"Heartburn"
A Sermon by the Rev. Dr. Hilary J. Barrett
Preached at Pleasantville United Church of Christ, April 11, 2010
Holy Humor Sunday, Luke 24:13-43
“While they were talking and discussing, Jesus himself
came near and went with them…”
(Luke 24:15)

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A preacher made up his mind that he was going to skip the coming Sunday morning worship service.  He just didn't feel like preaching, and he really wanted to play golf.

 So nobody would catch him, he called in sick, traveled 3 towns over where nobody knew who he was, and played on the local golf course there. 

He walked up to the first tee and hit an absolutely terrible shot.  Out of nowhere a big wind came up and blew the ball into the hole for a hole in one.

An Angel who was watching the whole episode turned to God and asked, "What did You do that for?"

God replied, "Who's he gonna tell?"

Today is Holy Humor Sunday and for those of you who have never been with us on this occasion it isn’t something that we made up just so we could bad jokes from the pulpit.  The Christian Church has been practicing Holy Humor Sunday for centuries.  In some traditions, the week following Easter Sunday was observed by the faithful as "days of joy and laughter" with parties and picnics to celebrate Jesus' resurrection.  Churchgoers and pastors played practical jokes on each other, drenched each other with water, told jokes, sang songs, and danced.  The custom was rooted in the musings of early church theologians that God played a practical joke on the devil by raising Jesus from the dead.  Therefore, the early church theologians called it, "Risus paschalis - the Easter laugh."  Here at Pleasantville, it has become a playful way for us to rejoice over the Resurrection – and it gives some of you an excuse to send me some of the jokes you find throughout the year.

(ping)

Following the resurrection the disciples were still scattered about Jerusalem and the surrounding villages.
John finds Peter and runs up to him.  Excitedly he says, "Peter, Peter! I've got some good news and some bad news."
Peter takes hold of John and calms him down. "Take it easy, John.  What is it?  What's the good news?"
John says, "The good news is Christ is risen!"
Peter says, "That's great! But what 's the bad news?"
John looks him in the eye and says, "He's really steamed about last Friday!"

I love the post-resurrection stories that we get to hear the first few weeks after Easter.  There aren’t that many of them so every year at this time we get to hear about how Jesus comes to his disciples after the Resurrection; how he finds them wherever they are and ministers to them. 

In John’s gospel, on that first Easter evening, Jesus comes to the disciples and finds them hiding in a room behind a locked door, because they are so terrified that the Romans are going to come and do to them what they did to Jesus.  Jesus comes to them and -- of all things –breathes on them. 

And since Thomas just happens to not be there that day, and because Thomas is by nature a skeptic, Jesus comes back a week later to give Thomas the chance to take a closer look.  And there Thomas is, doing a little forensic pathology on Jesus to make sure that he really does bear the wounds that Jesus was given at the time of his execution.

I love how, later Jesus meets up with his disciples after they go back to their day jobs of being fishermen, and how they don’t recognize him until he gives them pointers on hauling in a big catch of fish.  And then he sits down with them on the beach and makes them all breakfast and they eat fish and bread together.

And I love how, in this morning’s gospel reading, Jesus meets up with two ordinary disciples – not the famous ones that Jesus was known to hang out with, but two guys we’ve never heard of before.

It’s the evening of that first Easter Day, and these two guys have already beat feet out of Jerusalem and are headed out of town, weary with grief.  Of course, they don’t recognize him and he walks and walks and walks with them for what must have been several hours, and then – finally – when they are sitting down together for dinner, their eyes are opened and they figure out who he really is.

You gotta’ admit – there’s humor in these stories: disciples that hole up in fear; believers that are full of doubt; followers that head right back to what they were doing before Jesus called them to a life of discipleship; ordinary guys who spend a couple hours walking down a dusty road with Jesus and still don’t recognize him. 

(ping)

Reverend Boudreaux was the part-time pastor of the local Cajun Baptist Church and Pastor Thibodaux was the minister of the Covenant Church across the road.
They were both standing by the road, pounding a sign into the ground, that read:

'Da End is Near
Turn Yo Sef 'Roun Now
Afore It Be Too Late!'

As a car sped past them, the driver leaned out his window and yelled, 'You religious nuts!'
From the curve they heard screeching tires, and a big splash...
Boudreaux turns to Thibodaux and asks, 'Do ya tink maybe da sign should jussay.....'Bridge Out?'

It’s gotta’ make you wonder why, for centuries, the Church has been telling these kind of stories to convince people about the Resurrection.  Seems like you might want to tell the kind of a story where Jesus shows up and everybody immediately realizes who he is.  They see him.  They recognize him.  And they turn their lives around as a result. 

But that’s not how it happened; that’s not the story we tell.

Nope, we tell stories about people who have a hard time recognizing Jesus, even when he’s standing right in front of them.  We tell stories about people who have a hard time seeing Jesus even when he’s been walking with them for miles. 

The road to Emmaus story is one of my favorites.  I’ve been reading it and preaching about it for years.  But this year I saw something in a new way.  The two guys who meet up with Jesus on the road to Emmaus must have left Jerusalem at the crack of Easter dawn.  Once the Sabbath was over and it was acceptable for them to set about their journey, they were out of there. 

They weren’t together with the other disciples, holed up in that room -- full of fear but at least together trying to offer one another comfort.  They weren’t part of the inner circle at all.  They simply left the City.  That’s how discouraged they were.  That’s how disillusioned.  That’s how shattered they were by the death of the One they thought had come to make everything better.  They were so depressed, they simply abandoned the field.

They were heading to Emmaus, because they wanted to get away from it all.  They wanted to get away from the ugliness and the hurt, the aching sorrow and the despair they felt.

We all know that feeling.  We all know what it’s like to be so beaten down by the ugliness of this world, that we feel we can’t go on – and all we can think of to do, is to head for some place where we hope that we’ll feel better.  To get away from it all.  To put miles of distance between ourselves and what’s troubling us.

Some head to the mountains.  Some head to the shore.  Some head to the bar.  Some head to the mall.  We’ve all got our Emmaus’.  We’ve all got our ways of coping with extraordinary pain.

But the story that the Church has been telling for centuries is this: on the evening of that first Easter Day, when two battered disciples were heading out of town, exhausted by grief and without hope, Jesus came to them.  He came to them, as he so often comes to us – when we are running from our pain; when we are utterly out of strength -- Jesus came to them and walked with them for miles and miles and miles… and they didn’t even realize it at first.

(ping)

A pastor was speaking to a group of second-graders about the resurrection of Jesus when one student asked, "What did Jesus say right after He came out of the grave?"
The pastor explained that the Gospels do not tell us what He said.
The hand of one little girl shot up. "I know what He said: He said, 'Tah-dah!'"

It might have been good if Jesus had said “Tah dah!” when he met up with his disciples after the Resurrection.  But I think the stories we have are more believable in the end. 

Because what we’ve got are stories about people who are met in their darkest hour by the Risen Lord.

And what we’ve got are stories about people who can sing:

Breathe on me, breath of God,
Fill me with life anew,
That I may love what Thou dost love,
And do what Thou wouldst do.

because they’ve been visited by the Crucified One, when they themselves are feeling crucified.

And what we’ve got are stories about people who meet us on the way and speak such words to us that we find our hearts on fire with the power of the Holy Spirit.

The good news for us this day is that it may be precisely in Emmaus where we are most apt to find Jesus.  Maybe he will meet you along the way and walks with you in your hardship.  Or maybe you will find him waiting for you once you get to wherever it is you were going. But he's there.  Of that you can be sure.  Because he has promised:

"Lo, I will be with always, even to the end of the age."

Thanks be to God!  Amen.