Elizabeth Gilbert’s 2007 bestselling memoir, Eat Pray Love, is a kind of spiritual travelogue. If you read it or watched the movie, you may recall that she recovers from a messy divorce by traveling to Italy to eat, then to India to pray, and finally to Bali to fall in love. It’s a kind of chick-lit classic, which I read at the time and had almost forgotten about… until last Sunday.
I had prepared a gift for my son- who is really too old for the Easter bunny- but some mom habits die hard. So as he unpacked my gift and discovered both chocolate eggs and John Dominic Crossan’s book on the Lord’s Prayer tucked into shredded plastic grass, he burst out laughing and said “Thanks Mom. It’s the ‘Eat Pray Love’ Easter basket.”
He was teasing me, but in another sense he was revealing unintended wisdom about Easter. Because in a very real sense, Jesus’ post-resurrection appearances are also spiritual memoirs of people recovering from disaster. If I were to give a title to today’s Gospel, it might be Touch, Eat, Tell. Jesus appears to the frightened disciples—whose hopes had just been dashed on the cross—tells them “touch me and see,” eats some of their fish, and then commissions them as witnesses to God’s triumph over death and despair.
The lesson we just heard is actually the final portion of the very long Emmaus story, in which Jesus appears and disappears several times. You may recall that it begins with two dejected disciples walking away from Jerusalem and talking about the tragedy that had occurred there, when suddenly they are joined by Jesus, whom they did not recognize. But he taught them what their scriptures said about God’s messiah, and then when he took bread, broke it, and shared it, his identity became known to them.
While the details in the various appearances differ, a common pattern emerges. There is typically an unexpected encounter with Jesus, some kind of explanation for his resurrection based upon scripture, eating and enlightenment, and then Jesus himself exiting the scene. But not before sending the disciples out to tell of what they’ve experienced.
Peace be with you, he said. In a moment we’ll share God’s peace, and I’ll invite you to share a physical sign of that peace and let the touch of your fellow worshippers sink in. Then we’ll eat, and go out and bear witness to Christ and be Christ. Sound familiar?
This is how we know the Gospel was true for them then: because it still is true for us now. We have come here with doubts, confusions, fears and misunderstandings. It’s our human condition, and Jesus never shames the questioner. But our tradition promises that we will encounter God in the scriptures, and that we are eating with Christ himself when we share the bread of the Eucharist.
If we hang in there with this community and these practices, we might just discover that what was once a journey of a few disciples made on foot from Emmaus to Jerusalem is actually a journey of the heart to which all are welcome, with peace for the troubled and touch for the lonely and food for all who hunger. And that’s a feast nobody should miss. So come and eat, and be sure to tell.
