October 11, 2026 Gene Wilkes - On the Camino

All right, guys, we got a newbie today. We have Gene and Kim Wilkes all the way from Dallas, and we are so thankful that you guys are here. I got to meet Gene, obviously, just here before chapel and was asking him just about his past. And the most important thing that he wanted me to recognize is that they have two beautiful daughters and five grandchildren, children, which is always the highlight of life for sure. Currently, Gene's the ministry guidance counselor at DBU, which has awesome. And then if you kind of keep reading, actually, this kind of caught my eye and I want to ask a question because we have a lot of seasoned individuals in here that have worked a long, long time. Raise your hand if you have worked in a profession for one company for more than 25 years not a whole lot of hands and Jean has done 26 years at Legacy Church in Plano so and Kim raised her hand because she's been stuck with Jean for that long too so so Jean we'd love to bring you up here we're excited to hear your knowledge that you're gonna bring to us so thank you so much for being here well I feel like I'm a little bit coming home I've known Jim Denison actually when I was a PhD student at Southwestern and did my teaching fellow course in Matthew Jim was in my class so I really feel good you know as teachers and Kim's she raised her hand because she was at Plano Senior High Plano Independent School District for over almost 30 years so we as educators it's It's our students that really add to who we are as teachers. So the fact that Jim Dennison was in my class makes me feel really, really good. And then Jeff Bird was at Legacy for a while, and he and Billy were in our life group for a while. So I know Mark Turman for when he pastored in our area, Bobby from a staff member and a seminary supporter that lived in Lubbock from First Baptist, and Gerald Griffin was was just up the road from me when we were at Plano. He was up on Hillcrest Road. So I feel like I'm one of the gang. So, I'm really honored to be here and to be with each of you. And I appreciate your faithfulness that on a beautiful day next to the lake, etc., that you're here in the house of worship. And, I thank you for that. This past May, I was supposed to retire, but then Then this DBU thing came up.

So I'm kind of partially retired. But about a year before that, a friend had invited me to join him and another friend on the Camino de Santiago in Portugal. And we went and we only spent four days on the camino. Now, four days on the Camino de Santiago is like saying, I'm going to swim the English Channel and then go swim four laps in your backyard swimming pool.

It's not the full experience, but it was enough for me.

And I wanted to tell you a little bit about it because we are all on a Camino. Camino simply means a road, a path, a way. And when we reached that, the other three people I was with, one is Alan Graham, who's the founder of Mobile Loaves and Fishes in Austin, also Community First, a community of tiny homes in Austin with hundreds of homeless that they are serving there. there. Actually, it's one of the first places they did the 3D housing. The icon down that company down there builds these houses for them with them now. His adult daughter, Taylor, was there. And then Larry Smith was a friend of mine, chairman of their board, but he was part of Legacy also. So we got on the Camino, and one of things I found out immediately was that Alan and taylor are devout roman catholics and i learned very quickly that their devotion what they did every day in their habit was out of devotion not to gain merit a lot of us do religion you know the old uh walker uh song about i go to church so i i get to church i won't go to hell kind of thing anyway so we kind of count the times we do religious things and sometimes roman Roman Catholics are accused of doing these things to merit heaven. But those were not the case. So every morning we did several things. We got up, we would get our packs on, we'd clean up from the hostel or wherever we stayed, and we would begin with the Lord's Prayer. And then we would listen to the daily mass readings, just following the lectionary as some denominations do. Then we heard a reflection from one of the speakers on this hallow app some of you have seen the ad for that and then we would do what was known as the liturgy the litany of humility now this was brand new to me but let me remind you that when I chose to go on this trip it was I had a prayer and I told them before we started my My prayer was a prayer of healing.

I'd been in education. We had gone through a merger. If any of you have done a merger or an acquisition, it is not a fun thing. And as dean, we were really fortunate that East Texas Baptist received us.

It was the ideal, perfect thing. But it was just not who I am. But it had something that had to be done, and I did that. But it really threw the life out of my soul.

uh, just, I'm not a, I're not a manager. I, the president job seemed to fit me better. Pastor job seemed to me better, and so we got the job done. Praise the Lord. BH Carroll is part of East Texas Baptist. It's going great. It was exactly what needed to happen, but I was whipped, and my prayer was, Lord, cleanse me. Lord, revive me, and I asked them to pray that with me, so each day, we would begin this process. And I want to share with you a little bit of this litany of humility because it was so new to me. It was written by a secretary of state, a papal secretary of state, cardinal in the late 19th century, early 20th century. And its response, if you've ever been to some of the high church services, the priest will say something and you'll say something in response. You're familiar with this. So this one, particular one, is you respond with, and keep this in your mind, and either move your lips or in your heart, the response is, deliver me Jesus alright so here's here's the prayer that we would do each day so from the desire of being esteemed deliver me jesus from the desire of been honored deliver me Jesus from the desire of being preferred to others deliver me Jesus from the desire of being consulted deliver me me Jesus from the fear of being humiliated deliver me Jesus from the Fear of suffering rebukes deliver me Jesus from The Fear of being wronged deliver me Jesus and then the second part of the prayer you respond with Jesus grant me the grace to desire it grant me the grace to desire it that others may be loved more than I grant me the grace to desire it that other may be esteemed more than i jesus grant me the grace desire that others maybe chosen and I set aside grant me grace to desired that others maybe praise and I go unnoticed grant me desire to desire to desired it that That others may be preferred to me in everything. Grant me the grace to desire it. That was new to me.

And it was exactly where the Lord wanted me. And so on the third morning, that Tuesday night before, one of the things about the Camino, we were doing the Portuguese section. It's been traveled over 1,200 years.

and the Camino is designed to be a pilgrimage of time of reflection and you just follow the yellow the yellow arrows wherever they go through towns through fields etc you look for people with the the shell on the back of their backpack and you're you come up with people we met people from all over the world who were on their pilgrimage people being healed from had just been healed from cancer people going through divorce people going through job change whatever it was we had one woman who was there from Ukraine who just I have to get away from the sirens and she began and this was part of her and so each day along the way there chapels that we would pull in I loved Alan Alan a couple of times would go said you know let's just go in here and sit with Jesus for a little while and so we'd go and we'd sit with with Jesus for a little while. Of course, this Baptist kid, I'm going, what? But it became a very special event. The Tuesday night before the Wednesday morning, we had gone locally to a local church, cathedral, still Portuguese architecture, all the things, and sat through a mass of the rosary. And all this was in Portuguese, so I had no idea what was going on. But then they did evening Mass. And I sat at the back as a Protestant, but seemed to kneel when they knelt. But I was alone with the Lord. And the next morning we do Lord's Prayer, daily Mass reading, daily reflection, and the litany of humility. And we were in Arcos. We'd gone about two meters, two kilometers up the road. And suddenly, out of the blue, I was overwhelmed with emotion. It's funny, Taylor Taylor looked back at me and said, hey, Gene, how's your day going?

And I went, and Larry said, Larry said I don't think he heard you. Gene, Taylor wants to know how your day's going. But I did blurt out, I said, I think my prayer is being answered. As I walked, I became more and more emotional. It's one of those moments you can't write about, you can'T really tell about. It's when God chooses to walk alongside of you. Alan, the older gentleman, had scraped his hand and went up and they were moved ahead of me up the hill a little ways to put a bandage on his hand. And so I slowed down and let the emotion kind of grow. And as I got to them, I turned and I looked back on the field and where we had come, the stone wall, the little village that we had had walked from, and just more and more. And I finally turned to Alan, and Alan, who's done this, they've done the French section, the Spanish section, and they were doing the Portuguese.

He had his arms open wide, and he said, come here, Gene. And, I embraced him, cried like I, when my parents died. He embraced me, said, Gene, it's okay. That's what the Camino does. and I've reflected back on what did the Camino do and it wasn't so much the Camilo as it was the daily devotion and the separation to hear the voice of God how many times I am convinced that God does not speak to us at 75 miles an hour on highway 16 maybe but most of the time it's why we're walking and it's while we're doing life together I wrote in my journal after that day I said I was cleansed no voice no prompting by others just an overwhelming sense of presence and joy we get our English word catharsis from the Greek word catharia which just means to be cleansed and any Many we know in psychological work, there is this moment of cleansing. It was a cathartic experience, so no question that for me. And I looked again, I thought, what was it?

Several things. One of them was the fact that there was a daily habit that we made room for God. and you think back the great great spiritual leaders of the church I recently reread Francis de sales introduction to the devout life he was the bishop at Geneva when the Protestant John Calvin kind of was ruling the city but he remained faithful and he wrote this this how to how to have a devote life. And I remember one phrase, he says, run quickly, lightly, and easily after God. And then he begins to give us the habits of the things that we do.

James Early talked about, James Clear, some of you have heard of the atomic habits. And the point of atomic habits is you don't make these big decisions, like I'm going to lose 10 pounds. You make a decision that I'm not going to eat as large portions, and I'm I'm going to walk from here to the mailbox today.

And it's these little habits that you break into that make the huge difference. It's not the big decision. And I thought about those little habits that we did every morning, every night in order to make room for God. Another writer talks about in The Common Rule, he talks about a trellis of habits. You may have a growing vine, a meandering rose bush, and you put a trellis on it to guide it.

He says we should build a trelis of habits in our lives that guide our daily life so that it will be driven or guided toward the Lord. So I'm pretty sure that was part of the way God set this up for me to do that. and I got to thinking too about devotion an event when I was between my graduation in college and my marriage which was in 1975 Kim and I have been married 51 years now so I made it that far so we're glad with that and my dad and I went to a little place on East Texas called Red Hills State Park and it was just he and me and it was dad telling son and we were just kind of fishing and hanging out and stuff. And Robert Frost was real big then. And I remember this poem, and it reminded me when I got to thinking about the Camino. He wrote a poem called Devotion. And it starts with, the heart can think of no devotion greater than being sure to the ocean. And he went on to say that holding the curve of one position, counting an endless repetition. I thought, you know, I think he's got that right. That is what devotion is. Until I thought at that time, no, I Think marriage may be a greater devotion because the shore and the ocean doesn't have a choice. They're stuck there. And yeah, it's there all the time and it seems to be good. But marriage is one of those options where you have options, options to leave, options options to ignore, options to treat inappropriately. And I thought marriage really is probably a better picture of what devotion is. And then the day came when I was pastoring, I came across, as you do often, Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane. AndI thought, you know what? That's an even greater greater picture of devotion. Because Jesus, as you know, I could call down 10,000 angels to stop this thing. And even offered God as just some other way. He had seen crucifixions. The Romans were pretty good about reminding you who was in charge. Matter of fact, you would walk into Jerusalem and there would be crucified people along the path. So as you walked in, you realized, okay we know who's in charge here and they made that very very clear Jesus knew what crucifixion was and he knew what the pain and the suffering that was and He offered God is there's got to be a different way but what did He do He said not my desire not my will but yours be done and so I concluded that day doesn't rhyme but the heart can think of no devotion greater than being Christ to the will of the father. That's what devotion is. Devotion is having the options and making the choices and structuring your life in such a way so that God has room in your life. That is what spiritual exercise and disciplines are. It is simply making room. Why don't I have the fruit of the Holy Spirit in my life? Well, you haven't given it a garden. There is no place for it to to grow? Why don't I have the gifts of the Spirit? Why not exercise some of those? Well, there's no room in your life for the Holy Spirit to do that work. And the thing that the Camino taught me that day was that we made room. I actually flew way over there to be away from from the things that distract and to make room in life for that. I do believe that God always puts us on a path. This also reminded me of the road to Emmaus. So if you have your Bible, we'll go very quickly through Luke chapter 24. Luke is the only one that records of the four four gospel writers. He's the only one that records this story. And we'll see in a minute, I think why he included it in the others. The others didn't ignore it. He just, he just wanted to make sure this was, was in there. And so I started to call this rather than the road to Emmaus, I call it the Camino to Emmaüs because it was on this road. If you remember, I'll tell you the story, but it begins in chapter 24, and it begins in verse 13. So you kind of want to follow along if you want to. Two people, by the way, this is Easter Sunday morning. This is the day of the resurrection. And these two had been with the disciples. One of them's name was Cleopas. We don't know the other one.

Luke 24 · chapter mention

Some think that this is he and his wife. Others believe it's two disciples. They had been and they had seen the crucifixion. They had been in hiding with everyone else. This was the morning of the resurrection. They had heard from the women that the tomb was empty. Two of their friends, and I love John's account. John and Peter, remember, ran to the empty tomb. I remember John made it very clear that he was the first one there. are just, it's kind of a guy thing, and the beloved disciple got there first, you know, and so anyway, and they had heard these reports, and then they were just kind of like everybody else, confused, excited, uncertain, and their walking and talking, not sitting and texting. They're walking and taking, and talking on their way back to the house, and this is probably midday, and they began to talk about what had been going on and one of those miraculous moments Jesus walks up beside them and it says and he did not let them know who he was and then Jesus never butts in but what he said was what are you guys talking about? Of course he knew what they were talking about. They said what do you mean are you the only visitor that's been to Jerusalem and didn't know what happened these last three days And they talk about Jesus being arrested, handed over, crucified, tell about, you know, finding out the tomb's empty and they don't know what to do. And then they said, and we thought he was the one that was going to redeem or free Israel. And Jesus then said, oh, you foolish ones.

and the word foolish is not the word because Paul uses this word we get our word moron from the from the Greek word foolish that's not what Jesus used he used the word that says unknowing oh you unknowingly but most of your translations say foolish oh you are knowing ones and slow of heart did you not know that the Christ needed to suffer and then something amazing happened to me for the next now remember it's seven miles from Jerusalem to Emmaus we walk at about three miles an hour in fact a Japanese theologian wrote a little book called the three mile an hour God that it is while we're walking that God speaks mostly to us so if I'll give them them a mile so they have six miles left three miles an hour was that two hours two hours Jesus and it says he went started with Moses and went all the way through the prophets to show who the Christ was and that the Christ had to suffer who do you think he stuck what do you think he started with the Passover the lamb had to be killed and the the blood had to be shed and then he goes to maybe Isaiah who says we all like sheep have been led astray and upon him the iniquity of us all and he he goes through all the all the prophets he talks about the tabernacle being the presence of God the temple of being the presence of god and remember when John wrote about Jesus and he said and the word became flesh and what tabernacled among us. And, and by the way, in Revelation 21, it says, when the new heaven and the new earth come down, God will tabernacle among us, God has always desired to be with his people but what Jesus did was explain that the suffering Messiah was part of God's plan, remember when James, when Paul wrote to the Galatians to the corinthians he said he said a crucified messiah is foolishness to the greeks the greek's could not imagine a god that would let himself be killed so that they're like what do you mean that he's the savior and he got killed that doesn't make sense and the other one is in a stumbling block to the jews because and then paul dealt with this in Galatians 3, because he said, they all knew that he who hangs on the tree is cursed. How could the Messiah be crucified and be cursed and be, and then what did Paul say? The Holy Spirit leaned on him and said, he, yes, he became our curse. Yes, he was cursed, but it's our curse that he took on the cross. So Jesus walks through, through this and then let's get, let's get to the house so here we go on verse 28 so they drew near the village to which they were going he acted as if he were going further Jesus never invites himself to let dinner behold I stand at the door and knock you open the door I'll come in with you but they urged himself saying come on stay with us for it's toward the evening and the day is now far spent so they probably Probably started about noon, it's toward the evening. So he went in to stay with them, and he was at the table with them.

He took the bread and blessed and broke it and gave it to them. Hard stop for a second. Every time you read about the Lord's Supper, when Jesus established it, when Paul explained it, it's this same order. Took the bread, he blessed it, he broke it, and He gave it. I don't remember who I heard say this but he said that's exactly what God does with us he takes us when we allow him he blesses us he breaks us and then gives us to serve in his name so next time you take the Lord's Supper or the Eucharist remember this pattern may be a pattern that God uses for all of us And it was in that pattern of taking the bread, blessing the bread Breaking it and giving it to them Their eyes were open and they recognized him and he vanished from their sight Why did he leave? Because he had accomplished his mission The element that was missing from the gospel story Was that the Messiah had to suffer The resurrection part was being taken care of, a bunch of people knew that but these two guys took the message back to the group they ran at all night back not all night but seven miles worth back and told them about the suffering part of the Messiah and why that was not a mistake that's exactly what God planned all along and I believe that that is why God ordained this story to be in there we know about the resurrection we weren't so sure about the crucifixion and the suffering and Jesus explained that to them and they went back and explained it to them and then they wrote it to told us and then verse 32 is where I want to pause and we'll be be close to the finish here and they said to each other did not our hearts burn within us while we while he talked to us on the road and while he opened to us the scriptures I think about my Camino experience and I think did not my heart burn within me when he walked with us and we heard the scriptures we listened to the message and he came to us y'all read Theo of golden yet there's a sermon in this this this story, by Father Lundy in Golden. Golden's the name of the town.

And I kind of want to read this to you, and then we'll be done. He's doing the sermon, so I'm going to read what Levi, Alan Levi, the author, said he said. And this is what the pair subsequently recalled when they spoke of their seven-mile walk from Jerusalem to Emmaus. Our hearts burn within us. Their hearts burned within them. Father Lundy allowed the phrase to linger in silence for a few seconds before he resumed.

Hear this. We all walk roads of various descriptions in life. The long and winding road. The road to ruin.

Easy street. The road less traveled. Along the way, there are questions, there is news. There are concerns and fears and uncertainties that furrow our brows, trouble our souls and break our hearts death terrifies many of us but God in his sublime goodness has always sent others mysterious others to walk with us prophets preachers friends teachers artists storytellers wives and husbands children songbirds and rivers even hardships and loss to help us see See clearly.

They are the ones who make our hearts burn within us. Who call out our indifference, our lethargy, our death and defeat. They call us to be fully alive or at least more alive than we were before we met them. And so for me it was Alan and Taylor who showed me the slow, quiet, Camino of Devotion.

that made an encounter with the Holy Spirit possible so my heart could burn within me they demonstrated a devotion that was not about merit but about commitment and love and they showed me some habits that made room for God to come and have room to walk alongside of me so these two things daily habits and devoted friends on the Camino whatever Camino you are on I pray that God brings those into your lives so that he may take you bless you yes even break you that he made give you to others to serve in his name amen let's pray father thank you for this day thank you you for the Camino that you have placed each of us on. Father, I just pray for each person here that whatever that looks like and whatever that feels like in this moment, that they will know of your presence and they're waiting for you to ask them into their walk and they are waiting to be cleansed, whatever has hardened their hearts, filled their minds. I pray, Father, Father, they will find those daily habits that make room for you to speak and to be with them. Father, I thank you for devoted friends and pray that they will have those who can come along and walk with them and may it be a husband, a wife, a friend, a child, a prophet, a priest, songbirds in a river or a lake, that they may hear your voice, Father.

Father. My prayer is that they know that experience, maybe again, they've had it before, but maybe again where their hearts burn within them. And then they will joyfully run through the night if necessary to tell those they love that you are alive and that suffering is part of the story. Being broken is part of the history. But life is given to you, our resurrected Lord.

And it's in your name that we pray. Amen.