walk about

from my sermon on May 8, 2011, from Luke 24:13-35

Mother's Day....a Royal wedding...Trying to pass a budget in the State of Texas....the price of gasoline....fighting in North Africa....The killing of Osama bin Laden....All of these are current topics and important, but they are not the most important thing going on today. To get to that most important thing, I need you to take a walk with me.

Cathy and I were in Australia this past summer. You may know that the aboriginal people go on a walk about. To the British, it seemed that they were just skipping out of work, but the people were going on a spiritual journey. They went to align themselves with the forefathers and mothers. They went to the song lines of the ancient ones. They went to find out who they were and to get a vision for their lives.

Come on a walk with me. That's what is going on in this passage. Two disciples on Easter Sunday afternoon are walking towards a village called Emmaus. There is a spiritual retreat based on this passage, called the Walk to Emmaus. I want to tell you my experience.It was late April of 1985, when I was signed up for the Walk to Emmaus at our camp, Mt. Wesley in Kerrville. I left San Sabe in my brown Ford pickup and headed up that long hill on HWy 16 heading south. Just on the outskirts of town, I saw a hitchhiker. Now I hardly ever pick up hitchhikers, but I slowed down to pick up this one. Why? Was it because I was a pastor? No. Was it because I was going on a spiritual retreat? No. I picked him up because he was smaller than I was!

Where are you headed, I asked him. You can drop me in Llano, he said. We were quiet for a few minutes. Then he said, It sure does feel good to be out. OUT! What does OUT mean? What were you in? I asked. I just got out of prison. Oh, man! This IN, did it have anything to do with guns, or knives, or violence? No, it was just breaking and entering. I have heard that intoxication has a lot to do with crime. Oh, yeah, that was my story. We had been drinking and drugging and just had so much energy, we had to do something. I have heard that it is really hard in prison, with gangs, and violence, and fear. Oh, yeah, he said. I just kept my head down, did my job, and did my time. I am sober now and go to AA and check in with my parole officer.

About that time, we were rolling into Llano. I showed him where the Methodist Church was, just off the square. There are some good people there, I said.

It is said that the 2 disciples were joined by Jesus as they walked to Emmaus, but their eyes were kept from seeing him. Had this happened to me?

The Walk to Emmaus begins on a Thursday evening and goes to Sunday afternoon. It mirrors the last days of Jesus, in his passion, death, and resurrection. There are 15 talks, 5/day. Five of the talks are by clergy and 10 by laity. That sounds boring, but it wasn't. We heard a lot about grace, God's unmerited love towards us. We felt grace with all kinds of surprises and gifts. I could tell you about every one of them, because there are no secrets. But you have to be there to get it. The Walk is a short course in Christianity, where one is immersed in what in means to follow Christ. There are many in this room who have been on the Walk to Emmaus. Please stand where you are. Others of you might direct your questions to these. They would be happy to talk to you about going. You don't have to go on the Walk to be a Christian. It is a gift. When you are ready to receive it, it will be there for you.

I loved it. It was an experience of good theology and good feelings, content and emotion. It says in Luke that their hearts burned within them as Jesus explained the scriptures to them. So it was with me.We had the sacrament of communion every day. Now you may think that was boring too, but it wasn't. I can't describe to you something like "Dying Moments" communion where you give up a sin, a hurt, a grudge, a grief. We met the presence of Christ in the breaking of the bread, just as those first disciples did at Emmaus when Jesus who was the guest acted as the host, taking the bread, blessing it, breaking it, and giving it to them.

We Methodists understand communion to be a converting sacrament, where we met the risen Christ and He changes lives. Please know that all are welcome at this table today.

I got home from the retreat on Sunday night. I walked in the back door and greeted Cathy. She then told me I was supposed to call David the County Attorney as soon as I got in, no matter what time that was. David said he wanted me to serve as a guardian ad litum for a youth named John. He wanted me to be in court in the morning. On Monday morning after my Walk to Emmaus I met John. I was supposed to advise as his parent would in the court proceedings. John's mother had been killed. His father was in jail. He lived with his grandmother. John had been caught breaking into the county show barn. Do you get the symmetry? The bookends? I went to the Walk to Emmaus and picked up a guy just out of prison. I come home to meet a youth who might go to jail.

In the passage, the disciples met Jesus at Emmaus in the breaking of the bread, and they run back to Jerusalem to share this good news. But has Jerusalem changed any? When you go off and have your spiritual highs, you still have to go home, and home is still just like you left it.

So we don't just walk to Emmaus; we continue to walk about....in Jerusalem. We deal with youth who might be going to jail. Cathy and I formed a relationship with John for the years we lived in San Saba. He didn't go to jail. The last we heard he was driving a truck.

It is hard going back to Jerusalem. Jerusalem for us today might mean dealing with the killing of Osama bin Laden. Yes, there was the immediate celebration, the sense of justice being served, the feeling that we could move on now. But then, on a deeper level, we began to wonder, should we rejoice over the killing of anyone. Does the taking out of one man destroy a whole movement of anger and violence directed at us? We realize that we live in a messy and complicated world. There are no 4 spiritual laws, no 3 easy steps to guide us. We walk about in Jerusalem....but we do it with the hope of the resurrection. That is the only way we can walk about in this world is with the presence of Jesus. That's why we come to the table today, to see him here.

I think what it means for us to be Christian today means that we take on more and more of the world's pain and redeem it. It think it means that we get involved with the world's ugliness and sin. We don't just walk to Emmaus...we go back to Jerusalem and share the good news that Christ is risen. We become the embodiment of His resurrection.