3rd Sunday of Easter A - Homily 3

Homily 3 - 2014

While he was with them at table, he took the bread, and said the blessing. Then he broke it and handed it to them. Their eyes were opened and they recognised him. What opened those eyes? We identify the ritual by the prayer of blessing, during which we tell the story of the Last Supper. We call it Eucharist – which means the prayer of thanksgiving or of blessing. They identified the ritual as the breaking of the bread. They recognised him at the breaking of the bread.

After all that had gone on during their walk to Emmaus, how did the breaking of the bread jolt them into eventual recognition? I think that a clue to the answer was given earlier in today’s Gospel story. The two had said that their hope was that he would set Israel free, to which Jesus replied: Was it not ordained that the Christ should suffer and so enter into his glory? The Christ would indeed set Israel free, and he would enter into his glory; but to enter into his glory he had first to suffer. The bread that was his body had first to be broken.

Do this in remembrance of me. Do what? Take the bread, say the prayer, break the bread – and only then can we share it. The body had to be broken. The bread has to be broken. The Christ must suffer and so enter into his glory.

But why was it inevitable that he suffer? Why was it inevitable that he first be murdered by us – to set Israel free, and to set us free? Certainly not so that God would forgive our sins. God has no problem with forgiveness [just as there is no question of you forgiving the children you love if they do wrong]. God did not have to be changed for us to be set free.

Look at the TV news each night. That is the world needing to be set free: enemies fighting enemies; enemies killing enemies; enemies arguing with enemies; enemies ridiculing enemies, undermining enemies, bad-mouthing enemies. But that is not us… Isn’t it? Look around us this morning. We categorise everyone; we judge everyone – good/bad, better/worse, more holy/less holy, right/wrong, smart/stupid, conservative/progressive, with us/against us, one of us/not one of us. It was categorizing and judging like that that led people to kill Jesus – ordinary people, conscientious people, religiously-minded people.

I am an expert at character assassination. Isn’t that what gossip does? To get that good feeling of feeling superior, feeling holier, of belonging to and accepted by, trusted by and trusting in the in-group of the moment, I automatically join in putting down the one not present. Do we see what we are doing when we categorise people instinctively? Do we see where our categorising can lead?

They recognised him in the breaking of the bread. Does our every Eucharist alert us to what we are doing all the time? The Christ had to suffer. It was inevitable that the Christ suffer. Would we ever wake up to what we are doing? Would we ever want to change – if we had not first killed him, the totally innocent victim – who insists still on loving us and forgiving us? 

Might our putting him to death be the cosmic shock to jolt the world into recognising what it is doing all day every day? I think it is slowly working. Could it be that, in society as a whole, though we still carry on judging each other, more and more of us have not quite got our hearts in the destructiveness to which we are addicted? 

Might our Eucharist today, our breaking and sharing the bread that is his Body, alert us and empower us to respond to people first with love, and slowly learn to let the automatic categorising drop off the radar?