A New Road

Text: Luke 24:13-35

There is a theory of the physical world that says that in every instant things decide what they will become in the next instant. In this theory there is a kind of timeout between the past and the future. In that tiny moment, a thing has a chance to become the same as it was, or become something new. It pays attention to the things around it and makes a choice of what to be. Mostly, of course, things choose to be just what they were. But not always. So, for example, the pieces of this pulpit mostly stay pulpit pieces, being strongly influenced by the other pieces of the pulpit surrounding them. But some are influenced by the air, for example, or my hand resting here. That explains why the pulpit can remain a pulpit for hundreds of years, but eventually will be worn away, eroded by the elements and by the preachers.

“Things” in this theory are undefined in size or type. So it applies not only to pulpits but to human things, people, you and me. In this theory, the basis of the whole world is not permanence, but transition. The universe is not a place in which things are, but a place in which things happen.

In our local part of the universe, mostly things remain the same. Good thing, too, or we would have to deal with a whole new world each morning. Mostly the people we met in the office yesterday will be there today. Mostly the home we come back to at the end of the day is the same one we left at the beginning. Mostly the people we love act pretty much the way they have always acted. Life advances with twists and turns and bumps and potholes, but mostly it advances on the same road.

But not always. Tomorrow is not always the same as today. Sometimes that is a good thing, when today is not so hot. Sometimes not so good, when tomorrow turns out to be not so hot. Sometimes changes are gradual: getting older, learning more, becoming friends. Sometimes sudden: getting sick, getting fired, falling in love. Sometimes you see the change coming a mile away, welcome it, and are prepared: like getting married, or going away to school. Sometimes you don’t even notice the change until it is too late. Sometimes the change is a result of something you do. Sometimes it is a result of things that happen outside of your control. Sometimes you think, how the heck did I end up in this place, or in this job, or with this person. Sometimes it is a good thing you did, and sometimes not.

For all their differences, these kinds of transitions are like hinges. Bending a little or a lot, they mark a boundary between one place and another, one situation and another.

But some transitions are not so well marked. Sometimes it seems that the past ends before the future begins. What you thought you knew no longer applies. And what you need to know, you do not know yet. It is a foggy time. Things are up in the air, an apt metaphor, for your feet certainly do not feel they are on the ground. In such time, it is hard to recognize what part of your life is the old life and what part is the new life.

That is the way it was for the travelers on the road to the village called Emmaus. Just a few days ago they saw a future of a glorious and victorious Jesus, mighty prophet, the one to redeem Israel. The expectations had been high and confident. Yet in an instant, it seemed, all that was gone. Jesus was arrested, tried, condemned, executed. On one dark Friday, they had gone from disciples of Jesus to… To what? Who were they now? What would they do? To whom would they turn. In whom would they put their hopes? What would happen to them?

They stand in the road, standing still, the story says. There is no future for them yet. They have no plan. Their only hope is denial and disbelief. What had happened could not have happened.

This is where Jesus meets them. Half-way there, between the city and the village. Jesus meets them half-way there, between the past and the future. He comes in the transition, in the gap. He speaks to them there. But he does not, by his meeting them, undo what has been done. Though he returns from the dead, he does not return to stay. He does not return as if nothing had happened. Though the disciples no doubt hope that things will be just as they were, things will not be. They will be something different, but as yet unknown. We know, from watching two thousand years later, that they will go from disciples—students—to apostles—ones who are sent. They will go from learning to doing. Jesus will go from teacher to resurrected Christ. But they don’t know that yet.

God calls to us most loudly in times of transition. Or probably we listen to God most loudly in these moments. Acting like the creatures we are in times of stress, our eyes are open to signs and our ears strain to hear a voice of comfort, certainly, and guidance. God, now what? What now?

It is a scary time when the past is disintegrating and the future is still forming. Stay with us, Lord, they said, the day is almost over. Stay with us. In this time, Jesus came, but not to push the rewind button and restore what had gone, or to reveal the future in high def. Jesus came to lead his followers through the foggy parts. To share with them a common and ritual meal and a reminder of their life together. They knew him, it says, in the taking, the blessing, the breaking, and the sharing of the bread. The meal we share every Sunday.

None of us knows the future. It is not an extension of the past. It rarely turns out as we predict. Our best bets of what will happen are poor wagers. But we don’t have to make any such bets. As we wander in that timeout moment between what we have been and what we are about to be, God walks with us.