In the Breaking of the Bread
Three ‘Rs’ – Repent/Receive/Recognise
[before readings – get young people to see if they can pick out how many words beginning in ‘re’ occur in the readings for today]
Rejoice (Zephaniah 3.14-20)
Renew
Remove
Reproach
Renown
Restore
Repent (Acts 2.14, 36-41)
Receive
Recognizing/recognized (Luke 24.13-35)
Redeem
10 in all! Plus ‘resurrection’ if you count ‘The Lord is risen indeed.’ = Resurrection
My husband uses the same readings to prepare his sermons, although we hardly ever look at each other’s notes. Last night he asked me, ‘There are a lot of “re”s in the readings for tomorrow. Do you think it would be alright to do a sermon on them?’ My response was, ‘Well, I have chosen three of them myself!’ To which he answered, ‘Trust you to limit yourself to a three point sermon!’
REPENT and RECEIVE
When was the last time you were cut to the heart?
The people who heard Peter’s sermon on the day of Pentecost, suddenly recognising who Jesus was – that, as Peter said, ‘God has made this Jesus, whom you crucified, both Lord and Christ,’ were cut to the heart. Peter knew this experience. It happened to him when he betrayed his Lord. This is how Jacques Philippe puts it in La Liberté Intérieure (Inner Freedom): ‘His betrayal would also become, by virtue of divine mercy, the occasion for a profound expression of the Holy Spirit, which would be manifested through his tears. These tears were an expression of all of Peter’s misery and sin, but also an expression of hope in forgiveness. This betrayal of Peter’s was for him a terrible failure. Just a few hours earlier, he had declared in front of everyone, his readiness to follow Jesus even to prison and unto death if necessary. He had been the chief of the Apostles; and as such, he was aware of his particular duty to train the group, and to give them all a good example. Jesus had chosen him for that....But in a few seconds all his best intentions became rubble. And all it took was a little servant girl in the court of the high priest asking him, ‘Are you not also a disciple of this man?’....In his triple denial, Peter the first becomes Peter the last. But the Holy Spirit uses this lamentable failure to touch the heart of the Apostle in a new and deeper way: Luke tells us that just as the cock crowed after Peter’s third denial, “The Lord turned and looked straight at Peter.”
I wonder what you imagine that look to have been like? Philippe continues, ‘In that look, Peter understands all the horror of his betrayal, he sees all his misery, but at the same time he perceives that he is not condemned, that he is loved more tenderly than ever, and that there is for him a hope of being lifted up to renewed wholeness. And Peter breaks down in tears – tears through which his heart is purified. Peter’s good fortune was that he did not turn away from Jesus’ look.’ We should not be afraid of our failures – like the Chinese figure that means both ‘crisis’ and ‘opportunity’, our failures are opportunities. But are we afraid to look into Jesus’ eyes? Our failures only become opportunities in the light of his tender, sacrificial love.
For Peter, this was the occasion for a new commitment arising from a more realistic view of himself – his swaggering confidence in himself was shattered, to be replaced by humble trust in his Lord Jesus. It was a moment of ‘conversion’. Roman Catholic spirituality has a healthy view of constant conversion – an awareness that repentance has got to happen over and over again. That, like Lot’s wife, we are prone to ‘look back’ at what we’ve left behind. That the first repentance and conversion is only the beginning of a string of repentances and conversions (or you may want to call them ‘transformations’, as Romans 12 does) that draw us deeper and deeper into the intimacy of the heart of God that we’ve been considering during our Lenten series on prayer.
What did Peter say to the crowds who witnessed the strange manifestations of the Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost? Repent – turn around (the opposite way from that taken by Lot’s wife!) – and be baptised, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. And you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.’ Today we will be celebrating the Baptism of Tarick André Johnson. Every baptism is a conscious opportunity for the church as a whole to remember their own baptism – with the promises made on their behalf by faithful parents and godparents. And, for those who have since confirmed the promises made at their baptism as their own, an opportunity to allow God’s Holy Spirit to ‘cut us to the heart’ again as we remember how we’ve let Jesus down. The lives we’ve lived have not conformed to the beliefs we hold. God’s promise always is that as we turn away from our old ways (repent) and turn to look at Him, at Jesus whom we often don’t recognise, we will receive the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is the Spirit of Jesus, and if we don’t recognise Jesus for who He is, we cannot receive His Holy Spirit. Our fears of what we’ll find in Jesus’ face when we look at Him prevent us from receiving that loving look and the Holy Spirit that comes with it.
RECOGNISE
How do you recognise people?
Have you ever had a dream that you’ve told someone else about and you’ve had to say something like, ‘Then, such and such a person appeared – well, it didn’t look like them at all, but I knew it was them!’ I am not saying that the two disciples who were walking to Emmaus were actually dreaming when they saw Jesus! Jesus had a way of disappearing suddenly when he didn’t want people to follow him, and after his resurrection He appeared to His disciples just as suddenly in a closed room. Time and space no longer seemed to have any meaning for Him – He was released from their limitations. But there is something about what is central to a person that seems to speak to the depths of our being. John, my husband, brings me coffee every morning, and he always says something lovely. Were he suddenly to look completely different, and speak in a changed voice, I am convinced that I would still recognise that it was he – because of the love for me that emanates from him. I am sure that when Jesus ‘took the bread, gave thanks, broke it and began to give it to them,’ it was the reminder of his loving act on their behalf that spoke to them. The central fact of his being was that he loved them to death. ‘Then their eyes were opened and they recognised Him, and He disappeared from their sight.’
Knowing Him by faith in the depths of our being today, may we recognise Him as those disciples did, in the breaking of the bread, giving thanks for his tender, sacrificial love for each one of us – unafraid to look Him in the eyes and accept His forgiveness. AMEN.