Ordination of
Jacquelin Lawson
Eventide at Sheyenne
Crossings, West Fargo, ND
May 2, 2014
Luke 24:13-35
In the name of Jesus. Amen.
This lovely short story is about two things for
sure.
First, it’s a Resurrection story…
But second, it’s also a ministry story. It reveals what lies ahead for Someone who
has put death behind him, once and for all.
There are some things worth noticing here about the
ministry of Jesus, after he has passed through death into resurrected life….things
that carry over into our lives and ministries as people who in baptism have also
passed from death to life, with our Lord Jesus.
First,
the ongoing ministry of the Resurrected One is all about moving out into the
world.
In none of the four gospels does the Risen Lord
Jesus hang around the Empty Tomb for long.
Later, followers of Jesus returned to the Empty Tomb, made pilgrimages
there, built basilicas on that sacred site (with gift shops attached!)
Some of Jesus’ followers have returned to the Empty
Tomb over the years. But Jesus himself,
alive forever in the power of the Spirit--Jesus is out and about, always moving
ahead, ardently pursuing his mission of restoring the whole creation.
Whatever else it means, the Resurrection is about
God set loose in the world. It’s about the
Risen Jesus who (in the words of a hymn) is “no longer bound to distant years in Palestine, but saving,
healing here and now, and touching every place and time.” (ELW #389)
And what does this ministry of the Risen Jesus look
like?
Here things get real interesting, because the Risen Lord’s
ministry seems rather unspectacular!
Rather than dazzling folks, Jesus simply goes walking, sidling up to two
travelers who’re escaping from Jerusalem, heading to the village of Emmaus.
Here in this gospel lesson Jesus travels with them
for quite a while. As he accompanies
them he draws them out, asks questions, hears what’s bugging them.
The Resurrected One walks, asks questions, listens,
and walks some more.
In this gentle, subtle way Jesus comes to know the
broken hearts of his fellow travelers—how they are in deep grief and confusion,
trying to make sense of the Cross where their Lord died—little knowing that the
One who had now joined them on the road knew everything they wanted to know—and
then some!
The restraint of the Resurrected Jesus is what
catches our attention here. The
willingness of Jesus to walk with doubters, questioners who desperately want
answers—that’s what’s striking here.
Jacquelin,
your baptism joined you to this Crucified and Resurrected Lord Jesus. So your ministry is now an extension of the
Risen Christ’s ministry. You are being
ordained this evening for a ministry of walking with others, listening intently
to them, bearing with them in their joys and griefs and confusion…taking their
questions seriously and accompanying them on their journey toward God’s future.
Please notice that the Risen Jesus here in Luke 24
isn’t on the lookout for folks who’ve already caught on, gotten their acts
together and are doing great things in the world. No, here on the road to Emmaus Jesus
accompanies doubters, questioners, grieving souls trying to make sense of the
senselessness of life. That is now
your ministry, too, Jacqquelin in this place of sheltering care.
But
the Risen Christ’s ministry of accompaniment is about more than just
commiserating with his companions. Jesus walks and listens—true!—but when the
time is right Jesus also speaks to his companions, sharing the best he has to
offer.
And here, once more, we’re surprised. Because—even though he has first-hand
information to share—Jesus starts by taking his travelers back, into their own
Scriptures, and opening those Scriptures in a way they’d never experienced
before: “Then beginning with Moses and
all the prophets, he interpreted to them the things about himself in all the
scriptures.”
What does the ministry of the Resurrected Lord Jesus
look like? It begins with accompaniment,
coming alongside the doubting and the troubled, listening to them genuinely and
patiently….
….but this ministry continues, it unfolds only as
Jesus opens up God’s Word for his fellow travelers. Jesus starts doing here what the church has spent
centuries doing---relearning everything in the Bible with the lens of the Cross
and Empty Tomb now bringing it all into focus.
In short, the Risen Jesus does Bible study out on
the road to Emmaus.
Sound familiar, Jacquelin?
Your ministry here at Sheyenne Crossings surely involves lots of
listening….and I know you’ll give yourself to that. But your listening will lead you into bold
speaking of the Word, too—which is what these residents long for you to do.
In my work as a synod bishop, I occasionally receive
complaints about some of our pastors! It’s
not uncommon for a frustrated parishioner to critique the way her pastor does hospital
visits: “He came to my bedside, which was good, and he made some small talk
and nodded his head and listened
sympathetically, but he never got around to reading scripture to me, praying
with me, or proclaiming Jesus’ promises
to me.”
There came a time on the road to Emmaus when the
Risen Jesus went beyond walking and listening.
There came a time when he had to speak, to share what he knew, to point
his fellow travelers back to the promises of God. And that speaking of Jesus, that opening of
God’s Word, that willingness to give voice to the hope that we have—that, too,
will mark and must mark your ministry, Jacquelin—as you already know.
These folks want to hear more from you than the
latest Twins score, or how your tomatoes are doing, or how awful the weather
happens to be. They want to hear about Jesus
and his love and the purpose he bestows on every chapter in our lives!
But
there is even more here in this rich Emmaus story…for
as crucial as it was that Jesus shifted from listening to speaking….what
“sealed the deal” was his willingness, at the end of a long day, to stay with
his fellow travelers, to sit at table with them, and to share a simple meal
with them.
If Jesus had stopped with his Bible study on the
road to Emmaus, his two fellow travelers might have mistakenly concluded that this
is all some kind of “head trip.”
Because whatever was preventing them (two of Jesus’ followers, we learn!), whatever
was keeping them in the dark fell away only when Jesus, the Guest, became Jesus
the Host who “took bread, blessed and broke it, and gave it to them.”
Jesus’ listening prepared the way for Jesus’
speaking, and Jesus speaking of God’s promises led him to actually performing, actually
“doing” those promises—making God’s
Word visible, touchable, “taste-able,”
and consumable! “Then their eyes were
opened, and they recognized him…”
And that didn’t just feel good for these two
travelers. They experienced so much more
than a momentary spiritual “high.”
No, they were changed, they were transformed. All the loose ends and dangling threads of
their lives were suddenly re-woven together, and they realized why their hearts
had been burning on the road while Jesus spoke to them.
The “proof of the pudding” is that those two
disciples did something very foolish and risky. Instead of hitting the hay for the night,
they braved the darkness to run the whole seven miles back to Jerusalem, so
they could share with their fellow disciples the Great News that had overtaken
them on the road to Emmaus: “That
same hour they got up and returned to Jerusalem; and they found the eleven and
their companions gathered together. They were saying, ‘The Lord has risen
indeed, and he has appeared to Simon!’ Then they told what had happened on the
road, and how he had been made known to them in the breaking of the bread.”
Jacquelin, this too will mark your ministry—the
awesome opportunities you will have to act out, to “do” God’s promises in Jesus
Christ, in baptismal water, with bread and wine, by way of touch and presence
that bears the light of Christ wherever you go.
And this good ministry to which you’ve been called
will make a difference in peoples’ lives, in the power of the Holy Spirit. Cold hearts will be warmed, puzzled hearts
restored, doubting hearts assured that in the life, death and resurrection of
Jesus Christ God truly does forgive sins, deliver us from death and the devil
and give eternal life to all who believe.
God has richly gifted you for this ministry,
Jacquelin. Amidst the twists and turns
in the winding journey that has brought you here—Jesus has been accompanying
you every step of the way and God, speaking through his church, has called you to this ministry, even as God promises to
sustain you in it.
In the name of Jesus. Amen.
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