Stop Talking and Start Walking
The Venerable Joan Clark
Luke 24:44-53
It’s late. You’re driving in unknown territory. It’s dark, and visibility is limited. You have no idea where you’re going, but you are following the directions of your GPS, trusting that it knows the “ways” you should go and will get you there safe and sound.
All you need to do is “pay attention.”
Stop listening, and you may end up in someone’s paddock or worse on a dead-end road to nowhere.
Everything depends on your willingness to trust the GPS and focus on the sound of its voice!
Keep focused! That is probably one of the most popular pieces of advice for any driver on the road today!
Don’t drink.
Don’t text.
Don’t get distracted.
Whatever you do…..Don’t take your eyes off the road and your ears off your GPS!
The way you go is dependent on the voice you follow!
Can you trust that voice?
We have two issues in our culture today.
1) we don’t trust the right voices and the right GPS and
2) we talk more than we listen.
We are more willing to listen to our electronic devices than we are to the voice of our Lord and Saviour.
But in order to move forward or sideways, or even to move anywhere at all in our discipleship journey, we first have to listen.
In our scriptures for today, Jesus does not start out in his intervention with the two on the Road to Emmaus by speaking but by listening. The two are talking together, more likely lamenting together over what had transpired over the last 3 days in Jerusalem.
Jesus asks questions, but the journeyers are so engaged in their own dilemma, gossip, lament, sure of what has happened, that their minds are closed to anything but their own dialogue.
Only when Jesus opens their minds to understand the scriptures and his resurrection do they begin to “pay attention.” But they still don’t entirely “get it” until Jesus takes the lead as host, and they put their eyes on his hands and their ears on his voice!
In order to truly “hear” Jesus’ direction for our lives, to truly realize His guidance for our own life’s journey, we need to stop talking, and pay attention to the one whose voice we know we can trust to lead us in the ways God wants us to go. We must recognize Jesus not just as someone walking with us down our path, not just as a wise person who might give us some insight into the scriptures on how to live our lives, but we must recognize Jesus as the one who fulfills the scriptures, who creates our path and offers us His resurrection Life. We must give Jesus authority over us, even as we submit ourselves to Him, mind, body, and spirit.
We will not shut up and listen unless we trust the one who’s speaking!
In our world today, our GPS’s are our authorities. And everyone is an author. Which means that everyone is an “authority.” At least everyone believes he or she is. And for those times when we truly don’t know which way to go, or we become lost, who do we turn to? Siri or Google. We rely not on each other, but on our electronic devices, our personal assistants, who are programmed to take direction from us and cater to our every need. We have lost our ability to trust in the authority of someone else’s direction.
Perhaps we could say, we’ve always had a bit of a problem asking for direction. How many of us have been on a trip, have taken a wrong turn, and have avoided stopping to ask directions at any cost?! We’d rather pore over our maps and trust in our own ability to get ourselves from point A to point B than to come into relationship with someone else and ask for their assistance. Am I right? Come on. I know some of you know what I mean!
Now instead of those paper maps, we have virtual assistants who will listen to our every command and never talk back! Never disagree! Never misdirect us from the path WE wish to take. Never guide us anywhere except exactly where we’ve made up our minds we want to go. That’s the reality of our world today.
We are in charge. Or as the poem “Invictus” by William Ernest Henley suggests (which made every Christian shudder at the time it was written), “I am the master of my fate: I am the Captain of my soul.”
Some of us love that poem. And boy do we love being in “charge.”
And like anyone in charge, we do the talking. Or as with our GPS’s, we do the commanding; we do the programming; we set the direction for our destination. And we want NO surprises!
That’s one of the things we hate most I think about the power of the Holy Spirit, isn’t it? Because I’ll tell you a little secret: God is FULL of surprises! If there’s anything we know about God, God is entirely unpredictable!
That was certainly the experience of the Emmaus travellers. Despite hearing the rumours of Jesus’ empty tomb, they were still convinced, the mission was over! There was no way, they were going to be deterred from their thoughts, even when Jesus was walking right beside them. They couldn’t recognize Him, because their minds were on their own one-track lives.
Once they realized who he was, they turned right around and headed back to Jerusalem! Their entire direction was changed. Their mission was revived. Their lives were transfigured. They had no idea exactly where they would be going from there or what would happen next! But they were ready for the journey!
That’s what it means when Jesus is our guide. We have no idea where we are going when we decide to follow Jesus! In fact, often Jesus might lead us in directions that we absolutely don’t want to go. That was the warning Peter received from Jesus Himself. Following Jesus is a signal that we have stopped following our own voice, and are willing to follow His, no matter what the cost. We don’t follow Jesus with a self-regulated, orderly, sure-of-the-outcomes plan. We follow Jesus on trust. We step forward in faith.
In many cases, following Jesus may mean, we do an about face and go exactly in the opposite direction we were going to begin with. This was the case with the folk on the road to Emmaus, wasn’t it? They had set their own GPS’s for home, based on what they thought had happened, the direction they thought their lives were going to take. But once, they were following Jesus’ voice, they had to do an about face, and go all the way back to where they had been to set a new and unexpected course for places unknown and sights unseen!
Their lives were about to take a radical turn.
But they couldn’t realize that truth until they stopped talking and started listening!
The two travellers had gotten caught up in the gossip of the moment! The hype of the “news” of the day! Gossip is contagious, and they had caught the contagion, but the problem is, they could not connect what they heard with the truth of their faith.
It’s as though their minds were disconnected from their hearts. They heard about Jesus’ resurrection, they heard the scriptures, they knew the prophecies, they even had heard the witnesses of the women who encountered the empty tomb. And yet, they continued to just “talk” about it as though it were mere trivia.
Their heart, and most of all their faith, was disconnected from the “stories” being circulated about Jesus. Only when the story became THEIR story, their journey, their truth, their resurrection, could their eyes and ears be truly opened to what God had done!
And that’s true for us today too. Only when Jesus’ resurrection story becomes OUR story does He become real for US! And the only way is to let Jesus in, to listen personally for His voice speaking to our own heart, is to be confronted with the Truth of His power and presence.
The scriptures are not just fossilized stories that tell about the heresay of others. The “gospels” are THE “good news!” They are the voice on the corner crying, “extra, extra, hear all about it!”….so that people’s ears perk up and their voices quiet down, and they listen to what’s going on in a very personal way.
Only when Jesus’ story is important to OUR story will we truly listen and hear it as “good news” for ourselves.
When you make Jesus your authority, His voice will become your directional indicator.
Jesus is your roadmap. Your GPS. Your google. Your Way.
Your Truth.
Your Story.
Your Good News.
Your Life.
He walks your journey with you. Beside you. To guide you. But also to challenge you. His voice may surprise you. But if you trust in Him, His guidance will change your life!
Close your eyes.
Listen.
And in trust, start walking.