Sermon - April 6, 2008: Third Sunday of Easter

The Rev. Steve McKinley

THE ROAD TO VALLEY CITY      Luke 24.13-35


Grace to you and peace, from God our Father through our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.

I was just past St. Cloud on Interstate 94, headed for Valley City, North Dakota, when the “Check Engine” light flashed on. I was driving a rental car be-cause when I cover a lot of miles in a short period of time it is cheaper to the internship program for me to rent a car than to drive my own. I was, in fact, driving a nifty little silver gray PT Cruiser, the kind of car guys of my age identify with…we wanted one of these when we were boys. 

Now I know that those “Check Engine” lights sometimes have minds of their own and come on for no particular reason, but I felt a little anxious when I saw it because the further you drive toward North Dakota, the less congested the world becomes, to put it mildly, so I pulled off at the next exit that had a “gas” sign and drove into town. “Gas” turned out to be a convenience store.

I walked in and asked the lady behind the counter where I might find the nearest Chrysler dealer. She proposed a route with landmarks like turning at a certain barn and all that. There was another gentleman in the store at the time. Old, meaning older than I am. Ill-shaven, poorly dressed, gray hair going in every direction, holding on to a cup of coffee. I got the feeling that he was a local character, probably a convenience store regular. He jumped right into the conversation trying to clarify the directions the clerk was giving, wondering why I wanted the Chrysler dealer and where I came from and where I was going. I got the feeling that the clerk was happy to have me there, because I diverted his attention from her for a few minutes. He was a person with not much sense of personal space; he stood very close to me as he talked to me and now and then he touched me. I did not detect the smell of liquor on him, but it would not have been a surprise given his bleary, weepy eyes and his overall demeanor. Anyway, he decided that the directions were too difficult for a city slicker like myself, and volunteered to ride with me to the Chrysler dealer so that I did not get lost. I declined his offer.

By now I was ready to move on to Plan B. I bought a cup of coffee and excused myself and went out to the car and grabbed the rental contract and found the company’s 800 number and called to ask what I should do in this situation. You know the drill. Even with the minor league car rental firm I use I went through all kinds of messages and prompts and pushed this number and that number and listened to music until eventually I got a real live human being on the phone. I think she was in New Delhi, or maybe Warsaw. She informed me that the best thing to do would be to return the car to the company’s nearest office. I told her where I was and asked where that would be. She looked it up. Minneapolis-St. Paul Airport. Not too helpful. I’m going west, where is the next one? Seattle. Also not too helpful. I ended the call. I still had roughly three and a half hours on the road in front of me, people were waiting for me in Valley City, what was I going to do?

While I was on the phone the gentleman from inside the convenience store had come out and was standing in front of my car. When I ended the call he came up to the driver’s window and knocked. I opened it. He handed me a jelly doughnut. “Come in, come in, sit down, relax. You’re too worried. You need to relax.”

“Thank you but I can’t, I’ve got to get going.”

“Please, please come in, please sit down. Somebody here will help you. There are good people in this town. They’ll help you.” And he launched into his own story, the story of his wife’s death and his own illness and how the people of the town had rallied around him and taken care of him and how they would take care of me and my car too if I would let them. He was weeping now and choking and his coffee was dripping on the side of my car and the jelly doughnut was oozing its stuffing into my hand, he had not brought napkins along. I had already decided that I would take my chances and drive and trust that the “Check Engine” light was just playing a joke on me. By now I had used up nearly half an hour which would make my arrival in Valley City tight and I was in charge of the meeting and I wanted to be there first and he was crying and talking and leaning on my car and begging me to come inside and, while I believed that somebody in town might be able to help me, it seemed clear that the main reason he wanted me to come inside was so that he would have someone to talk to, a new person to hear his epic, the clerk had already heard it too many times. Eventually he stood up, he was no longer leaning on the car, I started the engine and backed up and began to drive away. He walked along for a while, still talking. I smiled and waved and drove away, and as I headed back toward the highway, I could see him in my rear view mirror, still standing there waving.

By the time I drove up the ramp back onto 94, I felt guilty. As I drank my coffee and chewed on the jelly doughnut I felt guilty that I had not been patient enough to go inside with him and have that coffee and doughnut and listen to him, hear him out, respect him. I thought of the irony of it. I was going to Valley City to lead a meeting, to talk to pastors and interns about ministry in the community, about listening to the people of the community and learning the needs of the community. Along the way I would be giving a little sermonette about Jesus always having an ear for the poor and the weak and the neglected. And there I was, ears closed, mind closed, heart closed, driving down the highway.

For the rest of the trip the “Check Engine” light would flash on about every 20 miles. I discovered that if I pulled off the road and turned off the engine then turned it on again, the “Check Engine” light would go out for a while. When I drove home the next day my guilty conscience got the best of me and I pulled off at that same exit and drove to the convenience store, but my friend was not there, and the clerk said he had not been in that day.

So who was that man in the convenience store? If I were a preacher of soft, sentimental pap I would say that he was Jesus, but he wasn’t. He was a man, just a man. A man I should have paid more attention to, a man who deserved more respect than I gave him, but still just a man, not Jesus. Nonetheless, the road to Valley City had a lot in common with the road to Emmaus and I had a lot in common with Cleopas and his companion as they made their way down that road.

They meet the resurrected Jesus on the road, and they do not recognize him. Like me, they were caught up in their own agendas, their own worries and anxieties and hopes and dreams, so caught up in themselves that they did not recognize the one who walked with them until it was too late, until he was gone and all they had was the memory of their hearts burning within them. Jesus revealed himself to them in the breaking of the bread; it was after the coffee and jelly doughnut that I came to my senses about my own responsibility to the man in the convenience store, but by then it was too late. 

Cleopas and his friend didn’t get it until Jesus revealed himself to them in the breaking of the bread, and then they remembered what he said. And so the community that wears the name of Jesus gathers as we have gathered this morning, tells the story, breaks the bread, and every now and then, every now and then, the clouds clear away, the clouds of economic craziness and fore-closure and war and politics and random crime, the clouds of kin and friends who get sick and who die, the clouds of relationships coming apart, worrying for parents and children, those clouds they part, and we catch a glimpse of our crucified and risen Lord and his constant, enduring, hope-bestowing love for us. In the Easter season we remember that the worst the world can do to us is no match for the best God has already done for us and still does for us each day. And our hearts burn within us.

Then we move on. With their eyes finally opened Cleopas and his pal dashed back to Jerusalem to tell the disciples what they had seen. I’m sure it wasn’t the last time they ever told the story. The gathering ends and we move on in life, back to the most profound leitourgia, back into the world of foreclosure and politics and war and all the rest, and as we do, we tell our own stories, our own stories of what God has done for us, about the hope and the love God has brought into our lives. There is a place for careful, reasoned theology, for us to cogently and intelligently describe the foundations of the Christian faith for those who have never heard and even for many of those who have heard. But before theology there is story, what God has done for me, what God has done for us, and telling that story is our privilege. My wit-ness to the power of God in Jesus Christ does not begin with Augustine or Luther or Barth or Tillich, but with a fat kid named Steve and the amazing things God has done in his life; you have a story like that, too, and I hope you are telling it as enthusiastically as Cleopas and his friend told their story, as enthusiastically as the man at the convenience store tried to tell his story to me. He did not set out to convince me of the value of his town by citing chamber of commerce statistics, but by telling his personal story of what the people in that town had done for him.

In its own way the Road to Emmaus was a lot like the Road to Valley City, like the Road to Richfield, the Road to Edina, the Road to St. Paul, the Road to Willmar, the Road to Phillips, the Road to Powderhorn, a lot like Chicago Avenue, Lake Street, Main Street, Pennsylvania Avenue, 5th Avenue. We’re on the move all of us, on the go. It is while we are on the move…not so much when we are sitting still, doing nothing, but when we are on the road, engaging the world…that we meet people, people who are not, in fact, Jesus, but people who can nevertheless bring us close up to the story of Jesus and the good news he has planted in our hearts; people whose own stories of hurt and hope just might overlap with our own.

Six months later I was headed back to North Dakota for another meeting of the same group, and while the “Check Engine” light wasn’t on in that rental car, on a whim I got off at the same exit and drove up to that same convenience store. I recognized the clerk behind the counter, but “the man” wasn’t there. I had to ask.

“Excuse me ma’am. I was in here one morning about six months ago and talked to this older man…kind of crazy looking…seemed like he wanted to talk…bought me a jelly doughnut….”

“Sure. Old Willy.” She smiled. “Used to hang around here all the time. He was kind of a pain, but whenever somebody looked like they needed cheering up, he bought them a jelly doughnut. Died a couple months ago. We miss him.”

I left then, and haven’t been back. I don’t have the North Dakota beat any more. But on a whim, before I left, I gave the clerk a few dollars and told her to buy jelly doughnuts for the next few people who looked like they needed them, and if they asked, she should tell them they were from Old Willy. The Road to Valley City turned out to be my very own little road to Emmaus.

Amen

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