Brown's Daily Word 4-7-08

Good morning,
The Gospel Reading for Sunday, April 6, was taken from Luke 24: 13 ff. It is the record of the post-Resurrection appearance of our Risen Lord. He comes alongside as a stranger, rebukes the travelers for their unbelief, expounds the Scriptures, and is engaged in an in-depth Bible study involving just two people. The stranger is invited to the home of the travelers where He becomes the host. Imagine that. . . the stranger becomes the Host. He takes over.
Christians have been sometimes called a “company of strangers”. When Jesus appeared to the disciples walking home to Emmaus, it was during a period of mourning. Their sadness and confusion about the events of the preceding days preoccupied their hearts and minds. They weren’t prepared to recognize the resurrected Lord. The troubles of the world weighed heavily upon them, and it was with sadness that they responded to Jesus’ question. The proclamation of the gospel was not yet “good news” to them, because they were missing a vital piece: an assurance of the resurrection. Still, they recited what they knew, incomplete as the story was, and they invited this stranger along the road into their company.
What if Cleopas and his companion had not stopped to talk to the stranger on the road? What if they had heeded the admonition we so often impress upon our children and ourselves, “Don’t talk to strangers”? How often we pass up the opportunities we have to become a company of strangers. Those moments are fleeting, and unless we pay attention we miss them, and the world becomes a more narrow, dangerous, and frightening place. As Christians we are supposed to talk to strangers, because we are strangers ourselves. The word Luke uses in this passage to describe Jesus is paroikeis—stranger, alien, sojourner. Another form of the word is paroikia, from which the words parochial and parish are drawn. We are parishioners—strangers, aliens, sojourners, like Jesus, journeying on earth, yet citizens of heaven, as Paul writes in his letter to the Philippians (3:20).
When we allow ourselves to become frightened, despondent, or preoccupied by the cares of the world our eyes are restrained from recognizing the presence of Christ in our midst. Likewise we miss the chance to be Christ for others.
Jesus walked with Cleopas and his companion along the road to Emmaus and opened the Scriptures to them. He accepted their invitation to stop at their home for the evening. Although a guest, he quickly became the host at their table. As he took the bread, blessed it, broke it, and gave it to them, he was revealed, and then he vanished from their sight. They got up, went out into a night that no longer seemed frightening, and returned to Jerusalem to report what had happened. The gospel was now, indeed, very “good news.”
Frederick Buechner says that all of us travel to Emmaus eventually. Where is your Emmaus? Do you have a place you go to get away from it all, a place to which you escape so that you don't have to think about how lousy life in this world can sometimes be? Maybe you like to go to the mall, where the noise of commerce and the rush of people keep you from thinking about life. Maybe you go to a bar, where you are numbed to the more bitter truths that swirl through your thoughts. Maybe it's a movie where you go to retreat. Maybe it's the TV remote that takes you away from it all as you mindlessly channel surf every evening. We try to escape our troubles, but those troubles end up being like the sky above: they extend over everything and we finally know there is no escape.
But the good news is that it may be precisely in Emmaus where you are most apt to find Jesus. He cares enough for you to be there. Maybe he meets you along the way and walks with you as you silently trudge along; maybe you find him waiting for you once you get to wherever it is you were going. But he's there. You catch a glimpse of him in the kindness of a stranger. You see him in that note of encouragement that came in the mail on the very day you needed it most.
Maybe sometimes you go even to church but you don't take joy in it. The kids have been a royal pain getting ready that morning, spilling their breakfast cereal all over the floor, howling when you combed their hair. You and your spouse snapped at each other in the car on the way to church. The whole week has been one disappointing and frustrating moment after the next until you want to throw in the towel. You settle into your pew feeling more surly than sanctified, more petulant than pious, yet before the service is over you catch a glimpse of Jesus and you just can't shake the sense that it made a difference. You can go on a while longer now. You can get out of bed on Monday morning after all and go back to work.
The simple fact is that we don't spend all of our lives in obviously holy places like Jerusalem. Sometimes we even think that a holy place is the last place we want to be and so we head out of town, head to our Emmaus. We go someplace where, if we're lucky, we won't run into anyone from church. But there we run into Jesus. Even if our glimpse of him is momentary, we know for a certainty that he was there. We realize all over again that the world changed on a day called Easter, long ago. And it changes us even today.
There are any number of things in our lives that drive us to go to our Emmaus. But if we can find Jesus even there, then we sense with renewed wonder Jesus words, "Surely, I am with you always, even to the end of the age." The first time Luke shows us the reality of that divine presence was in Emmaus, of all places. But that's just the point: Jesus can meet us in all places, at any time. "Were not our hears burning within us?" Look! It's Jesus. Praise the Lord.
He is Risen,
Brown

Please make a note of the following upcoming youth event.
On Friday, April 11 at 7:00 p.m. there will be a "Five 4 Five" concert. This concert will be held at Sarah Jane Memorial United Methodist Church, located at 308 Main St. Johnson City, NY. Five 4 Five is a national tour that features five bands in concert for just $5.

The bands are: DIZMAS, THE SEND, A DREAM TOO LATE, CHILDREN 18:3, AND CAYERIO.

The event is being sponsored by the Union Center, Boulevard, and Hawleyton United Methodist Churches, First Presbyterian Church of Endicott, and First Baptist Church of Owego.

Tickets are available at itickets.com or by calling 1-800-965-9324.
Tickets can be purchased from Arrowhead Christian Bookstore 607-798-1793
Union Center UMC—Pastor Brown, umcgospel@aol.com or by calling, 607-748-6329.
First Presbyterian Church—Jeremy Finn, JMFinn@hotmail.com or by calling 748-1544.
Hawleton United Methodist--Ray Haskell, wpuckey@stny.rr.com or by calling 669-4373.
First Baptist Church Owego--Rev Marlene Steenburg, mcsteenburg@aol.com or by calling 607-232-2302.
Boulevard United Methodist Church--Rev Tony, blvdumc@stny.rr.com or by calling 607-797-5675.
Sarah Jane Memorial United Methodist Church-Phone number is 797-3938