Hello everybody and welcome to the church of Chatham Road, got quite a nice ring to it that, so I may be going it alone when this is all over. But seriously although we are not gathered together in the same building we are gathering together virtually around our tablets, phones, smart TVs and pcs as part of the body of Jesus Christ, and we miss you guys. I keep thinking back to when we may in the past have prayed about being thankful that we could meet freely together as a church, and how much different that prayer will feel when we are all eventually back together.

Anyway I would like to start by looking at the passage Bethany read for us earlier Luke 24:13-35, probably quite a familiar one about the two travellers on the road to Emmaus. If was to follow Jason’s lead and play a song at this point,I think it would have to be “the carnival is over “. Now I have really warmed to this couple, and with no particular reason I think of them as Cleopas, as mentioned in the text, and his Wife Mary ( if you look at John 19:25 “Near the cross of Jesus stood his mother, his mother’s sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene.” Some think Clopas is a misspelling that has crept into the bible and Mary was the wife of Cleopas) And they are walking home to Emmaus, we don’t know where that is today, but a couple of hours walk from Jerusalem, and I say home as they offered hospitality to Jesus at the end of their journey, which feels like something you would do in your own home. Probably not strictly scriptural but makes them more familiar and real to me.

There are so many themes and ideas you can unpick from this story. Our couple are walking along, feeling downcast (just look at the words in 19 to 21 “He was a prophet, powerful in word and deed before God and all the people. The chief priests and our rulers handed him over to be sentenced to death, and they crucified him; but we had hoped that he was the one who was going to redeem Israel.” Their hope was gone.

When Jesus joins them on their journey, imagine that, walking away from the cross and the miracle of Easter having lost hope and they become one of the first to encounter Jesus after his resurrection.

This is probably the tale of many of us, losing hope, turning our back on the cross and walking away, when Jesus meets with us and our travellers in the passage in a powerful way.

Then There is the idea that this is the first Sunday service, sharing the word of God and breaking bread, a model we still follow today.

Or what about the three meanings of “the word of god”, that is Jesus, who was the word of god, the scriptures which are the word of god and preaching, which is bringing the word of god, and here they all are interwoven in a few verses. I won’t give you the references, but have a look if you have time on your hands.

Now we talk about people having a heart for something, or a passion for a cause or a topic, you know that burning something of an enthusiast. Now I can listen to an enthusiast talk about more or less anything, with the possible exception of Wycombe Wanderers football Club, although if I am stuck here much longer, maybe even that, but you get that enthusiasm and delight from passionate people that is infectious.

This got me thinking about the things I am passionate about, the things that burn in my heart,and listened for god speaking to me through those things and found quite a few, one of which I am going to share with you today.

I am a bit of a naturalist, not a naturist, don’t worry, some of you may have seen me walking my dog on the beach and picking plastic as I go, because if I don’t it will still be there when my children take their grandchildren on the beach, and that is if we are lucky and it hasn’t been ground into micro plastic and is part of our food chain or the water cycle.

Enough of the soapbox and back to the pulpit.

there is a place near here which is special to me, some of you may remember an Easter Monday walk a few years ago where we walked through the Knepp Castle Estate. What they have done at Knepp Castle is realise that farming in the clay of the Sussex Weald does not pay and started a rewilding project. They put a deer fence around the estate, pulled up the rest of the fences and drains and introduced red deer, longhorn cattle, pigs and exmoor ponies, all free ranging across the estate. Then they let nature take its course, and waited to see what happened, you may have recently heard that white storks are nesting there for the first time in England since the English civil war, and that is a very long time ago.

Very interesting Andrew, but so what. Well here is the book of the estate,and if I was in church I’d put up this picture and ask what it is, and you’d say “it’s a butterfly”. But it is not any old butterfly, but a purple emperor, and they have loads of these rare butterflies appearing at Knepp. Very interesting Andrew, but so what. Well if you look in wildlife books they will tell you that the purple emperor is a woodland butterfly, but at Knepp they appeared the scrubland that the rewilding produced. In fact they went from zero to become the largest British population in a relatively small period of time.The theory they have at Knepp is that their natural habitat is now virtually extinct and so woodlands are the only place they can hold on.

Very interesting Andrew, but so what. Well this is what struck me, the result was an amazing consequence of just doing the right thing. If they had set out to attract the purple emperor they would have done what conventional wisdom told them to do and failed. What they say at Knepp is that having done what they think is the right thing, they just sit back and see what shows up, often with spectacular results.

This got me thinking about my own faith, and the idea of just doing the right thing. So the first question is What is the right thing, well Jesus tells in “John‬ ‭15:12‬ “My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you.” And what does look like, well another familiar verse, both beautiful and certainly for me, deeply challenging, 1 Corinthians‬ ‭13:4-7‬ “Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.”

So if I find myself being patient with the children because I want them to go to bed without a fuss, or be kind to a neighbour because I want them to ask about my motivations and faith, I will remind myself of the purple emperor and that if I focus on doing the right thing, just because it is the right thing, then god can make things happen that I can’t even begin to imagine, because he is beyond conventional wisdom, or as Paul says in his letter to the Ephesians 3:20, “Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us,”. Burning in our hearts maybe?

But going back to our couple on the road to Emmaus, they did something else, here in v33-35 “They got up and returned at once to Jerusalem. There they found the Eleven and those with them, assembled together and saying, “It is true! The Lord has risen and has appeared to Simon.” Then the two told what had happened on the way, and how Jesus was recognized by them when he broke the bread.”

‭‭They went and told others about what they heard and seen. So it is easy for me, I’ve just shared what god has spoken to me about, but please take some time, and think of our couple walking down the road with passion burning in their hearts and realising that it was Jesus speaking to them, listen to your heart, listen to what god is telling you and share it with others.