April 12, 2026 Sermon

The other day, I walked into a hospital room, and it was dark and it looked

like the occupant might be asleep, but I heard a “Hi!” so I went in.

Hi, my name is Krista. I’m one of the chaplains here. You were on my list to

see today. Is this a good time?

The occupant responded: Do you think hell exists, Krista? I think I might

be dying soon, and I need to know.

I am always honored when people open up to me, and usually can’t

imagine why they can, when we literally just met. But as I read this story in

Luke, Jesus is the stranger that walks into that space and gets an good

earful like I did in that hospital room.

This story is about two disciples that are traveling back from a week away

- and like the best road trips - there are lots of things to process. I’ve had

the best conversations on road trips, and I never had anything like these

two did to process so I bet the details we don’t know are just as huge as the

ones we know. So as they walk- they are talking, replaying events,

wondering what it all means. Then a stranger joins them.

The stranger becomes an active listener in the conversation. He doesn’t

solve their questions. Instead, he walks alongside as someone who does

not quite belong. He only gets stranger when he asks what has happened

in the last several days.

The disciples have been all consumed by the story they have lived, and this

stranger knows nothing?

They launch into the story. Its detailed and what they see as the truth. It

doesn’t feel like they asked - hey what side are you on? Or are you a pilate

supporter? Or anything like that, they just shared what was on their heart.

When I think about moments I have had with strangers that mean

something - we were authentically ourselves without those preliminary

questions to check how careful I need to be. We were rarely in the

extraordinary things of life, not even in the moments we set aside as

“spiritual.” But in the middle of long walks, in conversations that wander,

in the presence of people we do not yet recognize as important. Again and

again, the story suggests that we come to understand holy things while

doing ordinary things with strangers.

So I am going to talk about the 4 ordinary things that happened on this

walk.

1) A conversation on the road.

2) A risky exchange of ideas.

3) An invitation to stay for dinner.

4) The breaking of bread.

First, a conversation on the road.

Over 10 years ago, a chaplain at RML reached out to a group of folks due to

his work in caring for gun violence victims that lived and ended up at RML

in Garfield Park. This group of folks ended up planning a pilgrimage

through 5 of the hardest hit neighborhoods by gun violence in the city. The

path was about 30 miles total over three days. (Ask me later how much fun

I had pouring over the maps to make the route!)

As we walked, conversations went deep real fast - a similar experience to

what I hear happens on the Camino de Santiago pilgrimages in Spain.

Those conversations stayed deep - we literally had all day. In similar ways

as the road to Emmaus, we didn’t know people and we joined in

conversations, or started them.

A friend of mine, Beth, does a lot for our shared neighborhood. And one

time a group of us asked her how she made time for it all, as she cares for

her own 8 children. She said,

“I try to find ways to add on or deepen what I

am already doing. I take an extra kid to school who otherwise wouldn’t

have a ride, or I invite a neighbor for dinner - we are going to have to cook

a lot anyway.” The disciples had to walk anyway, so they made use of the

time,

What do you need to anyway, that you could add to welcome the stranger?

2) Risky exchange of ideas

The risk of the conversation matters.

As you have heard me say a lot, conversations matter. That was the whole

series after last Easter. How we have conversations matter.

And these disciples are modeling that. These disciples are not just

chatting. They are speaking honestly—to a stranger—about

disappointment, about failed hopes, about political longing and religious

betrayal. They speak of leaders who handed Jesus over. They name their

confusion about the women’s testimony, their uncertainty about what is

true.

This is not safe conversation.

And yet Jesus meets them there—not outside it, not after they get their

theology right, but within their questioning. He honors their confusion

enough to walk alongside it. He does not shut down their doubts; he stays

with them in it.

Could we do the same?

Maybe while talking with a neighbor about who feels differently about

church than you do, could you listens without defensiveness when the

neighbor shares all their church trauma. Instead trying to win them over,

you honor their pain.

Or another option -

Or are there ways we should publicly acknowledge that the church hasn’t

always shown up well, inviting honest feedback from those who have been

hurt. Would that open the door to real conversation and the possibility of

repair?

What if you take the chance to model vulnerability, that is quite risky, and

might allow others to do the same. In that honesty—without fixing or

forcing answers—you might discover a sacred connection in simply being

present to one another.

It is striking: the resurrected Christ chooses to be known first not through

certainty, but through shared wondering. Can we do the same?

3) Invitation to stay for dinner

The disciples urge the stranger to stay. Evening is coming. It is a small act

of hospitality, almost instinctive: don’t travel alone; share a meal with us. I

love this line! Sharing meals is a favorite of mine.

Jim and I have thought a lot about this lately. As we work on re-furnishing

our house after the renovation, we are picking furniture that makes it easy

for our kids and us to invite people over at the drop of a hat - because that

is who we want to be as a family. We got a new couch last week and soon

after we got it - one of the boy’s friends who is almost 6 feet slept on it all

stretched out. He clearly felt invited.

Tim, a community organizer, talks about how a dinner invitation has way

more meaning than meeting a need. If a person needs food and you give it

- they may not go hungry. But they may have a connection need that has

not been met. Whereas, a dinner invitation where relationships are created

and trust is established meets so many needs.

Like Tim, I believe in connection and my family is living in a season of our

guests likely are all going to be teenage boys who want to hang out and

sleep on the couch while watching another friend play the retro arcade

machine that Jim has rigged up to play oh so many games. That likely isn’t

your stage of invitation. But I wonder what//who you need to be open to

inviting in your life?

4) The Breaking of Bread

You may know of author Sara Miles. She is a woman who knew almost

nothing about Jesus and the church, and walked into a church one Sunday

morning and had a powerful interaction with Christ through communion

which resulted in her becoming a Jesus follower. She writes lots of words

about this experience, and I picked these about the power of breaking the

bread together.

“Just like the strangers who'd fed me in El Salvador or South Africa, I was

going to have to see and understand the hunger of others, different men

and women, and make a gesture of welcome, and eat with them. And just

as I hadn't "deserved" any of what had been given to me—the fish, the

biscuits, the tea so abundantly poured out back in those years—I didn't

deserve communion myself now. I wasn't getting it because I was good. I

wasn't getting it because I was special. I certainly didn't get to pick who

else was good enough, holy enough, deserving enough, to receive it. It

wasn't a private meal. The bread on that Table had to be shared with

everyone in order for me to really taste it.”

Often Laughter seems louder around a table. Conversation feels easier

around a meal. Being together brings connection around a table. I hope

you have experienced that!

In the story, Bread is taken. Blessed. Broken.

And suddenly, they see.Not because the setting has changed, not because

Jesus said something, but because something in the act itself opens their

eyes. And while I haven’t experienced it, it doesn’t feel like a far cry from

the connection I experience at tables with people, even strangers.

What tables do you want to set in this after Easter time? Who do you need

to connect with?

I might be asking you intriguing questions about how to live this story out

- and that is because I think it can be lived out. Jesus modeled in this

Easter story what relationships can look like even when you start as a

stranger. We should be willing to walk with, to listen to, to make space for

the one we do not yet understand. Jesus didn’t find the stranger in this

story, he is the stranger. And the disciples let him in the circle, in ordinary

ways, in the rhythms of everyday life and they found God in those things.

And that means that some of the most important revelations of our lives

may come not in moments we plan, but in moments we almost overlook:

A conversation in passing.

A shared meal.

A story someone risks telling us.

A presence we nearly dismiss.

What I would suggest, though, is it takes some reflection to see God in the

ordinary that becomes extraordinary. The disciples didn’t catch on right

away and neither do we. The disciples only understand after the moment

has passed. “Were not our hearts burning within us?” they say, looking

back. The realization comes in hindsight, in reflection, in the piecing

together of what was happening all along.

We often recognize meaning not in the moment itself, but

afterward—when we can see how something ordinary carried something

more. A conversation that lingered. A stranger who shifted something in

us. A moment that, at the time, felt small—but now feels sacred.

So after the big celebration of Easter, we have a smaller honoring of Jesus

being alive after being killed. That even after that big act, Jesus is still

showing us how to live.

To pay attention to the strangers on our road.

To risk conversation, even when it feels uncertain.

To practice hospitality, even when it feels small.

To trust that understanding does not always come first—but often comes

along the way.

May it be so.

Benediction:

Because the risen Christ still walks with us—

unrecognized, unannounced,

hidden in the ordinary,

waiting to be discovered

in the very people we might otherwise pass by.

Go in Peace!