Meeting God on the Highways and Backroads
When I was in my first year of divinity school, I saw a flyer on a bulletin board in the hallway announcing that a state agency was holding a training for clergy at a government office in downtown Nashville. The purpose of the training was to educate clergy on how to support their congregants in finding and accessing addiction resources. Not having a lot of personal experience in this area at that point in my life, I signed up. A couple of weeks later, I found myself around a large conference table with eight male pastors and a facilitator named Jim.
Jim led a clear and concise overview of the disease of addiction and showed graphs and charts to demonstrate just how pervasive this disease is in our state. At the conclusion of the training, Jim was going over the various 12 step programs and the best ways to support someone who is working their way through one of those programs. At this point, an older pastor in a suit reclined back in his swivel chair and in his loud, preacher voice exclaimed, “Now why would I send one of my people across the street for aspirin when I know that I have the cure?” My eyes got wide, and I leaned in and asked, “What does that mean?” He looked at me and said, “Honey, Jesus can cure any kind of ailment or addiction so why would I send my people to a program that doesn't even mention him when I know that all we have to do is to pray to Jesus and be healed?”
Now facilitator Jim, who was not clergy or someone with a theological education, chimed in saying, “Pastor, if I may, sometimes recovery can happen like it did for Saul on the road to Damascus, where God appears and someone is instantly cured. However, for others, recovery is more like the road to Emmaus. Some people work the 12 steps on a recovery journey and are healed along the way without even knowing right away that it was God who was doing the healing all along.”
The pastor bounced in his seat a few more times, then nodded his head, and made an affirmative sounding grunt. Now, for me, this was the most fascinating moment in all of the training - watching a layperson school a confident pastor on how God works in many different ways, and that the Bible provides great examples for this reality. I am confident that Jim had heard this rhetoric before - the claim that all we need is Jesus to be healed of anything from addiction to cancer to lustful thoughts to being overweight to ADHD, and so on. What Jim doesn't know is how this confrontation in 2006 forever changed my own theological framework, so I continue to offer gratitude to Jim, wherever he may be now.
The stories of these two roads, the road to Damascus and the road to Emmaus, represent two radically different experiences with God. I kind of like to think of these experiences with God as the “highway encounter” and the “backroad encounter.” The road to Damascus is the highway encounter - it happens fast - “Flash!” God appears announces Godself and gets right down to business. The encounter is quick and Saul is forever changed. Damascus is the highway encounter with God - lots of clear signage and an experience that takes Saul from point A to point B quickly and directly.
Then there's the road to Emmaus, the backroad encounter with God. The scenic route. This experience with God unfolds much more slowly. It’s the journey where you think that maybe you know where this road is going, but find yourself asking, “Was that a sign back there? Is that the same Dollar General from earlier? Oh, look! Roadside peaches!” It’s the encounter where you start pulling up the GPS on your phone to check where you are.
These two roads so clearly demonstrate how different our encounters with God can be. In many ways, our lives in faith feel like a series of Damascus moments and Emmaus moments - Damascus moments being those moments where we have an unmistakable encounter with God. Something happens that feels miraculous or inexplicable. Those moments where we can feel, sense or see God's presence so clearly that we point our finger and say, “That's God. I know it.” These are powerful moments and often these are the encounters that we look back to in moments where God feels far away or we need to reassure ourselves that all of this faith and religion stuff is actually real.
And then there are the Emmaus moments. The journey of faith often seems to have a lot more of these moments than the Damascus moments. We usually have more backroad encounters than highways. We have more of those experiences where it feels like we're walking along alone, confused, depressed, scared, hungry, and tired, and it is only after arriving at a particular point that we realize that God was with us on that road, already accompanying us, holding us, teaching us, and helping us along the way.
I want to share little bit about why these two very different experiences with God might be able to teach us some important things about where we can look for God in the middle of these crazy, scary days in which we find ourselves right now.
Theatrics and excitement abound in the encounter between God and Saul on the road to Damascus. Remember that Saul, who later becomes Paul, one of the greatest apostles and shapers of the early church, was an enemy of the Christian movement. He was hunting down Christians and possibly even participated in the stoning of Christian martyrs. This Saul was riding his horse down the road, probably muttering threats of murder as he rode, and he was confronted by God and transformed in an instant. In that single encounter, he was made new and redeemed. To quote Pope Francis, “The prophet Ezekiel said, ‘I will take out of your flesh the heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh,’ and this is the experience of the apostle Paul in his encounter with Jesus on the road to Damascus. God transformed his heart in the end Saul who wanted to kill those who proclaimed the gospel gave his own life to proclaim it.” This was Paul's epiphany moment, where everything changed in an instant and his life is given new meaning, new purpose, and new direction.
When considering our own lives, Damascus moments are probably far less common. We may get a few or only even one in our lifetimes. It can be rare to have an experience where we have that clear sense of God breaking through to us, and changing us - our understandings, worldviews, and callings - encounters that instantly change who we are from the inside out. These are rare but beautiful moments, and they remind us of some very important truths. They remind us that when all things feel as though they may be moving in the wrong direction, God can break through in an instant and make our hearts new. They remind us that although we may think we are small and insignificant, God shows up for us because we matter to God. Damascus encounters also remind us that God always has a role for us to play in God’s story. If God had a role for Saul, the murderous enemy of early Christians, I’m pretty sure God has a role for all of us to play in building the Kin-dom of God.
And then there are the Emmaus moments, which are probably far more common for all of us journeying in faith. Emmaus moments are those moments when God is journeying along beside us, often in times of difficulty, and we don't even know that God is there. As I look back over my 43 years of life, I have had a lot of Emmaus moments, where I was walking along feeling stressed, lost, hopeless, confused and alone. These are usually the times when I found myself wavering in my faith or frustrated with God. In these Emmaus moments, it is only in hindsight that I have the clarity of how God was present and instrumental during that period of time. I do get the clarity of God's abiding presence, but it wasn't necessarily there in the moments that I wanted it or felt like I needed it to take the next step.
Given the choice, most of us would probably prefer a Damascus moment with God - clear, fast, instant results. But I think we often underestimate the transformative power of those the Emmaus moments. The road to Emmaus teaches us that God does not always insist on being recognized when with us, helping us along the road. Emmaus teaches us how God coaxes us along in discovering our own faith, our own resilience, and our own ability to share the Gospel with others. In the text in Luke that describes the road to Emmaus, Cleopas and the other person were astounded that this stranger didn't know about all the things that had transpired involving Jesus. “Are you the only stranger in Jerusalem who does not know the things that have happened during these days?” they ask. Jesus responds saying, “What things?” which then sends the two travelers into the story of sharing all of who Jesus was, what he had done, and how he had been killed, and now yet seen again. Jesus got them to practice, maybe for the first time, what it means to share the good news with a stranger.
And the road to Emmaus also teaches us that sometimes when we haven't been able to see God or sense God in our midst, God shows up at the moment that we do something Christ-like for another. These two strangers invite Jesus to stay with them as night is closing in, and as they gather to share a meal, Jesus breaks the bread and they are able to see that it was him all along. The message for us is that sometimes when we act as Christ to one another, we are best able to see Christ in our midst.
Theologian Frederick Buechner captured one of the lessons of the road to Emmaus so beautifully when he wrote:
“I believe that whether we recognize him or not, or believe in him or not, or even know his name, again and again he comes and walks a little way with us along whatever road we're following. And I believe that through something that happens to us, or something we see, or somebody we know--who can ever guess how or when or where?--he offers us, the way he did at Emmaus, the bread of life, offers us new hope, a new vision of light that not even the dark world can overcome.”
Friends, that's a message that we can all use in these days where violence, shootings, viruses, war-torn countries, racism, homophobia, climate crises and so much more are making this world feel very dark and heavy. Damascus and Emmaus - two roads that offer radically different experiences with God, and yet God is just as present on both roads, and in both stories the encounter results in a huge transformation for the individuals involved. So which road do you find yourself on today? We are all journeying, at our own speeds toward our own destinations. The beauty of our faith is that God is with you, me and us on that road, whether we know it or not. Whether God meets you in an instant with a bright light and a booming voice or as a quiet stranger gently asking you questions as you walk along, God will appear, and you will be forever changed as a result. Just wait and see.
Amen
