Luke 24:13-35: The Road to Emmaus – Part VI
Saturday, April 6, 2024
From Richard Rohr’s reflections, A Spring Within Us: Much of religion has bought right into the honor/shame system. All we did was change the cultural rules to religious rules. Now there was yet another way superior – by being pious, publicly religious, and “moral” about one or two things (which are usually not central issues). Yet Jesus’ teachings against status-seeking and building up religious reputation tell us again and again, “Don’t go there!” (Examine Matthew 6:1-21 and Luke 18:9-14.) (Rohr 105-106)
The two disciples who leave Jerusalem after Jesus’s crucifixion have no idea that the risen Christ joins them in their journey to Emmaus. Perhaps Christ chooses anonymity because he wants the disciples to behave genuinely. He wants no barriers or false faces. No preening, no adulation, no preening or posing. And this is how Christ wants each of us to behave in our interactions with him. After all, God knows every detail of our lives. The Spirit knows every dark corner of our hearts.
Today we examine our own behavior to look for signs of status-seeking, of building up of our own ideas of religious purity or superiority. Today we have the opportunity to come to Christ in innocent openness. We have the chance to put away our cultural and religious systems of shame and honor. We have the invitation to think about original grace rather than original sin, to both ask for and offer forgiveness, to walk with Christ on our journey to Emmaus, in expectation of Easter hope and joy.
Tomorrow, they did not recognize him . . .
Richard Rohr, OFM. The Spring Within Us: A Book of Daily Meditations. Albuquerque, NM: CAC Publishing, 2016.
For more on the original road to Emmaus, click on the image above, or visit: http://www.jesus-story.net/emmaus.htm
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