Memoir

Rhoda handed off to me the masterful theology of Diakonia from Galatians and chapter 9 of Ever to Emmaus, leading directly into the final chapter 11—Just’s personal diakonia in Spain (“I Will Leave for Spain by Way of You”)—and chapter 12—international theological education (“Word and Sacrament: The Means for Mission”). The liturgical mission has a missiological end, the heavenly banquet/kingdom of God. As these chapters make clear there is no divide between liturgy and mission: “There is no greater act of love to our unbelieving neighbors than to bring them into the liturgical assembly to receive the gift of salvation” (243).

I have said to my students that the catechumenate is a sort of personal apostolate for me (and I believe I can rightly claim it is for Rhoda as well). So too is it for Arthur. But not the catechumenate alone! Also, Spain and global theological education. He affirms as much by using the apostle Paul’s words in Romans 15 as the title of chapter 10: “I will leave for Spain by way of you.” So, Arthur also was called to Spain: his family living there from 1974-78; 2002 pastoral and educational service in Asturias; 2012 pastoral and educational service in Valencia; 2015 pastoral and educational service in Madrid; and my guess is that his apostolate is not finished yet! At the center of this calling was his sense of diakonia to the people of Spain. In other words, the gospel had to be inculturated in ways appropriate to the lives of the Spanish. As he says of the conversion of two Spanish Lutheran leaders, Juan Carlos and Jose Luis,

“They both understood that for Lutheranism to appeal to Spaniards, they had to be ‘Catholic,’ that is, liturgical with a biblical Marian piety. They believed that Lutheranism needed a healthy ‘Catholic’ identity to appeal to most Spaniards” (228).

It meant that the Lutheran church had to preach the gospel in ways that honored Spanish life itself: It “meant being liturgical and sacramental, for not only is this the way Spaniards do church—this is the way they do life. To be sacramental is to be in love with the world” as the Spanish are (232). Bearing witness to the gospel and the church’s life by the gospel took such a shape in the diakonia of his apostolate.

And the apostolate continued beyond Spain in other countries throughout the world: Siberia, Argentina, Transylvania (Romania), to name but a few. Central to this mission was the theological direction of education at Concordia Theological Seminary. As Just indicates, citing the aim of the curricular redesign at CTSFW,

“Theological education is fundamentally the forming of the mind according to the life of Christ in the context of the Church in Mission. This…perfectly reflected the essence of what Luke teaches us from the Emmaus story. On the road to Emmaus Jesus formed the mind of the two disciples to the meaning of the life of Christ by burning their hearts in breaking open the scriptures to them and then opening their eyes in the breaking of the bread to feed them his holy flesh. And then he sent them off to mission armed with the means for mission—Word and Sacrament” (242).

It’s the catechumenate, of course. Christ in Word and Sacrament are the means through which, to quote Kavanagh again, the redeemed world is done! Mission brings people into that redeemed world. And, so, as Just notes, “If my beginning was through the liturgy, that beginning has brought me to a missiological end, and in that end, I also found my beginning” (24). So, we would pray, might we all find our personal alphas and omegas interpenetrating one another, a perichoretic journey. And herein lies the wonder of Arthur’s memoirs: his story leads us into the wonder of our own stories because they are all framed in the story of God’s mission in Christ through Word and Sacrament. That means that all of our memoirs are memoirs of the Cross. Or as Just says of himself,

The Jerusalem Cross has been my guide throughout my life…The cross in the middle is Jesus’ cross, where he laid down his life for us. The four other crosses represent the four Gospels that teach us about Jesus and his suffering, death, resurrection, and ascension. And they also represent the four corners of the world where these Gospels are to be taught. That is at the heart of the Great Commission and why the church is ever to Emmaus. This has been the essence of my life as a pastor and professor” (240).

So may our lives, as with Arthur, Cleopas and his companion, and our Lord himself, be Ever to Emmaus!