August 13, 2006: PILGRIMAGE STRANGERS
Luke 24:13-32, Genesis 18:1-10a, Psalm 130

Eileen Parfrey - Springwater Presbyterian Church

Benedictines are famous for their hospitality. In fact, Benedict's Rule for living in community says that each guest is to be received as Christ himself. This type of hospitality is why I go to the Benedictine monastery in Mount Angel for my monthly prayer retreats. I lose the daily-ness of pastoral obligations to the hospitality of silence, comfortable lodgings, simple food, sacred space, the rhythm of daily prayer with the community. And I find myself firmly anchored in an understanding of myself as God's precious beloved, rather than what I accomplish. I'm a pilgrim at Shalom, receiving the kind of hospitality that happens with strangers.

Today's scripture readings are about two different kinds of Strangers, both experiencing hospitality. These are not your ordinary strangers. Sarah and Abraham don't have to leave home to meet them. The Strangers are variously understood to be angels of the Lord, the Lord really, or (by Christians) the Trinity. And these two old folks act as if they've waited their whole lives to receive these Strangers, as if they have honed their hospitality for years for just this visit. Abraham offers bread but brings a succulent calf, runs to urge everyone to hurry, because the promise the Strangers bring is so important. He and Sarah don't leave home for pilgrimage, but they have spent a lifetime as pilgrims-waiting.

Today's other story of two unnamed disciples is literally a journey, the experience of pilgrimage as the dark night of the soul. They have lost themselves, lost their purpose, lost their leader and teacher. Maybe leaving the community that had formed around Jesus reflected what happened in their souls when Jesus died three days earlier. Grieving, disillusioned, their dreams broken, perhaps they hope to return home. But the talkative Stranger doesn't really register with them. Luke's first appearance of the risen Christ is to two pilgrims who had to leave to find him. To be found by him. Sometimes the loss of everything is necessary to recognize the Stranger who saves.

Maybe the Benedictines are right. You never know when a Stranger will turn out to be divine. But we don't all have the luxury-or the trauma!-of leaving home to find the Stranger. Sometimes staying put, arriving at some relationship détente, some strategies for co-existing, make the room to recognize the Stranger. New life may come, as the promise did to Sarah and Abraham, after years of waiting. After anticipating for years, the Strangers finally came, and they knew how to receive them, how to make room. But maybe leaving "home" isn't the issue. Maybe it's the dead-end job. It could be that the Stranger comes as a new colleague or an energizing and perspective-changing project. Or maybe it's feeling like an outsider at school. Leaving is out of the question, but the Stranger may come as new interests or a different crowd. Not change for the sake of change, but the Stranger as promise of God's redemption.

Maybe the Benedictines are right. You never know when a Stranger will turn out to be divine. But sometimes the Stranger is not. Sometimes we are the Stranger to ourselves. Our aging bodies stop doing the things we have a lifetime of taking for granted-keen vision and sharp hearing, energy to work all day, strength for lifting and climbing and supporting-disappearing so rapidly, it's like the body of a stranger. But maybe our home itself is the Stranger. We experience life passages as loss of meaning, relationships are out of whack, we face temptations or undreamed of challenges. Moorings that used to anchor us so firmly now make us Strangers to ourselves. A journey we never intended puts us on the road, seeking new understanding, new meaning, new ways of coping, new life in things that have only caused pain. It would give us an opportunity to embrace resurrection-if only we knew where to look.

The two disciples heading to Emmaus felt that leaving was their only option. For us, leaving might mean different expectations about the level of cooperation we can expect from our body. Or that the response to deadening work life is to change jobs or go back to school to re-train. Perhaps marital dynamics are so dreadful it's time to separate, to re-think and re-negotiate. Maybe losing something old-old friends who tell our secrets or sports that keep injuring us or repeated disappointments at work-maybe that kind of loss will help us find ourselves. We might find that we are better at art than at soccer, that other folks draw out from us kindness rather than sarcasm, that we don't need to tell everything to some people. When Elwin died so suddenly, his loss left a huge leadership hole we didn't think we could fill. But because he was gone and we needed to carry on our ministry, gifts were called upon that we didn't quite know we had. Losing something we're used to isn't always the worst thing in the world. In fact, it might be part of God's redemption.

To believe we need to go somewhere as part of our faith journey is misleading. Sometimes our faith journey need be no further than designating to one's family a chair in which to pray undisturbed. That both finding and losing ourselves are faithful journeys, that both are required at different times, is as obvious as today's two stories. In both stories, it is Strangers who bring promise and meaning. In both stories, it is hospitality that opens the door to these gifts. Today, we gather around the Table where Jesus himself is both Host and Stranger. Every time we celebrate communion, the Incarnation happens again. The Risen Christ is as present as on the road to Emmaus. Christ's presence is as real to us as it was to those disciples who walked all that way, talking theology with a Stranger. The One whose absence is most troublesome, whose promise seems longest in coming-he is here all along. Friends, God is with us. Whether we leave home to find ourselves or stay home to be found. Whether we lose everything we value in order to find it. God is here. Believe the good news.