Down the Road

April 23, 2023
St. John’s United Church of Christ, Union, Illinois

Luke 24:13-35[1]

Our church is in a time of transition, the ending of a chapter. We are reflecting on what we have experienced over the past few years together. We are anticipating what will change, and cherishing the time we have together. Like travelers on the road, we have walked together for a time, and we will part ways, changed by the experience.

This passage from Luke would actually fit chronologically before the story from last week. In Luke’s telling, the women who go to the tomb in the early morning see only two men in dazzling clothes; they do not encounter the risen Jesus. This journey to Emmaus reflects the ambiguous time between the empty tomb and the appearance of Jesus to the disciples and Thomas behind locked doors.

As they travel, the two disciples converse about the dramatic events of the past few days. When the stranger joins them, the recount the mission of Jesus and the events of the passion, but without fully understanding their meaning.

Luke’s Gospel sets the entire story in the context of journey, the journey from Galilee to Jerusalem, and in the following story of Acts, the journey of the early community from Jerusalem “to the ends of the earth.”[2] The early Christians were known as the people of the Way, or people of the journey. As one scholar describes it, “For Luke the journey of Jesus and of the church itself expresses the unfolding history of salvation that finds its origin In Israel and through the Spirit extends salvation to the ‘ends of the earth.’”[3]

What Jesus interpreted to them from the scriptures, from Moses and all the prophets, is the story of God’s saving work revealed through the people and history of Israel. God’s story is one of life emerging from death, of the journey of renewal, reconciliation, and transformation. As Jesus reveals the connections between the story they know and the story they have just witnessed, they begin to understand the meaning of Jesus’ death and resurrection. Here is some of what they might have heard.

The story of the Exodus from Egypt is a story of bondage, liberation, a journey, and a destination. It begins with the Hebrews as slaves in Egypt. Daily life was hard labor with perhaps enough food to survive on, but not much more. By means of the plagues, God liberates the people from Pharaoh. They are led into the wilderness by Moses. There they journey for forty years toward the Promised Land.

This story suggests that the human condition is slavery or bondage. You and I are in bondage to many things, such as cultural messages about what we should be like, what it means to be successful, attractive, and to live the good life. We can also be enslaved to fears, addictions, or other kinds of oppression. We might be trapped by debt, or the fear of losing employer-supplied health insurance. The story of Moses and the people seeking freedom remains a particularly poignant one for the descendants of African slaves in America.

God’s salvation comes as the people are led from bondage to liberation, leaving Egypt and Pharaoh. It also involves a journey through the wilderness. It is in the wilderness where God is encountered and known. It can also be a place of fear and anxiety where we sometimes find ourselves longing for the security of Egypt, of the familiar things of the past. But the wilderness is also a place where we are nourished by God and where God journeys with us. The destination is life in the presence of God.

This congregation is faced with a journey through the wilderness. As the Hebrews were not always content with the leadership of Moses, you may find that new leaders make you long for the familiarity of the past. But on that wilderness journey you will be nourished by the manna of God, and led to a new experience of the presence of God promised through the ages.

Through the prophets we learn of the Exile. The exile began in 587 BCE, when, after Jerusalem and its temple were conquered and destroyed by the Babylonians, some of the survivors were marched into exile in Babylon some 800 miles away. There they lived as refugees, far from home and oppressed. Fifty years later, the Babylonian Empire was conquered by the Persians, who allowed the Jews to return to their homeland.

We live in a time when millions of exiles and refugees know this experience firsthand. It is an experience of separation from all that is familiar. People contend with powerlessness and often oppression and victimization. There is sadness, loneliness, and grief. It is a yearning for home and a place where we belong. It can also mean the loss of meaning or a sense of purpose. These feelings may be familiar to us as familiar ways of working, learning, gathering, and traveling are changing.

God’s salvation from exile leads the people on a journey of return. The religious life is a journey to the place where God is present, a homecoming, and God assists those who undertake the journey. As God spoke through the prophet Jeremiah, “I will bring you back to the place from which I sent you into exile.”[4] We may ask, like the exiles, “How could we sing the Lord’s song in a foreign land?”[5] Perhaps in the days ahead we will sing a new song, a song of joy as we see familiar places in a new light.

Another way in which we understand salvation comes from the days of the temple, the priesthood, and sacrifice. It is a story of sin, guilt, sacrifice, and forgiveness. When we people turn away from God, we are in a state of sin and brokenness. When we are lost from the ways of God we need to return to God, to repent, to be cleansed, washed, or covering over. When we have done wrong, we need forgiveness. We need to sacrifice to God to make up for what we have done wrong. Since the early Middle Ages, some Christians have understood Jesus as the dying savior whose death is a sacrifice for our sins, thereby making our forgiveness by God possible. “Jesus died for our sins.”

This image of Jesus is powerful, and can be a sign of God’s great love for us, as we know from John 3:16, “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.” The message is simple, direct, and radical: we are accepted, just as we are. Our own sense of sin, impurity, and guilt need not stand between us and God. New beginnings are possible.

Each of these stories is part of the grand story of God’s work of salvation. For some of us, the need is liberation; for others, the need is homecoming; and for still others, the need is acceptance. Each of these stories helps us to understand what it means to be Christian, living life as a journey whose central quality is a deepening and transforming relationship with God.

Where do we go from here? The story doesn’t end with supper that night in Emmaus. That was a moment of revelation, a vision of the living Christ in the breaking of the bread. It was also a moment of understanding that their journey was not ended, but just beginning.

The story of Jesus is the story of discipleship. The word disciple means “a follower after somebody.” Discipleship is a following after Jesus, a journeying with Jesus. It is a journey, not alone, but in the company of fellow disciples. The Christian life is about being in relationship with God, which transforms us into more and more compassionate beings, changing into the likeness of Christ.

Our journey also continues, and though we can’t see the future, we can think about what is coming down the road. Things won’t be the “normal” we had before. The disciples didn’t just go back to fishing. There will be changes in our lives. If nothing else, we will see and appreciate what makes us a unique people, what binds us together, and how our very beings are being transformed by the company of those who travel down the road with us.

I hope that down the road you will realize your interconnectedness in new ways, and be more grateful for all the people who come in and out of your lives. I hope that when you break bread together, the living Christ will be made known to you. And I pray that you will continue on in the Way, the journey which takes us all ever-closer to the One who saves us.  Amen.

---

[1] The scripture quotations contained herein are from the New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright © 1989 by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the U.S.A.  Used by permission.  All rights reserved.

[2] Acts 1:8.

[3] Donald Senior, Exegetical Perspective on Luke 24:13-35 in Feasting on the Word: Preaching the Revised Common Lectionary, Year A, Vol. 2, David L. Bartlett and Barbara Brown Taylor, General Editors (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2010), p. 421.

[4] Jeremiah 29:14.

[5] Psalm 137:4.

You Could Have It All

March 6, 2022 – Lent 1
St. John’s United Church of Christ, Union, Illinois

Luke 4:1-13[1]

It’s testing time in schools. Well, it’s always testing time in schools, but when the standardized tests come around, things get more test-focused. Schools began to prepare their students for the state-developed tests that determine whether a student will transition to the next grade level and whether the school itself will be rated as successful. Tests, however imperfect, give us data, hard numbers we can use to make decisions. They can also reveal where help is needed. A good test helps us understand how to improve the teaching to better meet the needs of the student.

The kind of test that Jesus faces in the wilderness is a bit different. This is more of a battle of wits, or perhaps of willpower. We learn from this test that the devil is smart. He knows the Bible verses he needs to put Jesus to the test. We also learn that the devil is not sure of who Jesus is. Jesus knows how he is, and passes the test – not by giving the right answers, showing his power – but by holding firm to his purpose which is not to serve himself, but to serve God.

“If you are the Son of God, command this stone to become a loaf of bread.”[2]. This is not a challenge to do something bad. This isn’t a temptation to steal bread, to take from others. It’s just a stone; turn it into bread. You’re hungry, and it will help you feel better. Of course, if you can do that to help yourself, you could feed all the hungry people in Israel. If you are the Son of God, that is. Jesus responds by quoting Moses, “one does not live by bread alone.”[3] Feeding the hungry is good, but I am here to do more than that.

“Worship me, it will all be yours.”[4] You could have it all: glory, power, all the kingdoms of the world. We both know Roman rule is terrible, you could do so much better. Just think how great everything could be! The world at your command. Just make sure you tell them who gave you your start. Jesus replies that he is not here take over the power of the kingdoms, but to place the rule of God’s kingdom in the hearts of people. “Worship the Lord your God, and serve only him.”[5] You do not have the authority you claim, for all authority belongs to God.

Throw yourself down from the pinnacle of the temple.[6] You won’t get hurt; God will send angels to protect his Son. Do it here, the temple, and all the priests will see. No one will doubt you. Jesus didn’t come to give proofs and rule the temples of the world, but the temple that is in every human heart. “Do not put the Lord your God to the test.”[7]

The devil didn’t get the answers he sought, but Jesus passed the test. He would not become a human hero, but something much more. Jesus finished the test, staying true to his mission to serve God. And though he refused to turn the stone into bread, he will feed the hungry. Though he refused power, he would proclaim the kingdom of God. Though he refused to test God’s love for him, he would demonstrate his love for God and for all of us on the cross.

The tests that we face are not the same as these. Our tests are much more mundane, but we will find ourselves in a wilderness, hungry, tired, and lonely. It may look like a waiting room in the hospital with a loved one on the brink. It may look like sheets on a cheap motel bed, or walls made of cardboard, after you lose your house. It may be a lonely walk through a full parking lot after you lose your job. It may be a wilderness of silence as you cry for help in the depths of your heart.

Sooner or later, each of us will find ourselves in a wilderness, a place or time when we have to rely not on ourselves, our own power, or the safety net that we’re used to. It is there, in the emptiness, that we may discover who we really are and what our lives are really about.

For Jesus, that six-week stretch of hunger and solitude set him free from all that would distract him from his true purpose. With no food, no earthly power, no special protection, Jesus not only learned to manage his appetites; he also learned to trust the Spirit that had led him there and would lead him out again.

We don’t always choose when to go into the wilderness. The Spirit led Jesus there, and can lead us too. And when we find ourselves there, we can try to let go of all that does not lead us toward God and toward life. We can practice hanging on to what sustains, turning toward what gives life, and resisting the temptations that lead us away from who we are. If we are patient, if we allow enough time for the wilderness to change us, we will find ourselves led through to the other side, having finished the test, and ready to trust God to guide us in all the tests to come.  Amen.

---

[1] The scripture quotations contained herein are from the New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright © 1989 by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the U.S.A.  Used by permission.  All rights reserved.

[2] Luke 4:3.

[3] Deuteronomy 8:3.

[4] Luke 4:7.

[5] Luke 4:8

[6] Luke 4:9.

[7] Deuteronomy 6:16.

A Way in the Wilderness

December 6, 2020

St. John’s United Church of Christ, Union, Illinois

Isaiah 40:1-11; Mark 1:1-8[1]

Imagine that you live in Israel, in the year 70 CE. Life is hard enough for most people, most of the time. But add to that the war. A group of radicals has revolted against the Roman occupation, and Jerusalem is under siege. Anxiety is in the air as people fear the Roman soldiers, the rebel guerillas, and the uncertainty of a world in turmoil. Some want God to bring military leaders to push the Roman Empire out of the Holy Land. Others advocate submitting to Roman rule as the only path to peace and security.

There is one group that doesn’t choose either side, the followers of a Galilean holy-man named Jesus, who was crucified some forty years ago. The rabbis say they’re heretics, the rebels dismiss them as ineffective against the Roman occupation, and the Romans assume they are continuing the insurrection of their founder. Interestingly, the followers of “the Way,” as they call themselves, say that the death of Jesus is “good news” for Israel. They make some other bold claims as well: that he was the Messiah and that he was the Son of God.

This “Son of God” business, well that’s a pretty direct challenge to the authority of Rome. That title in Latin, divi filius, is written on coins next to the images of the emperors. That’s might have been what got him killed. No one besides the Roman Emperor is supposed to call themselves the son of God.

To claim that he was the Messiah is a threat to the religious leaders, and probably doesn’t look good to the rebel zealots either. After all, the Messiah was supposed to be the return of a ruler like King David, who would restore the fortunes of Israel and usher in the reign of God. If the Messiah was crucified like a criminal, that pretty much buries any hope of getting rid of the Romans.

Sometime around the year 70, Mark wrote down his Gospel. “The beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.” From that title you might expect the story to talk of rebellion. But it begins with John the Baptizer calling for repentance. John calls people out of the city, out from their farms, into the wilderness, saying: confess your sins, be washed clean in the river, and prepare for one who is to come.

Repentance and confession sound more like bad news than good. They both require taking an honest look at ourselves and our past, and changing the direction of our lives. Yet they do speak to a longing for something different, something better. They speak to that longing within us for a deeper experience of life, for a closer connection with the holy. Repentance prepares us for the restoration of our relationship with God. We need to renew that relationship because we’re lost, lost in the wilderness, lost from who we’re supposed to be, in exile spiritually if not materially.

Mark sets the stage for what is about to unfold by taking us back to the prophets of Israel. Isaiah spoke of God restoring Israel after the exile in Babylon. In the sixth century BCE, Babylon invaded Judah, destroyed much of Jerusalem, and exiled the leading citizens to Babylon. What were once sources of stability and security – the temple, the monarchy, and the covenant – were broken, destroyed. God, it seemed, had abandoned the Israelites, or perhaps had been defeated by Marduk, the Babylonian god.

In the depths of their despair, God responds to the exiles with a word of hope. “Comfort, O comfort my people.” Isaiah offers a different source of security. Hope that is based on human institutions is destined to fail. People are corruptible and break their promises. There is only one sure source of security: “The grass withers, the flower fades; but the word of our God will stand forever.” Though everything else will fail, God’s Word endures, and God will lead us home.

Although the Jews in Mark’s time are not in exile, they are under foreign occupation, exiled in their own land. Again, the sense that God has abandoned them is palpable. John the Baptizer offers the comfort of Isaiah to these first-century exiles. “Prepare the way of the Lord.” The crowds listen to John’s words of hope. There is a way out of despair, and it is a way already known to God’s people: it is a way in the wilderness.

To be in the wilderness is, in a sense, to get lost. It is to be disturbed from our every-day, carefully ordered, predictable lives. It is to wander without a planned destination. It is to be alone, and yet open to the presence of God. There can be a peace in being alone when we realize how tiny we are, and yet we are one with the universe. In the wilderness we can be still and know the presence of God.

Many of us are living in a metaphorical wilderness, a spiritual exile. Our consumer lifestyle makes our lives into commodities to be measured by our contributions to the economy. Our thirst for ever more scarce resources has us at each other’s throats, in our communities and around the world. We can hardly find the time to share a meal with our family, to play with our children, to talk with a grandparent, or write a letter to a distant relative. Add to that our current circumstances, coping with a pandemic that we know will continue for months yet, with all the stress that is putting on our hospitals, jobs, and schools. It grows more and more difficult to keep connected to God.

It is in the loss and the feeling of being lost that we find ourselves in the wilderness. It can also be in the literal wilderness that we feel the greatest need to be with God. In his book, Renewal in the Wilderness, John Lionberger says: “This is why people, from ancient times to modern, continue to seek out the wilderness: to leave the everyday, to simplify, to open our lives to the possibility of God’s personal interest in us, and to experience the transcendent.”[2] Whether we seek out wilderness, or discover ourselves to be already lost, it is there that we are more open to God entering into our lives to transform them.

We need the wilderness, whether it is the wilderness of the natural world, or a more metaphorical wilderness of the spirit. We need to get lost from the ordinary and steep ourselves in the extraordinary. We need to encounter our mortality, to know that we are small beings in a vast creation; and we need to know that we are not insignificant in the eyes of God. We need to be shaken out of the ordinariness of our days and awaken to the peace that comes when we drink deep of the living water.

Isaiah cries out: “In the wilderness prepare the way of the Lord.” Get out of the ordinary and get ready for the extraordinary. The messenger calls to us in our spiritual exile to prepare for the one who is to come. It is in the wilderness that the path is made straight for the coming of God. John the Baptizer calls us to the wilderness to shake us from our complacency. Repent and confess your sins. Prepare for something new. Prepare the way, he says, “The one who is more powerful than I is coming after me.” Get ready for the changes that are taking place by preparing a welcome for the Lord.

So, we repent, and prepare to start anew. And it is powerful to feel the refreshing wind of the wilderness blow through us and stir the flames of our smoldering spirits. But our journey is not over once we return from the wilderness. Our personal spiritual fulfillment is not our ultimate goal. Our work has only just begun. After all, there are others around us who are still lost, who still feel exiled from God’s presence. A friend who was a professor at Iliff School of Theology in Denver, Richard Ward, wants us to know that we have a great responsibility as those who prepare the way:

We like to cast ourselves as the shepherds who hear choirs of angels broadcast the startling announcement of God’s coming. But these words are not just for us to savor like food at a holiday feast. We are in the position of the celestial ones, trying to find a way to speak the Word to God’s people.[3]

We are the angels. We are the heralds of the Messiah’s birth. “God with us is now residing,” says the hymn. God is entering into human life to bring us out of our exile. God’s compassion will bring us comfort in despair. God’s light will bring us out of the darkness of our spiritual exile. God has not abandoned us, and God’s forgiveness will restore us to right relationship. God’s peace will bring an end to the turmoil.

What hope this was to the exiles in Babylon! What joy the baptized must have felt on the banks of the Jordan. What good news this is for a world in crisis, for those who are lost in the spiritual exile of today! This Advent season is the time for us to be angels. We are the heralds who cry out in the wilderness: Behold! “To you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is the Messiah, the Lord.”[4] O come, Emmanuel. Gloria in Excelsis Deo! May the peace of Christ be with all of you. Amen.

---

[1] The scripture quotations contained herein are from the New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright © 1989 by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the U.S.A.  Used by permission.  All rights reserved.

[2] John Lionberger, Renewal in the Wilderness: A Spiritual Guide to Connecting with God in the Natural World (Woodstock, VT: Skylight Paths Publishing, 2007), p. 24.

[3] Richard F. Ward, “Homiletical Perspective on Isaiah 40:1-11” in David L. Bartlett and Barbara Brown Taylor, eds. Feasting on the Word: Preaching the Revised Common Lectionary, Year B, Vol. 1 (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2008), p. 29.

[4] Luke 2:11.