Two-Minute Homily: Talking and Eating 

FINDINGS II

Easter III - A - May 8, 2011

Luke 24: 13-25   

Luke 24: 13-35

On that first day of the week, two of Jesus' followers were walking toward a village called Emmaus, about seven miles from Jerusalem, talking with each other about all these things that had happened [over the past couple of days]. Whilst they were talking and discussing, Jesus himself approached and walked along with them, but they did not recognize him. He said to them, "What are you discussing?" They stopped in their tracks, and, looking sad-faced, said, "Can you be the only one in these parts who does not know about the things that have taken place in Jerusalem recently?"  He said, "What things?" They replied, "The things about Jesus of Nazareth who was a powerful prophet both in word and deed before God and all people, and how our chief priests and leaders handed him over to be condemned to death and crucified. We had hoped that he would be the one to save Israel. Besides all this, it is now the third day since those things happened. What's more, some women of our group astounded us with a story about their going to the tomb earlier today. They did not find his body there, and told us that they had seen a vision of messengers who said he was alive. Some of our group went to the tomb and found it just as the women had said. But they did not see [Jesus]." Then [Jesus] said to them, "You are so slow to catch on! Do you not know what the prophets have said? Was it not necessary that the Messiah should suffer such things as these and only then enter in to his glory?" Then beginning with Moses and running through the prophets he interpreted for them every mention of himself in the scriptures. As they drew closer to the village that was their destination, [Jesus] kept on going, but they prevailed upon him to stop and stay with them as the daylight was even then fading. He consented and stayed with them. When they were together at table, he took bread, made the blessing over it and gave it to each of them. In that moment, they recognized him, whereupon he vanished from their sight. They said among themselves, "Didn't we have a feeling about him whilst he was talking to us on the road about what the scriptures say?" Not caring that darkness was falling, they picked up and returned to Jerusalem where they found the 11 and their companions gathered together who were just then saying, "The Lord really has been raised and has appeared already to Simon." Then the [two had returned along the road from Emmaus] told their story, about how it was they came to recognize Jesus when he broke the bread. (Translated, condensed and paraphrased by Harry T. Cook)

RUBRIC

Most who work with this text conclude that it is Luke's alone, maybe from an earlier source Joseph Fitzmyer calls "L," which might also have included the suspect addendum to Mark at 16:12-13: "After this he (Jesus) appeared in another form to two of them, as they were walking in the country . . ." What this story of singular grace and beauty illustrates is the basic shape of Christian liturgy: journey, community and enlightenment culminating in table fellowship in which the significance of the journey, the community and the enlightenment manifests itself in the simple sharing of bread. What follows is the mission: going and telling the story as you now understand it, not keeping it to yourself. "The most wonderful thing has happened!" Which was what? Perhaps that community is built by trustful inclusion, knowledge and sharing?

HOMILETIC WORKSHOP

The scene Luke creates unfolds on "that first day" following, apparently by some hours, a dawn scene at the tomb when "the women who had come with (Jesus) from Galilee" came with spices and found the stone rolled away. They are depicted as telling their story of the corpse-less tomb to the "apostles" who fall down on the job and do not pass it on because they find it incredible. This differs from Mark's account which has the women frightened into silence.

We are, I think, to understand that the two men walking down the Emmaus Road were of the apostolic company, if not actual "apostles." Luke depicts them as being on the road to Emmaus about seven miles (60 stadia) from Jerusalem. The name "Emmaus" occurs in the Hebrew and Christian scriptures only at this place, and it is not known if Luke had in mind a certain locale. The only village seven miles from Jerusalem (in this case to the west) is known as El-Qubeileh, but apparently it did not exist as such in the first century. A town called Amwas, which means, like Emmaus, "warm wells" is about 20 miles west of Jerusalem. Several scholars have pointed out that several manuscripts of Luke have the distance as over 170 stadia, or about 20 miles.

The two disciples (one named Cleopas) are depicted as reflecting on their recent experience ("All the things that had happened"). The text says that while this was going on Jesus approached. It's not quite yet the deus ex machina of the story, but perhaps a suggestion that Jesus has continued the life he left, e.g. as an itinerant teacher as likely to be found on this road as on another. Luke's comment that they did not recognize Jesus seems to be a device used twice before: in ch. 9 when it is observed that the disciples have the meaning of Jesus' otherwise clear passion prediction "concealed from them" and again in ch. 18 at which the meaning of the device is made more explicit: "They understood nothing about all these things; in fact, what he said was hidden from them . . ." This is, of course, to help the author make the point of seeing Jesus later "in the breaking of the bread."   

The entire incident seems to have taken place over some number of hours in one day, depicted as beginning at dawn and ending near sundown. The progressive nature of the revelation that comes through the welcome of a stranger, the sharing of information, an examination and exegesis of scripture and table fellowship should not be overlooked. Perhaps Luke at that 40 or so years' remove from the events being portrayed meant to suggest that it took the original Jesus communities some little time to conclude that, even as Jesus had left them as a result of his execution, he remained with them in a keener understanding of scripture, in their walk down any road as they continued his own itinerant ministry of advocating justice at the retail level and in the intimacy of sharing food in community.

What, though, are we to make of the deus ex machina passage in which it is said Jesus "vanished from their sight"?  Could Luke have been saying that there never was a third person who joined the two disciples on the road? That the conversation had taken place exclusively between Cleopas and the other unnamed disciple? That Cleopas and friend worked out things for themselves and came to see during the relaxation of the evening meal that in such fellowship Jesus would always live in blessed memory?

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Two-Minute Homily

Talking and Eating    

By Harry T. Cook

Imagine the Road to Emmaus story being told minus the obvious magic of sudden appearance and sudden disappearance. Imagine if it simply told of a meeting of Cleopas and his unnamed friend with that third person (also unnamed), and proceeded from there as we know it. Imagine that after the evening meal, the mystery guest was described not as "vanishing" but as excusing himself, saying that he needed to be moving along and hoped to see his new friends again some time.

Christians are conditioned to see magic where there is none and miracle when the story is the common, everyday thing.  There is nothing magic about encountering a stranger who becomes a friend through earnest and honest conversation about what is on the minds of the people involved. There is nothing miraculous about seeing a person for who he or she is through the generosity of a shared meal, though it is one of life's great pleasures.

Why then are Christians tempted to see the Emmaus story as both magical and miraculous? The answer may lie in the all-too-common error of taking for granted those things that are both simple and natural. In the case of the story at hand, those things are talking and eating.

The art of conversation has suffered greatly in the age of home entertainment centers, Twitter and texting. Eyes and ears tend to be glued to the first and attention devoted to the other two in the sending and receiving of messages rather than simply talking among human beings in the same room.

Read Persuasion, for example, and mark the nature of the conversations Ms. Austen depicted. People in those days actually expressed broad, long thoughts, and other people responded both broadly and at length with nary a "you know" or an "I mean."

The art of eating has suffered grievously in the era of fast food, snacks and mangled family schedules. Those households in which the simple evening meal is routinely served to all available members of the family are keeping something far more important than tradition. They are making possible important human give-and-take in which those giving and those taking are enabled to maintain that essential communion one with another.

The solemn high mass with majestic music, rich vestments and glittering altar ware set before people gathered as an audience is all quite wonderful, especially when done well. In that respect it is like grand opera and, if custom permitted, could well deserve an ovation.

The theological treatises called sermons and delivered in coded vocabulary and churchy tones do not qualify as talking. Talking is what people do together, gathered whether around the table or in a circle of chairs or walking together along a common path.

The paper-thin host barely moistened by a dip in the contents of a chalice does not pass for food or the process of obtaining it for eating.

Maybe the main idea of Christianity is for its adherents to walk together, talk together and eat together. In so doing they may attain a deeper bond of companionship and understanding which may in turn make them individually and collectively more generous of spirit and thus more apt to see and respond to human need.

If that is not your idea of Christianity, the Road to Emmaus is, as far as you are concerned, under construction. Seek alternate route.