A Story and a Picture of a Story

It has been three years.  Much has changed.  Much has not.  I have been feeling the urge to get back to the keyboard, so here is a bit of a meditation I wrote for the website at my church.  I dedicate it to my walking partner and friend, Peter.  He walked with me through the Prado and we dropped our jaws together in the room full of El Greco paintings on themes from the life of Christ.  Then we walked across Spain together and talked of Nicodemus and played the game of Midrash.  I dedicate it to my friend Meck Groot who opened my eyes to so many issues of race, class, gender, power etc.  It sounds so theoretical and  politically correct and all to write it that way, suffice to say, it was different and more personal, more human.  So here it is, a mediation on the text from the Revised Common Dictionary for April 12, 2015 and a mighty fine painting by Velazquez I stumbled upon on day over lunch at the desk.

The Story

¹³ Now that same day two of them were going to a village called Emmaus, about seven miles^[a] from Jerusalem. ¹⁴ They were talking with each other about everything that had happened. ¹⁵ As they talked and discussed these things with each other, Jesus himself came up and walked along with them;¹⁶ but they were kept from recognizing him.

¹⁷ He asked them, “What are you discussing together as you walk along?”

They stood still, their faces downcast. ¹⁸ One of them, named Cleopas, asked him, “Are you the only one visiting Jerusalem who does not know the things that have happened there in these days?”

¹⁹ “What things?” he asked.

“About Jesus of Nazareth,” they replied. “He was a prophet, powerful in word and deed before God and all the people. ²⁰ The chief priests and our rulers handed him over to be sentenced to death, and they crucified him; ²¹ but we had hoped that he was the one who was going to redeem Israel. And what is more, it is the third day since all this took place. ²² In addition, some of our women amazed us. They went to the tomb early this morning ²³ but didn’t find his body. They came and told us that they had seen a vision of angels, who said he was alive. ²⁴ Then some of our companions went to the tomb and found it just as the women had said, but they did not see Jesus.”

²⁵ He said to them, “How foolish you are, and how slow to believe all that the prophets have spoken! ²⁶ Did not the Messiah have to suffer these things and then enter his glory?” ²⁷ And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he explained to them what was said in all the Scriptures concerning himself.

²⁸ As they approached the village to which they were going, Jesus continued on as if he were going farther. ²⁹ But they urged him strongly, “Stay with us, for it is nearly evening; the day is almost over.” So he went in to stay with them.

³⁰ When he was at the table with them, he took bread, gave thanks, broke it and began to give it to them. ³¹ Then their eyes were opened and they recognized him, and he disappeared from their sight. ³² They asked each other, “Were not our hearts burning within us while he talked with us on the road and opened the Scriptures to us?”

³³ They got up and returned at once to Jerusalem. There they found the Eleven and those with them, assembled together ³⁴ and saying, “It is true! The Lord has risen and has appeared to Simon.” ³⁵ Then the two told what had happened on the way, and how Jesus was recognized by them when he broke the bread.                         

 LUKE 24: 13-25

Luke’s tale of the downcast disciples who encounter the risen One, Jesus, as they walk from Jerusalem towards Emmaus has always been among my favorites.  It has so many elements that I identify with—the downcast disciples’ hearts are set aflame by the way Jesus “opened the Scriptures”.  A dinner is served.  Then as the ancient prayer that declares God “blessed”  for creating and sharing bread is recited, then as the bread is broken, and only then as the broken bread is sacramentally shared do they finally see the One with whom they have walked---the risen Lord.

Over these last few years, I have delighted in filling in the background details to the oft heard tales from the bible as a way to further explore the story’s meaning.  Imaginatively filling in those details is part of my process of wrestling with Scripture.  Any painter who attempts to paint a bible story must, of necessity, do the same. The details they sketch and fill with color tell us something about the unspoken background, the imaginative landscape, which gives life and meaning to the sparse words of the story on the page.

In about 1620, the Spanish painter, Velazquez, retold the story of the Road to Emmaus in a painting we have come to call, The Kitchen Maid.  Luke does not tell us who prepared the meal that Jesus and the downcast disciples shared, but quite obviously, someone did.  Luke does not tell us where the bread came from or who washed the dishes after the meal, but again, give it a moment’s thought, and there is indeed a ‘from somewhere’ and a ‘by someone’. 

Velazquez makes a decision to not only fill in those details, but to bring them front and center.  In Spain in 1620, with memories of the oft-times savage “Reconquista” of Spain by Christians over the dark skinned Moors from North Africa still fresh in the cultural imagination, Velazquez tells the story of Emmaus with a woman, a dark skinned Moor, a servant, perhaps a slave, at the center of the tale.  Jesus, Cleopas, and the unnamed disciple are off to the side.  The outsider is brought into our focus.  She stands amidst disorder.  Pots are overturned, crumbs about.  She is trying to keep up.  She is listening, ear tilted, intently.  Her job, after all, is to wait on the men in tense anticipation.   She overhears the discussion, maybe the prayer.  In my mind her ear is turned by the sound of thumbs digging in, of crust tearing at the sublime moment of disclosure.  The downcast disciples see the One in that moment of broken bread.  This outsider, a black scullery maid, she too hears the sound of bread broken.  The light on her face: grace which floods over her as well.  Grace enough for the outsider, maybe even just for the outsider.

The story of the Road to Emmaus draws me in because it speaks to my uncertainty about my place in God’s story.  The downcast disciples are first of all told of their place as the Scriptures are “opened” to them.  Yet, it isn’t until Jesus acts by blessing, breaking, and sharing bread, that He is fully revealed.  Words are not enough.  Words prepare the way, but Jesus himself, blessed, broken, and offered freely, is the Way.  And then Velazquez tells the story again.  There I am again.  This time, I’m with that girl in the kitchen.  I’m broken enough inside, despite all of the advantages of my life, not to feel quite comfortable or at home at the head table in the other room. Yet, my hope is that even though I stand amidst disorder, my face might also be warmed by that light.  Warmed by grace-filled light, if I but wait in tense anticipation, tilt my head, and listen carefully for the sound of bread broken . . . for us all, even me.   Buen Camino.