"Stay With Us"

A Homily for the Third Sunday of Easter, Cycle A

Gospel: Luke 24

The Easter season is an exciting time for me. Not just the Triduum, or Easter Sunday…but the whole 50-days of the season. And I think it’s because it not only honors the day of Jesus resurrection, but also the birth of the church and the whole of Christianity. The season is really about who we are as Catholics.

This Gospel story of the two disciples who walk to Emmaus is a wonderful metaphor of our faith journey together – especially as Independent Catholics.

Imagine what these two disciples were thinking and how they were feeling as they began their journey. They started their walk from Jerusalem on Easter Sunday. They were feeling discouraged and depressed for they had so much hope in Jesus. After all, he was to save Israel. However, they saw their Lord unjustly tried and put to death. And to make matters worse, now his body was missing! Their hopes were dashed. They were dejected and losing faith.

We too have traveled this part of the journey. Has there ever been a time when you felt distant from Our Savior? Have you felt discouraged and with little hope; a time when your faith was tested? We are often so slow to believe just like these two disciples.

It is very easy to feel dejected and discouraged as a faith community. We are small in numbers and it is so hard to bring new people to our church. It seems that we have such a strong love for Jesus but we can’t seem to translate that love into action – unable to share Jesus’ love with others. And in the end we feel so isolated in our journey.

But then the so-called “stranger” reminds us that there’s more to the story. He reminds us of all of the references in scripture about the Son of God. His coming was foretold in scripture. His death and resurrection was also foretold. Indeed that is where we all REALLY meet Christ, is in scripture. That is where our faith is built. “Were not our hearts burning within us while he spoke to us on the way and opened the Scriptures to us?” (Luke 24)

The turning point for the disciples was when they asked the stranger to “Stay with us” -- a simple act of charity and of hospitality. Isn’t that also where we build faith? Not just in scripture but in our unconditional, loving acts of kindness? Isn’t that where our love as Christians really shines when we spread Christ’s love through our charitable works; when we help the poor and those oppressed? There are over 300 references in the Bible on the poor and oppressed and on God’s call to help them.

“Anyone who oppresses the poor is insulting God who made them. To help the poor is to honor God.” That’s from Proverbs 14:31.

And from Deut. 15:7: “If there is a poor one among you, one of your siblings, in any of the towns of the land which the Most High your God is giving you, you shall not harden your heart, nor close your hand to your poor sibling; but you shall freely open your hand to the one, and generously lend your sibling sufficient for the need in whatever she or he lacks.”

From Luke 12:33. "Sell your possessions and give to charity; make yourselves purses which do not wear out, an unfailing treasure in heaven, where no thief comes near, nor moth destroys."

Also from Luke 3:11. “And [John the Baptist] would answer and say to them, ‘Let the person with two tunics share with someone who has none, and let the person who has food do likewise.’ ”

So “Stay with us.” Of course, the irony of the request is that Jesus was already was with them. He is always with us. But we don’t recognize him until our faith is rebuilt. And it was because of the act of charity that they finally did recognize him – when they offered him a meal, and he broke bread – that’s when they truly saw him. And I think that is also true for us that our faith is rebuilt when we help others. We recognize Jesus when we see him in the poor and the oppressed.

Believing and loving Christ, building our faith, is not just about going to Mass on Sunday. It’s also about reading and living scripture everyday. And it’s about sharing God’s love through good works; helping the poor; advocating for Social Justice; being truly missional.

When we look at Our Walk to Emmaus we need to remember that no matter what, Jesus is always walking with us. That we will know him through the scriptures, and we will recognize him in our acts of charity.