NO ESCAPE APRIL 23, 1972
LUKE 24: 13-32 JOHN M. BUCHANAN

What form does the psychological dynamic called ‘escapism’ take in your life?
in simpler terms, how do you get away from It all ~ not as an extunded vacation,
but weekly, daily, as part of your normal life style? Reading hetps ma to evcar-:
so do the exploits of the Pittsburgh Pirates: a television show sometimes does the
Job: on occassion Johnny Carson serves as my escape, and it jis interesting that 1. 7d
The producers of his show know very well that this is their success formula. A
late-night waik is good for escaping: or a motion picture. Although that can be
risky given the new realism and socal conscience of the movie industry. On more
than one occassion | have gone to the theatre to escape only to discover that the
movie itself forced me to confront the very issucs and concerns from which | was
seeking a temporary reprieve.

All of us have our own way of pulling back from fife: our private escape
valve that atfows us a blessed hour or two apart from the pressures and tensions
and deep, persona! burdens we bear every day. And ft is a good thing that we do.
On this level escapism is normal and healthy and therapeutic. i+ fs not uncommon
for a doctor or counselor to prescribe a littte play, a little diversion, a little
activity that demands our physical energy and emotional resources as an antidote
to anxiety and depression. We need to escape: we need to find ways that will
allow us fo practice responsible escapism.

Because there is an escapism that {s irresponsible and unhealthy. One of
the first signs of alcoholism is the need of the Individual to drink in order to
function, and the corresponding need to drink in order to escape from something.
reapie drink heavily for a number of reasens and | claim no expertise, other than the
common understanding that a problem drinker has come to fean on alcohol as the
only way to get away from himself or fife in general or whatever is bothering him.
For the same reasons people turn to drugs - because tinder their Influence enphoria
is the norm and the pressing problems of life, the guilt and feelings of inadequacy
all fade away, and everything is fine. And | don't just mean hard drugs: because

the “gentle blue bTf' will do tr> same thing for you. Drug induced escapism is

min

as close fo al! of us as the neighborhood pharmacy.

There are other expressions of unhealthy escapism not as dramatically
obvious as alcoholism and drug addition. tn a curious twist, escape for some
people becomes work. retner than a source of tension, a person's job may become
the escape valve from a marital situation that is intolerable. The compulsi™
worker who says he's trying to get ahead may just be escaping from the tensions
and frustrations of home - at which point escapism is destructive.

On a personal level we need a degree of escapism. None of us is equipped to
live in the eye of the storm twenty-four hours a day. But escapism turns unhealthy
when tt prevents us from dealing with the real issues of our fives: when we reach
for the bottle of scotch or the trancuiiizer bottie or go back to the office
because there is nothing else to do.

On a broader level we engage in mass, culture} escapism. Every successive
Oppolic mission has served tnis function in the National psyche. Following the
ororrece of the mission allows us to get away for a while: and vicariously we are
abte to view the whole world as a blue=green sphere floating in space, and it's
a good feeling. in the aftermath of the Howard Hughes - Clifford Irving incider*
one assayist suggests that we were fascinated by it all because it happened at
very opportune tine: namely as a pleasant interruption to inflation and foou
_..ces and Viet Nam and bussing: and we were quite saturated at the moment with
alf of that.

That can be healthy, That kind of cultural divarsion can be therapeutic -
until it becomes a substitute, an escape from reality. The Roman tEmperous knew
that a good circus would divert people's attention from the barbarian invasion fn
the North. So it is easy today to jook for an escape from the pressing realitles
of our national fife.

Escapism in its various forms, | would tike to suggest, is the equivalen*
the Road to Emmaus in our New Testament lesson this morning. And according to
that very significant story in the Gospel according to Luke, it Is precisely on

this road, this attempted escapism, that tho divine breaks Tato our lives: that

ao Bt
when it happens it is a surprise ~ an intrusion - that cannot be nailed down: and that
when it happens it may be ambiguous and not altogether clear. We may not recognize
it at first.

With this in mind, let us took again at Luke's story. Jesus was dead, and now .°
was Sunday, the first day of a new week, On Saturday | can imagine the disciples
together In their locked room, trying to come to grips with the unspeakable tray. dy
that had happened the afternoon before. | sec them pacing back and forth, Trying te
make conversation, being a more solicitous than usual. But now Sunday, Jerusalem was
returning to normai.Life was going on, and twa of them decided to do a very logical
thing: to get away for a while: to escape from the grief - the guilt because they had
abandoned him - the unanswered questions - the deep doubts ~ the beautiful dream thet
had died with him. A few hysterical woman had come to their hiding place clammoring
about an empty tomb, and all that did was make the tension greater and the gloom
thicker.

So they decided to walk to Emmaus: two of them, in order to escape. We are not
toid why they wont we know that Emmaus is just a few miles outside Jerusalem, that
it was a very smal! settiement: and | am suggesting that for them the only thing
Emmaus had going for it was that it wasn't Jerusalem and thus an escape.

You know the rest. As they walked they wore joined by a third man with whom
they talked about the events of the past several days. They persuaded the stranger to
eat the evening mcal with them in Emmaus. And when, at table,the stranger broke the
bread, blessed it and gave it to them, they suddety, remarkably recognized him. it
was Jesus ~ alive and sitting right there with thom. And then he feft. In the process
of escaping he came to them: in the most unlikely circumstances the divine broke in
on their lives: and before they could nail it down, before they could draw a picture
or write a poem, the experience was over. One fleeting moment of revealation: one
moment of certainty: and then they were alone again.

| conclude from that somuthing that 1 regard as very important: namely that Jesus
Chgist cemes to us in the common uxperiences of our fives: that he comes to ys

specifically as we eagage tm our gentie escap$sm. § am imfering ~ and | meam to infer -

ra dpet

That you and 1, and alf men, try to escape from him: that to hear his call, to know the
cost of discipleship, to sense that a claim has been laid on my life is to fry to get
out from under it. We have a whofe bag of tricks: we doubt the historicity of the
Biblical accounts: we can't swallow the resurrection: or we just can't be bothers.
because other matters arc more imporant: or we find noat rationatizations why his
command fo love totally just isn't practical right mow. And then he comes to us ~
a stranger - through the voice of another person - through the need of a hungry child -
through the call to commitment and sacrificn.

We all have our roads to Emmaus: and one of the continuing themes of the Biblical
witness is that God will not allow us to walk them alone, Thre is no escapc.
Centuries before Christ a Psalmist sensed this about 4d, and wrote it down in what

for me has become one of th. most suagestive and personaily meaningful portions of

scripture.
“Whither shall | go from thy Spirit?
Or whither shall | fiee from thy presence?

if ! ascend to Heaven, thou art there!

if {| make my Bed in Sneol, thou art there!

If | take the wings of the morning and dwell in the uttermost parts of the s-~
aven there thy hand shall lead me, and thy right hand shall hold me." (Psalm |3y:
7:10)

The poct, Francis Thompson, called it ‘The Hound of Heaven and wrote movingly
about how, over the fabyrinth of time, he sensed himself pursued, chased and found
by God himself.

That's the first thing that ! conclude: that whatever the Road to Emmaus {is for
us, Jesus Christ will keap breaking to waik with us: that there fis no escape: that no
matter how we try to ellude him, wo will be found.

The second conclusion Is that when it happens: when th. certainty of God occurs
in our lives, we will try but fail to nail it down permanentiy. At Emmaus Jesus Christ
revealed himself to the two discipics and then loft. But you and | want vory badiy

*o preserve those npments. We want to make normative the one expertence of certainty

ot Dut

and grace. Some people come to worship every week expecting to be hit between the

eyes with a sense of their own salvation. Some peopie want to "get high" on Jesus:

to live constantly with the emphoric sense of God's presence. Some churches seem to
know how to do it weekly and have made the moment of truth into an emotional upheaval
that must be played and ruplayed gain and again, as if its meaning would disappear if
the experience is not repeated. And | want to say that, that too can bs a form of
escapism: that to demand regular authenticating of one's faith is, essentially, to escape
from the reality of life: That the divine may break in as we walk to Emmaus, but that

it is not honest te demand a whole ilfe lived on this level.

| conclude, fn the third place, that when the diving breaks in, when Jesus Christ
comes fo us, wo may not immediately racognize him. That was the disciples: experience.
They walked and talked with him for som: time: they sat down at a tablo with him:
presumably they looked right at him. And they didn't know who he was. What else
could that mean but that Jesus Christ comes in ways that are not always obvious, and
that do not necessarily correspond with our own expectation regarding our encounter
with him, We have been taught, even though wo may not subscribe to it intellect sc.
that Christian conversion happens in a certain way, that a religious experience
will be manifested in certain feclings, that when God choses to confront us we will
be as sure of it as anything that has ever happened te us. We associate if with the
dramatic, unnatural occurence: the bolt of lightning, the mysterious vision. Biblically,
we recall! to burning bush for Moses, and the Damascus road for Paul: precise, crystal
clear experiences of God's reality and God's wit!.

Most of us are not that fortunate. tor were the two disciples at Emmaus. They
recognizud him In the bruaking of bread: and so. | would suggest, God moves among us.
Jesus Christ comes, | belfev., mostly in th. quict, honest encounters between peoptc:
Jesus Christ appears as 3 stranger when something kind and surprising and beautiful
happens; when someone says {| care about you" and means It: when someone says “ttm
praying for you and dous it ; when through the grace of God we are enabled to minister
to and heal and hefp each other. He comus, | believe, when we break bread together

and enjoy each other: he comes, | beliuve, in a chile baptized affirming the mysterious

= (hs
beauty of human birth and the compalling need for human tove.

He comes,| believe, as wa perceive the suffering of other people: he reveals
himself in.the broken bodies of the war dead, in the drawn face of a starving child,
in the angry face of an oppressed black brother. Thsre is no escape from that.

In the final analysis, the presence of Jusus Christ, is what we hae to offer
The world and each other. One commitment compells us to live forcthers, to heal the
sick and feed the hungry. But when all is said and done, all wo really have is the
presence of Jesus Christ and the certainty of his presence in the world.

A group of clergymen met last week and as we broke bread together we were
jamenting the flack of impact The church has on society, and the relative impotence of
the combined churches in our own community. And the conversation turned te an exper-
jence we all shared - serving communion to the patients of St. Elizabeth Hospital on
HMaunday Thursday. To a man we were deeply effected by tais strange role of offering
the presence of Jesus Christ te peapie we didn't know. Many of us have received
thank you notes from those people. And we concluded that in the final analysis this
is what we are about as ministers, and this is what the Church is about - the sharing
and celebrating of the presence of Jesus Christ.

Albert Schweitzer, amona his many gifts, was a great scholar. He wrote a very
sophisticated work which became one of the most influential books in the field of
New Testament Scholarship - ‘The Quest for the Historical Jesus". But he ended his
book on a deeply devotional note. | would like to read to you fram the last paragraph

of “The Quest for the Historical Jesus"

“He comes to us as One Unknown, without a name, as of old....he came to those who
know him not. He speaks to us the same word, ‘Follow me', and sets us to the tasks
which he has to fulfil! for our time. He commands. And to those who obey him,
whether they be wise or simple, he wif! reveal himself in the toils, the conflicts,
the sufferings which they shalt pass through in their fellowship, and, as an ineffable

mystery, they shall learn in their own experience who he is’. AMEN

wal ~

Father, you have come to each of us in the past as a stranger. Help us to recognize
you. Open our ears to your voice as It comes fo us through the voices of ofhors.
And enable us to share and ceigbrate your presence in the common experlences of our

‘ifce tegether. Through Jesus Chrisy our Lord. Arse