Easter 3 Yr. A

+The Road to Emmaus is a great Gospel; I love the imagery of Jesus being revealed in the breaking of the bread. It’s the perfect Gospel to preach on if you believe, like I do, that all sermons should lead to the altar, to communion. Our faith is founded on the belief that we’re strengthened to do the work we’ve been given to do through the revealing of Christ in the Eucharist, that our community is strengthened when we communicate through and in and with Christ.

Since Sunday night, when Osama Bin Laden was found and killed, I've struggled with how to connect this wonderful Gospel about Jesus revealed in the breaking of bread with our nation’s decade long search for some type of climax to the terror of 9/11.

What in the world does Osama Bin Laden have to do with the nourishment we receive through the Eucharist--nourishment we need to go out and do the work God has given us to do? What does Osama Bin Laden have to do with Jesus? Well….everything. You see I think that Osama Bin Laden in general, and our reaction to his death more specifically, has everything to do with our Gospel story today.

[allow me a little poetic license as I re-tell today’s Gospel, with a more modern slant]

As Frank and Jane walk down Pennsylvania Avenue, after joining in the celebration on the White House lawn Sunday night, a stranger comes upon them and asks where they’ve been. Surprised they say, “Are you the only person in Washington—in the whole US—who hasn’t heard? That evildoer, that mass murderer, that horrendous terrorist Osama Bin Laden has been killed! An elite squad of military people acting on intelligence gathered over years of intense interrogation techniques, stormed his hideout, shooting him and several other people earlier this evening. His body’s already been buried at sea. Finally vengeance for the 9/11 attacks! We went to the White House to celebrate, to ‘dance on his grave.’ ”

As they continued to walk, the stranger began to recount world history, not just what’s happened since 9/11—the racial profiling, the anti-Muslim attitudes, the questionable interrogation techniques including torture—but the full history of the United States, the constitution, our foundational beliefs of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness; tolerance, fairness and the fact that the United States has, for generations, been the conscience of the world.

The stranger, in a way, was insulting them, shaming them for being jubilant over someone’s death, but they weren’t offended. It was as if this stranger knew they weren’t bad people, just frightened people who’d spent the past ten years learning to live in a new reality where, suddenly, this nation, which had served as a beacon of hope to the world, had been victimized and was vulnerable to further attack. It was as if he knew that when scared, when worried, when sad, when nervous, when out of sorts any of us---all of us----can lose sight of the bigger picture, forgetting that, as Jesus taught us, there’s something greater than an eye for an eye.

Frank and Jane began to think about what this country stands for— freedom for everyone to pursue their dreams---and they realized they weren’t happy a human being had been killed, they were happy that the mastermind of the terror which had afflicted them for the past decade, the man who designed the attacks which changed our world forever, would no longer be able to hurt them, or anyone, ever again. They realized that they were celebrating a life free of terror, not a life snuffed out.

Just about then they arrived home and asked the stranger if he’d like to come in for a midnight snack. With some prodding, he agreed. As they sat around the kitchen table with a pot of tea and some bread, the stranger bowed his head, said a blessing and broke the bread. Immediately they realized that this man wasn’t a stranger, but was Jesus! However, just as suddenly as they realized who he was, he disappeared from sight.

Astonished, they began to rehash the evening’s conversation-- realizing that Jesus hadn’t accompanied them to shame them for their jubilation, nor had he come to join them in their revelry. No, Jesus walked alongside them to remind them that on that very night, [on this very morning], Osama Bin Laden may, very well be, in heaven. Not because what he did is in anyway ok, or in any way understandable, but because he can be redeemed. Because whether you are as far removed from God as Osama Bin Laden or Mohamar Qaddaffi or as close to God as Mother Theresa or Martin Luther King, we are all children of God, capable of great good, capable of great evil and always open to redemption.

Osama Bin Laden was a child of God who strayed far from God, so far that—he didn’t, or couldn’t, find his way back to God in this life--but who, upon his death, was given one more chance to head back toward the light and love of God. Back to God, back to goodness, back to the Child of God he was and is and will always be.

His journey back, if he chooses to take it, will be long and it will be painful, but it is a road that’s open to him, just as it’s open to all of us.

It’s not a comfortable thought is it? I hope we all have the fortitude and the faith to hear it.

I hope I’d have the guts to preach this in front of a congregation full of people who lost loved ones on 9/11. Because if I can’t do that then I haven’t learned a thing in almost 50 years of being a God loving, Christ adoring, Holy Spirit embracing Christian.

The fact of the matter is that being a Christian, following the teachings of Jesus, isn’t easy. It’s difficult to love people, to forgive them, to accept that God is an all loving all forgiving God who doesn’t rejoice in acts of vengeance, who doesn’t consider anyone hopeless and who offers redemption to everyone, no matter how heinous their crimes, no matter how undeserving we may think they are. Walking the walk of Christ can be a tough and confusing journey, but as long as we come to this altar each week, ready to be fed and willing to have our eyes opened, then it’s a journey we all can complete. +