"Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life: and I will dwell in the house of the LORD for ever. "
(Psalm 23:6)

Prime Timers is a Christian Education group at St. Martin's for Episcopalians aged fifty and above. We are following a course of study based on the Revised Common Lectionary, the three year cycle of Bible readings used throughout the Anglican Communion and by many Protestant denominations worldwide. Next week's readings are right here, at the bottom of the page! You are invited to join us in the Parlor near the church offices, Sunday after the 9:00am service, 10:15am to 11:00.

The Supper at Emmaus, by Tintoretto, 1542-43, Oil on canvas, at the Szépmûvészeti Múzeum, Budapest

Supper at Emmaus, by Harmenszoon van Rijn Rembrandt, 1648, Oil on canvas, at the Musée du Louvre, Paris

Small Passion: 32. Christ and the Disciples at Emmaus by Albrecht Dürer, 1511, Woodcut at the British Museum, London

Supper at Emmaus, by Caravaggio, 1601, Oil on canvas, at the National Gallery, London

Many thanks to the Web Gallery of Art for these reproductions of religious art by the great masters.

Prime Timers Good News

The Prime Timers hear members Good News each week at the start of class. We charge a dollar and currently donate the money collected to the Amistad Mission in Bolivia. Martin gave thanks for Carol's successful knee replacement surgery. We hope to see her soon and pray for her during rehab. Another class member gave thanks for his son, who came to town for a job interview!

Their Eyes Were Opened

Martin Smith conducted class while our leader Carol is getting a knee replaced. Our Lectionary scripture reading takes place very shortly after Jesus' crucifixion, it is the story from Luke of the two disciples on the road to Emmaus, about seven miles from Jerusalem. Our class notes included a passage from Amy B. Hunter, a poet and lay associate for spiritual formation at All Saints Episcopal Church in Chelmsford, Massachusetts. She wrote a wonderful piece on this story in The Christian Century (March 27, 2002). Thanks to Religion Online we are able to reproduce it here:

The storyteller weaves it all together -- an unknown traveler named Cleopas and his companion; the resurrected Jesus, who is present but in an unrecognized, mysterious fashion; the travelers' sudden recognition of Jesus; and his sudden disappearance. I have always loved the story but have never understood why this particular resurrection appearance is so much richer in detail than those in other accounts.

This story seems to be a particular favorite of clergy. For ten years I served as a consultant for the pastoral search process in the Episcopal Diocese of Massachusetts. Nearly every ministerial candidate identified Emmaus as a favorite scripture passage. They spoke of the two travelers who are blind to the presence and person of Jesus until he sets their hearts burning and opens their eyes with the breaking of the bread. Jesus here is a "faithful minister of God's word and sacraments," in the words of an Anglican prayer for ordained ministers.

One Sunday I heard a preacher claim that the point of the Emmaus story is that we can recognize Jesus only in the broken bread. I hadn't become an Episcopalian until I was in my 20s, so my inner Presbyterian child began to mutter, "And what about their hearts burning when they heard the word?" I was certain that I was missing some deep Anglican truth, so I sought out a fellow parishioner with a strong Anglo-Catholic bent, knowing that she would set me straight. I found her in the kitchen opening and slamming the cabinet doors. I ignored her frustration and asked her to explain how we find Jesus only in the Eucharist. She answered me between gritted teeth: "That's just baloney! It's all about power. If Jesus is only in the bread, then the priest is the only one who can dole him out, as it were.

So how do we walk the road to Emmaus? There is no doubt that the story directs us to the church, where we may encounter Jesus in the word and the sacraments. But not to "the church" that's equated with the institution and Sunday worship. We are directed instead to the church that meets a very ordinary world, a world marked by human loss and human hospitality.

We never hear of Cleopas again after this passage, and we never learn the name of his companion. They are not important people. They are "ordinary" people who have had the grand adventure of following Jesus and his disciples. But now that is over, and they are walking back home.

With Jesus' death they have lost their faith and their hope. They are not looking for him; in fact, they don't even recognize him when he joins them. Yet he chooses this place of loss to meet them. When he asks about their sorrow, they are so absorbed in that grief that they cannot believe that this person doesn't know about their experience. They tell Jesus the story of his own ministry and death, and add the dubious news of his resurrection.

For them the story is over. Their hopes have proven empty, and they are defeated. But then Jesus tells the story back to them, this time through the lens of their own faith tradition and scriptures. "Oh, how foolish you are, and how slow of heart to believe. . ." The story is not about them and their disappointment, he says. It is about life, the universe and everything in it.

They respond to Jesus with hospitality, engaging him in conversation and expressing concern for him when he appears to be traveling beyond their stopping point. "The day is over," they insist. "It's getting dark. Come eat with us and rest and be safe." At supper when Jesus takes, blesses, breaks and gives them the bread, they recognize him, then almost immediately lose him again as he vanishes. But the experience on the road and at table has transformed them, and they immediately return to Jerusalem to find the disciples and the rest of their group.

What makes the story remarkable is how unremarkable it is. I can understand Jesus appearing to the remaining 11 disciples, to the faithful women who followed him, and even to Paul all very practical appearances in terms of establishing the church and its mission. But Cleopas and his companion are nobodies who have no idea what God might be doing. They could be any one of us. Their road to Emmaus is an ordinary road, the road each of us is on every day. This is what sets this story apart from other accounts of Jesus' Easter appearances.

Yes, the story resonates with a sense of the church and its mission and of the tremendous power of the word and the sacraments to connect us with the presence of God. But its image is of God and a church that walk alongside human confusion, human pain and a human loss of faith and hope. Emmaus invites us to expect God to find us. Emmaus challenges us to see that it isn't our unshakable faith and deep spirituality that connect us with the risen Christ, but our smallest gestures of hospitality and friendship.

Marty concluded class with a short prayer from the prayer book. "Lord Jesus, stay with us, for evening is at hand and the day is past; be our companion in the way, kindle our hearts and awaken hope, that we may know you as you are revealed in scripture and the breaking of bread. Grant this for the sake of your love".

Lectionary readings

The Readings for Sunday, May 15th are from Lectionary Year One, Easter 4-A, "The Good Shepherd": Acts 2:42-47; Psalm 23; 1 Peter 2:19-25 and John 10:1-10. The text this week is from the New Revised Standard Version.

Acts 2:42-47

⁴²They devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers.

⁴³ Awe came upon everyone, because many wonders and signs were being done by the apostles. ⁴⁴All who believed were together and had all things in common; ⁴⁵they would sell their possessions and goods and distribute the proceeds to all, as any had need. ⁴⁶Day by day, as they spent much time together in the temple, they broke bread at home and ate their food with glad and generous hearts, ⁴⁷praising God and having the goodwill of all the people. And day by day the Lord added to their number those who were being saved.

Psalm 23

A Psalm of David.

¹ The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want.
² He makes me lie down in green pastures;
he leads me beside still waters;
³ he restores my soul.
He leads me in right paths
for his name's sake.

⁴ Even though I walk through the darkest valley,
I fear no evil;
for you are with me;
your rod and your staff—
they comfort me.

⁵ You prepare a table before me
in the presence of my enemies;
you anoint my head with oil;
my cup overflows.
⁶ Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me
all the days of my life,
and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord
my whole life long.

1 Peter 2:19-25

¹⁹For it is to your credit if, being aware of God, you endure pain while suffering unjustly. ²⁰If you endure when you are beaten for doing wrong, where is the credit in that? But if you endure when you do right and suffer for it, you have God's approval. ²¹For to this you have been called, because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example, so that you should follow in his steps.
²² 'He committed no sin, and no deceit was found in his mouth.'
²³When he was abused, he did not return abuse; when he suffered, he did not threaten; but he entrusted himself to the one who judges justly. ²⁴He himself bore our sins in his body on the cross, so that, free from sins, we might live for righteousness; by his wounds you have been healed. ²⁵For you were going astray like sheep, but now you have returned to the shepherd and guardian of your souls.

John 10:1-10

¹'Very truly, I tell you, anyone who does not enter the sheepfold by the gate but climbs in by another way is a thief and a bandit. ²The one who enters by the gate is the shepherd of the sheep. ³The gatekeeper opens the gate for him, and the sheep hear his voice. He calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. ⁴When he has brought out all his own, he goes ahead of them, and the sheep follow him because they know his voice. ⁵They will not follow a stranger, but they will run from him because they do not know the voice of strangers.' ⁶Jesus used this figure of speech with them, but they did not understand what he was saying to them.

⁷ So again Jesus said to them, 'Very truly, I tell you, I am the gate for the sheep. ⁸All who came before me are thieves and bandits; but the sheep did not listen to them. ⁹I am the gate. Whoever enters by me will be saved, and will come in and go out and find pasture. ¹⁰The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly.

NRSV