Sermon Title: "Recognizing Those Who Mother Us"
Date:   May 8, 2011
Minister:  The Rev. Charles Ensley

Lesson:  Luke 24:13-35

Why didn’t they recognize him?  That was a question we pondered a few weeks ago in our Tuesday Crossings study when we studied the resurrection appearances of Jesus.  In John’s Gospel, Mary Magdalene is in the cemetery garden when “she turned around and saw Jesus standing there, but she did not know that it was Jesus.” (20:14)  In today’s passage from Luke’s Gospel, as the two companions made their way to Emmaus on Easter afternoon, “Jesus himself came near and went with them, but their eyes were kept from recognizing him.”  (24:15-16)

The options we pondered as to why either Mary or Cleopas and his walking companion did not recognize the risen Jesus were:

   1)  Mary was weeping and her eyes were thus clouded with tears;

   2)  Cleopas and friend might have been walking into the afternoon sun, and that kept them from accurately focusing;

   3)  all of them might have been so discouraged, broken-hearted, even disbelieving that they were looking down, not up;  and

   4)  the risen Jesus’ appearance just might have been different from that before his death. 

Whatever the reason, the point isn’t why they didn’t recognize him; it is what happened as a result when they did.

In Luke’s account, Jesus gave the two travelers on their seven mile walk from Jerusalem to Emmaus a sermon in response to their small faith.  They could not make sense of things.  (No blame here; could we?)  The women had run back from the cemetery, saying that Jesus had been raised, but they did not believe the testimony of the women.  So Jesus sidled up to them and reviewed the history, interpreted recent events and revealed to them the truth about Jesus the Messiah.  After all of that, these two erstwhile disciples almost let Jesus get away from them.

But their sense of Palestinian hospitality, doubtless taught by their mothers, came to the rescue, and they invited the eloquent stranger in:  “Stay with us, because it is almost evening and the day is now nearly over. … 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…” (24:29-31)

How many times in life are our eyes so downcast, so clouded, even our mind so closed and our sensibilities so shut down that we don’t recognize those who come alongside to teach us or help us?  Only later, if we are lucky, are our eyes opened and we recognize the great help we have received. 

I know it is a stretch to go from Jesus to mothers in one paragraph, but I think that is sometimes the way it is with our regard for mothers.  When we are very young, we are 100 percent dependent on them.  At two or three years, we throw a little tantrum when they tell us to do something we don’t want to do.  It gets worse as we grow older when they want to impart their motherly wisdom and advice to us.  And then the day comes when we’re more mature and our eyes are opened and, like Washington Irving in today’s Meditative Moment, when all others have deserted us, she is still there “to dissipate the clouds of darkness, and cause peace to return to our hearts.”

Sometimes in life, it is not exactly our birth mother but someone else whom we recognize to fulfill that role in our lives.  My mother was the youngest of ten children.  Her mother was sickly from the time she was born, so my mother’s oldest sister—17 years older—raised my mother, her sister two years older, and her own son two years younger, all together as this little family unit.  That might explain why my oldest aunt, the one who gave up everything else and stayed in the family home, caring for her parents until they died and she herself died, was so loved and appreciated by all her siblings and her son.  They recognized her mothering instinct, her nurturing care, and her deep Christian faith.  She died, incidentally, on a Sunday morning while ringing the bell in her little Methodist church.

Throughout my career, I have also realized there are those for whom this day brings mixed feelings.  Some so loved their late mothers that their eyes are still clouded with tears and sadness on Mother’s Day.  Others had an unsatisfactory relationship with their mothers for reasons too numerous to list in the time remaining—sometimes as a result of the mother’s fault or action, sometimes that of the offspring, and sometimes they were both to blame.  While we are not handing out carnations to all mothers present, nor making them stand and be recognized, there are those of our own congregation who have told me that they are absenting themselves from worship today because they were emotionally hurt by their mothers, they could never be mothers themselves, or they are still hurting from the death of their mothers.

In cases like the person without a nurturing relationship with their mother, they might recognize another person to fulfill that role.  It can be another relative, a teacher, a school counselor, a friend’s or college roommate’s mother, college professor, a colleague at work, a dear neighbor. 

If there’s anything today’s Emmaus road story teaches us, it’s that the disciples of Jesus recognize that their lives are a journey of following Jesus and learning from him, but also looking for him in the faces of strangers on the way.  They might be the people we recognize as “mother substitutes” if we happen to need them.  We might well recognize the risen Christ in their face or actions.

The disciples of Jesus also recognize that they can’t walk the journey alone.  We need companions on the way as role models, as mentors, as partners, as leaders and guides.  Maybe that’s why Cleopas and his friend dropped everything after Jesus vanished from their sight and, in spite of the setting sun (remember, there were no streetlights or flashlights back then), they raced the seven miles back to Jerusalem to tell their friends that they had met the risen Lord and had recognized him in the breaking of bread.

I’m a little sorry this isn’t a communion Sunday.  In fact, I asked Rev. Susie a few weeks ago if she didn’t want to switch lessons and use this for her sermon last Sunday.  I am sure you bring many feelings, many memories whenever you see the communion table set before you.  Frequently I say at the table that we can see Christ in the meal.  Surely, as the bread is broken, just as he did so long ago, our eyes are opened and we might recognize him in that act.  May we look for him too in the faces of all those who mother us.