by Erik Jon Strand

At the wise old age of four, my oldest son, Jacob, announced at the beginning of our family dinner that he no longer wanted to pray "Come, Lord Jesus, be our guest" — he wanted to pray "Jesus come and be our host"! Having begun to visit the homes of friends for dinner, he realized that the guest occupied a place of honor at the table. As a father and pastor, I pondered the interesting theological implications of his request, and though his reasoning seemed to center on himself, I agreed that we could rightly imagine Jesus as the host at our meals whether at home or church.

"Come and stay with us," Cleopas and his companion "strongly urge" the stranger they meet on the road to Emmaus in Luke 24:13–35. Come and stay and eat — be our guest. Had they been moved by the stranger’s teaching on the road or were they acting on their culture’s strong impulse of hospitality, or perhaps a combination of both? Come be our guest — come to our table. Soon, however, the guest becomes host as he took, blessed, broke, and gave the bread to them. Then the eyes of Cleopas and his companion are opened to recognize the presence of Jesus. The event of recognition — of perceiving, of seeing — is distilled in these phrases phrases now so familiar to us from our eucharistic table fellowship in the Body of Christ.

But the shape and pattern of the whole story fleshes out this first resurrection appearance in Luke’s Gospel. Two followers, lost in grief and disappointment, are on the road to Emmaus—a road to nowhere? Scholars are unsure of its actual location. As theologian and author Frederick Buechner has written, "Emmaus is whatever we do or wherever we go to make ourselves forget that the world holds nothing sacred: that even the wisest and bravest and loveliest decay and die" (The Magnificent Defeat, Harper and Row, 1966). As Luke’s witness makes abundantly clear, a place beside the lost and disappointed is where Jesus first ends up after the resurrection. No real surprise here — for in Luke’s Gospel we are continually presented with the searching God seeking out the lost: the shepherd and the lost sheep, the woman and the lost coin, the prodigal father and the lost sons.

A strange encounter
On the way out of town, walking away from the community that had gathered around Jesus, bereft of dreams and hopes, these two followers encounter a stranger. Luke himself can’t hold back from telling us, the readers, that the stranger is Jesus himself, seeking once again the lost — those on the fringes of the city and of life. Jesus interprets to these "dimly burning wicks" and "bruised reeds" the words of Moses and all the prophets to reveal a God whose passion is to bring reconciliation and life to them and to the world. That it was necessary that the Messiah suffer — because this God will do whatever is necessary to bring back the lost: swallowing up death, taking even death itself into God’s own experience and life, giving away God’s very self, risking God’s holiness in a prodigal mercy that defies words to explain — whatever is necessary.

Near the village now, the two of them invite Jesus to "come and be our guest." "Stay with us," they urge him. It is no surprise that Jesus ends up at the table with the lost. Just ask Zacchaeus ("Jesus has gone to be the guest of one who is a sinner," Luke 19:7) or the many others with whom Jesus breaks bread. Remember too that once at the table he proclaims to Zacchaeus that "salvation has come to this house...for the Son of Man came to seek out and save the lost." Invited as a guest, Jesus so often ends up acting as host.

Now, here, at this table, before any word of belief is spoken, before any acclamation of faith on the part of Cleopas and friend, even before their eyes could see, Jesus took bread, blessed, and broke it, and gave it to them freely — like any good host, like any merciful savior. Like the shepherd seeking his lost sheep, like the woman seeking her lost coin, like the prodigal father seeking his son. Jesus has come near to speak God’s yes to the lost.

It is then that their eyes are opened and they recognize Jesus the seeker of the lost, the one who calmed the storms, the one who is risen from the dead. It is then that they return to the community to proclaim that Jesus had been made known to them in the breaking of the bread. No longer lost, they journey back to join the community’s witness and testimony.

Our table fellowship
What happens when we pray, "Come, Lord Jesus, be our guest"? What happens when we ask this particular Jesus to come and be at our tables? What interpretations about him in all the Scriptures will we let shape our table fellowship?

Who will we let share in the meal? Do we imagine him as guest or host? Why does Luke tell us of this appearance to these lost ones before telling us that Jesus also appeared to Simon Peter? How does the breaking of the bread and its prodigal giftedness shape and pattern our participation, our table talk, and our going out from the meal?

When I was growing up, my family’s Christmas Eve dinner was an event with a clear script, menu, and guest list. The pattern was that of a family meal (although extended family were not always present), and the sum of its parts could be counted on to add up to Christmas for us. One year I came home from college to learn that my mother had invited a stranger to our Christmas Eve dinner. She had picked up this person hitchhiking!

My mother had begun a conversation with this woman and learned that she lived alone and had no relatives nearby. Once my mother learned that the woman had nowhere to go for Christmas Eve dinner, the invitation was given: "Come, be our guest. Stay with us!"

How could this be, I wondered. I knew it was the right thing to do but I certainly didn’t want it as part of my special Christmas. This invitation overturned the script that had been carefully developed over the years. But there was no way out of it! I wish I could say that it was the best Christmas Eve dinner ever and that this woman became a beloved friend of the family and part of our lives forever. That might work as a TV special, but it is not very true to human experience. It’s difficult to change the scripts we cling to. She seemed to enjoy the meal and the time with us, but I am ashamed to say that I was not particularly pleased. It is difficult to open our eyes and hearts to others.

As a family, we had always prayed, "Come Lord Jesus, be our guest, and let your gifts to us be blessed," for every meal, including Christmas Eve. What I think I failed to see was how this guest Jesus often ends up as host (and what can happen when he does!).

With Jesus as host, Luke and the other Gospel writers tell us, all kinds of people show up for the meal and the script gets rewritten. My mother couldn’t help but invite this woman to our special meal because my mother had taken the story of Jesus to heart.

Bread blessed and broken
Certainly, speaking of Jesus as our guest serves to accent our welcoming Jesus into our lives. Where it falls short is the notion that we are still the hosts who determine the guest list, the portions, and the table talk. We so often seem to believe that we must protect our meals and this Jesus from those whom we deem unworthy or those who make us uncomfortable.

Seeing ourselves as hosts of the meal, we spend an inordinate amount of energy on who gets to be in charge. We need to change our point of view. Whether at home or at the public meal on Sunday morning, we must consider what it might mean when the one we welcome as a guest becomes the host.

As host, Jesus reshapes our imaginations and opens our eyes to God’s vision. As host, Jesus offers himself to all who come to the table. As host, Jesus rewrites the guest list. At his meals, the boundaries between in and out are permeable and loose. Where Jesus is the host, all receive the same gift and the same portion. At his meals, Jesus takes bread, blesses, and breaks it, and gives it to all comers with a prodigality that takes our breath away.

Too often we forget that the meal is offered to the lost — to any and all who are traveling along the Emmaus roads of this world. Jesus as our guest too often remains under our management, but Jesus as host stretches and opens our imaginations to God’s vision and future.

Let us pray that we continue to see in his taking, blessing, breaking, and giving a vision of God’s dominion where all are welcome and all are sent to be bread for the sake of the world.

Let us pray this Easter season "Jesus, come stay with us and be our host!"

The Rev. Erik Jon Strand is pastor of Edina Community Lutheran Church in Edina, Minn