On May 1st, I began a part-time interim pastor position at the Lutheran Church of the Good Shepherd. Their old web site is www.goodshepherdsa.org I am excited to be working again and look forward to sharing more about my work at a later date.
Luke 24: 13-35
On August 9, 2010, Edward Stafford plunged into the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Brazil to cool off, pop open some champagne and celebrate. Other sun bathing tourists on the beach might have seen him as just another crazy Brit who soaked up a little too much South American sun and beer. Stafford would say he was, indeed, a little bit crazy … but not in the sense that many may believe.
That's because when Stafford's toes hit the surf that morning, he officially became the first man known to ever walk the entire length of the Amazon River. His two-year, 4,200-mile trek began on April 2, 2008 in Peru and took him through some of the most dangerous terrain on earth. Stafford and his companion, Peruvian forestry worker "Cho" Sanchez Rivera, braved deadly snakes, 18-foot crocodiles, exotic tropical diseases, hostile villages and the daily potential of disaster to complete the trek entirely by walking and not using boats, as other expeditions had done.
Why did he do it, you ask? Stafford is quick to tell you he is not an eco-warrior out to prove a point about the devastating deforestation of the Amazon's rain forest. Rather, it was a personal challenge for a man who was and is still perhaps searching. Quoted on the trip as saying, "The crux of it is, if this wasn't a selfish, boy's-own adventure, I don't think it would have worked," he said about his quest. "I am simply doing it because no one has done it before."
Although we may consider his actions either admirable or crazy or perhaps a mix of the two, what I find interesting is that walking makes big news --- in other words, walking is not what we do --- that is why it makes the news! It seems that such an difficult, dangerous trek makes news today not only because it is quite a feat but because we are generally not used to walking very far, unlike our pre-automobile, pre-airline ancestors.
For example, part of my own culture shock returning to the US has been how much less I walk every day compared to my daily life in Japan. In Japan, although we did not own a car and used public transit, the reason I had to walk more often was that we would have to walk for nearly everything. Now, it takes a special effort to get out of home, office or car. In this country the issue has become so acute that we have to launch media campaigns to get people in our inactive culture to walk farther than the distance from the couch to the refrigerator for the good of our own health. Or we have to buy exercise machines so that we can walk but in the comfort of our own rooms. So, thinking about a two-year hike is more than a bit of a stretch it is newsworthy.
For that reason, according to the gospels, we may forget that Jesus was himself an epic walker. Cari Haus, who writes for the web site www.ILuvWalking.com says Jesus traveled distances on foot that is mind-boggling to those of us who are used to moving while seated. For instance, based on her calculations, Jesus traveled 3,125 miles in his three-year or so public ministry not including his trips to Jerusalem and back. His disciples would have walked many of those miles with him.
But what I also find interesting as I read the news article on Stafford's long walk was that it allowed him to see and experience things that most people fly over, ignore or forget. The same holds for Jesus for during his lifetime of long walks it allowed him the opportunity to see faces, hear stories, experience the hospitality of strangers and feel the connection between the land and its people. Jesus led his disciples on a journey that gave them the best kind of laboratory for learning what God was doing in Jesus' own ministry and their part in it. We might call it "ministry by walking around."
This is a lengthy but important prelude to a very important but simple aspect of our lesson this Sunday. The seven-mile stretch from Jerusalem to Emmaus was the last walk of the walking journey of Jesus and the beginning of a new walk for his disciples, according to Luke.
Two disciples of Jesus, one named Cleopas and an unnamed other are walking away from the disaster of Good Friday and the puzzlement of Easter. Luke doesn't tell us why Emmaus is their destination. Just like we discussed last week regarding Tardy Thomas, we do know the reasons for these disciples journey. Are today's disciples fleeing to a hiding place? Do they have relatives there? Is it simply a place to hole up and think about what just happened? Most of the other disciples had decided to hunker down and stay put in Jerusalem, but for whatever reason these two keep walking, and the risen Jesus, who is still walking, joins them on the road.
However in this lesson rather than strangers coming up to Jesus and his disciples during their three year walk, it is the other way around, Jesus comes to them as a stranger who joins them on the way. Jesus becomes a traveling companion for a time and gets in on the idle conversation. "What are you discussing with each other while you walk along?" he asks. Cleopas responds to this stranger, wondering if he has been living in a cave for the last several days and goes on to tell him the story of what happened to Jesus of Nazareth, from their hope about him as "the one to redeem Israel" to his tragic crucifixion and their puzzlement of the empty tomb. These two men had a fundamental belief and very high expectations for Jesus. Cleopas and this nameless disciple had walked with Jesus on at least some of those 3,125 miles, and all that time they thought they were moving toward a promised destination. Now they seemed to be just walking with no real purpose in mind.
The story continues for we find out that as the stranger walks with them on this road to nowhere, the stranger begins to tell them about a longer journey they'd all been on. The stranger begins to help them put their journey as disciples into perspective. Starting with the journey of God's people from liberation in Egypt under Moses to the time of the prophets and through all the signs along the way, this stranger walked them through God's plan for his people and meaning of Jesus' own death and resurrection as both a destination and a new beginning.
The two disciples intrigued, invite this stranger to stay with them and, when sitting at table together, they suddenly recognize it has been the risen Jesus they have been walking with all along. Jesus disappears, but they start walking back to Jerusalem and into a new future. Emmaus we come to find out … was not their finish line after all, just another stop on the journey of following the Lord.
This lesson is good reminder that perhaps we need to remind ourselves about what it means to walk with Jesus. If there's anything the Emmaus Road story teaches us, it is that the disciples of Jesus we are at our best when we keep walking, because the destination is irrelevant. It is a good reminder that to be a disciple, a follower of Jesus Christ, is never a drive-by or fly-by process, in which we can look for instant results and ignore the people and places, we whiz by every day. Rather as followers of Jesus we recognize that our lives are a journey of following and learning but also looking for Jesus in the faces of all who join us on the way.
On one hand, we are often reminded that as followers of Jesus we are to be willing to follow Jesus despite the dangers and potential pitfalls with the full knowledge we do not walk the journey alone. Stafford needed Cho Rivera at his side to finish. For example, in one episode in particular close to the end of the destination, Stafford wanted to quit, but it was Cho who got him back on his feet, dusted him off and got him on the road again. Jesus, himself sent his disciples out two by two and it was two who traveled together on the road that day. Discipleship is a long-haul process, and we need each other along the way.
But on the other hand, in walking we may forget that like today, there are those moments when God himself may come upon us or even …. may knock us down. Saul of Tarsus first met Jesus on another road. On the Road to Damascus Jesus got Saul's attention by knocking him to the ground. Perhaps we need that at times as well.
Regardless, Jesus did walk along with the disciples, warming their hearts with scripture, and would have walked on if they had not asked him to come in.
And there is something else in our lesson about walking, that we may miss if we do not study that lesson more thoroughly. In verse 21, it mentions that the three day period prophesied by Jesus is now over without the reappearance of Jesus that Cleopas and his companion had been hoping for. It seems that the disciples had waited for their long walk to Emmaus as long as it made sense according to Jesus' own words. Now, that time period was drawing to an end and there was nothing much left to do but go. Yet, then we hear in verse 33, that after they have recognized Jesus, Cleopas and his companion rush back to Jerusalem where they discover that the third day had not quite ended, the prophecy had not been wrong, rather their own timing had been a little rushed.
Stafford finished his long walk with a dip in the water. We begin our journey with Jesus when we are dipped in the waters of baptism. Like Stafford, we also need nourishment along the way, which the breaking of bread in the Eucharist, the Lord's Supper, offers us all through Christ's gracious sacrifice. And like Stafford, we have companions to help us get up and dust off and continue on our way. But as followers of Jesus Christ we may need to recognize that perhaps we may need a figurative "knocking down" or may need a stranger to wake us up along the way. As followers we may occasionally need our hearts warmed, or may need to slow down because we are in such a rush. Regardless we need to walk. There is no Christian way of flying or bicycling or driving. Instead we need to walk.
It took Cleopas and his companion all day to plod out to an inn near Emmaus, but they got back to Jerusalem a lot faster. So just remember, in the walk, after meeting Jesus, time took on new meaning and as they hasten back to Jerusalem, they don't remember their sadness, but instead their burning hearts. So let us get up and walk. Amen.
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