The Triune God invites all into God’s life, where we are at home, and creates in us, together, a house of living stones where God lives and where all are welcome.

Pr. Joseph G. Crippen
   The Fifth Sunday of Easter, year A
   Texts: John 14:1-14 (starting early, at 13:36); 1 Peter 2:2-10; Acts 7:55-60

Sisters and brothers in Christ, grace to you, and peace in the name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen

“Do not let your hearts be troubled. Believe in God. Believe also in me.”

What a precious gift at a horrible moment. Jesus just told Peter the worst thing he could, that he will fail Jesus terribly that night.

The disciples had their feet washed. They heard the command to love. They didn’t know what was ahead that night, or tomorrow, that incomprehensible Friday. But something was wrong.

Peter’s exuberant “I will lay down my life for you” is crushed by Jesus’ prediction of his betrayal. Imagine the stricken, horrified look on Peter’s face.

But Jesus immediately comforts him, maybe touches his hand. He looks at Peter and the others, equally afraid and shocked, and says, “Do not let your hearts be troubled. Believe in God. Believe also in me.”

In their worst hour so far, Jesus tells them they will all, Peter included, always have a home with God. They all belong. They are beloved. “So do not let your hearts be troubled,” he says to them. “Believe in God. Believe also in me.”

This home Jesus promises gives us great hope, too.

In death we cling to the promise that Christ will take us to God’s home, where rooms are prepared. But Jesus is also talking about here and now, a present reality transformed by that future promise. These disciples can’t focus on life after death this night. But they can hear that they belong now, they are at home with God.

Home anchors our existence. To have a place where we belong, can be ourselves, where we are sheltered and fed. Where we can sit on the porch with loved ones, and have fellowship. Jesus is that home for these disciples. But in these next chapters he describes home with God as their continued reality, even with him leaving.

And it’s our home, too. Our way, truth, and life, that we are never alone, we always belong in God’s love, home with God. “Do not let your hearts be troubled,” he says to us. “Believe in God. Believe also in me.”

It’s a wonderful promise. But how can we know this is true? 

Philip’s question is ours, too.

“If you’ve seen me, you’ve seen the Father,” Jesus answers. “If you know me, you know God. That’s how you know this is true,” he says. “God took a home in your flesh, and that is me.”

In these words, and the words about the Spirit that immediately follow today’s reading, Jesus unfolds the mystery of the Trinity. The relationship, the oneness he has with the One he calls Father, the Spirit who comes from both of them. This is mystery beyond telling, but in Jesus we see the face of God. The love Jesus lives, dies in, and rises with, is the love of God. The words Jesus says are the words of God.

So we can trust when Jesus says we have a home with God. Jesus is the face of the Trinity to us, and shows that God is love for us. “Trust me,” Jesus says. “Trust me. You belong. You’re at home. So do not let your hearts be troubled. Believe in God. Believe also in me.”

But what if we mess up?

We know ourselves. We know we fail. We know we don’t always love. We know we’ve done many things that hurt others, that hurt God. What if we really do badly? Are we still welcome today in God’s dwelling?

Well, can we mess up worse than Peter? Peter, the trusted lieutenant, who cursed and swore three times that he didn’t even know his Lord? Will we run away like the other cowards? Betray like Judas?

Maybe. But fully knowing what Peter was about to do, what the others would do, Jesus said, “Do not let your hearts be troubled. Believe in God. Believe also in me. I’m going to prepare a place for you in my Father’s house.”

I don’t know. Maybe you can imagine such grievous sin you’ve done or will do that could exclude you. But you have only one answer to end your fear forever: the face of Jesus looking concernedly at you and saying, “Don’t be afraid. You will always be loved.” Saying, “do not let your heart be troubled. Believe in God. Believe also in me.”

Because we have a home with God now, where our hearts are at peace, surrounded by God’s love, and because we have the promise of a home with God after we die, we’re safe.

Safe in God now. Safe in the promise to come.

So we can be bold in our following. Like Peter. Three times denying his Lord, Peter was found by Christ’s risen love, and went on to boldly stand before authorities and refuse to stop preaching and teaching.

Because we are safe in God, we can be bold like Stephen. His ministry was to care for the widows and the poor that were neglected. He also preached, and that got him killed. He preached Jesus and the resurrection boldly, because he knew he was always home. When he died, like his beloved Jesus, he commended his spirit home to God, and offered forgiveness to his killers.

Because we are always safe in God, we can be bold, like Stephen, and help all who are in need. For example, those who not only struggle to know a home with God, but have no physical home in which to live. No roof over their heads, no porch to sit with family, no place to sleep. And we can be bold and help those who have lost not only their homes but their land, refugees driven out by climate change and unjust government, millions who wander, looking for someone to welcome them in. Safe in our spiritual home in God, we are free to be bold witnesses to God’s love by working with others to make literal homes for those who lack them. We are free to be Christ.

Paul once said our bodies are God’s temples, each of us bears God in the world. Peter in his letter today imagines something more communal.

As we’re joined together in our community, we’re linked like mortared stones, and together we are God’s living house.

And Peter says, as this living house of God made of living stones, we proclaim God’s love, the mighty deeds of the One who called us out of darkness into light. We become, like God, a home that opens to the world and invites people in. So they, too, can meet God. So they, too, can be surrounded and fed by God’s love. So they, too, know their home in the life of God now and forever.

Do not let your hearts be troubled, Christ says. The One who died and now is risen says, “Now do you believe in God? Now do you believe in me?” he says. “You are at home. And you are God’s home, God’s welcoming embrace to the world. Be that, so all may find their home, at last.”

In the name of Jesus.  Amen

Every Sunday is our Emmaus journey with each other and with Christ, and the shape of our greater journey of faith with each other and the world.

Pr. Joseph G. Crippen
   The Third Sunday of Easter, year A
   Text: Luke 24:13-35

Sisters and brothers in Christ, grace to you, and peace in the name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen

Every Sunday we walk the road to Emmaus together.

That’s the mystery and joy of this beautiful story. Everything that happens at Eucharist happens here. In this familiar telling of a journey, a conversation, an invitation, a meal, and more journey, we discover the gift the Church has given us.

The worship life of the early Church grew out of their Jewish experience of worship, so it’s not likely the believers intentionally patterned their worship after this story. But the shape of Christian worship that we continue to this day, a shape we see already in the book of Acts, happens to be the exact shape of this late afternoon seven-mile walk and its aftermath.

This is a grace that transforms our lives. In the Eucharist, our weekly Emmaus journey, we find all we need for life and hope in our own daily journey of faith. Our eyes are opened, Christ is in our midst, our world is changed.

So each week we come together, we meet on the road.

These two disciples didn’t walk alone. They were probably married. But no one ever comes to faith by themselves. Faith is always a shared invitation to a communal life.

And so we gather each week. We need each other on our faith journey. Whatever our personal situations, when we come here we will always, always, be met by family, beloved sisters and brothers, even those who are here for the first time. For many of us, this might be a main reason we come.

This community that gathers each week is as important as a sacrament. It might be a sacrament. When Luther wrote of the sure and certain ways we receive God’s grace, he named Holy Baptism, Holy Communion, confession and absolution, the preaching of God’s Word. What we know and cherish as the means of God’s grace.

But then he added, “and – and! – the mutual conversation and consolation of the brothers and sisters.” This gathering. This meeting on our road in the midst of fear and doubt and confusion about the world, where we huddle together and greet each other in Christ. Where we walk, every Sunday, together, and share all our joys and sorrows, faith and doubt, fear and hope. This community that walks together is a means of God’s grace.

After we gather, we listen as God speaks.

As these two walked along, Jesus taught them, opened up the Scriptures, helped them see what God was doing. They began walking in doubt and fear. They had hoped Jesus brought healing from God for their people, and then he was killed. As they listened, they found life.

We might not face Good Friday every week, but when we gather, we bring the things we are struggling with. Things that frighten us, things that cause our hope to falter, things we don’t understand.

And together, we listen to God’s Word. Like them, we have Christ’s teachings. Like them, we seek to understand the word of the Hebrew scriptures for us. But we get a little more: we also hear the teachings of the apostles. And as we listen, we find life, too.

God’s Word always speaks God’s grace and life into our lives and into the world, and sets our hearts afire. All that we fear, all that confuses, all that brings doubt, all of that God speaks to.

On the road together here, we listen for this life and hope, and expect our hearts to be set ablaze. That’s what happens when Christ walks with us and teaches us.

After listening, then they prayed: “Stay with us.” So do we.

In Eucharist, after hearing God speak, we invite God into our lives and into the world. We pray. We pray that God come into our hearts and change us, keep the fire of the Spirit blazing. We pray that we can hear more of God’s Word, know more of God’s hope, as these two also did. We know that it often feels like evening, like the darkness is overpowering, and we invite God to stay with us in the dark and be our light.

And we lift others up in prayer every week, too, because Christ has opened our hearts. We can’t only think of our own needs anymore; Christ’s love has so changed us we feel a irresistible pull to ask the Triune God to stay with others, too. To bless and keep them. Heal them, strengthen them, hold them. To change our hearts and the world’s hearts, so light shines in the darkness that surrounds us all.

Our prayer to God to stay with us and the world is what makes sense of our journey. Walking together, hearing God’s Word leads inevitably to this plea: “Stay with us. Be with us and this world.”

And Christ stays, shares a meal, and opens their eyes. Opens our eyes.

The culmination of this whole story for this couple from Emmaus is that Christ does come into their home, and sit down with them. But he takes over as host. Christ lifts up the bread, blesses it, breaks it, gives it to them. And then they see him. Then they know him.

And this is the culmination of our weekly Emmaus journey, too, the center of our life. Having invited the Triune God to stay with us, in Christ God takes over. Christ welcomes us to this table, blesses bread, breaks it, and gives it to us.

And we see Christ in the breaking of the bread. We see all the love God has that led to the cross, and the astonishing resurrection life that comes from the Triune God’s self-emptying love. Here we find life. Here we are forgiven. Here we are healed. And our eyes are opened, and we see what God is doing in Christ for us and for the world.

Then we go out and tell others. That’s always the end of the Gospel story, isn’t it? It’s never for us alone.

Look at this couple. It’s evening, they’ve had supper, they’re home. Yet when they recognize Christ, they get up and in the dark of night head the seven miles back to Jerusalem. They find the other women and men gathered and tell their story, and hear more. They can’t experience Christ only for themselves. They need to share.

And so for us, the end of the story is never this meal with Christ. The meal only begins the rest of the story. There’s always “Go in peace, share the Good News!” Get up and run to Jerusalem so the others can know you’ve seen the risen Christ. Get out on the road again and start walking with others. There’s always someone we need to share this good news with, always someone who hasn’t heard.

This is the transforming grace for us: Everything we experience here is a gift for the journey of faith we make every day, the road to Emmaus that is our whole life.

Here we learn to walk together in our life, keep sisters and brothers close. Here we learn to listen to God’s Word in our daily journey, and pay attention when our hearts catch fire. Here we learn to ask God to stay with us and the world every day, to walk with us, come into our homes so we are not alone. Here we learn that God in Christ feeds us and is known to us in rich and abundant blessings every day.

And here we learn that there’s always the last part to do: tell others what has happened to us on the road, and how Christ has been made known to us. So Christ’s life spreads to the whole world. And all have companions on their journey, and the blessing of God’s life in Christ along their way.

In the name of Jesus.  Amen