The Rev. Fred G. Garry - April 7, 2002
Texts: 2 Samuel 7 and Luke 24 The destination was the "four
comers." This was told to me again and again. I was about
twelve, lanky and awkward. The destination was an offer. For
two weeks I would be traveling with my aunt and uncle and three
cousins in a motor home to the "four comers."
I can still remember the first time I
stepped aboard this motor home. By today's standards it was quite
modest. Yet for me it seemed like a kind of paradise. I mean
you could walk around while you motored down the road. There
was a refrigerator, a stove, and sink. There was a bathroom.
I can remember thinking, all you ever have to do is stop for
gas. You could go on forever.
The destination could have been anywhere
just so long as I got to go. I am still an easy sell on a road
trip. In some ways I think it started here- on the road to "four
comers." What exactly four comers was and where it was was
not exactly clear. Again, this was fine, just so long as I got
to go to "four comers." Knowing that four comers was
and is a big brass disk in the middle of no where, or let me
change that, the point where four states meet in the middle of
no where, would not have changed my desire, or even my enthusiasm.
For me the joy was the drive. Everyday
we would start again. Everyday we started in some lonely spot
in the desert of the southwest, and every night we ended in a
lonely spot in the southwest. But everyday we headed down the
road in this traveling Shangri Ia. This to me was the amazing
part. Trust me, if the destination had been the highlight of
this trip, then I would not remember it with fondness. And there
were other stressers. My uncle insisted on slamming on the brakes
every time you went to the bathroom; and yes, he did play Willie
Nelson at six each morning, blaring "On the Road Again"
as our wake up call; yes, I did have to sleep with my cousin
Joey who stole the blankets and kicked me most of the night;
yes, most of the pit stops were in fabulous places like Yuma,
a place whose main purpose is to discourage residents of California
to leave their home state. This list of inconveniences could
go on, but they are all outweighed.
The greater side of the scale is not
a highlight of the trip per se. We never went to an amusement
park, or any park for that matter. We drove and drove and drove.
I saw the endless sea of sand and chapperel that is the southwest;
not really something that is enrapturing for a young boy. The
greater side of the scale was the moment the trip became. Part
memory, part beginning, and part ending. There were moments of
that trip that are ever etched in my mind. I fired a pistol for
the first time; I stood on the brass disk of four comers and
thought, "this is the middle. of no where;" I laughed
many times until I cried.
This road trip was a real beginning for
me. The notion of driving and driving entered my blood. To this
day I would rather drive five hundred miles than five. The thought
of moving from one state to another still fascinates me. The
joy of just going, heading out down the road, on the road again.
It's not for everyone, but it is for me.
This road trip though was a real end
as well. I didn't see it that way then. On the trip I was glued
to the windows, taking joy in walking to the front and the back
like a lab rat looking for a pellet. I didn't see it as an end,
but it was. For from that moment most of the people in that motor
home would soon be gone from my life. Each one would begin to
fade down the path that life would take them. In a few years
my uncle would be dead, my aunt would remarry and move away,
my bedmate cousin Joey would return to Texas to live with his
mother and fade into the landscape of people once known. My other
two cousins each had lives that would go in different directions
from my own.
There is nothing strange in this. This
happens all the time. I am sure each of us here if we were asked
could depict a similar course and occurrence of people once known,
people lost and sometimes found. Someone might rise and say,
you were fortunate for even having known these people for a short
time, for many are not so fortunate. To this I would say, amen.
Yes, that is true. For that is what the balance of this bizarre,
circuitous course to the middle of nowhere became. It became
an indelible moment, and the realization that life doesn't always
go on; it is for a moment, for a time, and then it changes.
The fragmentariness of life was what
emerged from this trip. For a brief time, in a strange way, life
was together; it was good. There were problems, there were things
that weren't ideal. I am withholding some unpleasant moments.
I withhold them not to romanticize or gloss over, but because
they are not important now. Time hasn't justified them, it has
made them of no consequence.
I think if we all searched our memories,
we, could come up with a time, or a trip, or a summer, when there
was a confluence of factors, people, and places. It doesn't have
to be a perfect time, or the best time in your life, but it is
a time when people of consequence were around you, when you saw
them and they saw you, and you couldn't imagine life without
them. I think if we looked back there might be a season, maybe
a holiday when there was a gathering not only of people, but
of life. And life was together, and in the midst of this life
was a sense of fullness and connection. At the moment we may
or not know how fragile this fullness is; we may not realize
how fragmented life truly is; we may not see how life is really
just along the way for a brief time.
This moment, the moment of fullness,
the moment that persists in spite of the transciency of life
is the particular goal of Luke's gospel. Each gospel has it peculiarities.
Each gospel has an ulterior motive. Matthew wants to help bind
the Old Testament to the emerging New Testament. His gospel is
meant to bridge the traditions of Israel with the radical message
of Jesus. Mark wanted to shake the foundations; his gospel was
meant to record the earth shattering power of Jesus and how little
we understood of it. John is a series of signs and sayings that
were meant to redefine and critique the church, to be a kind
of ironic reality check that would hopefully expose our penchant
for foolishness.
Likewise Luke had his motive. For Luke
it was to show the way Gospel is along the way. Most of Luke's
gospel is written on the road, on the walk from Galilee to Judea.
Luke told his gospel as Jesus walked through the no man's land
of Samaria, the place of the outcasts, who were not quite anything
at all. Again and again there is a tacit tugging at our hearts:
life is lived on the move, on the road again and again. There
is a transciency to Luke's account, a kind of homelessness. If
the truth be told, Luke's Jesus is a nomad.
Without this in mind the walk to Emmaus
is just a strange instance, a kind of post-resurrection occurrence
that was recorded for curiosity's sake. Yet the walk to Emmaus
is perhaps the most important story of Luke, almost as important
as the stories of Mary or the parables of losing and finding.
We can see this, the importance, if
look to the parallel Luke creates here. Luke told his story of
Jesus as he walked from Galilee to Judea through the land of
Samaria. His gospel was on the road. And so where do we find
the resurrected Jesus in Luke? On the road again of course. He
comes along side these nameless disciples and joins the walk.
Along the way they converse; along the way Jesus tells them the
secrets of the kingdom, the pearls of wisdom, just as Luke recorded
the incarnate Christ. And what happens as they reach a destination?
"As they came near the village to which they were going,
he walked ahead as if he were going on."
Emmaus shows us then that the resurrected
Jesus is the same as the one who became flesh and dwelt among
us. Jesus is with us along the way. As life moves so does the
Christ move with us in our journey, on our fragmented and somewhat
confused path. Just as Jesus taught the disciples as they walked
from Samaritan town to Samaritan town, so he does now; he is
even moving on down the path. It only at the request of his companions
that he stays with their bidding, "stay with us."
Staying with them he breaks bread. In
this breaking of the bread they are able to see him and know
him again. Even though he vanishes, they believe and return to
tell the others of his appearance to them, saying, "The
lord has risen indeed." With this claim they are the first
disciples to speak the gospel of Easter.
Again, this is Luke's particular message.
The gospel he records is about movement and life on the road.
The Jesus of Luke is along the way, coming along side of the
disciples, and even going ahead of them. This is the transciency
that Luke believes is part of the kingdom of God. It is a spiritual
place, not a physical one. The life of following Christ is one
where we follow, moving from place to place, ever encountering
the journey.
A lot has been made of the breaking of
the bread. And not much has really been made of his vanishing.
There is the traditional interpretation of this bread breaking
as a demonstration of the sacrament: invisible grace made visible
in the elements. I am not adverse to this interpretation. In
fact I think it is correct. In the breaking of the bread in the
Lord's Supper we do see him, we do see the kingdom of God in
our midst as we see the gift of life given away, as we pass this
life one to the other. As we do this we are to see the image
of God in one another, in that moment we are able to see each
other as God sees us, and as the Father sees the Son.
This may shock you, but I think there
is another way of looking at this bread breaking and vanishing
act. Another way of looking at it would be to remember the larger
message of Luke, to interpret this not only as a message about
the sacrament of the Lord's Supper, but as a message about life.
Life is transient. It is fragmentary and along the way. From
time to time though we come across a moment where things coalesce
where we see the bit and pieces of life come together and form
a whole. There are times, and they don't last long, where the
people we know are with us, the people who reveal to us our very
selves, there are there for a time, and this may not be the best
of times, or even perfect moments, but there are times when life
is lived full and we, can see the beginning and the end, where
we know that mercy and grace are with us, and that God is good.
On the road to Emmaus Jesus picked up
all the bits and pieces these disciples where carrying and he
pieced them together. He mended what was rent by the cross. And
life looked whole for just a moment. For just a moment this one,
a stranger really, stayed with them, lingered for just a moment,
and in the moment when it all came together, he vanished. He
became invisible again.
Life on the road, life along the way,
life as a kind of journey and movement, a pilgrim's path; yet,
along the way Jesus comes and goes. Maybe life is perpetual fullness
for you; maybe you've never known the transiency of peace, and
the fleetingness of joy. But I have. I have that constant sense
in me that life is ever changing, ever moving, like a stream
you can never step in twice. And in spite of this though life
will come together; life will become full. In spite of the changes
there are these miraculous moments of wholeness and joy that
get me moving again. Along the way, in the midst of the challenges,
there are these wonderful times of fellowship, of being together.
This I believe is Luke's vision of the
church. A gathering of people who walk together along the way,
and on this way become the fullness of life, a sense of wellness
and joy. I may be wrong in this, but I hope not. That what a
church really is is Emmaus, a place of fellowship along the path
of life, a place where Christ does dwell for a moment before
moving on. We are not always an image of this account. From time
to time we lose our focus; we get lost; we don't always understand
what is happening and what it all means. In fact I would say,
most of the time I am not really sure how all this fits together.
Except for one thing.
This one thing I know for sure. We have
a brief time together. Into the midst of this brief time we are
blessed by the presence of God and one another. The fleeting,
gathering, coalescing of faith, hope, and love doesn't last forever;
it is the moment. We have a brief time together; let us ever
seek for the fullness of life then. For the fragmentariness of
life will emerge soon enough. Amen.
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