The reading I was scheduled to read today was a poem by one of our parishioners called The Road to Emmaus. I wasn't aware until I got to church that today's gospel would be the Emmaus story. I'm becoming increasingly fond of that story as people like Marcus Borg and Dominic Crossan have awakened me to the layers of meaning it contains.
Here is the poem by Edward Lense. Crossan has said, "Emmaus never happened...Emmaus always happens." I only mention this to point out that many people find these stories true in some way even if they do not believe them to be literally true. I'll say for myself that I don't know for sure what I believe, but I like being able to find meaning in the stories even if I haven't figured it all out yet.
Gathering dusk, dust
in puffs at our feet
as we walk, uncertain
of our directions down back ways,
talk in circles, pause, scuff
little graves in the road with our toes.
After a while we noticed someone walking with us; we couldn't say why exactly, but he seemed from far away.
Besides, he hadn't heard
of the earthquake, or the death
of all our hopes. Our hushed
voices drifted among us
until we were only
drifting voices. When we stopped
to rest and eat in the warm light of an inn
he knelt with towel and water and began
to wash the dust from our feet. We stared
too surprised to speak.
He took the bread and broke it: then we knew
who leads us from the dark to come with him;
alone again but not alone, renewed,
we ate that broken bread, at one with him.
So, even if you completely reject the miracle stories of the Bible, Crossan has suggested that there is something that rings true about the Emmaus experience...something universal about it. Moments of recognition that there is hope, even though we are in a dark time. Like, oh, after the last election maybe? Anyway, I thought it might be interesting to discuss.