As a child I delighted in those Bob Hope road-trip movies. I especially liked the ones featuring both Bob Hope and Bing Crosby. They usually featured great women, like “The Road to Hong Kong” with both Dorothy Lamour and Jean Collins. An extra plus was Peter Sellers.
More recently, the “Blues Brothers” road-trip is a madcap adventure to raise money for their former orphanage. It stars some of the best musical acts ever – Aretha Franklin belting out R-E-S-P-E-C-T. The band’s version of “Ghost Riders in the Sky” was fantastic.
Then there were the dystopian, post-apocalyptic films like “Mad Max: Fury Road,” “The Road,” “Zombieland,” and “Damnation Alley.” This genre was never my cup of tea. However, “The Road,” taken from a book by Cormac McCarthy, is a powerful meditation on hope in a crumbling society. The unshakeable bond between a father and a son carries the story, as they traverse a desolate, ash-gray landscape. It is a powerful testimony to the human spirit. The book, though somewhat depressing, offers brief glimmers of hope. Towards the end, the father succumbs to failing health and dies. The boy remains with him for three days before he gathers his strength to continue the journey south. He’s found by a family with two children that takes him in. With them, the boy continues to carry the fire of humanity forward in a world at its worst. This is a most powerful metaphor of our present circumstances – a deep meditation on what is ultimately important in our politically ash-gray landscape. Not for the fainthearted. Hint: I thought the book was better than the film, which wasn’t at all bad.
That’s the thing about roadtrips – they’re an uncharted adventure into the unpredictable. Almost anything can happen.
In Luke’s post-Easter story of some men on a roadtrip to Emmaus, likewise, the astounding and unpredictable unfold. Two disciples, Cleopas and another, unnamed follower of Jesus, are on a journey from Jerusalem to Emmaus. About a seven-mile trek.
Luke gives us no idea as to the purpose of their trip. It might have been simply a forlorn wandering through their despondent confusion following the execution of their teacher Jesus.
As they walked, they pondered the tragic events that had taken place over the last several days. How their hopes for a restored Israel had been dashed, had come to nothing.
In the midst of their discussion a third person appears on the road with them. Jesus, though they do not recognize him. Feigning ignorance, he asks them what they had been discussing. They are incredulous. How could this man be the only one in Jerusalem who did not know of the events that transpired over these last days?
When this mysterious stranger asks, “What events?” they spill out the entire story of their teacher, Jesus of Nazareth. How they thought he would be the one who would redeem their people. How Jesus had been a prophet “mighty in deed and in word.” And how the Roman empire, colluding with the local religious authorities, had tortured and executed him, dashing all their hopes. They went on about the stories that some of the women followers had told of an empty tomb and angels announcing that he was in fact yet alive.
“Oh, you foolish men,” the stranger scolded. Slow of heart to believe what the prophets had promised.
My New Testament professor, Dr. Hans Dieter Betz, always marveled that Jesus was known as a great teacher, for what good teacher begins the class by telling his students that they are a bunch of foolish dolts?
He then explained the story of their ancestors to them, beginning with Moses and the prophets.
At this point, admonishing them as “foolish men,” this stranger grounds them in the scriptures and traditions of their faith. Explaining it all in relationship to himself.
Yet they still do not recognize him as Jesus. That is because they lack one basic experience in recognizing him – one essential additional thing that Luke wants us to know.
When they arrive at Emmaus, the stranger makes as if to go on further, now walking ahead of them. But they urge him to remain with them for evening was drawing nigh.
When they set down at table for supper, the man took the bread and broke it and, in that instant, they knew who he was. Their eyes were opened to the reality of Jesus presence; and he vanished from their sight.
Luke, in relating this story freighted with multiple meanings, wants his readers to understand two things. They will know the Risen Lord through understanding their story as passed down through scripture. A story of being in a covenant relationship as a people with a loving God. Struggling through the good times and the bad, ever sustained as a people in the hands of a tender and faithful God.
But this history lesson is not sufficient in and of itself. More than an intellectual understanding is required. Not only of those early disciples, but of us present day followers.
The second lesson: It is in the communal act of breaking bread that the full spiritual reality of the Risen Christ is revealed. In the gathering and the prayers, in the breaking of bread and in the cup of salvation we grow into the Christ’s likeness.
The teaching here is that the faith of the Jesus Movement is not a Lone Ranger operation. It is a faith carried down through the ages by a community of the faithful. Not always understanding the enormity of this spiritual heritage they held in “earthen jars.” Often getting it wrong, sometimes disastrously wrong. Just as many Americans have through the blasphemous Christian Nationalist idolatry of our present day. For such is our contemporary golden calf – the same idol as Moses encountered when he had descended from Mount Sinai with the Ten Commandments.
But I digress. Back to our road story. Upon recognizing the Lord in their midst, they immediately got up and ran to tell the others. They told them how the Lord had been present in the breaking of the bread. And in their fellowship gathered around that table.
Their hearts burned within them. Something so infectious that it could not be kept to themselves.
And so it is with us as we make known the love we have experienced ourselves. Our St. Francis Garden of Hope is the sacramental reality, the present-day experience of Christ’s will that all be fed, just as we are fed every Sunday around his table.
In the movie, “Field of Dreams,” the word of promise as a corn farmer erects a baseball field In the midst of his rows of corn, is “Build it and they will come.” And sure enough, the spectral baseball legends from times past, ghosts of a bygone era, show up.
The same holds true for our Garden of Hope. And this last week, show up indeed they did. Not ghosts, but an entire group of students and others from several of the Claremont Colleges with their teacher Nancy from Scripps College. The leadership of Uncommon Good was also present, as they distribute what was harvested – if you don’t know their work, Google it.
After a morning of harvesting, the bounty was weighed. Amounting to over 500 pounds of good, nutritious vegetables. Radishes, carrots, kale, Swiss chard, spinach, cilantro, lettuce. All the good stuff that won’t be found in any corner 7-11. This was to be distributed through the program that Uncommon Good operates.
Later that morning, we were overjoyed to hear that the recipients were delighted and astounded at their good fortune. Much appreciated it was.
In addition, the next day, thanks to Miguel, Peggy and Beth, another some 20 crates were hauled off to the St. John’s Food Bank, feeding over 500 persons that day. Yes, taste and see that the Lord is good.
We, like those two men on a road trip to an out-of-the-way place, continue that same journey. In the breaking of the bread and the sharing of the cup – and in the leafy green work of many hands, Christ is yet present. With the same fullness and blessing as of yesteryear. Jesus continues to meet us at his table, today and tomorrow.
Now, isn’t that a most satisfying road trip? A trip leading to good nutrition, life abundant and a taste of eternity.
As I oft say, that’s our story and we are glorified in and through it. Sticking to it we are. The only trip worth the price of the ticket. Amen.
April 19, 2026
3 Easter
“On the Road Again”
The Rev. Dr. John C. Forney
Acts 2:14a, 36-41; Psalm 116:1-3, 10-17
1 Peter 1:17:23; Luke 24:13-35
