Walking with the Moderators
The Rev. Tony Larson and the Rev. CeCe Armstrong preach during worship Monday from along the road to Emmaus
MILWAUKEE — Portraying Cleopas and Cleopas’ wife as suggested in Luke’s account of the Walk to Emmaus, the Rev. Tony Larson and the Rev. CeCe Armstrong, Moderators of the 226th General Assembly, took a road trip during worship at the 227th General Assembly Monday morning at the Baird Center in Milwaukee.
“Emmaus is going to have to be safe enough,” Cleopas told his wife. “We can get there and start over, I guess.”
“Start over? He’s dead. Christ died,” his wife replied. “It’s hard to start over when all I can see is the cross and his face. … Most men weren’t there at the end, but I was. The women were. We stood at the foot of the cross and watched him die, and I’ve been watching him die every time I close my eyes.”
“I was afraid,” her husband said.
“I know you were. I’m not angry — just tired, so very tired of being afraid and sad at the exact same time,” the wife said. But “Jesus never said, ‘follow me and nothing bad will happen.’ Jesus said, ‘follow me and I will be with you.’ Jesus also said, ‘do not be afraid.’”
Her husband told her, “Jesus said that to me, and yet I am still afraid.”
“So am I. But I’m still walking and so are you,” his wife told him, “and that’s got to count for something.”
The two reminisced about how Jesus used to set a child in the midst of the disciples, telling them, “whoever welcomes this child welcomes me.” They recounted his parables including “The Lost Coin” and “The Lost Sheep.”
“I’ll bet Jesus would tell us we aren’t lost — even on this road, even today,” Cleopas said.
His wife recalled “how Christ was at table with the socially flawed folks, tax collectors and sinners. … We had hoped he’d be the one — the one to redeem Israel, the one to set things right.”
“'We had hoped’ — that may be the saddest phrase in any language,” Cleopas said. “We had hoped the medicine would work, that the vote would go differently, that the world would be farther along than it is.”
“The risen Christ is there when two or three are gathered,” Cleopas’ wife noted, “and yet most times Jesus is deemed the stranger.”
“We did not know who he was,” Cleopas confessed. “We called him a stranger, a migrant, a resident foreigner — and we invited him in anyway.”
“Not because we figured out who this person is,” his wife responded, “but because hospitality is not something you offer after you check credentials.” Those in worship applauded that insight. “Jesus told us the stranger on the road might carry what we most need to receive.”
“When we extend hospitality, we are the ones who are ultimately blessed,” Cleopas said. “The one we opened up to became the host.”
Then Jesus was gone, Cleopas said, “and we were left holding the bread.”
“You are not consuming some symbol or performing a memory,” Armstrong said as the two returned to their traditional roles with the General Assembly. “You are being transformed into something.”
“This is not a metaphor,” Larson said. “This is the claim of the gospel. Christ is not gone. Christ is here in this room, in this bread, and in these bodies, walking back into the world and living in us.”
“Leaving is an honest beginning,” Armstrong said.
“Our theme of ‘persevering toward wholeness’ is a seven-mile journey kind of theme,” said Larson, describing the distance Cleopas and his wife traveled to return to Jerusalem. It’s a “walking a road theme, a talking to strangers and inviting them in theme,” Armstrong added.
“Let the stranger on the road fall into step beside you,” Armstrong suggested. “You may have to slow down long enough to hear Christ speak to you, that you might be the hands and feet of Christ.”
“And when the day is over,” Larson said, “invite the stranger in,” “for the leaves of the tree are for the healing of nations,” they said together. “Love everyone and flourish. Amen.”
After an offering, the offertory was “Open the Eyes of My Heart.” Worshipers sang along and clapped, then read liturgy before coming forward for communion. “Feed us for every season of our lives,” worshipers said. “Sustain us month by month in your abundance. Satisfy every hunger with bread that does not perish. And when we rise from this table, may we go as those whose hearts are burning, feet are running, with good news we cannot keep to ourselves.”
View Monday’s worship service here.
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