Blessed and Broken, Broken and Blessed

Luke 24:13-35
By Rev. Heather J. Blais, Rector

​Our gospel begins with two disciples walking from Jerusalem to Emmaus. They have lost all hope, having truly believed Jesus was the Messiah. His absence left them reckoning with a faith they no longer understood.  

Along the way, they encounter a stranger who notices their despair. 
He seems completely unaware of recent events. As the three travel together, the disciples fill him in.  
The stranger then reframes their disappointment and doubt, by reinterpreting the scriptures to them. 

Upon their arrival in Emmaus, the stranger keeps walking onward. When the disciples notice this, they urge the stranger to stay with them. He agrees, and they begin to share a meal together. It is in this moment where everything changes.  “When he was at the table with them, he took bread, blessed and broke it and gave it to them. Then their eyes were opened and they recognized him…” (Luke 24:30-31a) Then the Risen Jesus vanishes from their sight. 

The Risen Christ was revealed to them in the breaking of the bread. And in that moment, these brokenhearted disciples are made whole. Overwhelmed by the blessing of this encounter, they return to Jerusalem, eager to tell the others.  

In life, Jesus taught his disciples that when they break bread together in prayer, that bread will be blessed, and in turn they will be a blessing. In death, Jesus, himself is the blessed one, broken open in an ultimate act of love. In resurrection, the Risen Christ shows us he will be revealed to us again and again in the breaking of the bread. 

Thousands of years later, we maintain the sacrament of Eucharist. We are nourished and sustained by it. This sacred meal is a ritual reminder that even in our brokenness, we are blessed and made whole in Christ. Christ was blessed and broken, just as we are broken and blessed. 

When I was twelve, we moved to be closer to my mom’s work. At this point, I was in the delightfully awkward years of middle school, while navigating my own internal sense of brokenness. My father had opted out of a relationship a few years prior. I struggled to understand why one parent sacrificed everything so that I might thrive, while the other couldn’t be bothered to call or write. As we do, I took my father’s brokenness, and internalized it as my own.

This is where the fertile soil of shame can blossom.  We somehow begin to believe not that we’ve done something wrong, but that we - our very selves - are wrong. Broken beyond repair. My deepest hope at that time was that no one would discover my brokenness. 

Our move to a new community allowed us to connect with a nearby Episcopal Church after some time away. We began to attend services every Sunday. There were painfully long sermons, screeching sopranos in the choir, and an organ that was played like Phantom of the Opera instead of worship. The majority of that 90 minute service was something to endure. That is, until the priest would make their way to the high altar after the peace. In this moment, when shifting into the celebration of the eucharist, things always felt different. 

Our gothic church was built from Maine’s granite, and featured a rood screen. This is a giant partition separating the congregation in the nave of the church and the altar party in the chancel, with a huge cross in the top center. I always assumed they called it a rood screen because it was a ‘rude’ impediment to seeing what was happening up on the high altar. I learned much later that the spelling was R-O-O-D, which is an old English word for cross or crucifix. This rood screen felt like a veil, separating the people and the mystery of the eucharist. 

When it was time to receive communion, the ushers would carefully guide us towards the communion line which would enter through this imaginary veil. We would slowly make our way up several steps, past the choir stalls and organist, up still more steps, until we would finally reach the altar rail. In that journey, something would happen that defied logic.  And it happened each week without fail. 

As Jesus blessed and broke bread with his disciples, Christ became the bread, blessed and broken for us. The power of such a tenderly given gift, made it safe to walk through the imaginary veil of the rood screen, while pulling back our own veils. Revealing to Christ our own wounds, our own brokenness. Being reminded once more that we are fully accepted, loved, and forgiven. 

All while our community stands before and behind us in this communion line. 
All while the communion of saints surrounds us. Each of us - in all our quirky and tender brokenness - are made whole in the moment of receiving Christ’s presence in the eucharist. That moment is a sacred mystery, and in many ways it defies logic. I am generally filled with an overwhelming sense of peace and unity with God, creation, and the human family. That sense may last a moment, or even days.

If we believe in the power of the eucharist, then we believe Christ is somehow really and truly present in that bread and wine. If we believe this, then we believe when we break bread together, and receive the sacrament, we seek Christ to make us whole - if but for a moment. Entering into our hearts, minds, and bodies, so that we may walk more fully in love and faith. Going out into the world, strengthened by Christ’s presence in and with us, all so we might be a blessing to others. 
 
Christ was blessed and broken, and we are broken and blessed in this sacred meal we share each week. The practice of regular worship where we break bread together has the power to heal us, shift and change us. Anything is possible when we offer ourselves, to meet the real presence of Christ, in this shared sacred meal. When we engage in this act, we will be renewed, sustained, and nourished.

Four years of weekly eucharist, of growing in faith in community, helped me to find my own peace. It helped me differentiate what was mine, and what was my fathers. It helped me to forgive him; to better understand the circumstances that led to his actions.  It helped me release the shame that needn’t have been there in the first place. It doesn’t mean these things don’t bubble back up. Yet the pattern of eucharist in community, reaffirming our commitment to the core values of Christ’s Way of Love, are a healing balm empowering us  to begin again, and again, and again. Until this earthly life has come to an end, and we enter into eternal life. Where it all shifts from a moment of Christ’s presence in the eucharist to an everlasting experience in the presence of our Creator, Christ, Spirit, and the communion of saints. 

Our two disciples on the road to Emmaus had given up hope. They assumed they really had gotten it wrong about Jesus, and I imagine it might have stirred up shame, embarrassment, despair, grief, and longing. Yet Christ came to them, walked beside them, and reinterpreted the scriptures so they might better understand God’s saving acts.Then he was made known to them in the breaking of the bread. The disciples left that meal, eager to go and share the Good News. 

As we prepare to head back into God’s world, to be a blessing ourselves, I would invite us to do some reflecting this week: 

• How is Christ made known to us in the breaking of the bread?

 

• What do we experience when we receive communion?

 

• Are their veils hiding our broken and wounded places that need to be pulled back at this season in our lives? 

 

• What does it mean to us that Christ is really present in this meal?  What difference does it make in our lives? 

 

• What does it mean to be broken and blessed?

Let us pray:

Risen Christ, stay with us; 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. Amen. 
(BCP 139, adapted). 

---