April 30, 2006
Luke 24:13-49

Who Walks With You?

Who Walks With You? With whom did you walk this week?

On Monday and Tuesday I walked into the lecture at Bethany Memorial Church in Bethany, West Virginia with Lois and Jerry Murphy. I knew them, delighted in seeing them there, and had a chance to visit and get to know them even better. There in Bethany or here in Cleveland, I could name you several folks I knew already with whom I walked this week.

But as I reflect on the week, I walked alongside far more people that I didn’t know than those who I did know. On Wednesday I walked into Dave’s grocery store behind a woman and a boy, she in her head covering indicating she might be Muslim, he talking excitedly to her in a tongue I did not understand.

On Thursday I walked in front of a group of about a dozen children, presumably coming from Kentucky or Garrett Morgan schools, busily chatting with and kidding one another as they headed to the bus stop for their daily trip home.

On Friday I rode my bike past several people in Edgewater Park: a large man with a shock of hair like a Norse Viking; a petite woman with rich, dark, velvety skin; a well-built man, Hispanic perhaps, who might have been training for some athletic event, several others I can’t even remember

Yesterday I was at the West Side Market, and literally walked beside the world – people with all variations of languages and skin tones and places of birth and political perspectives and dreams…

With whom did you walk this week?

As I mentally pass by each of these folks again in my mind’s eye, I wonder at how we miss so much human connection by passing by strangers without talking to them, getting to know their life, their loves, their fears, their strengths, their vulnerabilities. It is absolutely necessary, of course, for it to be that way, for in a world with so many people, we would never get anything done for all the conversing we would have to do to connect with everyone we passed. Plus, there are always unsavory characters who might misuse such openness to their mean-spirited advantage. But I wonder, nonetheless…

And then there are those times and those places where we do open ourselves up to sharing with strangers more than usual, and it is okay. You’ve probably been to some kind of event, like a parade or a concert or a sporting event, and something magical happens and you can feel it as you walk back to your car or the RTA. As if some common experience has made everyone present part of a family, a bond has been created, even if for just a few minutes. “Weren’t those fireworks incredible, like the time my mom took me and my brother to Disneyland,” says the thirty-ish man toting his small very weary child towards the parking lot. “Her music just opens my soul, I still can’t stop crying!” the young woman explains to you as she is wiping her eyes with tissue. “My father used part of his savings to get all us kids to a World Series game in ’54, and though the Indians didn’t win, it was still magical” the older man says to you as he goes through the turnstile with a twinkle in his eye.

Of course, we also bond because of not-so-pleasant circumstances. Many of us got to know neighbors we’d never really talked to the evening the electricity went off throughout the Northeast on August 14, 2003. And who can forget the connections made on September 11, 2001? For just a short while, everyone you passed on the street felt like a family member who was grieving the death of a beloved aunt or uncle.

Surely this is how the disciples must have felt after the death of Jesus. They looked into the eyes of every person they passed, wondering if they saw the familiar pain that they felt so terribly in their own hearts. As the two disciples who were heading to the village of Emmaus say to the stranger who they have come upon, when he expresses his curiosity about their conversation, “Are you the only stranger in Jerusalem who does not know the things that have taken place there in these days?” As broken as their hearts were, they could not imagine a sparrow in the trees nor a mouse on the ground not knowing what had happened.

And so, they tell this stranger along the way what happened to their teacher and friend, how he had been a prophet, “mighty in word and deed,” how he had been betrayed and executed. They even told this outsider the rumors of Jesus’ resurrection and their uncertainty as to its truth.

Then, this fellow traveler, who they did not recognize, began to speak. He amazed the two with his exegesis of scripture, and made connections with their rabbi they had never before understood.

I’m not sure I’ve ever had this happen on the road of life, where a stranger opens up depths of wisdom and truth in such a way as to amaze me. But I have known moments where that unfamiliar person alongside of me has made some difference in my life for the good, has chipped away at some hard covering that had grown over my heart, like a cold shell born of fear, or heartache, or loneliness, or suffering, or failure. A word said in such a way as to knock me out of my comfort zone and get me thinking again. A question that comes at me from left field, causing me to reevaluate my entrenched position. A joke that has underlying truth that neither one of us had shared but that I needed to know. Or even just a look, a glance, a smile or a smirk from a total stranger that allows me to grasp something new, see an old situation in a new way, a new situation in an old way.

And then the two disciples invited this stranger, this one who knew so much, into their home for dinner and a night’s rest. I guess over the seven mile walk from Jerusalem to Emmaus they had learned enough of this stranger to welcome him into their home. Perhaps the insights that he had shared were so familiar and comforting, they felt compelled to provide hospitality.

And as they sat at table to eat, the stranger took the bread, blessed and broke it, and gave it to them and their eyes were opened, and they recognized the stranger as their Lord and Savior, and he vanished.

Now, I don’t want to cause you to begin a rumor that Pastor Allen doesn’t believe in Jesus Christ. That’s not the case at all, and you know that. But I do see Jesus in more places than our tradition often makes place for. To badly mangle the movie quote from Haley Joel Osment, “I see Jesus people!”

I see Jesus walking beside us all the time. I see Jesus jogging, shopping, laughing, living.

I think the Emmaus story calls us to see Jesus everywhere we look because it forces us to ask three questions:

The first is: “Who in my life, particularly the strangers who I may walk alongside, might be Jesus to me?”

The second question the Emmaus story causes me to ask is, “When in my life am I Jesus to those beside whom I walk?”

This question reminds me of a story about a little boy wanted to meet God. He knew it was a long trip to where God lived, so he packed his suitcase with Twinkies and a six pack of rootbeer, and he started his journey.

When he had gone about three blocks, he met an old woman. She was sitting in the park just staring at some pigeons. The boy sat down next to her and opened his suitcase. He was about to take a drink from his root beer when he noticed that the old lady looked hungry, so he offered her a Twinkie. She gratefully accepted it and smiled at him. Her smile was so pretty that the boy wanted to see it again, so he offered her a root beer. Again, she smiled at him. The boy was delighted!

They sat there all afternoon eating and smiling, but they never said a word. As the afternoon waned on, the boy realized how tired he was and he got up to leave, but before he had gone more than a few steps, he turned around, ran back to the old woman, and gave her a hug. She gave him her biggest smile ever.

When the boy opened the door to his own house a short time later, his mother was surprised by the look of joy on his face. She asked him, "What did you do today that made you so happy?" He replied, "I had lunch with God." But before his mother could respond, he added, "You know what? She's got the most beautiful smile I've ever seen!"

Meanwhile, the old woman, also radiant with joy, returned to her home. Her son was stunned by the look of peace on her face and he asked, "Mother, what did you do today that made you so happy?" She replied, "I ate Twinkies in the park with God." However, before her son responded, she added, "You know, he's much younger than I expected."

The third question is a new one to me from the Emmaus story: “What strangers might lead me to Jesus?” What do I mean by this? Well, let me tell you how I came to this question.

One of the great meditations on this story is why one of the two disciples is named, and the other is not. We know that one was named Cleopas. The other remains for all time nameless. I’ve read – and preached – many sermons about how this anonymous disciple might provide a chance for modern day disciples to place themselves in the story in a very tangible way. “What if the other disciple were you or perhaps me?”

But this week I wondered: “What if there were actually two strangers on that road?” What if Cleopas was the only known quantity, and she or he had met this unidentified disciple only moments before meeting Jesus, and together they discovered the risen Christ in their midst.

Well, I think this has astonishing implications for us. What if the story is trying to tell us that the best way to know Jesus in our midst is if we first get to know the strangers in our world? What would it mean for a church like Franklin Circle Christian Church to believe with all its being that Jesus would only be made apparent to us if we welcomed the stranger, offered the foreigner hospitality, and shared at table with the outsider? What if the Church could never, ever be assured that Christ would be present unless there were strangers present. What if along with the bread and the cup each week the Diaconate had to have invited a stranger to our celebration in order for us to have Holy Communion?

Who walks with you on your expedition through life?

With whom did you walk this week?

-- Perhaps on your journey the stranger you met was God incarnate, waiting to reveal to you the joys and wisdom of life?
-- Perhaps you served as Jesus to folks around you, and your deeds or words or simple presence made “their hearts burn within them” and transformed their lives?
-- Or maybe, just maybe, the connection you made with a stranger made possible God’s resurrected presence to be made real in our world anew, like never before.

In any case, in every case, may it be so.

May it be so!

Rev. Allen V. Harris
Franklin Circle Christian Church
www.FranklinCircleChurch.org


 

Copyright 2006 -- The Rev. Allen V. Harris

Franklin Circle Christian Church (Disciples of Christ)

1688 Fulton Rd., Cleveland, OH 44113-3096