Haydenville Congregational Church, UCC Rev. Audrey Walker I Smell Bread Luke 24:13-35 Easter 2 April 7, 2013

Transcription

1 Haydenville Congregational Church, UCC Rev. Audrey Walker I Smell Bread Luke 24:13-35 Easter 2 April 7, 2013 How many of you will admit to remembering the TV Show MASH? Maybe you watched it when it originally aired in the 70 s or maybe some of you might have seen it years later when it went into syndication on TVLand But regardless The acronym MASH stands for Mobile Army Surgical Hospital. And the show was about a group of doctors and nurses trying to maintain some semblance of sanity, while trying to patch up soldiers, boys really, who were often seriously, if not fatally, wounded. They coped with the horror and idiocy of war, often through adolescent shenanigans, as they tried to make sense of their assignment to the 4077 Mash Unit during the Korean War. One particular episode features Major Winchester, the pompous Doc from Boston, who uses this very pomposity, I think, as a protective veneer to defend himself from the all too real horror of the suffering and death around him. In this particular episode, Winchester s veneer cracks and we see into the soul of a man who is stripped of his defenses. We see a man who struggles to understand and make meaning out of life s most essential question What IS Death??? Finally, in utter despair and desperation, Winchester leaves the base hospital and goes up to the battalion aid station where the wounded are first taken from the lines of battle. While he is there, he is called over to a man who is dying. Winchester confirms the impending death with a glance. Obviously in pain, the soldier cries out, "I can't see anything... Hold my hand."

2 The Major grabs his hand and the soldier whispers, "I'm dying." The Major, still groping for answers demands, "Can you see anything? Can you feel anything? I have to know." But the dying soldier doesn't answer any of those questions. Instead, all he manages is, "I smell bread." +++ Strange isn t it What Major Winchester wants... what he craves... is the answer to the age old question What is death? What IS it really what is it like? Is there anything on the other side? "Can you see anything? Can you feel anything? I have to know." And what he gets, instead of answers, is a fragrance, a symbol, an image, an experience. all the dying soldier can say in the midst of his own death is "I smell bread." That's it "I smell bread." +++ Well, I don t know about you, but sometimes I have felt a lot like Major Winchester We clergy, like doctors, often encounter death We visit the sick, the dying, the bereaved, and I have found myself more than several times, holding the hand of a parishioner, as their spirit was set free in death I too wrestle with this most existential question and longed for answers

3 What is death like? Is there really life after death? And like the dying soldier who smelled bread my answer came to me one morning in a sanctuary very much like this one It came not in powerful words penetrating my ears not in an idea exploding in my head NO but rather it came as an experience of my nose I smelled it I too smelled the answer to my question is there life after death? It was a Sunday much like today it was communion Sunday and as I moved from the pulpit to the communion table I smelled a distinctive smell a familiar smell I smelled Paul Paul, the man who had died the day before Paul, whose hand I held just a few short hours before he died This smell was not the distinctive smell of death not the somewhat fetid smell that the human body takes on in the final throws of dying but the clean, pure, smell that is the unique, distinguishing odor that accompanies all human beings I smelled it... and it was Paul he was here with me...with us at the table This was such a powerful experience for me that my breath caught in my throat, and my skin erupted into bumps of emotion And in this smell was the answer to my question Is there really life after death? And the smell told me YES YES it was an experience that went beyond mere words an experience that went past the confines of the intellect to the bones of experience. +++

4 I want to ask you to do something for me now Just pick up the crayon that you were given and smell it And then tell me what comes to mind What are the sights, the sounds, the memories that this crayon stirs within you. Kindergarten My teacher My friends The clothes I wore The chair I sat in My desk My shoes I can remember my hair style I m with my children Our sense of smell is in one of the most primitive parts of our brain the place that invokes powerful memories we smell a particular smell and we are transported back in time to that place for good or for ill in which we experienced that smell just as when I smell new-mown hay, I am 9 years old again in my dad s haymow building a hay fort, petting a mother cat as she nursed her kittens, or swinging on the Tarzan rope When I smelled Paul, it was like I was not only getting a fragrance, but I was experiencing a reality I was experiencing the risen Paul And as you know I We are not the first to have such an experience. For in today's text it happened also to the two disciples who were walking along the road to Emmaus on Easter evening so many years ago They were discussing the events of Jesus last days.

5 His betrayal his suffering his crucifixion as well as his nearly incomprehensible resurrection And suddenly a stranger joins them on the road asking what they are talking about. "Are you the only one in Jerusalem who doesn't know what's been happening'? one says. Then he proceeds to share their story, their disappointment, their confusion and grief. And then immediately interprets himself to them by use of the scriptures how the messiah would die and rise again Then when they came near the end of their night s journey he started to walk away. But they urged him to stay with them, even invited him to their table. There, he took bread, blessed and broke it, and gave it to them. And it was at that very moment... as the aroma of bread filled the house where they were staying that they recognized this stranger as the Risen Christ. They said to each other, as if kicking themselves for not recognizing him sooner, "Were not our hearts burning within us while he was talking to us on the road while he was opening the Scriptures to us?" And yet, even when he listened to the depth of their disappointment and grief... even when he interpreted the Scriptures to them basically saying, hey look guys here in the scripture it s me they still didn't recognize him. It seems kind of odd to us perhaps that these disciples who had known Jesus when he was alive, didn t recognize him when he appeared to them on the road but it s often like that with us too.

6 Has anyone ever told you to close your eyes, open your mouth, and given you something to eat? And then of course, they ask you something like So what do you think.or How does it taste or even, So, what do you think it is? And you know what, if someone tells us it s tuna and they give us chicken, by God, it tastes just like chicken Sometimes, we experience taste see things the way we expect to see and taste them and not the way they really are. I remember I was walking in the mall one day I was wearing blue jeans and a T shirt and I saw a very active member of my church walking towards me about 30 feet away I waved, said HI then waved again, a bigger wave this time and in return I got a confused, blank look it wasn t until I came closer and introduced myself that I was finally recognized for who I was Our minds play tricks on us especially when we are stressed or in a hurry or in grief we often see what we expect to see and aren t able to see the things we aren t looking for And I think that s what happened to the disciples they just didn t expect to see Jesus after all he was dead And when he appeared to them, they just couldn t see him for who he really was.even when Jesus interpreted the scriptures they didn t get it I think it s because when Jesus taught them about the scriptures it was a matter of the intellect a matter of the mind, the brain the head And sometimes we need more than intellect more than interpretation or, explanation as important as that is. What we need... even more than answers, I think is an experience. We need an experience of the heart. And in order to know Jesus sometimes what we need is simply an experience of him

7 (pause) So Do you smell something? What? BREAD Yeah Let me get it [get the bread] Here it is If I were to ask you What does communion mean to you In many cases I might get some kind of vague answer like I m not sure but I think X, Y, or Z The important word here is THINK You try to remember what you have been taught and you try to THINK of the right answer. What we really need, my friends, is an experience. and in the case of communion.we need the smell... the feel... the taste of bread because this, my friends [hold up the communion bread] is the Bread of Life and when we smell it and taste it and share it we experience deep down what we know to be true. We not only know with our head, but we experience with our senses that this bread IS Jesus and our hunger reminds us that we can t live life without him the bread of life is necessary for our life. For me, the most significant part of the whole worship experience is the giving and receiving communion.

8 Yet for all my Sunday schooling, and all my seminary training, I couldn t really intellectually explain to you what communion was And to this day, I still cannot really intellectually explain to you what communion is After all my searching, after all my scholarly reading, after all my pondering and thinking, and yearning for an intellectual rush of understanding, I have finally just given up trying to understand, and instead, I just rest in the experience of communion then amazingly, the understanding just falls into place For me, it is as simple as that. The place where my personal experience and hunger intersects the communion experience is in the taste, the smell, the feel, the sight, the salivating for, the hunger, for the real, live, tangible thing we call BREAD the stuff we eat to nourish our bodies to literally keep us alive Therefore, the most important image that embodies the central experience of communion for me is the image of communion bread as real food (not just a tiny wafer, or cube of bread, to be eaten without tasting, but real, live delicious food). To heighten this experience, I don t eat breakfast on a communion Sunday. I want to be really, really hungry. This experience of hunger and wanting and needing and salivating for that bread is a very tangible, visceral, experience that is the foundation of my spiritual experience of communion. My spiritual journey has included a 15-year journey away from the church. What brought me back was the realization that in those 15 years, I was looking for love in all the wrong places. I was looking for happiness and fulfillment in material possessions, social status, and a keeping-up-with-the-jones mentality. When I finally crawled back to church, (thank you Phil Hall) it was at a time of deep spiritual lost-ness. It was a time when I was wandering in a spiritual wasteland of my own making. So for me, physical hunger and the satisfying of this hunger with food communion bread - is a very tangible reminder of my need for God and how my relationship with God nourishes me, sustains me, and gives me life. God, Jesus, is truly the Bread of Life and metaphor that, for me, the only thing that truly satisfies my deep spiritual hunger the only thing that truly nourishes me, give me peace and joy, and gives me life, is my relationship with God. Everything else is fake food. So for me,

9 communion is an experience of simply resting in the experience of hunger and being fed Which is turn represents the central metaphor of my relationship with God. So like the two travelers on the road, communion is an experience, which opens my eyes, and makes God very present and alive to and in me. Each time I receive communion, I experience the life- giving bread that is him Perhaps, like Major Winchester you have become weary of suffering, weary of tragedy in your life, or the lives of ones you love maybe, you have become discouraged and filled with doubt like so many of us Though we have all been searching for answers to our questions, "who allows such suffering; why does it happen; can we do anything to stop it, do we REALLY die"... although we have been searching for answers... what we really need is an EXPERIENCE, an experience of the Risen Christ. Well, I've got some good news for you!!!! (pause) I smell Paul And I smell bread. Amen.