Have you ever found yourself in a situation, as I did this week, where it took you a while to figure out what was really going on even though it was unfolding before you?

On Thursday last I attended the annual Parliamentary Prayer Breakfast in the West Block of the House of Commons. This is an annual event, by invitation from parliamentarians, attended by several hundred people. It is one of those must-be-seen-at events at which there is not much praying but a good deal of talk about how important prayer is to the nation and especially in support of parliamentarians. Each year they invite a theme speaker. This year they had two theme speakers, a Vancouver policeman talking about his work in apprehending drug and sex dealers and a women in her 30's who has founded an organization for female sex trade workers.

But there was a curious thing about the presentation. First, Sergeant-detective Lang would speak for a couple of minutes, and then Catherine Williams-Jones would speak. Their presentations were largely anecdotal, that is real-life stories of the human tragedy that unfolds on city streets every day. It wasn't until they were both well into their alternating presentations that it dawned on me why they were presenting in this manner.

You see, the 12 year old run away whom the sergeant had rescued from certain death on the streets of Vancouver was, of course, the other speaker, Catherine Williams-Jones, who has turned her life around and founded BC's only full continuum care facility for sexually exploited female youth.

For me it was a moment of ah-ha when I realized why they were standing there together and presenting in that manner. It was a effective approach which lifted this social problem out of the abstract and gave it flesh and blood- and most of all hope.

Our gospel this morning was a similar kind of experience for the two disciples on the road to Emmaus. Although they were walking with the Risen Lord they did not, at first, recognize him -it took a while for the penny to drop.

Like last week's gospel about Thomas, it is a story about our struggle to believe, to open their hearts and lives to the living God in our midst.

This inability to acknowledge what is plainly before us reminds me of the story of the woman who took her duck to the vet. She placed the limp duck on the vet`s table and the vet pronounced the duck dead. The woman said, "How can you be sure he is dead, you haven`t done any testing on him or anything? He might just be in a coma or something."

The vet rolled his eyes, turned around and left the room. He returned a few minutes later with a black Labrador retriever. The dog sniffed the duck from top to bottom, looked at the vet with sad eyes and shook his head. The vet patted the dog and took it out and returned moments later with a cat. The cat jumped up on the table and sniffed the duck. Then the cat sat back on its haunches, shook its head, and strolled out of the room.

"Your duck is definitely dead" said the vet to the woman. The vet then turned to his computer and produced a bill for his services.

"$850!" cried the woman. "$850 just to tell me my duck is dead?" The vet shrugged, "I'm sorry, if you 'd taken my word for it the bill would have been $20, but the $850 is to pay for the Lab report and the Cat Scan!"

It's true, sometimes we just cannot believe what we see or are told. Sometimes we just cannot take in the full meaning of what is happening to us or around us.

This is where symbols become an important element in our lives. Symbols go beyond words. Symbols have the capacity to bear a multitude of meanings, feelings, and memories. Symbols have the power to draw us together around a shared meaning. For the disciples journeying with Jesus on the road to Emmaus, it was when Jesus took the bread, blessed and broke it, that their eyes were opened and they recognized them. Such was the power of that symbolic act linking them to the Passover and to their last night with him before the crucifixion.

The death of Pope John Paul II has demonstrated the power of a symbol. The adulation and response to his death this week has been astonishing and not just a little perplexing to Protestants who generally are not given to such veneration of the dead and for whom the Pope is not our leader. Indeed, now that the funeral eulogies are over, we shall begin to get a somewhat more balanced assessment of his papacy. I know that there are many people in this church who are here because they could no longer tolerate the regime of power and dogma which he held in place. But that acknowledged, surely we all can see the importance of that office throughout the world whether one is a Roman Catholic or not.

All ancient symbols have an ambivalent nature to them. They carry, for better and for worse, the weight of history, and are shaped by the strengths and weaknesses of those who hold a symbolic office. For some the monarchy, for example, is an inspiration, the bearer of tradition, dignity, stability and moral example. For others, it represents unearned privilege and power based on ethnicity, social status, and wealth. Throughout the world, the cross, for some is symbol of faith and salvation, for others, sadly, it is a symbol of oppression and persecution.

For Anglicans, Protestants and Eastern Orthodox Christians, the papacy symbolizes, still, the long-standing grievances which caused the various separations from the Church of Rome which have occurred over the last 900 years. The papacy was certainly not the only cause of these divisions but it remains an enduring obstacle to Christian unity.

In the last 40 years there have been important international commissions established between the Church of Rome and other Christian Churches. And all of the popes since Pope John XXIII, in the 1960's, have advocated bridge building with non-catholic Christians thus fulfilling the important role of the pope as pontiff, a title which means bridge builder. International theological commissions like the Anglican -Roman Catholic International Commission, have worked hard at overcoming ancient differences and misunderstandings. Many of you can remember, as I can, a time when feelings of animosity were strong and widespread between Roman Catholics and other Christians. As a child I remember the tension caused when a Roman Catholic married a Protestant. I remember the resentment of Protestants at the insistence they convert and sign over their children. Among Protestants this was seen as a violation of their personal conscious and freedom of religion. Protestants resented the refusal of Roman Catholics to even darken the door of a Protestant Church because they were taught that Protestant Churches were not really churches at all.

Well, I am glad to say, that most of this suspicion and animosity has disappeared. This is all excellent. But despite the commissions and cordial gatherings, the disagreement over the role of the pope remains in place with little or no progress to report. And certainly little progress in this matter can be attributed to the papacy of John Paul II. The bridge building begun by Pope John XXIII has stalled. The Roman Catholic Church still does not recognize the validity of Anglican orders (bishops, priests, and deacons) and, in the year 2000, Pope John Paul II signed a declaration, entitled Dominus Jesus, re-iterating the traditional Roman Catholic Church view of itself as is the true church and that unity can only come when separated Christians acknowledge the supremacy of the Pope. For the world's 600 million non-catholic Christians this is not going to happen with a papacy as it presently exercised.

In the long haul of church history, the healing that has taken place amongst Roman Catholic, Orthodox, Anglican and Protestant Christians in the last 40 years relations will surely be seen as nothing less than another reformation. These day there seems to be little difference between Anglican and Roman Catholic worship but behind these outward forms is a whole world of difference in our understanding of how the church should be run.

For non-catholics the most important of the ancient grievances has not been addressed. And that is the issue of the papacy. Yes, there are other issues but the biggest of them all, in my view, is the papacy as it is presently constituted.

And what exactly is the fundamental problem? In a word, it is the exercise of authority. Non-catholics simply cannot accept the present concentration of power in the papacy. We cannot accept the exclusion of all but the hierarchy from decision- making and we cannot accept the stifling of dissent which results from the present Roman Catholic system of government. Even in the midst of our own present dilemma over authority within the world wide Anglican Communion, few of us would tempted to consider that the papal solution to controversy and dissent is an acceptable alternative.

Pope John Paul II has left behind a fine legacy of good. He stood for life and human dignity and advocacy for the voiceless. But for many, the exercise of these values is not evident in the way in which he exercised his power within the Roman Catholic Church.

Many non-catholic Christians can recognize the power, both moral and political, of the papacy, and are able to join in the mourning of his passing. As an Anglican, I can see the immense potential for good in a universal Christian leader like the Pope. But I dream of a remodelled papacy. It is my sincere prayer that the Holy Spirit will raise up for all Christians a new pope who will strive to introduce a new model. Maybe then we can anticipate a new flowering of harmonious Christianity.

The events of the past week have shown us all that there is a deep craving for a symbol of moral and spiritual authority. The Christian religion is deeply incarnational. That is, we believe that God was present in Jesus and therefore, we believe that God can also be present in us. The body of Christ, the church, is all baptized persons and thus the authority of Christ is to be exercised through the whole body not by just a few. Each and every one of us is responsible for the governance of the church and this must be expressed in the way in which authority over doctrine and leadership is determined.

Every time we gather for worship we remember that God wants to be enfleshed in us, that God can be present through physical things like our bodies, in bread and wine, in the laying on of hands, and in the community we create in Christ's name.

As Christians we yearn to see the compassion and mercy of God embodied in someone in our time even as God was embodied in Jesus Christ. We can see God embodied in John Paul II, so full of grace and yet, like we ourselves, so prone to failure as well.We yearn to see God incarnate in the events of our time, someone like Jesus, warm as the human touch and struggling with the human condition. We yearn for a sense of God's presence that dogmas and religious institutions alone cannot communicate.

The two disciples on the road to Emmaus thought that they had lost God`s presence when Jesus was crucified. But to their great surprize they learned, as we have, that through the symbol of the breaking of bread the Risen Lord is not lost but still present in them and in the community drawn together to share the broken bread.

May the Holy Spirit bless the Universal Church with a new era of Christian cooperation and unity with election of a new Pope.