on the road to emmaus (easter 3 a)

Given by the Rev. Zane Wilemon, Apr. 6, 2008

Acts 2:14a, 36-41

Psalm 116:1-3, 10-17

1 Peter 1:17-23

*Luke 24:13-35 

I remember traveling out of the country for the first time when I was a sophomore in college.  I had just finished my finals for the year from the University of Kansas and headed off to study abroad for the summer in France.  When I was packing my bags I remember a certain excitement mixed with fear creeping over me…and then it hit me… I was really going away!  Away from family and friends, from familiar roads and currency, away from the English language…the network that I had known for 20 years of life was going to be an ocean away!  Although this did bring such thrilling images to my mind of the adventure and journey into the unknown it also brought a very real fear that I would have no one.  And then without a great deal of thought I went to my desk, pulled out my Bible and placed it in my suitcase.  Having never read the Bible except in moments of panic this was a huge step.

I also remember packing it more for protection than for a book to actually read.  However, once I arrived in my dorm room I placed it inside my closet and thought…”maybe I’ll give this thing a try”…and I did.  I don’t know what it was…the newness of all that I was seeing, the religious and spiritual undertones of the paintings in the Louvre and museums, but many days after class I would come home, throw my journal, a few snacks, my headphones and my Bible in my backpack and head out.  Often times I’d end up in a café or a park.  I remember sitting for hours people watching, reading and writing.

Countless times I’d be reading something in the Bible and come to a strange or difficult verse and go immediately to my journal asking questions.  With pen and paper I was searching out what I recall thinking the great mysteries and complexities of life.  I began to love this routine.  Time vanished.  It was often like being caught up in life’s great secret and I was in on it.  I was smack dab in the middle of searching out God’s wonders all alone.

However, returning home was not quite so romantic.  After returning to Texas and seeing family and friends it was time to return to school.  Again the drive up to Kansas was great, alone in my own world recalling fond memories from the summer and then…there I was parked out in front of the fraternity house that I belonged to.  I was shocked with feelings of dread and fear about going inside, “would I lose this new secret world”, “would I buckle under the pressures of going right back to who I was before?”  These questions rushed inside of me and I didn’t know what to do.  I decided to keep driving and did for about an hour…driving and driving around Lawrence, Kansas.  I was afraid that I would lose all that I had gained during my time away with God.

Weeks passed, months passed and with each day so did my experience.  I went right back into my old habits and as I did so did my secret world.  It left me to the point that all I really had left were fond memories and a bitterness that I had messed up.

“Were not our hearts burning within us while he talked with us on the road and opened the Scriptures to us?”  These words come from this mornings’ Gospel message.  The two men walking on the road to Emmaus received a burning presence within their hearts as they unknowingly walked with Jesus.  Jesus was hid from their eyes.  However, the words he spoke about the Scriptures produced within these two men a fire and sense of life that provoked them to want more.  Asking the man to stay longer they invited him in for supper.  It was here at supper when they broke bread that their eyes were opened and they saw that it was Jesus.

“Were not our hearts burning within us while he talked with us on the road and opened the Scriptures to us?”

Did not my heart burn within me as Jesus sat with me in those cafés and city parks as I read the Scriptures and had life’s mysteries opened to me?

How many of you can ask a similar question?  How many of you can recall a memory or moment in time when your heart was burning?  A time maybe when your soul felt stirred, possibly a moment sitting on the beach listening to the roar of the waves or during an inspiring song or at the close of a novel or movie that left your mind wondering.

Have you ever felt a moment like these two men on the road to Emmaus when you felt more alive filled with some spiritual insight?  If so what have you done with that moment?  Have those fires been flamed or did they, like mine after my return home burn out?

Fortunately for me a new summer arose after my junior year of college.  And with that another opportunity with hopeful anticipation of entering back into my secret world.  This time I traveled to Montana to work for the summer.  I was extremely anxious packing again my journal and my Bible in hopes that I would be able to find God.

Again a similar pattern…I felt so connected that summer, spending time in the mountains, reading the Bible, and journaling.  And again I returned to college with similar fears of losing all I had gained that summer.

However, after a month of slowly slipping back into my old habits I returned home to Texas.  Where I quickly found myself sitting with my Grandmother in her kitchen discussing the importance of discipline.  And I quote my Grandmother…the beautiful southern lady that she is, “if we do not instill disciplines into our daily walk with our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ we will stray!”  And with that she handed me her beat up and worn out One Year Bible in all its glory.

“Love the Lord your God, and serve him with all your heart and with all your soul…You shall put these words of mine in your heart and soul, and you shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and fix them as an emblem on your forehead.  Teach them to your children, talking about them when you are at home and when you are away, when you lie down and when you rise.  Write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.”

Thinking about what my Grandmother said about discipline I recall this Scripture in the Old Testament book of Deuteronomy where God is instructing the people of Israel how to live a holy life.  “You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and fix them as an emblem on your forehead.”  God asked them to literally bind the commandment to love him and serve him with all their hearts and with all their souls.

Have any of you ever seen photos in National Geographic or on the television of devout Jews who still practice this?  They literally have little black boxes bound to their foreheads.  Inside these boxes are little pieces of paper with the commandment “to love the Lord your God, and serve him with all your heart and with all your soul.”

When I first read this and when I first saw it I was amazed.  People literally bind things to their hands and to their foreheads as physical reminders to love God?  What a crazy and fanatic thing to do?!?!  Or is it?

Returning to Kansas after that memorable conversation with my Grandmother I gave it a whirl and started reading the One Year Bible each morning before class.  The One Year Bible sections each day out so that you read a portion of the Old Testament, New Testament and a Psalm and Proverb for everyday eventually reading the entire Bible in a year.

During this time I remember rather early on reading this very Scripture about binding the commandment to love God.  Keep in mind I was desperate.  Quickly I began wracking my brain trying to think of ways to remember the commandment to love God throughout the day.  The idea I came up with, though brilliant was quite complex.  I decided that I would write a small “J” on my hand.  Sitting in class taking notes or out at the local pub I hoped that having this little “J” would trigger my mind and help me remember to love God.

Long story short…I read that Bible for about 15 minutes every morning, wrote those little “J’s” on my hand and when I finished the Bible one year later I found myself standing in Africa working with the poor through a mission organization.

Now, did reading that Bible change my life?  Did writing those little “J’s” transform my way of thinking and living?  Well “yes” and “no.”  It wasn’t so much reading the Bible each day that changed my life, but using that time reading the Bible became time alone for me to be with God.  Having those little “J’s” on my hand helped trigger my brain to think about God.

It’s odd when I think about it now, but making those little adjustments helped move me into an awareness that was unknown to me before.  God, Jesus Christ was no longer this ideal that I hoped to know or love someday.  Jesus slowly and I stress the SLOWLY became alive.

“For we know that the law is spiritual; but I am of the flesh, sold into slavery under sin.  I do not understand my own actions.  For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate.”

These are the words of Paul in his letter to the Romans.  This text brings me such peace, because even now nine years after I started reading the Bible and writing “J’s” on my hand I still slip and fall away from the love of God…doing “the very things I hate.”  It brings me peace because even Paul, one of the greatest and most faithful followers of Jesus Christ experienced this falling away, this doing actions that he didn’t understand and hated.

However, with this peace come feelings similar to what I felt in my Grandmothers’ kitchen…that I must step up, I must keep going.  If even Paul struggled in the flesh, a disciple after God’s own heart, then the need to keep up those disciplines seems even more crucial.

Whether we like it or not this is our condition.  What I’ve come to realize is that it is not something to beat ourselves up about, but to accept and to learn how to live.  It’s a fact…I’m going to fall away, I’m going to slip, but thank God I am loved by a God who understands this nature.  Because of Christ coming to Earth, being tempted in every way that we are tempted yet did not sin, we have the ultimate gift.  God in the flesh serving as our Advocate, forgiving and loving us into newness of life.

What I understand now, that I didn’t then is that God understands our short comings and wants us to love and be loved.  However, to do this we must establish some disciplines like the people of Israel binding to their hands, their doorposts and gates and yes even their foreheads…reminding them that they are loved by God and called to love God.

After all this is why we are here.  Coming to Trinity on Sundays is a discipline.  We are reminding ourselves of WHOSE we are.  We are not the worlds’ possession, but Gods’.

This is why the clergy are here.  David, Lance, Lee and myself are here as your servants, as Gods’ servants.  However, we are dependent on you to let us know what this church needs.  What disciplines need to be offered?

Just last week we had an email going around about what kind of class Trinity needs to offer.  The vote was unanimous about getting into Scripture.  So in two weeks we will begin a Wednesday evening class to study and reflect on Gods’ word.

Establishing these disciplines, especially in community shake us up and reorder our perspectives from fear to love, from sadness to joy, from hopelessness to hope filled.

How often do we feel unlovable?  How often do we feel that we do not deserve forgiveness?  How often do we like Paul not understand why we do what we do…what we hate?  If your answer to these questions are like mine…a resounding YES…then it hits home our need to establish disciplines not for the sake of discipline and not to be a goody-goody, but to remind us that we are loved by God and called to live into a loving relationship with God.

We are fragile faulty awkward creatures who mess up.  However, we are at the same time beautiful creations of God that God wants us to know how beautiful and loved we are.  Let us then take to heart the examples and words of those who have gone before us.  Like the two men on the road to Emmaus, let us fan those burning moments in our lives that call us to live into the love of God.  As a community of faith let us learn to journey together and compel one another to be reflections of Christ in the world.

GOD LOVES US.

GOD LOVES US.

GOD LOVES US.

How are we loving God?

AMEN

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