Here are my thoughts from meandering in this text for a day so far...(click on reverendmother above to see what this is all about...sorry I can't do the link yet, don't know html).

Luke 24: 13-25
The Road to Emmaus is rumored to be a favorite among us preacher types. And we always seem to concentrate on the end…the breaking of bread and the eyes being opened….

I’m finding myself wanting to stay on the road. To see Cleopas and his companion as those who are being so very human…fleeing the place of conflict…fleeing the Jerusalems where they/we are supposed to be…where hard questions are asked and bizarre realities must be faced…where the mystery is too great and we long for the peaceful, pastoral byways like Emmaus.

And what does Jesus do? This one who spent the last handful of chapters walking TO Jerusalem and to his own fate? He walks away from it with them….He walks in the opposite…or wrong….direction…he accompanies them as they walk in the wrong direction, seeking to help them make sense of things until…in exchanges of hospitality…they see and know him…and return to Jerusalem…returning to the place they are supposed to be…returning to the faith community and to the tough realities and questions that the church….and the resurrection present.

Where are we? In the thick of it in Jerusalem? In the safe suburbs of Emmaus? On the road…walking with those who are running away…or running away ourselves?

What does it mean to walk “in the wrong direction” with those with whom we do ministry?
What does it mean when we think that our own walks in the wrong direction are something we do alone?
Who do we encounter along the way when walk with the stranger?
And is it the wrong way at all, or simply the road that leads back home?
What does it mean to turn and go back to the place where mystery and conflict and resurrection await and say…we have seen Christ risen from the dead?

If it’s not us escaping, who is running from the church today? Why?
How do we walk/run with them?
When they or when we turn back is the path the same?

Are we on the same road as before, or has the journey changed us? (Not sure where, if anyplace, this goes.)