I’ve been reading and pondering Luke 24, the story of the Road to Emmaus. Here is a link to the story…
I’m left with so many question…
Why don’t the disciples recognize Jesus among them?
Why don’t we recognize Jesus among us, and the church of our future?
We are bewildered and rehearsing our woes, just like they were. Our hopes and dreams are dying along with our numbers and buildings.
We are coming to realize that if we seek to build the Church as it once was, we might not find the church of God’s future.
Like the disciples, we are coming to see that Christ is found in the eyes of the stranger.
We are coming to understand that we have denied Christ unwittingly, and have some repenting to do. Repenting is a grace beyond confessing and regretting an infraction. It is retracing our steps, finding what error in belief or attitude or heart led us to where we are, and learning to better align all that we are and do with the mission of Christ.
Many times….We have denied the fullness of Christ and held up the story of our Church in His place.
Many times…We have raised up our distinctive beliefs higher than the One we love, trust, and follow.
Not intentionally, but because we didn’t understand. I certainly didn’t.
My belief is that we are over-burdened by our fears, like the men on the road to Emmaus. We need eyes of hope, faith, companionship, trusting community…. these are often absent when our hearts are hard with fear.
Eventually, the early church people were booted from the synagogues and found new life in house churches living the Way of Christ in an upside down community of equality, generosity, and love. Many Churches in our times are leaving their worship homes because of low numbers and financial resources, and finding new life and emerging visions of Community not tethered to a building.
They ate together, shared so that all were fed, told their stories of grief and hopes, and from the rubble and ashes came a revolutionary movement that changed the world. The church was stripped down to it’s most basic dna…the loving hearts and hands of those who follow Jesus Way of love, peace and justice, and rebuilt into something transforming for their times and place and peoples.
The Saints of today can reclaim that same spiritual dna. May we orient our lives and ministry and stewardship to bring expressions of love, hope, peace and justice into empty places of this place and time.
“We are coming to understand that we have denied Christ unwittingly, and have some repenting to do. Repenting is a grace beyond confessing and regretting an infraction. It is retracing our steps, finding what error in belief or attitude or heart led us to where we are, and learning to better align all that we are and do with the mission of Christ.”
I love this paragraph – deep insight. It describes the issue beautifully.There is need for deep discernment. I honestly believe that as the church we are just not listening. The Spirit is doing a new thing and there will be those aspects of the church that will ultimately be dragged in to the new with much kicking and screaming. Hopefully the new will be recognized once those aspects are in it.