Tag Archives: narrative

Journey of joy

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The two disciples, after recognizing Jesus is alive on the road to Emmaus, go and tell their friends right away. They are filled with joy. They didn’t even wait an hour (Luke 24:33) before rushing back to Jerusalem to tell the others the good news. They are filled with joy.

The Gospel story today involves two disciples remembering, conversing, encountering and experiencing the risen Christ. They have this amazing experience all because they went for a walk. Talking about their grief, externalizing their feelings, thoughts while moving their bodies helped in working out their faith story.

When my identical twin brother and I tell the stories of our childhood, I often now find a remarkable pattern. We may be speaking about the same event – a lakeside holiday, a kitchen table discussion, a school yard game. This sharing of memories often begins by one of us asking the other: “Do you remember, when …?”

Recently we reminisced about a family vacation to Florida over forty years ago when we were teenagers. Late one afternoon, we decided to walk all the way from Pompano Beach to Fort Lauderdale barefoot along the pristine beach on the Atlantic Ocean. We both remembered going on that walk together.

There are aspects of that memory we share. We both recall, at the outset of our hike, seeing the long pier jutting out into the Atlantic Ocean which marked our destination south of us. We both remembered how late we started that walk in the afternoon, not giving us enough time to return before darkness settled in. We had underestimated the time we needed.

But when we reminisce about this experience, there are parts of that story one of us does not recall. For example, I mention the fact that we had to dodge the many jellyfish that came up on the shore when the sun was setting and we had to be careful on our return hike where we stepped.

My brother has no recollection of those jellyfish. But he will mention the people we bumped into on the walk that we apparently knew from the area. I have no memory of seeing those people whatsoever. That aspect, that truth, does not stick. And just because I don’t remember that part doesn’t mean it didn’t happen.

Each of us have gaps in the story we tell, even though we both experienced and were talking about the same event we shared in our lives on that same day some forty years ago.

This story from my life tells me two things about how we live our Christian faith.

First, telling the story of faith is not something left to our own individual devices. Because there are gaps in our individual telling. Being a Christian is not a solitary enterprise. Being a believer is not justified within our own mindset. Otherwise, we are just emphasizing what we want to hear, like talking in an echo chamber. Alone we will miss important perspectives.

That’s why we journey together. Telling the story of faith is a shared enterprise. That’s why it’s important, in living out our faith in Christ, to proverbially walk with another and within a community of faith.

Jesus joined the disciples on the road to Emmaus to get them out of their heads and out of talking only about their individual perspectives from what happened in the past days. Jesus joined them to give them an experience of the living Lord in their time and place. We need to hold space in this time and place with others on the journey.

When Jesus is present with us, we are drawn out of our self-centred, individual and past-fixated mindsets to pay attention to what is happening now.

That is why, I believe, the writer Luke does not specify the name of the other disciple walking with Cleopas. That’s because the intent of the Gospel writer is to encourage readers and listeners to put themselves in the story, to make it relevant for each of us.

Which is the second take-away from my walk to Fort Lauderdale by the sea story. When my brother and I talk about that story from the past, it becomes real to us in the present. The conversations bring us a meaning and joy for today.

We remember Christ’s story not only to tell his story alone, but also our story, and the story of every human being. The story of Jesus’ suffering, death and resurrection tells not just of the deliverance, transformation and renewed life that happened back then to Jesus, but of the deliverance, transformation and renewed life we experience now and expect in our own future with the living Christ Jesus.

That’s why we engage these resurrection stories from the bible. The resurrection of Jesus didn’t happen just in that first-century community. In remembering, in re-telling, we know, and we trust that it is happening now and that it will happen again and again (Beaumont, 2019, p. 97).

When we travel with others on the journey of faith, sharing our stories and filling in the gaps of the narrative of faith; and, when we appreciate that new life happens every day, this brings us great joy.

Unlike happiness, joy can live alongside sadness, boredom, fear, or despair. Joy expands our capacity to hold contradictions at the same time. And because we know joy we recover this strange yet steady confidence that life is still worth loving, even when it hurts.

So, resurrection happens every time we love someone even though they were not loving to us. Every time we decide to trust and begin again, even after repeated failures, we are resurrected. Every time we try to stop those negative thoughts that fuel our cynicism, we experience the Risen Christ. Resurrection is always possible now, because of the joy we have in the Risen Christ. Joy is one of the most powerful experiences we can have because it an emotion that can co-exist with our actual lives.

It is not joy instead of grief. It is joy with grief. It is truer than plain happiness. It is the deep assurance that the story is not finished, even when our lives feel painfully incomplete. Easter joy is the grace of being able to say: “This is hard, I am still waiting, and God is still good.” Not because everything has changed but because one day God promises everything will (Bowler, 2026, April 7).

We don’t have wait for death to experience resurrection (Rohr, 2026, April 10). We can begin resurrection today by living connected to God with one another, filling in the gaps of our own understanding, loving courageously, trusting boldly and living joyfully.

We are so fortunate to live in this part of the world when Easter coincides with springtime. I hope you are all getting outside more these days to see the earth begin to live again after months of winter and a very late Spring this year.

Waking up, getting up, and watching the sunrise during this season of Easter can be inspiring. Because, sure enough, the sun will rise tomorrow as it always does. It peaks over the horizon, when I watch it from our back deck, between two large white pine trees in the distance.

(Photo by Martin Malina, December 2019)

But it doesn’t appear so much like a sunrise but as a groundswell. It appears like the light comes from the earth. It comes from the world we live in. It comes not from the top, but from the bottom. It seems to say, that even all the world which looks muddy and material, even all of this, which looks so ordinary and dying, will be reborn.

Easter is the feast of joyful hope. This is the time of year we hear that God will have the last word and that this last word is resurrection. God will turn all that we mess up and hurt and punish into life and beauty (Rohr, 2026, April 5). Easter is the longest day of the year because it happens every day!

What joy!

References:

Beaumont, S. (2019). How to lead when you don’t know where you are going: Leading in a liminal season. Rowman & Littlefield.

Bowler, K. (2026, April 7). A different kind of joy. In R. Rohr’s Daily Meditations [Website]. https://cac.org/daily-meditations/a-different-kind-of-joy/

Rohr, R. (2026, April 10). Resurrection is possible now. Daily Meditations [Website]. https://cac.org/daily-meditations/resurrection-is-possible-now/

Rohr, R. (2026, April 5). The hope of resurrection. Daily Meditations [Website]. https://cac.org/daily-meditations/the-hope-of-resurrection/

Telling our story

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National Bishop Susan Johnson (ELCIC) listens to words of gratitude for her 18 years of service as national bishop (July 12, 2025, Winnipeg, http://www.elcic.ca)

The Mary-and-Martha Gospel story (Luke 10:38-42) reminds me of what sometimes happens when family and/or friends gather around a table on a holiday or to celebrate some special occasion. Over the meal, each person has a different take on the subject matter at hand. Everyone has their own opinion.

After years of regularly encountering this Gospel in the lectionary, and preaching countless sermons on it, I have concluded that there are at least three characters sitting around our table today. These three characters represent my own evolution of understanding this Gospel story. They are the Literalist, the Rebel, and the Peacemaker.

The Literalist is the first to speak. The Literalist reads this Gospel and concludes that Mary is the person that we all should model: the one who is quiet and listens to Jesus and doesn’t worry at all about the practical aspects of hosting Jesus and his entourage. While the mundane activities need to be done, we are called instead to aspire to the true, higher, spiritual gifts.

The Rebel, as you might guess, jumps right in. The Rebel resists the Literalist’s interpretation and declares their objection. They see it in the opposite way. Martha is the true hero, and Jesus is unfair in admonishing her. After all, the practical aspects of hosting a party are vital in healthy relationships and community building, not to mention how dominant cultures have tended to diminish and marginalize women who traditionally did these more active, practical things.

Finally, the Peacemaker quietly interjects. The Peacemaker will argue that both roles, or postures, are important to balance in any community or within any individual. Jesus isn’t taking sides in this debate. Rather, he directs his comments to the way Martha goes about her task, “worried and distracted by many things” (Luke 10:41). Whether we are active all the time and busy in our service to God, or praying in silence and resting in stillness and holy presence, distraction is the real culprit.

If you were invited to this table, and you came, where would you sit? And with whom? The Literalist? The Rebel? The Peacemaker? Or … is there yet another voice that needs to be heard?

In the farewell tribute and celebration of outgoing national bishop Susan Johnson at the national convention of the ELCIC last week, a speaker and close friend of Susan’s, Willard Metzger from the Mennonite Church and current director of the Citizens for Public Justice (CPJ) talked about the strengths in Bishop Johnson’s ministry (www.elcic.ca).

He spoke about how Bishop Susan knows who she is. She is strong in her personal identity. In other words, she has an abiding love of self despite all the challenges she had faced, both personally and professionally, in her 18 years as bishop.

Willard went on to say that our love for God is affirmed when we love ourselves. Why? Because God created each of us. Each individual is created out of the love of God. It is fundamentally crucial as Christians to continually work at loving ourselves because God created you, made you, fashioned you in God’s image. We would then compassionately correct any messages we might tell ourselves, or the world might tell us, to the contrary.

Here’s another voice, another way of interpreting the Gospel. What shall we call this character? The Lover? It’s not about whether it’s better to be active and serving, attending to others and being hospitable in practical ways. Neither is it better to be contemplative, and reflective and sitting at Jesus’ feet. It’s not either/or.

It was that Mary knew who she was, was strong in her own identity, and loved herself enough to know that she just needed to do the one thing she was about and be who she was, at that point in time. The “better part” that she had chosen was that she chose to be herself without trying to be someone and do something she was not. She didn’t need to please someone else or fulfill their expectation of her. Jesus said it: Who she was and what she was about could not, “will not be taken away from her” (Luke 10:42).

This year, the national church has embarked on a restructuring process. During the convention the facilitators of the restructuring process engaged convention delegates, visitors and staff in an activity which I would like to practice here today, with you.

To begin with, the activity had us pair off. So before doing anything, turn to one person sitting beside or close to you and introduce yourself to them. It’s best to break the ice before diving in to do this exercise. If you are watching online with another person, you can do this with them at home.

The aim is to tell a story, together. I’ll start you off by saying, “Once upon a time ….” Then one of you will start telling your story by saying just one word. Then the other person will respond, but with just one word. And back and forth you go, taking turns but with just one word at a time.

Before you begin we need a general theme that will govern all our stories. So, what country or place in the world would you like to visit? …. What activity would you like to do there? ….

Ok, the story you will create together with your partner will be in this place and revolve around this activity. But remember, you say just one word when it’s your turn. I’ll give you a couple of minutes to do this, ok? Ready? “Once upon a time …” Go!

Time’s up! What was one challenge you may have encountered in the exercise? You may have had an idea about where the story should go. But then your partner would say a word that totally threw you off. They, obviously, can’t read your mind. And they might very well rather take the story in a different direction.

For the exercise to be productive, both partners need to get past themselves, listen carefully, and join together in telling a story that emerges from both, without preconception. You are co-creating in the moment. And hopefully having some fun along the way.

The exercise taught me that there is a difference between my story, and a story. There’s a difference between my story, and our story. And it’s not that my story is bad, or lacking, or not good enough. Refer to my earlier point about loving ourselves.

Each of us is beloved and has value and worth and beauty. You and I need to know who we are as individuals. We need to rejoice and celebrate in our particular, unique gifts that each person brings.

At the same time, we need to share and engage each other in relationship, and work together, respecting each other’s gifts. We co-create a new story, an emerging story. This can be exciting, and scary at the same time.

However your close relationships are organized, however community happens for you, despite and maybe because of our differences, the family still gathers around the table, as we will at the Holy Meal shortly. We reach out to make meaningful connections.

And perhaps this is the grace. Even though the people sitting around the proverbial table may be very different in their outlooks and interpretations and politics, we still gather and hear each other out. We practice being in community. And God continues to love each one of us, and the church.

Let us rejoice and give thanks in the story that God tells through us.

Thanks be to God!