Reflection at Congregational Retreat

(our congregational held a retreat at Chestnut Ridge Park this weekend.  Sunday service was outside in a beautiful environment.  The congregation gathered around the campfire lifting up prayers and songs.  This was my short reflection in lieu of a sermon)

Luke 24:13-35 (The Journey to Emmaus

The scripture that we read today is the scripture we have been dwelling with during our retreat

We have been talking about the journey

the journey we have been on

the journey God is preparing us for.

It only felt appropriate to use the journey to Emmaus

as our guiding scripture.

There is a lot to unpack in these 23 verses

a lot to “chew on” so to speak

Many thoughts arose this weekend about how

it speaks to us today

 

One of the many things I like about this scripture is

the recognition in hindsight.

Those who Jesus talked to on the road, those travelers who

didn’t recognize him

recognized him only after he broke bread with them.

only after he did such a common yet important act.

How many of us might recognize God in more and more people

if we sit down to a meal with them?

 

But it’s not just that they recognized him then,

they also recall something,

like, wait.  Maybe we knew something was up with that guy.

They say “were not our hearts burning within us while

he was talking to us on the road?”

Have you ever experienced something like that,

that hindsight 20/20?

You look back on experiences or people or events and think

wow.  God was there, or

God was with me,

or someone was really…God to me.

 

I like to wonder what it felt like to them,

this burning.

Was it like heartburn?

a little divine indigestion?

I remember as a kid, one of the many things I worried about

after the rapture, tornadoes, and the hole in the ozone layer

(I worried a lot as a kid)

was the possibility of spontaneous human combustion.

Somehow I heard that there were rare cases where people

spontaneously caught on fire.

.

Were these disciples fearful,

that they would spontaneously combust?

 

Probably not physically. 

Perhaps, a bit, spiritually.

Goodness knows they had already been… emotionally.

 

As many of you know Patrick and I visited my parents two weeks ago.

My family lives on a farm in west-central Illinois, about an hour or so from St. Louis.

It is very different than the topography we see around us today.

But it is beautiful in its own unique way.

This farm has been in my mother’s family since 1833. 

It has been through 7 generations.

We have over 300, much is tillable fields, but a lot is also in timber, pasture, house

For the past 10 years, however, my parents have put some of that land back into

prairie grass and prairie flower restoration.

One of the necessary maintenance tasks with prairie grass and flowers is

the burning.

Each spring my mom and dad set off to the fields with neon yellow fire proof suits

water cannons, tall “flappers” to flap out any wandering flames.

I got to help again this year.  Together, my dad and I had some father daughter bonding time

in our matching neon suits, as we stood in silent affection

watching prairie grass a blazing

making sure nothing got into the timber, all fires were put out, etc. etc.

 

Now my dad has been doing this for many years.

I’ve helped him one other time.

And let me tell you (this is probably more a Pentacost story than an Emmaus story)

I was a little bit nervous.

The fire would silently and quickly burn down certain grasses

but when it came up bigger patches, taller patches *wooosh* huge flames

so hot

it felt like

it was

burning

within

me

 

We don’t burn the grass not to destroy it.

Or we are pyromaniachs (but I’ll admit, there is an adrenaline rush)

We burn it because the prairie needs fire to exist.

Fire preserves and sustains the prairie ecosystem

removing old growth, controlling the spread of harmful species

puts nutrients back into the soil.

It improves wildlife habitat and enhances plant communities.

 

But it sure is ugly right after it happens.

Blackened, charred to a crisp, smoking, desolate.

 

That’s probably the burning in the heart of the people in despair.

The “post Good Friday-pre Easter people.”

But the “road to Emmaus people”

They are the spiritual ecosystems

that recognize the burning of Christ within them.

 

We…we are road to Emmaus people.

It may seem that things are burning around us

fires we can’t put out.

But we are road to Emmaus people

God’s fire

will sustains our spiritual home, our spiritual ecosystem

God’s fire

will remove old growth and control the spread of despair

God’s fire

will puts nutrients back into our soil.

 

Our task

is to channel God’s fire, burning within us…

we, Road to Emmaus people…

to improve our habitat—our congregation

to use God’s fire to enhances who we are as a community.

 

No, the fields at my family farm don’t look so pretty right now.

But I know, when I go back in July

the grass will be tall and reaching for the sun

the flowers will be an array of yellow, blues, and purples.

There will be rabbits and frogs and bees and swallows.

New life.