Breaking bread and opening eyes

Five weeks ago, a small group met for our final service before we became a dispersed church community. We divided up the parish roll to help us be church as we faced an uncertain future. And now we are leaving level 4 lockdown and entering a more relaxed lockdown. For some this has not been much different from normal life, just less time at home than usual. For others this has been a good time. Some have enjoyed some aspects and struggled with others. And some feel like they are locked in a tomb awaiting liberation. 

For all the Easter celebrations of resurrection have had a very different flavour. We have not been able to do the normal things we do to commemorated and celebrate. We have tried to maintain some elements in our online services and the booklets put out. But it has not been the same. All those gatherings and rituals that normally help us see Jesus have largely not happened. For some that has been ok, while others have really struggled; missing the people, the gatherings, and the weekly receiving of eucharist. It has felt like exile.

This week we join Cleopas on the other disciple walking away from what had been normal, but with our own experiences and responses. We too are invited to honestly say how this has been for us, and amid that to name our hopes for what might be. And we are invited to gather for an ordinary meal, as Jesus did with those two. How might Jesus be present for us as we pick up the bread and using the words Jesus spoke before feeding the 5000, give thanks, break and share it. In this ordinary act we are invited to remember all the times that Jesus did that most Jesus thing, eating at the tables of the powerless and the powerful, the privileged and the outcast, breaking rules of exclusion. In this ordinary act how are our eyes opened? Where do we recognise the risen Jesus in our new normal?