Walking with Jesus, walking with Swanie.

Sermon preached at the funeral of Richard A. Swanson ("Swanie"), March
15, 2005, St. John's Lutheran Church, Rock Island, Illinois. Pastor
Swanson served at Augustana College-Rock Island for 33 years.
Text: Luke 24:13-35
"The Road to Emmaus"

I wonder how many of you have a story similar to these disciples--these two depressed, disappointed, slightly lost, certainly confused followers of Jesus who just needed to take a walk. To clear their minds. To talk about everything swirling around in their heads and clenching at their hearts. They take a walk, aiming toward a little village, perhaps not even caring if that was where they ended up.

Along the way as they journey, they run into a man who with a simple question draws out of them their story. Without even much effort, they seem to know that this is someone they must talk to. And he listens--listens to what were their hopes and dreams. He listens to what has gone wrong. He hears their story, even as they continue to walk. Most important, he listens to their hearts and all that pours forth from them. And only after he has listened does he throw a little wisdom their way.

I wonder how many of you have a story similar to theirs? A great many of you, I suspect. Even more who are not here. Still more whom we may never know.

Swanie took seriously his calling to be as Christ for others and to live out Christ's radical, embracing grace in the world. So, just as Christ joined his disciples where they were in that moment in their life and faith, he joyfully and humbly did the same with many of us. I know that there are many stories, so many shared these last few days, but indulge me in this one example.

About three weeks ago, Swanie showed up for church in a dress.

He protested that it was not exactly a dress, it was more like an old robe costume, or an enclosed toga. But it was a dress, worn over his turtleneck and pants and with walking shoes. The few of us standing in the church kitchen simply watched him approach, sipped our drinks, and stood silently but intently waiting for the explanation. "Good morning," he said. "I'm John the Baptist. But you can call me Jack."

He was there to teach the children--and what better way than to be the story? How else could they begin to listen and to learn except to have the story come alive there with them? He was intent on taking those children on a journey, determined to meet them where they were and then open them up to a little bit of truth, intent on leaving them with their hearts burning at what they heard. Even if it just involved a short walk around the basement and a brief conversation in a dress.

Many of you here have spent some part of your life taking walks of varying lengths and types with Swanie. Some of you enjoyed actual physical walks with him. Along the river, around the block, at a monastery, through a cemetery, along the slough (now known as the pond) path. A gentle pace of listening, combined with the cadence of a good walk, until his companion, too, felt a renewed hope or intellect or spirit.

Some of you enjoyed walks of faith and understanding. Conversations over time meant opening doors or hearts to new ideas, or maybe just looking from a new angle at some old ones. Sometimes those conversations were meant to look at possibilities not yet considered--Why can't we have an interfaith holocaust remembrance? Have you ever read the rule of St. Benedict? How do you pray? Sometimes the questions were meant to be pondered or challenging--Is it possible to be a reconciling people in such a warring and broken world? What does it mean to forgive? How does a person heal? Never were these times meant to give answers, only to be part of the dialogue along the journey.

The thing is, in all of those lifetimes of conversations with all of you and untold numbers of others, he truly believed that he had only scratched the surface. He had only just begun to understand that concept, only just started to ask some good questions, just barely had gotten to the tip of that understanding of God or of you or of all of us together and what it all means. He was always eager to hear more, know more, see more, explore more--and to see what surprises God had in store just around the next corner. His curiosity and thirst for the journey was never sated, whatever the journey, whoever the companion.

We gather today brokenhearted, just as those disciples did on the road. But I think that we also gather with grateful hearts, because our story is similar to theirs. We have had a companion with us who listened and who made our hearts burn within us. More than that, we have had a companion who made it his life's joy to help us recognize what the disciples could not that day--the presence of God persistently and gently with us.

They saw at the end of their walk: light and life and hope and possibility. They knew at the end, without necessarily understanding it, that God had been at work, that their hearts burned for a reason, that they had to tell others.

We do have a story similar to theirs, one of resurrection and life, and we know it in part because, as with those Sunday School children, Swanie lived it for us in our walk together. It is a story of life, life promised and given, life that overcomes death and our fear of death and even despair. It is a story of hope, the hope in which we gather, a hope that resurrects and renews our spirits. We do have their story. It is our story. It is our faith. It is the story of a people who know death but who also know, with hearts that burn within, that there is more than death--that there is life and love abundant and a God who gives us that gift of life, day after day, moment after moment.

Our journeys do not end here. We have only scratched the surface of the exploring and surprises yet to come. Our journeys do not end here, and neither does Swanie's. We entrust him this day to the light of God he gave others a glimpse of. With hopeful hearts, we entrust him to that God of life whom the disciples encountered on the road. We entrust him back to the loving arms of his constant companion in his walk on this earth.

Well done, good and faithful servant!

Stacie Fidlar

St. John's Lutheran Church

Rock Island, Illinois

[e-mail]