Sunday Reflection with Fr Robin Gibbons - 4 May 2014
Third Sunday after Easter
Journeying is something the human family do a lot of, whether it is simply commuting to work near our homes, straightforward local travels or the adventure of long distance, but as I write this from the setting of the Indiana spring sunshine (later than ours in GB), I am very aware that wherever we go, whatever we do, though places may be very different, people are remarkably similar. We make connections and friends wherever we go, but perhaps especially so with those who belong to the same faith family as ourselves!
Luke’s story of the two journeying disciples on the road to Emmaus has elements of our own stories of travel, both in terms of our ordinary travels through life or that inner journey we make to discover God with us. The situation of these two characters is explained by Luke in terms of despondency, what they hoped for hasn’t come to pass, the person they thought would do great things for them and others has died an ignominious death on the cross. Where are they going? Like many of us in times of huge stress, their first impulse is to get away from the problem and turn their backs on it.
Yet into this mess a third stranger comes, this changes the dynamic as it would with us. Two people, a couple, can be very self-absorbed and inward looking. We notice that when people are first ‘in love’, nothing else really matters for them when they are together, but in time they have to turn outwards accept others into their relationship or they will become a rather ‘odd’ couple. Whilst the old saying; ’two’s company, three’s a crowd’ may hold good in some situations, for us who are Christ’s disciples, three makes us a community. That’s what the Lord does with those two on their travels, he enables them to see beyond themselves, they find the presence of the Lord is now with them and their community always!
The breaking of the bread, which is the climax of the gospel is so full of meaning for us. Each Sunday we break bread with the risen and as yet unseen Christ and he feeds us. We hear him in the scriptures, we begin to find him in the community of faith, our hearts are opened too! Christ travels with us, always!
Fr Robin Gibbons is an Eastern Rite Chaplain for the Melkite Greek Catholics in Britain.