Recognized at the Table
Luke 24:28–35 (CEB)
Beige vs. Bread
When I was thirteen, church was beige.
Beige walls. Beige sermons. Beige Styrofoam coffee. Beige carpet people argued over.
One afternoon after youth group, an older woman told me about losing her father. Not in Christianese. Not with tidy words. With raw, messy tears. And she said, “The church carried me.”
That moment cracked open the beige.
Faith wasn’t polite. Faith wasn’t neat. Faith was carbs, tears, and something you could hold in your hands. Faith could go rainbow in an instant.
And now, as a gay man in my late forties, I can tell you: faith is rarely neat. It shows up in the weird, the awkward, the sticky, the unexpected. And that’s exactly where God loves to meet us.
The Verbs of Emmaus
Luke doesn’t give us abstract concepts; he gives us verbs:
He acted.
They urged.
He went in.
He took. He blessed. He broke. He gave.
Their eyes were opened.
They recognized.
He disappeared.
They got up. They returned.
They found. They described.
Faith isn’t beige. Faith is motion. Urging, breaking, recognizing, returning.
👉 Reflection Question: Which verb feels like your faith right now?
Recognizing Jesus
Notice: they didn’t recognize Jesus in a lecture. Not even in scripture study.
They recognized him when bread was broken.
God doesn’t wait for stained-glass moments. God shows up in pita that tears unevenly, in juice that drips sticky down your fingers, in crumbs scattered on the floor.
This is the Reformed promise: Christ is present in ordinary means—here in the bread, here in the cup, here in our messy, real lives.
Communion: Weird, Messy, and Real
Let’s be honest: Communion is messy.
You tear a chunk of pita. You dip it in juice. You eat it in front of strangers. Someone bumps your elbow. Crumbs fall. Juice stains your shirt.
But maybe that’s the point.
Christ’s body wasn’t politely sliced into cubes. It was ripped open. Torn. Public. Bloody.
And God says: This mess is how I’ll feed you. This mess is how I’ll save you.
When you taste the bread and juice, you taste grace. You taste forgiveness. You taste love—even if you feel undeserving.
Recognizing Christ in the World
Here’s the dangerous part: if you recognize Jesus in pita and juice, you’ll start recognizing him elsewhere.
In the woman sleeping under the overpass.
In the immigrant family waiting in a detention center.
In the addict who relapsed again.
In the trans teen locked out on prom night.
In the person you swore you’d never forgive.
If Christ is in this torn bread and shared cup, Christ is in them too.
👉 Reflection Question: Where might God be asking you to recognize Christ in someone you normally overlook?
Closing Challenge
Luke’s verbs become ours:
He acted. They urged. He blessed. He broke. He gave. They recognized. They returned. They described.
And now: we act. We urge. We bless. We break. We give. We recognize. We return. We describe.
So here’s the challenge:
Recognize Christ outside the sanctuary—at the kitchen table, at the school drop-off, at the shelter, even in the face of the person who makes your blood boil.
Spill some grace. Don’t wipe it off.
Get up. Return. Find. Describe.
Because if Christ is made known at the table, Christ will be made known in us.
May the world recognize him—because they met him in you.
Amen.
