An Emmaus Sermon

Emmaus The Dover Church
Third Sunday of Easter, May 8, 2011 Scripture: Luke 24:13-35


I have been fishing for more than forty years, mostly fly fishing. That's what I really get a kick out of. After all these years, I think I know what I'm doing. Nonetheless, I have to say that catching a trout on a fly never fails to surprise me. There will be times when I see the trout, when I have a fly that's worked for me before in similar situations, when my cast will be just about what I intended, when I’ll see the fly on the water, the trout finning below, rising, rising, and just like that….surprise. Wow! Fish on. It's happened to me a few thousand times, but it never ceases to surprise me.
By the time Marie-Laure and I were married, I had performed dozens of weddings. I had done plenty of pre-marital counseling as well as numerous meetings with married couples going through rough patches. I had read a lot of books and thought I knew a thing or two about being married. But then, there I was, a groom myself…surprise! So this is what exchanging vows and rings feels like. And ever since, over and over again, surprise…so this is being married!
Same thing with being a father. I read the books about the birth process. I had even been in the delivery room as a chaplain. And then, it was my turn…surprise! So this is what it feels like to hold your baby. And then again, just as surprising as the first. And most days since, surprise, surprise, surprise.
The list goes on, sunsets on the ocean. The full moon. Spring flowers. The Rocky Mountains. The French Riviera and Provence. Surprise. Surprise. Surprise. Just about everything in my life surprises me. My family and friends. Surprise! All of you. Surprise! Speaking of you, take last weekend. I knew about the auction, had heard the plans and watched the set up. Yet when I walked into the tent…surprise. The fellowship, enthusiasm and warmth. Surprise. The outpouring of generosity….what a surprise. And then on Sunday with Emilia. I was part of the Search Committee, so I knew what she was about and was capable of. And suddenly here she was and, you guessed it…surprise! Wow! Your response, the electricity with the children…surprise, surprise, surprise.
The next morning, I woke up, turned on my computer to read the news and …surprise: Navy Commandos had killed Osama bin Laden. Like everything else I've mentioned, this shouldn’t have been a surprise. They’d been looking for him for more than a decade. I was expecting the weather, more political foolishness, the Sox losing again, but not him. I couldn't remember the last time he had crossed my mind. What does this mean? What will happen now? I listened as the experts discussed just these questions for most of the rest of the week. I watched people celebrating in New York and Washington. That surprised me too, but it shouldn’t have. I guess I was still trying to figure out what bin Laden’s death meant. Was the last decade of war going to come to an end now? Were our soldiers going to come home now? Was the world going to be safer now? Were the threats of terrorism going to end now? I would love to celebrate those things.
I found myself remembering the surprise of that Tuesday morning, September 11, 2001, sitting in my room at seminary, studying, when suddenly a plumber burst in, “turn on the TV. Something’s happened in New York.” And there I sat, with the plumber, his assistant, and other seminarians, watching as a second plane flew into the World Trade Center, as another plane flew into the Pentagon, as another plane crashed in Pennsylvania, as news casters tried to figure out what it all meant, what was going on. All morning, we watched and discussed amongst ourselves what this meant. The plumbers left. The other seminarians went to church. I went out for a walk and was struck by how quiet Brookline was without all the air traffic, car traffic, T traffic. It was ominous. My life had changed.
With bin Laden’s death my eyes were suddenly opened to a reality I have been living with for almost a decade, almost the entire time I have been serving churches in pastoral ministry. From that first Sunday, September 16, when the church was packed with people searching for comfort, consolation and meaning, my life as a pastor has been overshadowed by violence and war. Like the disciples on the road from Jesus' death in Jerusalem to Emmaus, I had hoped for so much. With the collapse of the Soviet Union, could America finally be a nation at peace, turning swords into ploughshares, the lion lying down with the lamb, living the words of the prophet Isaiah? There had been the first Gulf War, Mogadishu, Yugoslavia, the bombing of American embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, the attack on the U.S.S. Cole, so September 11 shouldn’t have been such a surprise, but it was.
For almost ten years I have struggled as a pastor and preacher to interpret the Good News of Jesus' life, death and Resurrection, against the backdrop of the spiraling violence and death which a lot of people laid at the feet of this one man, Osama bin Laden. I have been pastor and preacher to people who wanted to see bin Laden as pure evil incarnate and our cause as one of pure righteous justice. I have been pastor and preacher to people whose sons and daughters were serving overseas. I have been pastor and preacher to people who both despised bin Laden and protested the actions of our nation. I have been pastor and preacher to people who didn't want to think about it, who wanted to put it out of their minds on Sunday morning. And all these people have been sitting right next to each other in the pews of four churches now, looking to me every Sunday morning to interpret and make sense, to comfort and assure, or to not bring it up. Actually, it seems to me that everyone except the folks who didn't want to hear it wanted me to confirm the point of view they had as they came through the door. I have stood up and led the prayers at nine Memorial Day Observances as the names of the dead have been read out, the prayers for the peace for which these men and women fought and died. I have lived through the Taliban and Tora Bora, weapons of mass destruction and a second war in Iraq, an insurgency and murderous bloodbath of sectarian violence, first one thousand, then two, then three, then four, then five thousand dead Americans coming home, tens of thousands of physically and emotionally maimed veterans, tens and hundreds of thousands of dead and maimed Afghanis and Iraqis, Abu Graib, the capture and hanging of Saddam Hussein, bombs in London, Madrid, Bali, foiled attacks all over the place, first one president and now a second trying to achieve victory, day after day for almost ten long years, and then, seemingly out of the blue, bin Laden was dead. Surprise.
Perhaps the most troubling thing to me about this last decade of violence and war has been how often God has been invoked, with people on both sides claiming that their view is God's, that their purposes are God's, that their actions are in God's name. Bin Laden laid the ground rules and we played right along. In 1862, Abraham Lincoln reflected on the savage war being fought between Americans, in which both sides claimed God's will and blessing for their cause, "In great contests each party claims to act in accordance with the will of God. Both may be, and one must be, wrong." Flying planes into buildings, cutting off people's heads and putting the film on the internet, blowing up mosques full of pilgrims, killing people indiscriminately because their interpretation of the same faith differs from their own, abusing, torturing, raping and oppressing women, strapping bombs onto their bodies and detonating themselves in marketplaces, I think we can all agree that the people who did and do these things must be deluded about God. I think that once anyone brings God into the equation of righteous violence, there are no lengths to which they won't go. I think we disciples of Jesus Christ, who live at a safe distance from the violence done on our behalves, must resist pointing self-assured fingers at the other, no matter which side they are on. The Resurrection is the ultimate refutation of violence and will always stand in critique of any use of violence in God's name. Bin Laden is dead and that is probably a good thing, though only time will tell. We pray that the violence he promoted in God's name may pass from God's creation with him, although we know it won't. There is a long road before us, which only God can see. God has shown us how to walk down that road. Martin Luther King Jr. once said, "Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that." Hate is easy, impersonal, self-assured, and intoxicating. I watched it blossom between 8 am and suppertime on September 11. By the end of the year, that hate was heady in our country. Love, on the other hand, is always challenging, always personal, and rarely free of doubt. Hate has easy answers. Love has difficult questions. Hate takes on a life of its own, whereas love needs constant nurture. Hate always ends up the same way: Hitler in his bunker, Saddam Hussein hiding in a hole, bin Laden holed up in a house for six years. Love is known in the sharing of bread. Hate offers quick solutions. Love points to a long path. Our word from God this morning is that if we set out by faith on this path, we will find God in Jesus Christ by our side.