THE JOURNEY TO EMMAUS: PARABLE AS PARADIGM

ANNE THURSTON
INTRODUCTION
(1) On one level, the Emmaus story (Luke 24:13-35) is a very simple story: two disciples stunned by the
death of Jesus and the discovery of the empty tomb turn away from Jerusalem towards a village called
Emmaus. They are puzzled by the events of the past days and as they attempt to come to terms with
them, Jesus appears and walks with them. They fail to recognize him; he interprets the scriptures to
them and is finally revealed to them in the breaking of the bread.
(2) On another level, though, this is a highly sophisticated narrative concerning the whole process of
interpretation and illustrating how through a combination of experience and reflection, a particular
story becomes a community document. This is a story not so much from one place to another as from
one perspective to another. It is a journey from amnesia (forgetting) to anamnesis (remembering). It is a
journey from absence to presence, and to the further paradox of presence in absence. It is a journey
which takes the disciples from blindness to sight and finally to insight.
THE STORY
(3) The story opens with the two journeying disciples talking together. In fact, the first word used is
homileo, from which the word homily derives and which means being in conversation with. There are
at least ten different Greek words used in this passage for speaking, talking, interpreting, relating,
telling. All these expressions indicate that rather more is at stake here than merely a simple chat or
gossip. Words are precious. There is a serious attempt to understand, to discern the meaning of the
puzzling events. When Jesus first appears and walks with them he is not recognized: the attention of the
speakers is so focused on the things that had happened (24:14) they fail to see what is happening.
This is a pattern in the process of grieving that we can easily recognize: it is very difficult to turn our
attention to the present when we are locked in the trauma of a death or an event which has seriously
disturbed us. We revisit it constantly and are unable to move forward.
(4) There is a nice moment of irony for the reader of Lukes narrative we share the knowledge about
the apparent stranger (the only one who does not know what has gone on according to the disciples is
of course the one who knows precisely what has happened and to his own person!) Thus we watch with
some amusement as the disciples fall deeper into the pit they have dug for themselves. Their eyes are
heldthe text tells usthe blindness of their incomprehension is not going to be healed by simple
miracle; instead they themselves must grapple with the meaning of the events until sight opens to
insight. The use of the word stranger to describe Jesus is particularly apt reminding us of his birth,
when according to Luke he was laid in a feeding trough because there was no lodging place. Now once
again he will depend on the hospitality of others in order to reveal his hospitality to them.
(5) There follows a cluster of stories within stories: we have the narrators story which forms the outer
frame and within this the travellers tell their story which contain within it the tale which the women
told. Then it is the turn of Jesus to interpret the events which he does by recalling yet more stories: of
Moses and the prophets. Eventually all these different strands will be woven together and become a
shared story.
(6) The contradiction between what appears to be happening and what is actually happening continues
when we are told that Jesus walked ahead as if he were going on (24:28). They urge him strongly to
stay. As they press their hospitality on him, the stranger on the road becomes their guest. Hardly has

this transition taken place when the guest reveals himself as host as he takes bread, blesses and breaks
it and gives it to them. Immediately their eyes are opened and they recognize him. But what strange
paradox is thisat the very moment of recognition Jesus disappears from their sight! Apart from the
blessing, no words of explanation accompany the ritual breaking and sharing of the bread but that
seemingly insignificant and commonplace action is the interpretative key which unlocks the meaning of
all that has gone before. Amnesia gives way to anamnesis as the disciples then begin to understand the
journey experience, Were not our hearts burning within us while he was talking to us on the road, while
he was opening the Scriptures to us. (24:32)
(7) Eyes are opened to understanding, to the meaning of the confusing stories which are now placed in
context within which they can once again be told. And this is the immediate response of the disciples
the story which they now understand must be told to others. Once again, narrative unlocks narrative as
the other group also have their story to tell. The Lord has risen indeed and he has appeared to Simon!
and then the travellers tell their story and how Jesus was known to them in the breaking of the bread.
The scattered disciples are gathered as are the scattered stories and the interplay between experience
and reflection begins to form the shared community interpretation. The once separated disciples are
now a community: a people with a common story and a common task.
INTERPRETING EXPERIENCE
(8) Using the art of the storyteller with great skill, Luke demonstrates the journey from doubt to faith.
This is not a simple resurrection appearance story but reveals the struggle to accommodate new
experiences. At first the new is rejected. When the women bring the good news of the resurrection, it is
dismissed as an idle tale (24-11). There follows a long process toward understanding. The forlorn
disciples discuss and consider the events trying to form them into a meaningful pattern. They describe
Jesus as a prophet mighty in word and deed but now he is dead, crucified, and their hopes with him.
Then they hear the stranger speakhe takes up the same events, the same suffering and death on the
cross but interprets them differently. Using the familiar texts from theirMoses and the prophetshe
gives them the means to appropriate the meaning of his life and death. Yet it is not through words alone
that insight is reached but through the experience of taste and touch in the breaking of the bread. They
taste and see; they eat and know. The final appropriation of the experience is not a cerebral matter
involving and intellectual assent but an affective knowing. It is truly embodied knowledge. They now
know this story by heart. It has become a story by which they can live: they can re-member it.
THE CHURCH AS AN INTERPRETATIVE COMMUNITY
(9) The Emmaus story is not just an interesting story within the context of Lukes gospel but is a parable
about the process of interpretation which we could see as a paradigm for the Church as an
interpretative community. The story describes the movement which takes place in our liturgical
celebration of the Eucharist: strangers arrive from different parts, they assemble together, they listen to
the Word, they participate in the breaking of the Bread, they become one Body, they are sent out
commissioned to leave as witnesses. This is fine as far as it goes but may be too neat: the complex
patterns of the text, the weaving and interweaving of experience and reflection are perhaps smoothed
out too neatly into formulas about Church and Word and Sacrament. In effect, the reading is
domesticated, the meaning distilled and the process discarded. But what if, as I have suggested, it is in
the process that the meaning is found? What if we read this story not as a story locked in the past but as
a script for the future?
(10) Luke 24 then becomes a paradigm for a church which is a journeying church, a pilgrim church
attentive to the signs of the times. It recognizes the struggle to interpret and accommodate new

experiences in culture, in history, in practice, and to read these in the light of the gospel. Our fears blok
us and we too find it easier to discuss what has happened and not what is happening. Luke 24 is an
invitation to move forward in the recognition that the God we seek is always ahead of us and drawing us
on. Defining church as an interpretative community means that there can be no domestication of texts
or of rituals lest we close off possible moments of disclosure.