Lectionary Reflections

The Truth Is: We Don't Know
 By Isaac Miller
Monday, April 4, 2005
 

Lectionary Reflections for the Third Sunday of Easter (A)

Readings for Easter 3, Year A, Apr. 10, 2005

  • Acts 2:14a, 36-41
  • Psalm 116: 1-3, 10-17
  • 1 Peter 1:17-23
  • Luke 24:13-35

The Emmaus story has always had a three-fold message behind it. First, it is a Resurrection "proof text," one of many in the Gospels, though notably absent in Mark (an absence that used to worry me). Second, it would also seem to be a validation of the Eucharist, in that Jesus is recognized in "the breaking of the bread." These first two thrusts have always seemed somewhat contrived, theologically and ecclesiastically self-serving themes. It's kind of like the Early Church saying, "Okay, we've got to get this Resurrection message across for our survival's sake, and as long as we are struggling to survive, we just as well throw in some legitimating of the central liturgical practice that we engage in."

All of the above commentary probably has the ring of the skeptical modern, post-enlightenment age in which we live and with which current theological education grapples. This kind of instinctive skepticism is probably what has driven believers by the millions into the ranks of the evangelical literalists: "At least those folks believe in something."

I read this text as an effort to encourage the remnant church to wrestle with its tendency toward a certain self-righteousness and arrogance. The message and the hope of the Emmaus Road is perhaps a broader call to humility in times where faith assertions all seem qualified, and truth elusive and beyond us all. . .
So it is the third theme in the Emmaus story that rings honest and true and instructive for us in the age in which we seek to know and live in the faith: We are met by the Risen Christ when in the midst of the craziness of the world, we are able to admit that we don't know what the hell's going on. We have not got it all figured out, and the truth is we are powerless in our lack of understanding, both of God's grace and the machinations of Satan in our time. (Actually, I suspect we can figure out what the right-wing political leadership is up to, but we are just powerless to do anything about it.) Those of us "on the Left" pretty much know we're "right," but that does not seem -- since January 20, 2001, September 11, 2001, or November 2, 2004 -- to do much good.

I read this text as an effort to encourage the remnant church to wrestle with its tendency toward a certain self-righteousness and arrogance. The message and the hope of the Emmaus Road is perhaps a broader call to humility in times where faith assertions all seem qualified, and truth elusive and beyond us all -- it's this state of affairs, in the context of the spiritual meaninglessness of consumer capitalism, that drives so many into the religious and political conservatism we saw so closely connected to the Terri Schiavo case.

Against this background, the Resurrection is the experience in which we are set free from bondage and death in a dull "thingified" world, in which we, too, are ultimately things, and the Eucharist, the dramatic sacrament of Jesus love and sacrifice, is the essence of the community in which our humanity is confirmed as we are set free to be humble -- in the Beatitudes, the word is "meek," I imagine.

Finally, the Resurrection and Eucharistic references stand beyond the self-serving interests of the Early Church to call us to love, the same love which is at work in the emptying of the Tomb, the same love behind the offering of the Body and Blood. As I read the story, it is a love known only in Christ's presence in the breaking of the bread. All of this may be a sort of circular argument, but it is true nonetheless. There is something in the story that says the issue is not whether we or others are "right" or not, whether we or they have the intellectual capacity to "figure it all out," but whether we love one another. There is an argument to be made here that we do not, we cannot, love one another except in the Risen Christ.

All this ultimately leads me to a notion of that community in which there is neither slave nor free, male nor female, black nor white -- a community founded not among the "wise according to the world," Jesus says.


The Rev. Isaac J. Miller is rector of Church of the Advocate in Philadelphia, Penn, an Episcopal congregation with deep social justice and community organizing roots. He is co-chair of Philadelphia Interfaith Action (PIA), an Industrial Areas Foundation (IAF) network organization. "If you are in Philly, visit," Isaac urges, and he may be reached by email at rmill7@aol.com.