[Propertalk] 3 Easter a 2017 - part 2

[Robert P Morrison]

Second part of the draft

 However, in that instant at the dinner table, Cleopas and his friend
did what seemed the only, the most important thing to do. They head3ed
back to make connection with the larger community. The two had left in
despair. Their demeanour had been more like individual ignorance of
God’s big perspective than anything else. It seems as if they
didn’t even know where to start asking questions.

	 We’ve no way of knowing whether or not the two men were
neighbours, even although they seemed intent on eating together that
night, but Emmaus wasn’t a big place. They’d have known each other
before they even started following Jesus as His disciples. But that
wasn’t enough, apparently. They needed someone beyond themselves in
order to refocus their minds.

	 This is what Sloman and others have been suggesting is necessary for
all societies to function.

	 Just so, we here – whether we’re talking about this
congregation, or about the community of congregations in Albany, or
the general population beyond churches; just so, we here NEED the
stimulus, need the repository of knowledge which forms when people are
willing to listen and learn, no matter what the source of the
discussion.

	 It’s way too easy for us to imagine that if we’d been walking
that road, WE’D have recognised Jesus right off. These were men
who’d been with Him, day-in-day-out for some considerable time. Yet
their eyes were clouded, their minds and hearts not able to begin to
comprehend who He might be. It took Jesus’ patience with them to
dredge up their rule of hospitality and invite Jesus in for the night.
It took what Jesus did with His hands that suddenly allowed them to
overcome everything that was holding them in thrall. Jesus’ hands,
together with His words which had preoccupied them for that tiring
journey, these brought healing for their minds and souls.

	 Ignorance – _IG – NOR – ANCE, _if you will – the act of
turning away deliberately, apparently – ignorance, the mid-set of
not being able to imagine anything beyond what people had experienced
directly; to tweak that line from one of the best-known Christmas
hymns:

	  “‘Fear not,’ said he, for ignorance

	  had seized their troubled minds ….”

	 Cleopas and his friend, like us from time to time, can’t see Jesus
as being alive, at least from a verbal perspective, and where He might
be appearing. That’s why we’re shown the work of Jesus’ hands.
That’s why we’re called to be the hands of Jesus – so that we
can break bread; so that we can show and touch wounds; so that we can
bring people to excited and exciting life together, just as Cleopas
and his friend couldn’t wait to get back to Jerusalem to be with
Jesus’ friends there.

	 On Palm Sunday – just twenty-one days ago – confused people who
chose to ignore what their own people taught and told them; confused
terrorists blew up worshippers in their Coptic liturgies in Egypt. It
was a tragedy in which devastated people not only in the Egyptian
Coptic community, but in communities of all religious traditions and
of no religious tradition; people all around the world were devastated
by this.

	 Happening, as it did, in the gateway into the most holy week of
Christians and Jews, it seemed to cast a pall on everything which
defined humanity.

	 Eleven days afterwards, “Muslims (were) Moved as Coptic Christians
(did) the Unimaginable.” 5 Jesus’ hands were at work. Jesus’
hands broke through all the stereotypes. Jesus’ hands began part of
the healing process.

	 “Twelve seconds of silence is an awkward eternity on
television.” wrote Jayson Casper in Cairo. “Amr Adeeb, perhaps the
most prominent talk show host in Egypt, leaned forward as he searched
for a response.

	 “‘The Copts of Egypt … are made of … steel!’ he finally
uttered.

	 “Moments earlier, Adeeb was watching a colleague in a simple home
in Alexandria speak with the widow of Naseem Faheem, the guard at St.
Mark’s Cathedral in the seaside Mediterranean city.

	 “On Palm Sunday, the guard had redirected a suicide bomber through
the perimeter metal detector, where the terrorist detonated. Likely
the first to die in the blast, Faheem saved the lives of dozens inside
the church.

	 “‘I’m not angry at the one who did this,’ said his wife,
children by her side. ’I’m telling him, “May God forgive you,
and we also forgive you. Believe me, we forgive you.”

	 “‘You put my husband in a place I couldn’t have dreamed of.’

	 “Stunned, Adeeb stammered about Copts bearing atrocities over
hundreds of years, but couldn’t escape the central scandal.

	 “‘How great is this forgiveness you have!’ his voice cracked.
‘If it were my father, I could never say this. But this is their
faith and religious conviction.’

	Millions marveled with him across the airwaves of Egypt.

	 “So also did millions of Copts, recently rediscovering their
ancient heritage, according to Ramez Atallah, president of the Bible
Society of Egypt which subtitled and recirculated the satellite TV
clip [1].

	 “‘In the history and culture of the Copts, there is much taught
about martyrdom,’ he told CT. ‘But until Libya, it was only in the
textbooks — though deeply ingrained.’

	 “The Islamic State in Libya kidnapped and beheaded 21 mostly
Coptic Christians in February 2015. CT previously [2] reported [3] the
message of forgiveness issued by their families and the witness it
provided.

	 “‘Since then, there has been a paradigm shift,’ said Atallah.
‘Our ancestors lived and believed this message, but we never had
to.’” 6

	 So there’s hope for us! – as Jesus’ hands, looking just like
our hands, will take bread, touch it lovingly in blessing, and break
it, so that we and anyone who may walk in any door of this building,
will receive it and see in the hands and in the breaking the Power and
Joy of God’s Love.

	NOTES:

[1] _“HERE AND NOW”_ NPR AND WBUR, 18 APRIL, 2017 INTERVIEW WITH
STEVEN SLOMAN. ARCHIVES AT HTTP://WWW.WBUR.ORG/HEREANDNOW/ARCHIVE [4]
HTTP://WWW.WBUR.ORG/HEREANDNOW/2017/04/18/STEVEN-SLOWMAN-KNOWLEDGE-ILLUSION
[5] 

	2 _“The Knowledge Illusion: Why we never think alone”_ by Steven
Sloman, Riverhead Books, Penguin Random House, New York. © 2017. Page
3.

	3 _“Here and Now”,_ op cit.

	4 _“Here and Now”_ op cit.

	5 “Forgiveness: Muslims Moved as Coptic Christians Do the
Unimaginable. Amid ISIS attacks, faithful response inspires Egyptian
society.” JAYSON CASPER IN CAIRO APRIL 20, 2017
http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2017/april-web-only/forgiveness-muslims-moved-coptic-christians-egypt-isis.html
[6]

	6 Jayson Capser, Op. cit.

Links:
------
[1] https://vimeo.com/212755977
[2]
http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2015/february-web-only/libya-21-christian-martyrs-with-their-blood-unify-egypt.html
[3]
http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2015/february-web-only/how-libyas-martyrs-are-evangelizing-egypt.html?share=JYpPXJMtZpukEkxY%25252fuKLNFi4j9mn6UyI
[4] http://mail2.spectrum.net/HTTP://WWW.WBUR.ORG/HEREANDNOW/ARCHIVE
[5]
http://mail2.spectrum.net/HTTP://WWW.WBUR.ORG/HEREANDNOW/2017/04/18/STEVEN-SLOWMAN-KNOWLEDGE-ILLUSION
[6]
http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2017/april-web-only/forgiveness-muslims-moved-coptic-christians-egypt-isis.html

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