Sunday Homily - April 26, 2020 - "Hope is the Thing with Feathers..."

The Walk to Emmaus Icon

Third Sunday of Easter

Acts 2:14a,36-41

Psalm 116:1-3, 10-17

1 Peter 1:17-23

Luke 24:13-35

I.

"Hope is the thing with feathers
 That perches in the soul,
And sings the tune without the words,
 And never stops at all,

And sweetest in the gale is heard;
 And sore must be the storm
That could abash the little bird
 That kept so many warm.

I've heard it in the chillest land,
 And on the strangest sea;
Yet, never, in extremity,
 It asked a crumb of me."
  [Emily Dickinson. "Hope is the thing with feathers (254)".]

This is one of my favorite poems
 by one of the great poets of American history:
  Emily Dickinson.

If you don't know much about Emily Dickinson,
 I would highly suggest you at least read her biography
  at the Poetry Foundation website
   [https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/emily-dickinson]

But even if you don't know about her life,
 what can be seen is the incredible wordcraft of her poetry.

She is widely known for making seemingly abstract things
 into something very tangible,
  with emotional and physical bodies,
   and with a real weight of meaning.

This is why her poem "Hope is a thing with feathers"
 is one of the most compelling pieces of poetry
  that I've come across thus far.
   Because she,
    in some small but powerful way,
     actually makes some sense of what Hope is to us who experience it.

I think that perhaps a poem like this
 is most appropriate for the uncertain and scary time
  we experience right now.
   Where Hope seems to be the thing that flits away,
     the agile and invisible ghost that escapes us,
      whose presence we feel one moment
       only for it to be gone the next.

Instead, if I may be completely honest,
 I feel particularly haunted by another ghost,
  a ghost of the pandemic we currently are in the midst of,
   that has no face, no form, and no way for me to recognize it
    other than in vague symptoms of a cough,
     shortness of breath,
      or a fever.

Every day that I try to go about business as usual,
 I can't help myself but examine my every waking second
  and likewise, my family's every second,
   as a measurement of symptoms.

Was that a cough?
 More specifically, was that a dry cough?
  She seems upset, is she running a fever?
   He is restless, is he able to breathe?

Where is Hope in the midst of that?

This is how I have been feeling recently.
 Maybe some of you feel the same way?

II.

The absence of Hope is something that we don't like to stare into too deeply.
 It is a far more uncomfortable place than we like to dwell.

Yet it is the very place that Jesus chose to dwell,
 when he came along side the two disciples this morning
  on their way to a town called Emmaus.

Think about what the disciples just went through.
 They witness the arrest of their beloved Teacher, Jesus,
  and they scatter, scared out of their minds,
   that they were the next ones to be crucified and made a spectacle of
    by the Roman Empire.

And the disciples have seen Jesus killed in violent fashion,
 something they knew was undeserved and unjust.
  The cross at Golgotha is still where their Hope lay stricken down to the ground,
   a place where they had to lay their fledgling Hope to rest.

Think of how you would feel in their position.
 The mental and emotional turmoil that you would be experiencing
  would leave you reeling for weeks!
   Personally, I would be a wreck for much longer,
    and they are in a real period of grief.

This grief,
 this absence of Hope,
  is perhaps what led them to dismiss
   what Mary Magdalene, Joanna, and the other women at the tomb
    had witnessed when they went to embalm Jesus:
     Jesus wasn't there!
      Instead, there were angels telling them that he had risen like he said he would!

Rather, instead,
 in their grief and confusion about these things,
  they find themselves on the road,
  down to a small town called Emmaus.

But "Hope is the thing with feathers
 That perches in the soul,
And sings the tune without the words,
 And never stops at all,"

And Hope found them even in their grief,
 as a stranger joins these two disciples on the road
  and begins to open their minds,
   to make sense of,
    the suffering that Jesus had gone through.

"And sweetest in the gale is heard;
 And sore must be the storm
That could abash the little bird
 That kept so many warm."

That little fluttering Hope found its way back,
 like it usually does,
  and the disciples feel a warmth returning to the numbness of their heart,
   and gentle burning of life within themselves.

As the Scriptures from Moses and the Prophets are opened in a new light,
 the light of Christ,
  the disciples wonder and desire to dwell more with this stranger that has restored
   warmth, goodness, Hope
    to their souls.

They invite this Holy stranger into their house,
 to stay with them.
  And as if hearing a familiar tune
   in which one cannot quite place the words
    and like that moment of realization that you really do know the song,
     Jesus is revealed as He takes bread,
      blesses it,
       breaks it,
        and gives it to them.

The eyes of the disciple's souls open to see clearly,
 Jesus Christ in his bodily resurrection
  is actually alive and standing right there with them.
   And just like that,
    he vanishes from their sight.

Hope returns,
 not out of anything that the disciples could do for it,
  but rather because Hope is that mysterious gift of the Holy Spirit,
   the Dove,
    that seeks and finds its nest in our souls once again.

Hope: "I've heard it in the chillest land,
 And on the strangest sea;
Yet, never, in extremity,
 It asked a crumb of me."

III.

Perhaps today is simply a day
 that we can all be honest with ourselves and with each other:
  I find that I've lost some of my hope,
   even in the midst of the season of Easter,
    in which we all celebrate the bodily resurrection of Jesus Christ our Lord
     who saved us from death.

And yet, just because it is supposed to be a celebratory season,
 it can still be very hard to see that same Jesus who loves each of us.
  It is so hard to see the Light of the World
   when it seems like we are just sitting in darkness.

But that's where I think if we really dwell with the disciples
 in their own grief,
  between the Cross and the Resurrection of Jesus Christ,
   and really walk in their shoes as they actually see Jesus in his real appearances
    after he was raised from the dead,
     we might have a little more grace with ourselves
      in our current time of incredible upheaval.

The disciples on the road to Emmaus
 were not expecting at all
  a real, physical Jesus to appear in his bodily resurrection.
   And yet, here he is.

These two disciples did not expect
 to have the Holy Scriptures opened to them about the suffering
  that Jesus had to go through
   for the salvation of the world,
    and yet the cold, dead numbness of their hearts
     were rekindled into a warm fire
      by the Hope that only Jesus could give them.

And ultimately,
 they are raised back to life mentally and spiritually
  by the opening of their eyes to perceive Jesus Himself in front of them
   in the breaking of the bread.

Perhaps, friends,
 you have found yourselves needing to have your own fires rekindled by Hope,
  as I have these past couple of weeks.

Perhaps you, like me,
 have needed Jesus to come and restore our sight
  that we may see Him again and that we may plead with Him
   to dwell with us.

Perhaps we all,
 especially at this moment,
  need to be reminded that even against all evidences to the contrary,
   that Hope can't be killed,
    but rather that it will find its perch again in our souls
     by the gracious gift of the God who loves us.

And maybe we can reflect on Emily Dickinson's poem
 in light of the Emmaus road
  where Jesus met us in our grief
   to restore our Hope
    and to kindle in us the warm fire
     that brings our hearts alive in Him again.

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.