Title: “The Journey”
Theme: Luke 24, 1st-Person Pure Narrative Sermon
Concept: Perspective of a Jewish [unnamed] follower of Jesus in the Lukan text, who was on the road to Emmaus with Cleopas. They have been transformed by the experience on this journey, and desperately desire to share their testimony with others.
Scene: [The main character] speaks with Cleopas and “a fellow Jew” in the Luke 24 story. They have interacted with the risen Jesus, and actively narrate the story (my sermon) from long after this occurrence (likely to someone back in their hometown who asked about their travels; who they are (I am) speaking with isn’t important to this narrative).

[The main character] has existential, postcolonial thoughts after several interactions with Jesus and Jesus’ nature of being counterculture – in speech, in knowledge of the Scriptures/Jewish tradition, in action, and in His ultimate death-to-resurrection. This narrating character not only desires to tell all of this incredible experience, they wish all to know that Jesus is not only alive in the world, but that [His words] are alive in us…

Additional note: Theological claims are made throughout this narrative. One important note is that the main character (representing an unnamed character located in multiple places in the gospel text), was clearly a long-term follower of Jesus. They not only know about the Emmaus journey, they know of other Jesus miracles, including the Lazarus story from the Gospel of John, chapter 11, AND, as my narrative claims, they were one of the [unnamed characters] in the healing of the paralyzed man in Luke 5: 17-26 (also found in the other synoptics). [I believe] that there was a crossing-over of oral traditions from all gospel stories of Jesus’ life and ministry. Simply because the Lukan text does not include the resurrection of Lazarus, as an example, does not mean that those following Jesus during this period did not know about the healing miracle. This is my claim.

Explanation of Preaching Methodology: There are many benefits to a first-person, pure narrative sermon. The listener hears the story as written in the text--with exegetical additions, and for the purposes of the postcolonial assignment here, some existential, postcolonial thoughts about culture, decisions Jesus has made/things they have said, and results of colonialistic tendencies of the people in this story. The listener doesn’t hear from the preacher (me) directly, which could potentially alter what is heard by the listener. In this way, I am allowing the hearer to hear the gospel through their own (postcolonial) lens, rather than being told what to take from the text (equated with more didactic methods of preaching). This preaching method heavily involves performance, as studied from our class readings (Kim-Craig); and a thorough knowledge of the text is necessary (of what is said AND what is not said in the text). The thoughts of the main character in the story also allow space for a postcolonial reading of the text in Luke 24 (“I thought the Messiah was here to help us reclaim our land?” & “maybe the women were told for a reason instead of the men…” are examples). Even if this text is previously unfamiliar to the listener, the pure narrative, 1st-person preaching method allows all to experience the gospel text in a [new] way, in their context.