Monday 27 April 2020

Our road to Emmaus

Two reflections on Luke 24 - the road to Emmaus. It's a narrative the resonates with our time of lockdown. So much of our life is disrupted; like the disciples we're living with grief and confusion. Yet, the risen Lord meets them on the road and opens up to them the scriptures. One day we will break bread together again; until that day may we love and serve. The first reflection is based on a piece I wrote for the Church Times; the second is an imagined interpreting of scripture. 

Reflection One 



When I was a small child, I used to listen out for the sound of bread being broken at the Eucharist. As a teenager, I remember being desperate to participate and to belong. Since then, the Eucharist has been at the heart of my life. 

Friends of mine have an invisible stop watch - waiting to see how far in a conversation we get before I start talking about the Eucharist!

It is the lens through which I see everything; the pulse and plumb line of life. It is a point of encounter with Christ — feeding and forming us in the midst of joy and grief, the mundane and the complex.  

This communion with God is intimate - the physicality of touch, taste and sight. 

This communion is cosmic -  enfolding us into the story of creation and redemption, restoring our vision of God’s Kingdom. 

This communion is endlessly repeated, but never the same as the lives of strangers and friends are drawn together; each one of us forgiven, blessed and sent out to love and serve. 

This encounter with Christ leads us to taking risky Spirit-led steps as we respond to the cries of the world.

At the moment those cries are sharply focused around the impact of Covid-19. Everything about our lives has been disrupted by disease. For some of us this means isolation, or loneliness; for others, it’s added pressure to relationships. Essential work continues to be done, from hospitals to supermarkets. We’re relearning a body language of love through social distancing. 

Our churches  and chapels are closed for public worship and private prayer.  We’ve moved online, learning new skills to live-stream worship. We’ve reverted to communication by phone and post; we’ve made our homes spaces for prayer. 

In some ways, it feels as if we in an unchosen wilderness; I’m not alone mourning the loss of celebrating the Eucharist with you. But perhaps there is hope for us in this season. 

In the midst of my sadness, I recalled something my late supervisor wrote:  Dan Hardy described the Eucharist as a gathered interval in the scattered life of the church. In this current crisis, I began to wonder, what if we are called to live in this interval that is longer than a week? What might we learn in this an interval of being scattered in our homes as we look forward to the feast? 

Perhaps today’s Gospel reading gives us hope and encouragement. We hear of two disciples walking the road to Emmaus. They’re shaken by Jesus’ death; they’ve heard rumours of resurrection; but nothing makes sense. Perhaps, this Eastertide, we’re walking with them.


Image: He Qi - Weren't our hearts burning within us?

Our world is unsettled and fearful; we have questions that we can’t answer; we are haunted by death. Yet, we also hear stories of life-affirming and demanding care. Just as Jesus opened up the scriptures for the bewildered disciples on the Emmaus road, might we too listen more deeply to God’s word?

As we read Scripture’s in the power of the Spirit, might we rediscover who we are called to be, and learn afresh something of God’s ways with the world.  Might we invite Christ into our homes - in prayer and study; might our hearts burn within us as we keep going; knowing that one day we will gather to break bread and known the nearness of our risen Lord with us? 

We will break bread again; we will know the intimacy of communion - and as we touch, taste and see. Meanwhile, we’re called to live creatively during this fast?  In John’s Gospel, Jesus washes feet at the moment we expect him to break bread. It’s an improvisation on the Eucharist in loving service.

How can we do that? Learning to improvise as the scattered church  - we know the rhythms and rhymes of such love. As members of Christ’s body we are to improvise, breath by breath in this extended interval: turning outwards in loving service of others in their need. 

 In the face of the limitations of this crisis - the trauma of sickness, separation, grief and death; in the uncertainties of work and the tasks facing the church we are on the road to Emmaus. 

As we hear scripture afresh and may our hearts burn within us; being renewed in love; embracing the grace of forgiveness. And out of that experience, may we bring hope to others; literally sharing food with them.


Image: Jesus Mafa - Supper at Emmaus

Perhaps in this scattered interval, we learn to live the Eucharist more fully?  Having been fed and shaped, we walk to our own Emmaus; Christ meets us in this place too. Opening our hearts to scripture - and stretching the horizons of our social imaginations.

Reflection Two

We are walking to our own Emmaus. How does that feel to us? Not knowing the length of this season of lockdown; living with limitations and uncertainty; perhaps noticing the things that matter most to us; or handling extra demands.

On that road, listen to our hearts; be aware of the journey. Where is Christ with us in the midst of this?

Like the disciples, we will carry our own questions; the things that don’t yet make sense; rumours of resurrection mingled with grief. 



Jesus doesn’t tell the disciples what to think. He asks them what they’re talking about. He listens to them; he listens to us.

Then the risen Lord invites them, invites us, to listen to the scriptures; to glimpse the rhythms and rhymes of love; to see him there.

And he goes back to the beginning. To the moment our hearts turned in on themselves, to their own desires; taking the apple we wanted; seeking to fulfil our own longings and separating ourselves from love. 

The guilt and the shame crept in; and yet in that very moment, God’s love continued to reach out to us, to enfold us, to draw us back; to kindle in our restless hearts the desire for that first love. 

And Jesus says, I am he; I am God with you. I step down into darkness and bring light. I am one who even on Mary’s lap reaches out to take the apple once held by Eve and tasted by Adam. Here I forgive you and give you grace. Here I love. 


Image: detail Chris Gollon - Madonna and Child

And as we walk, Jesus asks them to share what they know. On the road, they tell this stranger their hopes for a new world, a kingdom of justice and mercy; their desire for healing and peace. All this, they tell him, they’d hoped for. All this they’d seen in Jesus.  They tell him how it all went wrong: there was betrayal and denial; it seemed as if hopes were crushed.

But their unrecognised friend, their risen Lord, he takes them back to the psalms. The reality of betrayal is there he says. The close friend who I trusted - the one who shared bread with me; who dipped it in the cup of wine, yes, that friend did betray me. 

And yes, my companions did pretend not to know me; they turned away and fled. Yes I was saddened by this; but I knew how hard it is to stay close when love hurts; when it costs so much; and we wonder if it’s worth it. 

But even in this, I loved you; when you are alone and let down, I will remain with you. Even now, when it seems so hopefulness, love is drawing you back to me; my dear companions. 

And still they talk as they walk. The outpour the dreadful scenes of this week. The violence and the suffering; the death and the burial. How can this be? It makes no sense to them. Surely this is the end.

It’s there in scripture he says. The one who is God with us goes back to the Exodus - to God’s plan for liberation from slavery; a story of freedom and promise. Remember when Moses lifted up a snake to bring healing? So was I lifted up for you. For God so loved the world that he gave his Son. This is he, walking with you. The one who was lifted up to draw all people to God; to love to the end and beyond. 



Even so they say. The death happened. So did the burial. How can we keep walking when we’re haunted by grief; by the shadow of death.

Yes, I was mocked and beaten says, the risen Lord; the one is a companion on the way. Yet, it’s all there in the prophets. Yes, there was darkness and a mother’s grief. That is there too. I entrusted by bother to my beloved disciple; I entrusted him to her. For even in this death and burial, a new community is being formed. There is no place where God’s love is not; even here. Even here a seed falls to the ground and dies; and brings life.

And their hearts began to burn within them. They’d heard the rumours of resurrection. Were the women telling an idle tale; or could it be true? It’s the third day; time has passed but what’s changed. And yet, something shifts within them. A warming of the heart.

For those rumours are true; they’re spreading and taking hold. Joy is  mingled with tears. It is all there, said the one walking with them. In the psalms - there is healing; I will be brought up from the grave. I will not be abandoned to death, no: wounds will be bound up;  new life will break forth.


Image: Georges Rouault - The Appearance of the Road to Emmaus

And on they walk. On we walk. This road to Emmaus. One step in front of the other. Yes, haunted by grief and uncertainty; but not alone. For one walks with us, telling us of God’s love; telling us that love brings life out of death.

Listen to our heart: our restless, aching and hopeful hearts. May they beat in rhythm with this cosmic pulse of love. Make that sign. A visible heart. A heart that is warmed; a heart that loves.

We will break bread again, together, and know Christ with us on this road; on this road, let us break bread in homes; share it in food banks. On this road, may the pulse of scripture stretch our imaginations in hope and love.





© Julie Gittoes 2020

Monday 20 April 2020

Peace behind locked doors

Our Sunday morning worship is continuing to evolve: adding in some music and images; bringing in a range of voices; and breaking down the reflection into two. The texts were Acts 2: 14a, 22-32 and John 20:19-end. Perhaps it's our local version of R4's Sunday Service! So here are two reflections - one on fear and the presence of Christ behind locked doors, speaking peace; and the other on our hands being the hands of Christ.


Reflection One

The disciples, like us, are living their lives behind locked doors: we hear of fears, doubts and words of peace. 



Perhaps we can imagine the conversations and questions: behind locked doors, they are caught between news of an empty tomb and fear of those in authority. Behind locked doors they ponder Mary’s passionate declaration “I have seen the Lord”. Behind locked doors they are held captive by their feelings of grief, shock and exhaustion; by their expectations, disappointments and guilt.

And yet, the enormity of the resurrection is being made known every minute, literally breath by breath as they share their experience.

Jesus is present amongst them in this fearful place. His body still bore the makes of nails and wounds. This body overcame suffering and death; this body signals that love wins as he breathes out a word of peace.



Peace be with you: peace following from the heart of God; peace that took the sting out of death; peace that rested on places of hopelessness.

Our risen Lord continues to breath peace into our troubled, joyful, curious, courageous and questioning hearts. 

In our locked homes and amongst isolated friends: peace!
When anxiety, fear and uncertainty paralyse us: peace!
In the midst of all we’re doing, in lives lived at a distance: peace!


Image: William Hatherell

The one who breathes peace, sends disciples to share peace.

God so loved the world that he sent his one Son: to forgive and love, to heal and not condemn. Now, he sends others, in the power of the Spirit to share that love, to restore relationships. 

But Thomas wasn’t there. He missed it. His questions and exclamations are met with “believe us”. It’s overwhelming. No wonder he replies with  ‘unless I see’; no wonder he longs to touch the one he loves. 

He’s locked into this room with the others - talking, eating and praying. He’s locked in with those whose experience he cannot fully understand or share. He was locked into his own disappointment, perhaps; that he’s missed it; locked into his own isolation or jealously, as the days pass.

Although the doors remained shut, Jesus was there to speak words of peace. He does not rebuke Thomas. Instead he invites him to reach out and place his trust in him; to touch and to believe. At that moment fear and doubt and separation becomes worship: my Lord and my God!

Perhaps it feels as we are standing with Thomas today: not just because our lives are constrained and relationships stretched, or we fear we’re missing something; but because that’s were God meets us to: that we might receive a gift of peace. 


Image: John Granville Gregory - based on Caravaggio

We are healed by those same wounds; restored to new life; knowing that we are loved, made whole, blessed and forgiven.

We are people whose lives have been sustained and shaped by sharing in broken bread and outpoured wine; it might be that that is the thing we miss most in this season.

And yet, not only does God reach out to us in the places where we feel fearful or locked in;  in the power of the Spirit, God uses us to unlock the fears of others, to meet them with kindness and patience and peace.

Our lives are Christ’s broken bread; our love Christ’s out poured wine. 

Many across South India came to believe through the honest and faithful witness of Thomas; Peter also points people to ‘this Jesus’. Jesus who wasn’t just a wise teacher or compassionate healer; not just a inspiring or controversial celebrity. 

No, this Jesus endured the very worst harm human beings can inflict on another; he went to the depths of shame and suffering; bringing life out of death, hope out of fear. 

Our world longs for the justice that such love demands; for the dignity and compassion such love enables. We are witnesses to the power of love in this risen body, standing among us breathing peace.

Even behind our own front doors, the witness of Mary, Peter and Thomas continues in our prayer, in relationship and in our worship. 

Even in lockdown, something of that love is made known: when we use our words to inspire and encourage others; when our work continues in new ways; when we listen to those who mourn; when we share what we have with generosity; home schooling with patience; when we receive from others the care we need.

Peace be with you. 

Though the layers of fear and bewilderment, may that peace seep in: we belive, we rejoice, we hope, we love.


Reflection Two



Jesus himself stood among the disciples and said, ‘peace be with you’. 

As you breath in, imaging that you are breathing in that gift of peace.

Jesus knew that the disciples were frightened; locked in behind closed doors. 

As we breath out, we name the things we’re worried about. 

Again Jesus said, ‘peace be with you’. 

He invite them to look at his hands and feet.
Wounded in suffering with us; in loving us to the end.
This risen and glorious body is marked with love.

Look at your hands: open them, flex them, turn them over. Look at the lines; the finger tips; the joints. 

Look them: remembering the words they’ve written, the things they’ve carried; the meals they’ve prepared.

Remember the acts of love they’ve shown; the hands they’ve held; the times you’ve washed them to cleanse, protect and care.

Jesus said: look at my hands: hands that brought healing; that welcomed children; that broke bread; that wiped tears from eyes.

How much did Thomas want to see and hold and touch these hands; to know that healing and life was possible.

Look at your hands.

Teresa of Avila wrote this prayer: Christ has no body on earth but yours; no  hands, nor feat on earth but yours. Yours are the eyes through which he looks with compassion o the world; yours are the feet with which he walks to do good; yours are the hand with which he blessed all the world. Christ has no body now on the earth but yours.

No hands, no feet on earth but yours, but ours: to care for the vulnerable.

No feet but ours: to run errands for others.

No eyes but ours: to see the anxiety and fear, and respond with love.

No ears but ours: to listen to the lonely and isolated.

No tongue but ours: to speak words of comfort and encouragement to the bereaved.

No heart but ours: to love the young, the old, the sick, the key worker, the carer, the teacher, the almost coping, the neighbour.

Yours the feet with which he walks to do good; the hands with which he blesses all the world.  Your bodies are his body; Christ has no body now one earth but yours.

He said, peace be with you.
You that are fearful, see my hands.
Look at your hands. Mark your palms with the sign of the cross.

Say: may Christ these hands; may they be healing hands for  a hurting world. 


©  Julie Gittoes 2020

Sunday 12 April 2020

Love's risen body in a time of lockdown

Easter Day - a service of light - on Zoom: Acts 10:34-43 and John 20:1-18



Our life has been severely disrupted by disease. For some that’s meant isolation, alone; for others, an intense proximity. Essential work continues to be done from hospitals to supermarkets. The boundaries between public and private space are being renegotiated. We’re relearning a body language of love through social distancing.

Yesterday, HMQ reminded us that Easter has not been cancelled.

Yet feels so radically different.

Easter is here, but like the light of a dawn: gradually. 

Breaking in slowly; just today; but over the next 40.

There are rumours of resurrection.

Fires burn; candles are lit.

Our closed church resemble sealed tombs. 

And yet.

There are whispers of Alleluia.

Light begins to break in; but there are still so many questions.

We long to break bread; and still hear the fearful cries of our city and our world.

But there is hope. Hope of something else: a glimpse of new life; a new order.

Writing in yesterday’s Guardian, Jonathan Freedland reflected on keeping Passover in lockdown. He said, ‘while Jews tell a story of emerging from enslavement to freedom, Christians move from death to resurrection. It’s starker but it offers the same message of hope - that even after the greatest pain, there is renewal’. 

There is renewal; but it takes time. 

Death does not have the final world; but it doesn’t always feel like it.

Yet we believe it.

Perhaps this Easter, unlike any other I can recall, we are caught up in the ambiguity and hope of the gospels themselves.

Today’s reading tells us of things that are seen; and of the struggle to make sense.

Mary had waited in agony at the cross and in sorrow at the tomb.   In exhaustion and grief, she has been utterly spent in love. 

She sees that the stone has been removed: she is confused and anxious, she runs away; she has to tell someone. She shares with those she loved what she sees;  She tells those who also loved Jesus, her greatest fears and what she thinks she knows.

Her words unleash in Peter and John fear and confusion - they run. They run away from her; they run to the tomb.


The Disciples Peter and John - Eugene Burnand

They run and John gets their first; he sees the emptiness but does not enter. Peter enters and sees the cloth, the linen wrappings, the absence of a body. And John saw. And he believed.

There is insight and bewilderment;  but they did not fully understand.

They had to go back to scripture.

They left. The went home.

As they gathered behind closed doors, did the beloved disciple share the experience of sudden realisation as he saw grave clothes piled up in a tomb? Did he describe the way in which that absence awakened in him an ever present love?

Mary stays at the tomb. She stands alone. Weeping.

She’s asked why she’s weeping. Why? Perhaps the most blunt and absurd  question. Isn’t it obvious.

We can identify with Mary in a moment of heartbreak. Death wreaks havoc with our lives: the physical loss unleashes a rawness of emotion; grief silences us and yet cries out; relationships are disrupted. We cannot gather together to share stories; alone, we crave the consolation o human touch.

When questioned a second time, she repeats her conviction. This is death. This is emptiness.

Supposing her questioner to be a gardener, she meets his whys with her own ifs.

And into that space, that silence, is spoken one word:

Mary.

Named. Found. Recognised. Known.

Rabboni!

An instinct as powerful as grief overwhelms her.
In love she wants to reach out; to hold and be held.


Noli me Tangere - Graham Sutherland

It's such a human moment!

But the one she loves says: Do not cling on to me.

A stone rolled back; piled grave clothes; and now, let go.

The very person who was crucified is risen: this is  love’s risen body.

Love’s risen body draws her from loss to life, sorrow to peace.

Mary cannot cling on to her risen Lord; but she continues to walk in his light.

In her grief, she is called by name; in her letting go she is sent. 

Did Mary Magdalene take the risk of seeking them out, her heart pounding as she hammered at a locked door? As the bolt slides back, she rushes in; her breathless declaration ‘I have seen the Lord’ flowing from a faith which lets go and embraces new life.

Peter - the one who ran and saw and didn’t fully understand - he goes on to speak to hundreds and thousands of a message of life, hope and forgiveness for all. He declares that God shoes no partiality - God’s love if for all.

Peter preaches: he claims the power to tell a story which changes how the world is understood. Jesus’ life, death and resurrection becomes the defining moment of all history. The world will be restored to life and health. This is God. A love that continues to reach out to all creation. 

Our Jewish brothers and sisters are telling a story of emerging from enslavement to freedom; we are telling a story that moves from death to resurrection. As Freedland put it, it is starker but it offers the same message of hope.

Even after the greatest pain, there is renewal.  As Willie Jennings puts it we ‘now see the world as God desires Israel to see the world - as specific and particular sites of love - where the Spirit would send us to go, announcing in and through life together with people God’s desire for joining and communion’.

Yes, we are fearful and isolated; and yet we are bound together. Even in this pandemic, we are called to tell a story of life and compassion and hope. For now, sharing love and protecting others means living differently.



Yes, we long to gather and break bread; yet in fasting from this feast, may we grow in prayer and faithfulness to scripture; knowing that one day we will meet our risen Lord in bread and wine.

Easter will dawn slowly today; and over the next 40 days. May we share that the hope that is within us: that love wins.

But this love means stretching our imaginations: seeking not to return to the old normal, but a richer more equitable new normal.

May God stir up in us new gifts and callings, that we may go where we are sent with radical imagination.

© Julie Gittoes 2020