Stay With Us
This sermon invites listeners into the Emmaus story not as observers, but as companions on the road. Inspired by the Ignatian Examen, it explores how Christ meets us not in certainty but in brokenness and quiet recognition. In the breaking of bread and turning back toward life, we discover that even in what we had hoped would be different, God is still drawing near.
The Glimpses of Grace podcast is a ministry of Grace Episcopal Church in Gainesville, Georgia. We are passionate about supporting the spiritual growth of souls, and we hope these sermons and conversations meet you where you are and enrich your soul as we all continue to make meaning in the world today.
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Transcript
Today’s Gospel is a story about recognition—
it’s the kind of story that asks to be experienced, not explained.
So I want to invite us to enter it:
Taking in deep breaths, I calm my mind, body, and spirit.
I recognize the presence of God with me.
I ask God to lead this prayer in me.
I don’t rush myself.
And as I settle, I notice a road.
A long road stretching out ahead—
dusty and familiar in the way grief can feel familiar.
Two figures walk. I sense they are walking away…
away from hope as they understood it,
away from everything they thought would change the world.
I let myself walk with them.
I thank God for taking me—for claiming me—for calling me by name.
I notice that these two on the road have been taken too.
Called. Chosen. Drawn into something that is hard to understand. They had given time, they had established trust, they had imagined a future. They had believed that God was doing something new—
and that they were a part of it.
Now?
They are walking away.
Still taken. Still claimed.
But unsure of what that means anymore.
I think about my own life.
The ways God has called me.
Moments that felt clear, unmistakable—
where you belong, when you have a sense of who you are.
I wonder:
What happens when the road turns?
When what I thought God was doing…doesn’t unfold in the way I expected?
But God has taken me. And I thank God for all the blessings of this life… when I notice something: They are not alone.
A stranger comes near. Walks with them. Listens. Asks questions. The stranger’s presence and perspective opens their hearts in a new way.
I think about the blessings I almost missed—
Conversations that changed me.
People who showed up at just the right time.
Moments when something stirred in me, even if I couldn’t name why.
I wonder if blessing often looks like this:
Not in the certainties of life. Not with clarity.
But companionship.
A presence that walks beside us before we have the words to call it God. How have I been blessed in ways I didn’t immediately recognize? I stay there to hold gratitude.
“We had hoped…,” they say.
Just those three words and things comes into focus.
We had hoped.
That things would be different.
That suffering would end.
That death wouldn’t have the final word.
But hope, it seems, has been crucified.
I know those words too.
We had hoped…
That the world would be kinder.
That the relationship would last.
That the diagnosis would be different.
That God would show up in the way that we expected.
But instead: there is violence, loss, confusion, silence.
I wonder:
Where has my heartbreak made it hard to see God?
Where have disappointments narrowed my spiritual imagination? I take a long, compassionate, honest look at my brokenness.
I won’t fix it. I won’t rush it. Not right now.
I just want to hold the truth.
And something shifts on the road.
Not suddenly. It’s gradual, in fact, quiet.
They invite the stranger to stay.
It’s hard to remember the simple act of hospitality.
And in that small, human, ordinary gesture—
He takes bread. Blesses it. Breaks it. Gives it.
And suddenly—they recognize him.
Their brokenness didn’t disqualify them from this encounter.
It prepared them.
Because they knew what it was to be disappointed.
They knew the anxiety of disorientation.
They knew what it was to desire something more.
They knew what it was to say: stay with us.
I think that’s how we are given to the world too.
Because we are not people who have it figured out.
We are people always trying to make sense of this journey.
Any time we think we have answers, more questions present themselves. We are people who have known hope and loss….
yet still make room at the table.
We try to make sense through our senses:
the beauty of seeing a mountain, the beauty of hearing favorite music, the beauty of tasting an orange.
But maybe my brokenness gives me a sense beyond senses to recognize God… myself…
in the stranger, the weary, the one who always says, we had hoped.
My life becomes a gift, not in spite of my wounds, but through them. I imagine it.
Small acts of welcome.
Yes, moments of listening, seeing…but mostly of being.
Tables where all are seen, known, not alone.
I thank God for this.
And like the disciples—I feel something stirring, a turning.
Because the story doesn’t end at the table.
They get up.
They return.
They go back to Jerusalem—a place of fear, of failure—
but now they have a story to embody:
We have seen…we have known…we have been with the Lord.
And I wonder what it might look like for us
to return to those places we have given up on—
places of fear, failure, where we’ve closed the doors of our heart, because Christ has met us on the way.
No one is alone.
Jesus.
On the road.
In the questions, in the doubt.
In the yearning heart.
In the breaking of bread.
Stay with us.
Amen.