The Breaking of the Bread: A Final Sermon for Berkeley Divinity School
Across the widely divergent accounts of the resurrection of Jesus, one curiously persistent theme is that of misrecognition. In very different stories presented by authors whose theological concerns are not completely aligned, people fail to recognize Jesus. Perhaps most famously, Mary's encounter with Jesus in the garden has her taking him for one of the staff before his tender speech connects them and reveals him. Then, in the appendix to John's Gospel, in chapter 21, Jesus stands at the lakeside and speaks to the men out in the boat; they too do not recognize him until he gives them good fishing advice - certainly something of almost divine importance under any circumstances - before they come to eat his bread and fish. But this scene in Luke is the most startling, because the two who walk with Jesus do not manage to recognize him even through the time spent on the journey (apologies, Camino pilgrims), or in the extensive and presumably authoritative Bible study that they r...
