The Third Sunday of Easter - Luke 24:13-35 - The Rev. Colette Hammesfahr

 

I was in the office on Monday afternoon when my cell phone rang. It was 4:08. The man on the other end of the line said he had searched the internet for someone who could pray for his mother. He asked, “Do you do that?” I said, “Yes,” and asked for a little more information. His mother was in the Critical Care Unit at the hospital and was brain dead. He wanted me to go and pray for her. I said I would go and asked if he wanted last rites for her. He said, “No maam, I want prayers of hope.”

I told him I couldn’t go right away and couldn’t go on Tuesday. The earliest I could go was Wednesday morning. He said he would call me right back. Less than 30 seconds later he called me back and said Wednesday would be fine. I told him I would be there at 9:00 am. I got his name and his mother’s name. Her name was Margaret. He texted me after the call, asked my name, and thanked me.

 I got up on Wednesday and had prepared my “chaplain” speech for the family. I knew that what they were hoping for was not going to happen. Margaret was probably not going to come back from whatever had happened. I was prepared to ask them the “what if” question…“What if Margaret isn’t healed?”

 As I pulled into St. Joseph’s I noticed two African-American women standing in the parking lot on their cell phones. I thought to myself, “Wouldn’t that be interesting if those were relatives of Margaret?” whom I was about to see. From her son’s accent, I figured that Margaret was African-American. I walked past the women and headed into the hospital; they were following behind me. We lost one another among the twists and turns of the hallways. I stopped at the CCU door and rang the buzzer. The two women who had been outside, stopped at the door as well. I said, “Hello” and they returned the greeting.

When I walked through the doors, I turned to go to the nurse’s station, and they went straight down the hall. I asked for Margaret’s room and was directed around the corner and down the hall. When I got there, the same two women from the parking lot were standing in the hall near her door. I asked, “Are you Margaret’s family?” They were. One lady was her sister and another an aunt. Neither of them knew who I was or why I was there. I introduced myself as Rev. Colette and I told them I was the one who had been called to come pray for Margaret. They were not aware that anyone had called a priest.

At that moment I couldn’t remember the son’s name but I showed them the phone number, which they didn’t recognize. A few minutes later, Margaret’s fiancé walked up. He didn’t know who had called me either. They were gracious and thanked me for being there.

As our greetings to one another went on, things started happening in Margaret’s room. There were lights blinking and machines beeping. Nurses were walking fast in and out of the room. I stood by silently while the family talked on multiple cell phones at one time trying to keep family updated. Soon a doctor walked into the room and a few minutes later he called the family in. I walked to the door but didn’t enter. The sister waved to me and said, “You can come in with us.”

The doctor said they were doing all they could, but Margaret was dying. She was only 45. The only thing keeping her alive was the ventilator. I stood silently by the bedside with my arms around total strangers, as they cried and wished Margaret back to good health. I went to her side, anointed her forehead, and prayed a prayer for healing and peace. Five minutes later, the nurse came to her bedside and found that there was no longer a heartbeat, Margaret had died.

Five of us stood at her bedside as I gave Margaret last rites. I hugged each family member and wished them God’s peace before I left. I walked out of the hospital never knowing the names of anyone in the room, except for Margaret’s.

I walked to my car and sat there for a moment, exhausted, going through what had just happened during the last 45 minutes. As I drove off, I started thinking about this walk to Emmaus in Luke’s Gospel. Three people walking along a road, two of them not recognizing the third. Today, three people walking along a sidewalk, and through hospital hallways, two of them not recognizing the third. The third, sent to draw near and walk with them. There was no clear sender, no clear connection, and no expectation from the family. Yet, I was there exactly when I was needed.

 Luke says, “Their eyes were kept from recognizing him.” No one knew who I was. Yet, I was welcomed into a sacred moment, standing with strangers at the threshold of life and death. In Emmaus, the recognition doesn’t come at the beginning, it comes later in the story, in the breaking of the bread. In my case, the recognition wasn’t about me…it was about what God was doing in that room. I wasn’t the priest that they knew -- I was the Church showing up. And even that is too much to claim because God was already there. I just stepped into what God was doing.

 In the Emmaus story, Jesus walks with them in their grief but the turning point in the story is at the table, with the blessing and the breaking of the bread. The “breaking of bread” moment in that room was during the last rites and prayers of commendation, when Margaret crossed from this life into the promised life. At that moment, the resurrection hope was given…..when hope felt most impossible.

In Emmaus, the disciples say, “Were not our hearts burning within us?” The moment was disorienting, quiet, and very, very heavy. The room was filled with the Holy Spirit.

I shared the story with the Wednesday Healing Service, to help me unpack my morning. Someone brought up beautiful imagery of how we are sometimes the vessel in which the Holy Spirit works. Often we think of ourselves as the two disciples walking down the road, and the Holy Spirit working on us. Sometimes God sends someone to walk alongside another in their grief. But every now and then, we find ourselves being the one sent. Not because of anything special about us but because God is already at work in that moment. And that’s not work just reserved for a priest. It’s the work all of us are called to do, to be the vessel. That is Holy Work, to be the vessel.

When I got to my office on Wednesday, I texted her son and said how sorry I was. He never replied. I’ve been checking the internet for an obituary, so I can learn more about Margaret but nothing’s been posted. I’ve been wondering ever since…how he got my cell number. It’s not on our website. I didn’t meet him at the hospital. No one knew I was coming. I don’t know why I was the one who showed up. But I do know this – that morning in that hospital room, God was already there before I arrived. In the grief. In the silence. In the prayers. In the breaking of that final moment between life and death. God is always there with us.

I don’t tell you this story because I did something remarkable. I tell you this because God did. And maybe that’s how it is, more often than we realize. God shows up in ways we don’t control or understand. It’s only afterwards when we begin to see our hearts were burning within us. Amen.