Bill Stroop Sermon, "Luke's Slide Show" Sermon for the Third Sunday of Easter, Year A, 6 April 2008

Note: This page is optimized for a display size (screen resolution) of 1024 x768 or higher. How to change display size.

It was an eventful year. It was the year when Burt Lancaster and Shirley Jones starred in the movie Elmer Gantry, and Joanne Woodward received the first star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. It was when production of DeSoto automobiles stopped. Sputniks 4 and 5 were launched by the Soviet Union into Earth orbit. Jacques Piccard and Don Walsh descended into the Marianas Trench, the deepest part of the ocean, in the bathyscaphe Trieste. The Winter Olympics opened in Squaw Valley, California. It was the year when the first three female priests were ordained in Sweden, and the first time in more than 500 years when the Archbishop of Canterbury met with the Pope. And it was also the year that my parent’s friends, Ed and Irene returned from a cross country trip.

My parents and I were invited to supper at their house; four adults and a kid. I would have preferred to have stayed home and watched The Addams Family and Bewitched. But there I was, in their living room, surrounded by four adults drinking old fashions, slowly being asphyxiated by lethal doses of second hand smoke. A buffet had been set up on the dining room table, and after we piled our plates with food, we sat in the living room behind metal folding TV trays, while Ed fiddled with the slide projector. Soon the lights went down and the beam from the projector sliced through the dense cloud of smoke to show Ed and Irene standing on the top of Mount Rushmore. There they were at Yellowstone. And there they were with aunt so-and-so and cousin what’s-his-name in a town in Iowa I couldn’t find on a map then or now. I was glad when a slide or two was upside down – it provided a kind of comic relief. Oh, what a fun evening that was for me! Actually not so much…

Four years later we had just returned from a cross country bus trip to visit my mother’s family in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. We didn’t have slides, but we had scads of photographs – but this time of places I had visited, and people I knew. When my parents reciprocated and invited Ed and Irene to supper, I thought I would have my revenge.

But I was wrong. Instead, they seemed to relish the memories of our road trip, asking questions, and trying to capture the essence of the experience as if they were there, as the photographs were passed around the table. And then I remembered that that was what my parents did that night years before.

Road trips. They are among the most memorable things that we do. Road trips are things outside of our day-to-day experience, and they generate excitement and joy. And we want to share that with our friends and family. Photographs, ticket stubs, and other memorabilia, serve as instant transporters, taking us back in time, allowing us to relive the experience again. But more than that, road trips with family and friends trigger story telling; a means to reflect about our own history, and who we have become, and how those faces and events captured in the photographs have taught us who we are and shaped who we have become. And each image we have is packed with more meaning than can be appreciated from the images themselves. And we very much want to share our stories and our feelings and reflections with others.

Luke-Acts – particularly Acts – is a kind of slide show of the early church. But it is more than a two dimensional depiction of events and people. It is a multidimensional representation of events heavily colored by the story teller’s impressionistic interpretations of the events themselves. And it is a slide show that the story teller wants to share.

After Jesus became known to the two disciples in the breaking of the bread, Luke tells us that the disciples left that place in the same hour, found their companions, and told them what happened on the road. They wanted to share their slides and photos with them. But more than that, they wanted to impart to the others their sense of what it all meant, “The Lord has risen indeed.”

We take many kinds of road trips in our lifetimes. Some are vacation-like; some are trips to the family homestead where we can re-connect to our own history and come to a better understanding of the family dynamic in which we incubated.

Other road trips are more intellectual or spiritual. When I was in grad school, I had done some experiments that had led to an idea. I did more experiments to test the idea. And one night, I took a piece of x-ray film to the radiology department in the hospital to see if my prediction was correct. I waited anxiously outside the developing room for my film to process. When I heard the film drop into the tray, I could hardly pick it up. After I slapped the film onto the white view screen, there it was – my prediction was confirmed. I was so excited! I dashed through the labyrinthine halls to the lab, excited beyond everything to share this finding with my colleagues. I started shouting “Look at this!” before I even opened the door to the lab. But when I stepped inside, all the lights were off; everyone else had gone home. I had returned from my mental road trip, and didn’t have anyone to share the immediacy of the moment with.

Sharing the story of the journey is so important. So is sharing our faith story. We are all on a faith journey, and perhaps we have encountered the living Christ on that road. What was that like? What transforming change happened in your life as a result? Being a follower of Jesus is both an individual experience and a group trip.

As many of you know, my wife Sunshine took up knitting a few months ago. And she is all but obsessed with this passion. Wherever we go, we find ourselves in knitting and yarn shops, and not long ago we found ourselves at a yarn shop in Chicago. Surrounded by so many beautiful skeins of wool, alpaca, silk, and synthetic yarns in so many weights and colors and hues I was struck by the fact that each skein by itself is a story waiting to be told. As individual skeins, the yarns are pretty, but unfulfilled. But when they are crafted singly or together into a dress, blanket, sweater, bootie or hat, they achieve their potential. So it is with the individual follower of Jesus. As individuals, we have potential. But to realize our full potential, we need to be knitted together into a pattern.

The faith stories that we all have and can share with one another help form our individual pattern. Our public worship time together helps form that pattern. Our dependence on God and our faith in God’s love for us help form that pattern.

But more than that, our time together helps us form a pattern that defines who we are as members of Trinity Church – as the Body of Christ.

Although Trinity provides support to 123 Haven House, Mary Bethune School, and to Breadbasket, in addition to a few other programs, we can do more. But to do more, we much achieve a community sense of our pattern. As a church, I think we are ready for a group kind of road trip that will define our mission – our pattern – in this community.

On Maundy Thursday, I preached about identifying a mission for Trinity, and I would like to repeat that call. Outreach is crucially important to church growth. And the kind of outreach we do should naturally evolve from our mission objectives and goals, and it should be something that speaks to who we are as God’s people.

What is the mission of Trinity Church? Our mission statement is to be an open and diverse Christian family dedicated to serving God and all creation by fostering spiritual growth through worship, prayer, education, service, stewardship, and celebration. Who do we serve? What all are we stewards of?

Trinity has taken many spiritual and missionary road trips over the years. Each of us individually has as well. And we all have stories to share about those experiences; stories that will shape each other and define us as a group.

It is time for us to share the stories of those trips and to take another trip as a corporate body. Over the next few months, I would like to hear your ideas about past road trips that have helped define who and what we are as a people, and how you feel God speaking to us now. What pattern are we called to at this point in history? Send your ideas to me via email or regular mail, and we will begin the process of identifying who we are as a people. But I need to hear from you, because what we choose to do and the pattern we follow must be something that resonates with our community, and you are that community. Search your hearts and minds, to discern a pattern for our future.

Peter, standing with the eleven, raised his voice and addressed the multitude, “Let the entire house of Israel know with certainty that God has made him both Lord and Messiah, this Jesus whom you crucified.” Now when they heard this, they were cut to the heart and said to Peter and to the other apostles, “Brothers, what should we do?” Peter said to them, “Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ so that your sins may be forgiven; and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. For the promise is for you, for your children, and for all who are far away, everyone whom the Lord our God calls to him.” And he testified with many other arguments and exhorted them, saying, “Save yourselves from this corrupt generation.” So those who welcomed his message were baptized, and that day about three thousand persons were added.

1 I love the LORD, because he has heard the voice of my supplication, *
because he has inclined his ear to me whenever I called upon him.

2 The cords of death entangled me;
the grip of the grave took hold of me; *
I came to grief and sorrow.

3 Then I called upon the Name of the LORD: *
“O LORD, I pray you, save my life.”

14 O LORD, I am your servant; *
I am your servant and the child of your handmaid;
you have freed me from my bonds.

15 I will offer you the sacrifice of thanksgiving *
and call upon the Name of the LORD.

17 In the courts of the LORD’S house, *
in the midst of you, O Jerusalem.
Hallelujah!

If you invoke as Father the one who judges all people impartially according to their deeds, live in reverent fear during the time of your exile. You know that you were ransomed from the futile ways inherited from your ancestors, not with perishable things like silver or gold, but with the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without defect or blemish. He was destined before the foundation of the world, but was revealed at the end of the ages for your sake. Through him you have come to trust in God, who raised him from the dead and gave him glory, so that your faith and hope are set on God. Now that you have purified your souls by your obedience to the truth so that you have genuine mutual love, love one another deeply from the heart. You have been born anew, not of perishable but of imperishable seed, through the living and enduring word of God.

That very day, the first day of the week, two of the disciples were going to a village called Emmaus, about seven miles from Jerusalem, and talking with each other about all these things that had happened. While they were talking and discussing, Jesus himself came near and went with them, but their eyes were kept from recognizing him. And he said to them, “What are you discussing with each other while you walk along?” They stood still, looking sad. Then one of them, whose name was Cleopas, answered him, “Are you the only stranger in Jerusalem who does not know the things that have taken place there in these days?” He asked them, “What things?” They replied, “The things about Jesus of Nazareth, who was a prophet mighty in deed and word before God and all the people, and how our chief priests and leaders handed him over to be condemned to death and crucified him. But we had hoped that he was the one to redeem Israel. Yes, and besides all this, it is now the third day since these things took place. Moreover, some women of our group astounded us. They were at the tomb early this morning, and when they did not find his body there, they came back and told us that they had indeed seen a vision of angels who said that he was alive. Some of those who were with us went to the tomb and found it just as the women had said; but they did not see him.” Then he said to them, “Oh, how foolish you are, and how slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have declared! Was it not necessary that the Messiah should suffer these things and then enter into his glory?” Then beginning with Moses and all the prophets, he interpreted to them the things about himself in all the scriptures. As they came near the village to which they were going, he walked ahead as if he were going on. But they urged him strongly, saying, “Stay with us, because it is almost evening and the day is now nearly over.” So he went in to stay with them. When he was at the table with them, he took bread, blessed and broke it, and gave it to them. Then their eyes were opened, and they recognized him; and he vanished from their sight. They said to each other, “Were not our hearts burning within us while he was talking to us on the road, while he was opening the scriptures to us?” That same hour they got up and returned to Jerusalem; and they found the eleven and their companions gathered together. They were saying, “The Lord has risen indeed, and he has appeared to Simon!” Then they told what had happened on the road, and how he had been made known to them in the breaking of the bread.

O God, whose blessed Son made himself known to his disciples in the breaking of bread: Open the eyes of our faith, that we may behold him in all his redeeming work; who lives and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.

The Mission of Trinity Episcopal Church is to be an open and diverse Christian family dedicated to serving God and all creation by fostering spiritual growth through worship, prayer, education, service, stewardship, and celebration.

For information about Trinity Episcopal Church and its life and mission, please contact us at
509 West Pine Street, Hattiesburg, Mississippi 39401 or by phone at (601) 544-5551 or (601) 329-3538

This sermon and others by Bill Stroop are on the web at www.williamgstroop.com
Contact Bill by email at wgstroop@earthlink.net and visit our church at http://www.trinityhattiesburg.org

To Bill Stroop's Sermon Index Page

To Bill Stroop's Current Year A Sermon Index Page

To Trinity's Home Page

To Bill Stroop's Home Page

This publication, ie. this page and the preceding document that has a link to this page, are copyrighted. Except as permitted by the Copyright Act, no part of it may in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or any other means be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or be broadcast or transmitted without the prior permission of the publisher.