The Road to Emmaus

Break it to me gently....

The story of the Road to Emmaus is a delicious mystery: why did Jesus appear incognito?

I think it illustrates how Jesus used poetry. And why we should.

Let me try to explain.

The encounter on the road to Emmaus is the central act of a three-act play. The first act is the empty tomb, in Jerusalem, at dawn, and an angel telling the women he has risen.

The second act is the encounter on the road to Emmaus, at about midday. Now he appears incognito. His identity slowly dawns on the disciples, inferred from his words.

Back in Jerusalem at nightfall, the third act: he appears to the eleven in immediately recognizable form. He asks them to touch him; he asks for a fish, and eats it.

Notice that at this point, all the apostles are terrified. “They were startled and frightened, thinking they saw a ghost.” 

Man fears God. Man fears truth, and fears being judged. Luke 5:8: “When Simon Peter saw this, he fell at Jesus’ knees and said, ‘Go away from me, Lord; I am a sinful man!’”

I prayed for years that God not send me any obvious miracle, for I feared if he did, I would go mad, or think I had gone mad. Eventually Mary sent me a gentle miracle anyway. Even then, I prayed for her to stop, and she did. I was not ready. 

We are right to fear. Fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.

But this means we cannot speak the truth directly to those we hope to evangelize; we must break it slowly, or our listeners may panic. Among other things, they may be moved to crucify us.

This is why we need poetry, or parable, as the essential religious language. As Emily Dickenson wrote, “Tell all the truth, but tell it slant. Success in circuit lies.”

This reminds me of a joke: the cat is on the roof.

So Jesus breaks the ultimate revelation slowly. First the body is missing from the tomb, and angels say he is risen, and this is revealed to women, who are notoriously untrustworthy witnesses. So there is still room to doubt, but the notion, the possibility, must be entertained. The cat is on the roof.

Probably this is what causes the disciples to flee to Emmaus. They did not flee out of fear after the crucifixion; they were still in Jerusalem three days later. Yet they left immediately after they heard this story that his body was missing and angels were about. This is what frightened them—that he might appear, and prove himself to be God. 

This is why Jesus appears slant, incognito. Not in Jerusalem, where they feared he might appear, and not in recognizable form. He is breaking it to them gently, giving them time to think it over. The cat has fallen off the roof. He seems to be badly injured.

Then, once they have had more time to think and talk about it among themselves, to contemplate the possibility, to find a way to cope with it, that evening he appears in unmistakable form. And they are still terrified. The cat has died.

Imagine if he had not managed the revelation so carefully. He is still even at this point soothing their fears by asking them to touch him and by eating a fish. He is reassuring them he is not a ghost, and they have not gone mad. Calming them.

This is what a poem does and how it works. It does not reveal its full meaning at first. But it plants seeds in memory, which is its proper medium. Over time, the full meaning can unfold, when the listener is ready to receive it. When he has ears to hear.

That’s poetry, or parable. Poetry is more efficient, because more memorable. Parable is better if you must speak to a multilingual audience, as does the Bible. 

 Jesus himself is the ultimate poem. He is the Word.

How We Know Christianity Is Truth

I recently attended the introductory session of the Alpha course. The Alpha course is making waves in the Christian sphere; it is a course of videos and discussions for those sniffing around on the fringes of faith. Developed by an Anglican pastor, but non-denominational in tone, on the “mere Christianity” model of C.S. Lewis. And this session was so well attended, the organizers were trying to turn people away, suggesting they come instead for the next session, expected some time this winter.

Bad advice, I suspect. I suspect that one will be even better attended. The change has begun.

However, I was troubled by the tone of the introductory video. It kept citing scientists to establish the credibility of Christianity. “I’m an established scientist, and when I looked at the evidence…” “Look at all the well-known scientists who were Christians.”

This might make some kind of evangelical sense, talking to people where they are now--materialists. But to my mind it concedes the game before the start of play. If you are using scientists to establish the credibility of Christianity, your religion is scientism, the worship of science as the font of all truth, not Christianity. This is upside down. There is a reason science emerged in Christian Europe, not elsewhere.

Science, for all its usefulness, cannot establish truth. Every claim it makes is provisional. Because its method is inductive, even its strongest claims might be disproven tomorrow by some “black swan event.” And they commonly are. I am old enough to know that much of what I was taught in high school science classes is now held by science itself to be wrong. We were told the world faced an overpopulation crisis. We were told a new ice age was imminent. We were told the world was about to run out of oil, and water, and food. We were told there was no such thing as continents moving, as continental drift. It was mere coincidence that the coastline of Africa seemed to match the coastline of South America like jigsaw pieces. We were told that the human embryo in the womb looked just like a lizard, and this proved evolution. We were told eggs were bad for our health. We were told to get as much sun as we could, and many of us got skin cancer as a result. My grandmother was told to take up smoking for her health. 

If it was all wrong then, and all wrong fifty years earlier, and all wrong fifty years before that, how can we assume it is all right at this point?

Moreover, science relies on prior assumptions: that our sense perceptions correspond in some consistent way to real objects external to us. That everything, including our memories, did not come into existence five minutes ago. That we are humans who dreamt last night we were butterflies, not butterflies dreaming right now we are humans. That the simplest explanation is most likely to be true.

Moreover, as arbiters of truth, scientists, as illusionists from Houdini to the Amazing Randi have often demonstrated, are naturally gullible and easy to mislead by appearances—because that is what they go by.

Science also depends on strict adherence to ethical standards by scientists—not faking their data, not logrolling their friends, not injecting their own interests or preferences. Yet science itself eschews moral education; it scoffs at moral concerns. How can we trust scientists?

My faith therefore does not rely on any scientific approach to “the evidence.” This includes the evidence for the resurrection, which Alpha seems to emphasize as critical, as does William Lane Craig. 

If I remember it correctly, I believe the video misstates that either the resurrection or the life of Jesus is the single best-corroborated event in history. There are certainly many more recent events for which there is more evidence. We obviously have more evidence, for example, that John Kennedy was assassinated, or that an atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima. It is, rather, the best-established event in ancient history. 

But that is still not enough on which to build a firm faith. That Is also, in principle, vulnerable to a “black swan” event. Suppose tomorrow someone excavated the corpse of Jesus? Such a faith is at best provisional.

My faith is based on the one hand on the dozen compelling logical arguments that God exists. Indeed, I would go further and assert that the existence of God is a self-evident truth. If many deny it, I hold that they are doing so on emotional, not rational, grounds. They are like Adam and Eve hiding in the bushes, imagining God could not find them there. People often do not WANT God to exist.

If one retreats from the world and meditates on this silently, the truth becomes obvious.

Given that God exists, by his nature, He would not hide himself from us. He would give us clear guidance. He would reveal himself to us in some way. Where?

Logically, in Christianity and in the Bible, on the grounds that that is the theological and cosmological system most directly available to the most people over the longest time. God would put the solution as much as possible in plain sight.

But in terms of my actual conversion to Catholicism, this was not the key. To be clear, I was raised Catholic. However, from about age 15 to 17, I considered myself an atheist. I was not prepared, nor should anyone in good conscience be, to simply accept something as truth without examination, because you were told so by your parents or your school or your culture or those around you.

What made me realize Christianity was truth was the Sermon on the Mount. I suddenly saw these words as both perfectly true, and not obvious, not mere truisms anyone could say. Indeed, they went directly against what I had been taught as “true.” Apart from any “evidence,” of this or that event or name, somebody said these words originally, and whoever did was unquestionably God incarnate, truth incarnate.

“He calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. When he has brought out all his own, he goes on ahead of them, and his sheep follow him because they know his voice.” (John 10: 3-4)

I recognized the voice. And I suspect this is the way true conversion must happen. 

Lost Sheep

 

The gospel reading from last Sunday, the story of the Canaanite woman, sheds light on true evangelization. People commonly think it is about converting people from some other religion to their own: from Catholicism to Mormonism, say, or Islam to Christianity. But Jesus here actually refuses to do this.

He answered, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of Israel.”

Later, it is true, he sends out the disciples to preach and baptize to all nations; but this is apparently a secondary consideration.

This suggests that the primary focus of evangelization, ought to be fellow Christians: those already belonging to the flock, but who have lost their way.

If someone is a devout Hindu, or Muslim, or Jew, it seems malicious to try to convince them that Hinduism or Islam is wrong. Now, they have clear direction in their life. You are trying to rob them of it.

Lost sheep, for us in the task of evangelization, are firstly Christians, or more specifically, for Catholics, Catholics, who are suffering a loss of meaning or direction in their lives. This is not necessarily due to a lack of faith on their part, or culpable. Given that they are believing Christians, it is due to demonic oppression or possession, or some event that has them disoriented and questioning what they thought they knew. They have gotten turned around, confused, often by some false premise or false guide.

In a word, the depressed or “mentally ill.” These are the lost sheep in need of our attention.

This may extend to those of other faiths as well—if they are disoriented and confused in that faith, and feeling unsatisfied. In such cases, they too benefit from learning and embracing the Catholic faith. In such cases, as Jesus with the Canaanite woman, one should stand aloof and let them come to you. It is up to them to indicate such a need and such a desire.

God calls his sheep, and knows who they are. It is not up to you.