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[Sermon] Eyes That Could Not See

Pastor Hector Garfias-Toledo



What keeps us from recognizing Jesus in our midst? Fear, grief, busyness, comfort — and yes, the relentless propaganda of a culture that has weaponized Jesus's name to divide and diminish. Pastor Hector opens the Emmaus road story with that haunting line: their eyes were kept from recognizing him — and turns it into a mirror for our own moment, when the image of Jesus is so often distorted by political and social pressure that we can no longer see clearly. But the story doesn't end in blindness. Jesus walks alongside them, patient and present, until the moment of recognition: bread broken, hearts burning, eyes opened. This is what it means to be resurrection people — not those who have it all figured out, but those who stay on the road long enough to let Jesus reorient us toward the whole story.


Sermon Transcript

From YouTube's automatic captions, lightly edited by AI for readability.


Grace to you and peace from God our father, mother, creator, our parent, and the Lord Jesus Christ, our risen Lord. And we said, amen. Amen.

 

Well, I — you heard the story and maybe you can already have a good idea of what the rest of this message is, but I just going to expand a little bit on what I just shared with our young worshippers. And maybe we are here today because in our journey, in our life, we are going to — are trying to figure out the middle of the story of our lives. Why we are here and why we are — you and I — going through what we are going through right now. Maybe with the same feeling that these disciples were feeling of abandonment, or dissolution, or maybe disappointment. But I think that the story — this story that we have today, this passage that we read and that we love to read — and to be honest, this is one of my favorite stories in the scripture. This story helps us to connect things and to look into the patterns of both God's work of salvation and life, but also the world's — the world's logic of despair and death.

 

I was intrigued as I was reading the passage. I was intrigued, and I believe you there are parts in this story that also call your attention, but this time for me it was the line that says, "But their eyes were kept from recognizing him." Their eyes were kept from recognizing him. And the question then is, what kept their eyes from seeing him or recognizing him? What do you think? What could have been that prevent them, or kept them from recognizing Jesus?

 

Fear. Fear. Despair. Despair.

 

Grief.

 

So if I try to now look at where we are now, as we are sitting here in this place, as we are living in this community — what is what makes it hard for us to recognize Jesus here, in our lives, in our journeys?

 

What keeps our eyes from recognizing —

 

Busyness? Busyness.

 

Say again. Commitment. Commitment. Comfort zone. We find our little rooms in our comfort zone. As we were saying last Sunday, we can fix it ourselves. Say again. Think that we can fix it ourselves. Could be —

 

Science. Science. Science. Disbelief. Yeah.

 

Well, let me see if I can maybe offer a perspective here. Maybe the reason that we don't recognize Jesus in our midst, in our lives, is because — look at — we try — we tend — we are pushed to look at Jesus through the different lenses, and the most prominent lenses that we are being pushed to use to look at Jesus is that you look through the blue or red lenses today. We push Jesus — the society, the culture — push, push, push us to see Jesus through the blue and to the red lenses.

 

So we are looking at him with a different perspective. We make him fit the human social political constructs around us. And the second thing is that perhaps — and we don't have enough time and maybe this can be a conversation for a different setting — but in the past few couple of weeks we have seen Jesus, we have seen that the image and the name of Jesus has been used, misused, and abused.

 

And these can keep our attention, or preventing us from seeing Jesus around us, in us, around and in others.

 

The political propaganda that you and I are exposed to every single day of the week is powerful — is powerful — because that really distracts us and in some ways I believe is designed to make us walk away from the source of life, of peace, of mercy and compassion, in order that you and I can fall in one of the camps that serves the powerful in this world.

 

Those who may not care about the gift that has been given to them to serve people, but to abuse people and to suck life out of God's people.

 

And I am talking about the spectrum from red to blue.

 

When Jesus — when the — when Jesus entered Jerusalem, the entrance of Jesus in Jerusalem was, or had, an extreme powerful political dimension that the authorities — both the religious authorities and the imperial authorities — saw as a threat.

 

And the only way that they could and wanted to erase the power of this event in the life of the society was by disseminating all type of propaganda that could confuse people, put people against people, and try to erase any memory that Jesus left in the hearts of people, because he was a threat for the system.

 

So I think that that was part of the reason why these disciples could not — and in general others around them — recognize Jesus. The images, the words that were around about Jesus, I believe could have been very confusing and discouraging for people. And I believe that that's what is happening in some ways today.

 

When we read this story, Jesus teaches us — we need to remember that all the events in the life and ministry of Jesus are part of our larger reality. Their suffering, the death and the resurrection were real, were painful, were disconcerting, were disorienting, and discouraging. And like the disciples at that time, you and I are on our own road to Emmaus.

 

So this story, for me, my siblings in Christ, is a reminder that we cannot see things as isolated events. As the young worshippers reminded us this morning, we need to know and to remember the middle of the story to be able to understand where we are at, and why, and what we are called to be and to become. Jesus helps them to make connections at that time — look at the patterns that reorient them and reorient us — to look with a different perspective, to make things clearer.

 

Today we are reminded by this story that Jesus comes to them in a personal and intimate moment that brings back the memories and that helps them to see the broader events into the patterns that they are going to receive and to hold dear in their hearts. Resurrection, my siblings in Christ — I believe that Jesus is reminding us — is not only what happened to us, or what happened to the disciples at that time, but what happened in us and what happened to the disciples at that time. Resurrection is — as one of the members of the council said last Thursday — a way of life. It's not only a way of life, but a way of living every day.

 

So one way to be resurrection people — and remember, last Sunday I was talking and I was inviting you to be dangerous resurrection people who were not going to allow the powers of this world to pull us back in the room, to pull us back in the tomb — if we want to be these dangerous resurrection people, it is by accompanying one another in the way that Jesus accompanied these disciples. Building one another up with words of encouragement.

 

One example that I want to share with you is something that was shared again last Thursday in our council meeting. Every council meeting we have a question that initially was called like an icebreaker, but later became more as the question that helps us to open up and to really live into what this jar shows here — which is to really look through the golden grace of God in our lives. And the question last Thursday was, "How are you practicing resurrection?"

 

So in answering that question, one of the members of the congregation shared that he works in an environment that does not allow people — and especially he and his co-workers — to really have joyous moments of sharing and talking and really, you know, be themselves. It is a very — I would say — restricted and strict environment where they need to work. Knowing that they cannot do that, he and some of his co-workers decided that — to be eight hours working like this every day where we cannot even talk, where we cannot smile, where we cannot interact, where we cannot just be ourselves — we need to do something about it. So, what we are going to do is we're going to make a covenant with each other. And the covenant is that by the end of the shift, what we are going to do is that we are going to laugh and laugh and say something that makes us joyous, going into the world remembering that we need to remain in that environment that is dry and difficult.

 

This was shared by our dear brother Mark Burrquist. And when I heard his story, I thought — I think that that's what happened that day when Jesus stayed with the disciples at home, eating dinner, or breakfast, or — I don't know — brunch or, um, dinner. I don't know what he was eating. I believe that when they were eating, and then Jesus broke the bread, and they — when they had heard the middle of the story and all the words and the parts and the events start coming together — they were just bursting in joy and laughter. A laughter that was just contagious, something that opened up their eyes to the reality of a God who has broken into a world that again tries to push us and to bring us back to the tomb, into the darkness and into the coldness.

 

And these disciples were ready and said, "Weren't our bones on fire? Our spirits on fire?" When he was telling them this story, the disciples were laughing, dancing, unable to contain the power of the transformation that they had just experienced as Jesus helped them to see the whole picture and connect the stories in his words.

 

So, my resurrection people — as I told the young worshippers today — the stories are coming together. The bread is going to be broken, and you and I who are walking on our own road to Emmaus are going to be part of this party. My prayer is that by the end we can laugh. Not a laughter of discounting, ignoring, covering, or pretending that we are not going through difficult times, but the type of laughter that tells us that there is hope and that there is nothing that is going to separate us from the love of God and put us back into that tomb again — and that you and I are going to leave this place with our hearts burning to share with others, as I told the young worshippers.

 

So — Richard Rohr — and with this I conclude — reminds me, as I was reading one of the reflections that I receive, you know, day by day. Richard Rohr, Father Richard Rohr, says that we do not need to wait for death to experience resurrection. Resurrection happens now. Resurrection happens every time that we love someone, even when they are not very loving to us. At that moment, we have been brought to a new life. Resurrection happens every time when we decide to trust and begin again instead of retribution and vengeance, even after repeated failures. At that moment, we have been resurrected. Resurrection happens every time when we refuse the propaganda that turns us inwardly and makes us negative, cynical, and hopeless. We have experienced the risen Lord.

 

Resurrection is possible now, my siblings in Christ. So the question for us is: how are you practicing resurrection? How will we practice resurrection for the next six days, as we continue, and as we are church?

 

And the good news, my siblings in Christ, is that Jesus accompanies us, but never leaves us where he finds us in our journey. And that is good news. And for that we say, thanks be to God. Amen.


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