompleteness as hope. We may think of it as feeling lost or lonely, and that things would be better if someone would just stay with us.
For example, when we were children, and the darkness of night surrounded us, and it felt a little like we might disappear because no one could see us, we had hope that if Mom or Dad would just stay with us, at least until we fell asleep, it would be all right. We didn’t know for a fact it would be all right, but we had faith it would be all right because we had a relationship with our parents.
These two on the road to Emmaus tell the stranger that in the weeks and months leading up to the
Passover celebration they had hope that Jesus was the messiah. But Jesus was crucified, dead, and buried, and with it their hope. There was no way to continue the relationship. They were quite literally walking away from Jesus.
We have two people who seem to be without hope, hitting the road, leaving their faith community, deep in confusion about God. Do any of us know anyone like that? Does that sound irrelevant to our lives, or to the lives of people we know? Like so many people today, the Jesus the two on the road to

Emmaus thought they knew and understood had let them down, and their response was to walk away.
Some churches act as if this is where the story ends. These churches focus on making sure their members don’t walk away. These churches focus their ministry on the facts. It is a fact that some kinds of music are more fun to sing. It is a fact that people like being told that they are blessed. It is a fact that most people want those blessings to be handed to them, without too much sacrifice on their part.
These are the kind of churches that Richard Niehbur was already noticing in his 1937 book, “The
Kingdom of God in America.” Niehbur, who was Missouri born and educated, and a Methodist theological ethicist who taught for many years at Yale Divinity School, wrote that these churches believe that “a God without wrath brought men without sin into a Kingdom without judgment through the ministrations of a Christ without a Cross.” In this kind of a church, the emphasis is on membership and attendance, and not on discipleship and the transformation of the world for Jesus Christ.
The good news for us is that the story doesn’t end with these two on the road simply walking away.
Three things happen. One, they are joined by Jesus on the road. He actually walks with them in their loss of hope and in their bewilderment. Two, he asks them to tell their story, and he stays to have dinner with them. And three, their eyes were opened in the breaking of the bread.
It is good news that Jesus walks with us in our loss of hope and in our bewilderment. When I was working on my doctorate, I read many of the classic Christian writers about the spiritual journey. One of the most influential in Christian history is John of the Cross, a 16 th century Discalced Carmelite priest. He was the writer of a long poem titled, “The Dark Night of the Soul.” In this poem, he made the case that
God abandons us for a time in order for us to prove our worthiness before receiving illumination and then the unitive life with God. This teaching is the logical conclusion to ascetical practices, that before we can receive God, we have to give up everything else – including God.
John Wesley strongly opposed this understanding that God ever walks away from us. In “Sermon 40:
The Wilderness State,” John wrote, “[God] never deserts us, as some speak; it is we only that desert
[God].” In other words, if we experience darkness in our soul, it is because we are trying to walk away from God, but God does not ever walk away from us. And while Wesley made his case by quoting several scriptures, he could have simply pointed to the two on the road to Emmaus, lost and bewildered, and joined by Christ who walks with them.
Second, it is good news that Jesus listens to and knows our story, and will stay with us if we ask. Jesus knows all about us, and all the ways we have fallen short. He knows all the ways we have justified our behaviors apart from the will and grace of God. He knows all the reasons why God would be justified to just walk away from us, but he is the assurance through the Holy Spirit that God never walks away. And even though the prevenient grace of Jesus Christ means that he “stands at the door and knocks,” we still have to ask him into our heart and life.
This is our hope, that in our incompleteness, we are fulfilled through the grace of Jesus Christ. We become whole when we ask Jesus in – which is what these two on the road to Emmaus did.
Third, their eyes were opened in the breaking of the bread. It wasn’t just these two who believed when bread was broken, either. In the gospels, we are told that the disciples would share other meals after the crucifixion and meet the Risen Lord. We read at Acts 2:42, that on the Day of Pentecost, when Peter preached and thousands entered into a new relationship with God through Jesus Christ, the first thing

the new disciples do is commit themselves “to the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of bread, and the prayers.” At Acts 20:7, worship is defined as when we gather to break bread. In the records of the Romans, and in the letters of the early Church, before our spiritual ancestors were even called Christians, they were often identified as the people who broke the bread together.
There is a reason why John Wesley, and nearly all of our church history, preached on “the duty of constant communion.” Not only did Jesus command us to do this, when he said, “Do this in remembrance of me,” we know that our eyes can be opened to the presence of Jesus Christ in our lives through the breaking of the bread.
I said three things happen in this reading, but I could have added a fourth. The fourth thing is that these two returned to Jerusalem to share the good news with others. I could have said that, and it would have been true, and we do need to hear this. I could have urged you to do the same by saying something cheesy like, “May the fourth be with you.”
But this can wait for another time because too often too many people go running to tell the good news without first knowing that Jesus walks with them, and that Jesus knows them, and that Jesus stays with them if asked. And if we don’t have that foundation in the good news, we will be back to being tempted to walk away the first time we feel like Jesus has disappointed us.
We need to know – deeply warmed in our hearts know – that Jesus walks with us, and that Jesus knows our story, and that Jesus will stay with us if we only ask him to stay in our hearts. Padre Pio, who died in
1968, wrote a prayer for after communion that makes one request over and over again.
Stay with me, Lord, for it is necessary to have You present so that I do not forget You.
You know how easily I abandon You.
Stay with me, Lord, because I am weak, and I need Your strength, so that I may not fall so often.
Stay with me, Lord, for You are my life, and without You, I am without fervor.
Stay with me, Lord, for You are my light, and without you, I am in darkness.
Stay with me, Lord, to show me Your will.
Stay with me, Lord, so that I hear Your voice and follow You.
Stay with me, Lord, for I desire to love you very much, and always be in Your Company.
Stay with me, Lord, if You wish me to be faithful to You.
Stay with me, Lord, for as poor as my soul is, I want it to be a place of consolation for You, a nest of Love.
Stay with me, Jesus, for it is getting late, and the day is coming to a close, and life passes, death, judgment, eternity approach.
It is necessary to renew my strength, so that I will not stop along the way and for that, I need You.

It is getting late and death approaches.
I fear the darkness, the temptations, the dryness, the cross, the sorrows.
O how I need You, my Jesus, in this night of exile.
Stay with me tonight, Jesus, in life with all its dangers, I need You.
Let me recognize You as Your disciples did at the breaking of bread, so that the Eucharistic Communion be the light which disperses the darkness, the force which sustains me, the unique joy of my heart.
Stay with me, Lord, because at the hour of my death, I want to remain united to you, if not by Communion, at least by grace and love.
Stay with me, Jesus,
I do not ask for divine consolation because I do not merit it, but the gift of Your presence, oh yes, I ask this of You.
Stay with me, Lord, for it is You alone I look for,
Your Love, Your Grace, Your Will, Your Heart, Your Spirit, because I love You and ask no other reward but to love You more and more.
With a firm love, I will love You with all my heart while on earth and continue to love You perfectly during all eternity. Amen.
Let us stand and sing, as we ask Jesus to stay with us.
Faith We Sing 2199 “Stay with Us”