The Long Walk Home

Go Here First! Luke 24:13-35

The “doldrums” is a popular nautical term for when a boat is stuck in windless waters. The boat just floats, bobbing along, going nowhere. And before there were engines to motor your way out of them, all you could do in the doldrums was wait it out. It’s super frustrating, and sometimes, even life threatening, if you didn’t have enough provisions to get you through. There is an area around the equator known for them, about five degrees above and below it, where there is no wind to move you along. It’s hot. It’s dreadfully boring. It’s tedious.  If you get caught in the doldrums, you simply float along, and wait. 

Often, this term, “the doldrums” has been used to describe depression. It’s a place of no activity, of waiting, of bobbing along until something changes. It can be disheartening, frustrating, and sometimes, life threatening. 

But for even those of us who aren’t cursed with the dreaded noonday demon, we’re all in our own doldrums these days. This virus has us stuck in our houses, sitting on our porch swings, waiting in the drive throughs, floating along, waiting it out.

Now, some of us are being extremely productive. You’re cleaning out your basements and rearranging the furniture, you’re organizing your tax receipts and scrubbing the baseboards. You’re reading all those novels stacked by your bed and finishing that quilt and those mittens you started ages ago. 

For others of you, life has gotten even more hectic. You’re working from home and teaching the kids. Or you’re going in to work, and your workload has increased exponentially.  For some of us, the stress has been multiplied.

But some of us, we’re paralyzed. We’re stuck. We sleep too much and stay in our pajamas, we let the dishes pile up, we eat all the Lucky Charms, and we forget when we last brushed our teeth. 

And some of us are stuck in our worry, not sleeping enough, forgetting to eat, rocking back and forth in our chairs of anxiety. How will we pay the bills, how will we get through the day, will there ever be an end to this pandemic?  

Whatever the case, I am getting the feeling that all this quarantine business is starting to get old for all of us, whether we’re doing too much or not enough. We’re stuck. Brene Brown says that both over- and under- functioning are results of our anxiety, that they come from the same place of being unsure, uncomfortable, and stressed. Whether we’re stuck trying to think up new projects to keep us occupied, or we’re stuck trying to make it through the stress of the day, or we’re stuck in our own personal anxiety, scanning Instagram and then Twitter and then Facebook and back again for some sign that the winds are starting to move, the waves are starting to crest, but no, we’re all in the doldrums. 

My kids just want to stare at screens. They lose time. They forget how long they’ve been watching or playing, and they forget to eat, they lose their minds. They get bored. They cry, “what can we do?!” And then reject every option we offer. They’re in the doldrums, too.

It’s strange to be in the doldrums during the Easter season. We should be excited and active, moving and praising and accomplishing and sharing and participating in the changing of the world. I mean, it’s Spring after all! But here we are. In the waiting. There’s not much we can do, except wait it out. And we humans are not very good at waiting. We want to be entertained, we want to be distracted, we want something to do. 

Theologian and spiritual thinker Richard Rohr, calls this a liminal space. It’s a space of time separate from the usual, separate from what we once knew, and yet we have not yet arrived at what will be. 

He says, “We keep praying that our illusions will fall away. God erodes them from many sides, hoping they will fall. But we often remain trapped in what we call normalcy—“the way things are.” Life then revolves around problem-solving, fixing, explaining, and taking sides with winners and losers. It can be a pretty circular and even nonsensical existence. To get out of this unending cycle, we have to allow ourselves to be drawn into sacred space, into liminality. All transformation takes place here. We have to allow ourselves to be drawn out of “business as usual” and remain patiently on the “threshold” (limen, in Latin) where we are betwixt and between the familiar and the completely unknown. There alone is our old world left behind, while we are not yet sure of the new existence. That’s a good space where genuine newness can begin. Get there often and stay as long as you can by whatever means possible. It’s the realm where God can best get at us because our false certitudes are finally out of the way. This is the sacred space where the old world is able to fall apart, and a bigger world is revealed. If we don’t encounter liminal space in our lives, we start idealizing normalcy. The threshold is God’s waiting room. Here we are taught openness and patience as we come to expect an appointment with the divine Doctor.

Some native peoples call liminal space “crazy time.” I believe that the unique and necessary function of religion is to lead us into this crazy, liminal time. Instead, religion has largely become a confirmation of the status quo and business as usual. Religion should lead us into sacred space where deconstruction of the old “normal” can occur. Much of my criticism of religion comes about when I see it not only affirming the system of normalcy but teaching folks how to live there comfortably. Cheap religion teaches us how to live contentedly in a sick world, just as poor therapy teaches us how to accommodate ourselves to a sometimes small world based on power, prestige, and possessions. A good therapist and a good minister will always open up larger vistas for you, which are by definition risky, instead of just “rearranging the deck chairs” on a sinking Titanic.”

This liminal space is where we are now. It’s betwixt and between. It’s the doldrums. A space of waiting. And a space of tremendous opportunity.

That’s where two disciples find themselves, on their long walk home from Jerusalem. They’re headed to Emmaus. We’re not sure why. Maybe to go back to life as they knew it before Jesus came and turned their lives upside down. Maybe they’re going back to their tax collecting, their fishing, their scrambling to pay the bills and put food on the table, to return to their life as they once knew it. 

Confused by recent events, perplexed by the stories of Jesus’ resurrection, frustrated and saddened and made hopeless by his death, the disciples are walking to Emmaus, back to what they once knew before Jesus came and called out to them and gave them a new purpose and a new focus and a new fire burning within their hearts. All that has been replaced by confusion. Why is the tomb empty? Is Jesus alive? Where is he? We saw him die. We laid him in the tomb. We saw the humiliation and the gore and the hopelessness of his broken body hanging on the cross next to two thieves. We heard the laughter of the soldiers, the triumph of the religious leaders. What is going on? What is happening? 

It’s all uncertain and unknown. They’re in an unprecedented time. And all they know to do now is to just go back home, start their lives over again, go back to what is known. 

So they walk. They walk and they talk about the weekend’s strange and heartbreaking events. They try to process their grief. They tell stories. They’re in a liminal space, neither here nor there, betwixt and between, on the road, in process, walking, neither in Jerusalem where all this has taken place, nor home, where normalcy resides. They’re leaving and they’ve not yet arrived. They’re in the doldrums, a place of waiting and uncertainty, of watching and observing and being confused and a little frightened. They’re waiting. And they’re waiting. 

And Jesus comes to them. In this liminal space, in the middle of their doldrums, where things are confusing and frustrating and heartbreaking and so unclear. What are they to do next? Where are they to go? What now? 

Jesus asks them what they are talking about and they “stood still, looking sad.” They stop moving. There is no ebb and flow. No gentle rocking of productive waves. They are mired in their grief. 

But Jesus finds them. Jesus tracks them down. 

Jesus walks with them. Jesus goes with them in their grief. Jesus listens to their stories. Jesus tells his own. And nothing really happens. They don’t even recognize who they’re talking to. They walk and talk and tell stories in their grief. And when night comes, when Jesus is about to leave, they ask him to stay. To stay with them in their sadness, stay with them in their loss, stay with them in their grief and their waiting. And so, he stays. What a strange thing for a stranger to do, to stay with a couple of morose, sad, depressed people whom he’s never met. What a strange thing for a stranger to do, to walk with them in their doldrums, to wait it out with them, to join them in this liminal space. Jesus does all this, and they still don’t recognize him. 

It’s hard to see clearly when you’re in the doldrums. So hard, in fact, that I’ve made some pretty destructive decisions just to get myself out of the doldrums. Just to promote any movement at all, I’ve made some awful choices, just because I couldn’t sit in the uncomfortableness of the stillness. 

But, as Richard Rohr tells us, these doldrums, this liminal space is a place of great opportunity. It’s a time when we stop the meaningless movement, the constant distractions, and we sit, and we wait. We tell the stories that mean something to us. We sit in the mystery and the confusion. We wait for God to come to us. 

And God does. God will. And God has. 

We just don’t recognize God yet. 

Jesus isn’t recognized by the disciples until he shares a meal with them, until the breaking of the bread and the sharing of the cup. That is what snaps them out of the doldrums, that is what opens their eyes and enables them to process what they’ve experienced throughout this long walk home. 

While you’re in the doldrums, you can’t tell what is meaningful and what’s not, you can’t see what is life changing, or transformational, you can’t make sense of what’s been given to you. Like my son who just wants to grow up fast, but can’t tell when it’s happening, liminal spaces are places of growth that we can’t measure quite yet. 

The doldrums give us space to be, to see, to stay in our confusion and our doubt, our frustration and our loss. But when you’re out of them, you can look back and say, “Were not our hearts burning within us while he was talking to us on the road?” Were we not being changed and transformed while we waited it out in this liminal space? 

And then poof, Jesus is gone. Jesus gives us a glimpse, just enough to get us out of ourselves, out of our navel gazing and our contemplation, and then he disappears. Gone. Just like that. But with this new encounter with the risen Christ, we have new stories to tell, new things to ponder, new steps to take. 

After the doldrums, once you’ve gone through the waiting and the frustration and then the encounter with resurrection, then you know what to do. After sitting in this liminal space for awhile, Jesus opens himself up to you, you recognize him in the breaking of the bread and the sharing of the cup. After you hear the stories and tell the stories and walk along, trying to make sense of it all, you know the next steps. For the disciples, it was to turn around and go back from where they came, it was to race back to Jerusalem, back to community, even in the dead of night. 

Our next steps will reveal themselves to us. They will. We just have to wait it out in the doldrums. Christ will come. 

Until then, let us tell and listen to the stories. Let us sit in the mystery. Let us feel all the things we are feeling. Let us ride out the doldrums. Let it be ok. 

The disciples take a long walk home, and Jesus chases them down. Jesus walks with them. Jesus listens to their sorrows and tells and retells their own stories. Jesus reveals himself in the real life tangible, tastable bread and wine. Jesus empowers us back in to community. But for right now, Jesus is with us in the doldrums. 

Thanks be to God.

There Is Resurrection in the Scars.

Read this first! John 20:19-31

I still have a scar on my forearm from the fourth grade. I was playing with squirt guns with my neighbor and as I ducked her onslaught, I fell backwards into a window well in my backyard. Somehow, my arm went right through the glass. I looked at the big gash in my arm and said, “Mom?! I think I need a bandaid.” The second she saw the wound, she screeched for my dad, “Paul!” And he raced over with towels to stop the bleeding. I needed two rows of stitches and couldn’t go swimming for the rest of the summer. 

At the same time, or I think it was the same time, or somehow, for some reason, I conflate the two things, my parents were talking about divorce. I remember my mom thinking about taking all eight of us kids up to Marion, Indiana, to live with our grandparents. I remember my mom crying with her friends at the bottom of the driveway. She went to mass every morning. I remember my dad working a lot. They saw therapists. My dad got a new job. And then, eventually, at the end of every week, there were flowers and new sun catchers that reflected the light in rainbows on the kitchen walls. 

I was only in fourth grade, the same age as my son now. I didn’t know exactly what was going on, but I just remember that things were really hard and really scary and really uncertain for awhile. That and I couldn’t go swimming for the whole summer. It felt like a long time. 

I still have that scar, that reminder of that tough summer, a story, etched in my skin like an engraving, a testimony that says that my family got through a really tough time and came out on the other side, not unscathed, but somehow more whole.

There are other scars, of course. The tendonitis that is still there from my cross country days, the trauma of middle school, how I still worry about how I’ll pay my bills, the deep hole left from the death of my little brother. I have calluses and stretch marks, wrinkles and piercings, sunspots and grey hair. They all tell me where I’ve been, and also, that I can survive wherever it is that I’m going. 

And I’ve caused some wounds myself. I’ve broken some hearts and caused some tears. My kids will have their own cuts and bruises, heartbreaks and devastations. They’ll have their stories, etched in their skin and worn on their hearts. 

I guess that’s why I like tattoos. They tell stories on our bodies, just like scars do. They’re symbols of beautiful resilience, indicators that pain and beauty are not exclusive. 

And that’s why I love Thomas. That’s why I love this resurrection story. Because in it, bodies matter. Because in it, doubt is ok. In it, peace is offered, and in it, resurrection doesn’t mean perfection. It’s something else. It holds both belief and doubt. It holds both fear and boldness. It holds both the broken and the whole. Together. 

Thomas gets such a bad rap. But, I bet you could all guess, he’s my favorite. He’s my favorite because he doubts, because he needs fleshiness, because he is out there doing something while everyone else is huddled inside, cowering, paralyzed, licking their wounds.

He’s been out there, outside, in the world, although it doesn’t say what he’s been up to. Maybe he goes right back to his life before Jesus came, or maybe he’s out there proclaiming that Jesus is still Lord even though he’s dead, or maybe he was wandering around the shore of the Sea of Galilee, wondering what to do next. Whatever the case, while all the rest of them are cowering behind locked doors, he is out there, doing something. 

He’s out there, and he misses the big announcement, the big hoopla, the fireworks and the parade and the regular program interruption that Jesus is alive, flesh and bone, walking around, entering rooms, talking and showing his scars, alive.

So he rushes in. And his friends tell him, “You missed it! Jesus is alive, flesh and bone, walking around, he came in this room, he showed us his scars, he breathed on us, really breathing, real breath alive!” 

And Thomas says, “um. no.” Nope. Negative. Nada. No way. No no nonono.

And they say, “yes, oh yes. Seriously. Honest to God. Cross our hearts. For sure. Really. Yesyesyes.”

So Thomas, not wanting to argue with them, says, essentially, “I need to see it to believe it.” 

To believe.  “To hold dear, esteem, trust” - the etymology of this word seems more freeing to me, rather than defining belief as the simple logical affirmation that something is true. But to hold dear. To hold in your heart. To believe. 

Thomas just can’t believe. His heart is so broken, he can’t hold this in his heart. His savior is gone, crucified in the most horrific of ways, the one he questions for directions, the one he was going to follow into Jerusalem to death. His savior, his friend, his hope, his whole life, gone.

And I wonder how Thomas felt, that long long week, still wandering around, still trying to keep relationships with folks he clearly thought were going cookoo. He must have felt a bit like a pariah, an outsider, “the nonbeliever.” Did they whisper about him behind his back? Did they ignore him? Did they tell him he was going to hell? Did they kick him out of their schools and megachurches? Did they gloat with bumper stickers and tracts with bad theology? Did they stop inviting him to their potlucks? 

I wonder if Thomas felt isolated. Alone. Lost. Without community. 

Because he didn’t understand what they understood. And they didn’t understand what he understood.

And I wonder why Thomas would need to touch Jesus’ wounds in order to believe? Why his wounds? Why would he want that, instead of saying, I don’t know, “Unless I hug him, or wash his feet, or have communion, or play a game of pinocle with him, I won’t believe.” Why the wounds? What is it about Jesus’ wounds that Thomas needs? 

Maybe it’s because Thomas is in so much pain himself. Not only has he seen his Lord crucified, not only did he miss the BIG ANNOUNCEMENT, but he’s gone a week feeling alone, left out, isolated. I could imagine that Thomas was about to give up the whole gig. Go back home and do whatever it was he was doing before Jesus came along and ruined everything. 

Go back home with the scars and the shame and the doubt from not just Jesus’ life and death, but from this last week of separation from his community.

And then, finally, Jesus comes. He comes, even though the doors to Thomas’ heart were shut and locked. In he comes and he speaks directly to Thomas in words that he can hear. 

“Come. Come and touch. Touch my hands where the nails were. Feel the scar in my side where they cut me open. Look in to my eyes - see the pain and betrayal and abandonment and isolation that I have once felt - See, and touch, and believe.” 

Jesus comes to Thomas - and to the disciples - and to the rest of us, through the one way that finally binds God to us and us to God - through suffering. He comes to us all, tells us all, see the holes in my hands, the wound in my side. Through the pain and remorse and humiliation and isolation that we’ve all felt in our lives. “Come,” Jesus says, “Come, touch the pain, because I’ve felt it too. And I’m with you through it all. Peace be with you.” The resurrected Jesus is recognized, not by his fabulous new beach body, not by his suddenly smooth skin or shining white robes, not by his post-resurrection mansion or his sporty new car, but by his wounds. Jesus is known by his wounds.

“And you know what, Thomas?, “Jesus says, “ You know what? There’s gonna be a whole slew of people who believe who don’t get to be this close to me, to my pain, to what I’ve been through. They’re not going to get the real fleshy me in the real fleshy world. And they’re still going to hold me dear. Boy, are they blessed. They will see their own scars and their pain and their wounds and they’ll see me. They’ll see me in their scars. Peace to them. Peace to you.”

I think it’s important to note that Jesus says, “Peace be with you” before he shows them his wounds. “Peace be with you. Have peace. Be at peace. I’m going to show you a reminder of the worst thing that ever happened in your life, but take care, have peace, hold both the peace and the memory together.”

Peace to those who’ve experienced terrifying, horrific things in their lives. Peace to you, who’ve seen death, who’ve felt despair, who’ve felt lost and lonely and isolated. Peace to you.” “I’ve been through that, too,” Jesus says. “We’re not so different, you and I, save one thing, I went through it all, all the bad and all the feels and all the pain, and I offer you peace.” 

Peace to you who can’t see your loved ones in the hospital, peace to you on ventilators, peace to you wearing masks, and delivering the groceries and caring for the sick, peace to you who are worrying and sitting alone inside. 

Peace to you, who’ve lost a loved one, or experienced divorce, or were innocent and spent years on death row. Peace to you, who worry about feeding your children, or wake up in the middle of the night with anxiety. Peace to you who don’t have retirement plans. Peace, amidst your addiction, amidst your worry, in the middle of a pandemic. Peace to the ten year old you who’s worried about her parents and the bills and where she’ll go to school next year and who can’t swim for a whole summer. Peace to you. Peace. To you. 

And sometimes that peace is so easy to miss. So easy to doubt. So difficult to see past the pain and the hurt and the wounds still gushing, or just now healing, or formed in a tough, hard scar. But you’re blessed. Because you want to see, or you need to see, or you have seen, or you thought you saw this one hazy, shaded, fuzzy memory of a time. Maybe you saw once and yet you’re still hiding behind closed doors. Maybe you’ve always wanted to see, but never could.

You don’t see and you still believe - or are trying to believe, or you want to want to believe -  you still set your heart on this one thing, that Jesus came to give you life, life abundant, or that there’s still hope in the world, or that love exists. That somehow, though everything in the world seems contrary to this thought, you set your heart on Jesus, or on hope. or on love, or maybe just on stubborn persistence. You come in to community. You eat and drink and touch wounds and have peace. You have peace and hold me dear, as I hold you. Have Peace. Peace be with you.

Those scars are your peace, those places that have healed over and left their mark, those places that tell our stories of getting through the hard times and out to all the resurrections on the other side. These scars are the stories we carry that tell us that we’re not alone, that we’re both broken and whole. That’s what resurrection looks like. It comes after a total death. It still carries the scars. It is embodied. It is real. It comes with peace. 

As we enter in to the unknown, as we step out of these doors into a new world of resurrection, after the pandemic is over and the vaccine has been made and the economy has recovered, we will still have our scars, and they will tell our story for the rest of our lives. Life is going to be different. Some things can’t go back the way they were before.  We will have our mistakes, those places where we’ve wounded each other and ourselves and our earth. We will have hurt and brokenness. But it comes with Christ’s peace. Through it comes resurrection.

Reach out to the holes in his hands and the wound in his side. Reach out to touch Christ’s pain. In it you will find your own resurrection. You will be both broken and made whole. Peace can be found in the scars.

Thanks be to God.