
Mass readings for the 3rd Sunday of Easter:
Acts 2.14, 22-28 Psalm 16.1-2, 5, 7-11 1 Peter 1.17-21 Luke 24.13-35
The story of the Road to Emmaus is remembered for its conversation: the one that Jesus has with his two disciples who listen to him as they walk away from Jerusalem without realizing who it is that is speaking. Jesus explains everything that has happened in Jerusalem in recent days – that is, his passion, his execution by crucifixion and the reports of his resurrection. As the gospel tells us, “Then beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he interpreted to them the things about him in all the Scriptures.” I’ve heard this described as the greatest bible study ever held, and we know nothing about it! Not a word of it is preserved. We just know that it happened. Today I want to focus on what comes before.
Surprisingly, we have some sense of the conversation the two disciples on the road were having before Jesus interrupts. Jesus asks as to what they’re talking about, And in answer, we get a summary: “The things about Jesus of Nazareth, who was a prophet mighty in deed and before God and all the people… we had hoped he was the one to redeem Israel…”
That’s the gist of it; and from Jesus we get the impression that they are confused, that they were misinterpreting events, or they were simply overwhelmed and unable to make any sense of it all.
What we can take from this is a lesson in how we as a community of faithful disciples are to respond to the things going on around us, especially in times of confusion. There is a lot going on these days, and its confusing, and alarming. We do need to talk, to discuss, to process by conversation those matters that are difficult to understand, as twos and threes, in small trusted circles of fellow disciples, and then expand that conversation in hopes of incorporating more information, but above all further wisdom. Most importantly, when we do this, we must listen to Christ, consult his words, both in scripture and in reflection on the sacrament, come into his presence prayerfully and listen to the Holy Spirit. We need to be in prayerful consideration of things going on around us, examining the controversies in light of the truth of the gospel and the wisdom of all our scripture and tradition.
So, it’s a matter of concern that we are hearing calls by the authorities for control over the conversations we have; the shutting down of voices, the need to deal with “misinformation” and “disinformation” by the powerful in government, in the corporate world, in “big tech” and in major institutions like our universities.
It’s been unsettling to learn in recent weeks of the active, coordinated campaign by U.S. government agencies to censor dissent on social media, and in particular Twitter, the one company that has opened up its files to show just how much government interferes.
That kind of thing is a perversion of what we see in the gospel today: these powerful entities presuming to take the role of Christ in our discussions to give the official interpretation, and to shut down all dissent, unlike Jesus, not letting conversations happen at all before they weight in. Indeed, there is a further irony in this story of Jesus, because what he tells his disciples on that road is not what the authorities are telling people. The Temple officials and the Roman government have a very different interpretation of these events. We see this in the first reading where the Apostles go to the Jerusalem Temple to tell their side of the story, as it were. The official account is the one that everyone knows, not the apostolic witness which is what Jesus has said to the Cleopas and his companion on the way to Emmaus. That’s the crackpot theory, in the eyes of the authorities that’s misinformation, that’s the willful misinterpretation of the facts of the case. It is the Apostles who are the troublemakers, the disturbers of the peace, the threat to society.
The official story is something along the lines that Jesus, an unqualified lay preacher from the backwater of the Galilee entered Jerusalem with his entourage having orchestrated a demonstration in favour of his being made king. He entered the Temple, disrupting its legal activities including the sale of sacrificial animals and money-changing, and then he made threats against the Temple itself. He also claimed to be the Son of God, a gross blasphemy. Arrested and given a trial before the Sanhedrin and then a further trial before the civil authority, the Roman governor, he was by this legal process condemned to death and was executed by crucifixion – justice was served and the peace maintained. Any claims that he has risen from the dead are nonsense: obviously his followers stole the body, somehow overpowering the Roman guard at the tomb site, and they’ve hidden the body somewhere.
That, frankly, makes complete sense of the facts; of what you and I would know if we had been in Jerusalem that Passover.
We see the disciples on the Emmaus Road grappling with these facts. Now, they would dispute how Jesus is characterized: to them he wasn’t just a rabble-rouser. However, that Jesus was very much dead on a cross, they would agree. But now there were reports of an empty tomb and that he was alive; and that other strange things were going on in and around the city.
Jesus’ response should give us some guidance as to how we are to engage in proper interpretation; and it tells us something as to why these days there is so little capacity among people to comprehend events properly. Jesus starts with Moses, and all the Prophets. That is, he goes through not just recent events, but puts everything in the context of Israel’s history, and the history of the world. Remember, when you see a reference to Moses, that’s shorthand for the first five books of the Bible, including Genesis. Moses was thought to have been the author of these books. So, Jesus is starting from verse 1, chapter 1 of Genesis, “in the beginning…” and takes these two through it all, right up to that very day.
The concern is for historical context, an appreciation of the forces at work in the world; and from a faith perspective these are forces of sin, and of death. The history is one of humanity’s usual feeble response, its too often fearful reaction that leads us perversely to run from God and embrace the very sins that are leading us into the chaos we experience. But that history is also one of our salvation and how God comes to effect that in our lives. And as we know, by faith through grace, it is Jesus Christ who is the means by which we are redeemed: his life as an example of holiness, his death the sacrifice that pays the price of our sin, his resurrection signals, not just his personal victory over death, but our own if we unite ourselves to him.
Let’s consider for a moment the state of historical knowledge we have generally today. We likely already aware of the breathtaking ignorance of the Bible that exists among supposedly educated people. This collection of Holy Writ is the foundation of our civilization, and yet most people don’t know even a hundredth of what is in its pages.
I was reading just the other day about the continuing collapse of the universities and how the humanities are increasingly neglected (New Yorker article here). It concerned itself with American situation, but I would argue that it is reflective of trends across the West: in the last ten years enrolment in the humanities has fallen by somewhere between a third to a half. All these disciplines are about looking into the past. History, most obviously, but the study of language is one of development of a culture. Literature, to paraphrase the poet and essayist Matthew Arnold, is the collection of all the best of what has been written and said. And why is this happening?
Well, for one our culture has changed, in historical terms overnight, into one devaluing our heritage and looking at the study of the past, not as a potential source of wisdom and insight, but as an exercise in discrediting our forebears and so, justifying a break with all that is foundational to our civilization. But also, if you were someone who loves literature, Shakespeare, Dante, Moliere, Dickenson, etc. the professors you are now apt to encounter would seem to despise them; and they encourage, not appreciation, but deconstruction and demolition, and perhaps mercifully just dismissal of classics from ancient times through to the modern era.
As George Orwell, a writer whose works are now on the “suspicious books” list of security services in the United Kingdom, wrote: “Who controls the past controls the future, and who controls the present controls the past.” Those in control of the present, are working fast to erase our sense of the past, our true remembrance of history.
Our tradition teaches us to value the past, our scripture encourages remembrance of it as a caution for the present: “Remember you were a slave in Egypt (in Deuteronomy 5); don’t forget the times of bondage, the times of strife – remember them, but also the deliverance had through God, “Remember His wonderful deeds which He has done” (1 Chronicles 16,12).
Don’t let the world dismiss the past, don’t get fooled again; and in the time of trial remember David’s words, “…my flesh will live in hope” because we remember the past and how faith has brought us through, how the gospel has been our guide.
Remember also, Christ was destined before the foundation of the world; and that destiny is still being worked out in history. And it is our destiny, our destination, to arrive in the eternal city, the New Jerusalem, a city of peace and freedom, of plenty and joy.
It is with that understanding rooted in remembrance of the past, of God, and of the promises in Christ, that we, like the disciples of Emmaus, can turn around and go back to Jerusalem, a city filled with confusion and chaos, deceit and corruption, and with confidence proclaim Christ crucified and risen. We can say that we ourselves are unbound from sin and death, our hearts burning within us in hope, our souls filled with joy.
Amen.