Rising Up Emmaus and Beyond By Michael Jagessar, Council for World Mission
presence, engagement, and detour
T
he Emmaus Road walk remains a popular post-easter narrative that has grabbed the imagination of generations with its powerful storyline, a 7-mile walk, two conversation partners, a stranger joining in, the progression of the conversation, reaching home, meal sharing, heartburns, jaw-drops and much more. For this reflective piece allow me to take a detour towards current walks and ongoing journeys along roads of despair, displacement, terror, violence, and protests and various attempts of these walks to rise-up against current crucifixions and the ongoing struggle for full and flourishing life for all. Unconsciously, I may have been thinking of the comment from John Dominic Crossan: "Emmaus never happened. Emmaus always happens”. Crossan, of course, may not have had my detours in mind especially since mine will be somewhat wayward and unpredictable. I am playing with the French root of detour meaning to ‘turn aside’. Mulling over the piece, I came across what may seem largely amusing with no bearing on what will follow here. It was a news item about a woman who decided it was time to do something about the disgraceful state of some of roads in Britain starting with her own local and surrounding areas. The woman spray-painted images of various bugs around potholes (to warn others) after it damaged her car. In some of the deeper potholes she floated toy ducks! The local authorities were more concerned about the time and cost it would take them to remove the paint rather than fixing the holes or offering some sensible answers as to why these holes seem to multiply and stay around for some time. The community-minded woman was “alone” on that road, protesting to make other travellers aware and at the same time shaming the status quo to act. The authorities, like Cleophas and an unnamed companion, found it difficult to catch-on to this unfamiliar/maverick voice and her way of sending and signalling a message. Like the local authorities in the above, can it be these supposed friends of the ‘rising-up’ One were actual stumbling blocks?. Was their unawareness designed or undesigned – missing all sorts of signals? What kept them from comprehending? What keeps us from 44
comprehending, especially the connections and systemic causes of injustices? Can it be that friends of Jesus were suffering from some form of bandwidth deficiency: an inability to see beyond the immediacy before them, even though forewarned on numerous occasions? They were overly talkative about Jesus on their road walk. They were saturating the air with words, ideas and ‘what ifs’. A lot of speaking got in the way of seeing, listening, discerning, analysing, and acting. Perhaps what we have here is a tension between ‘rising up or arising’ (resurrection if you prefer) and the new possibilities and Empire’s narrative as being the only possible familiar reality however disastrous. Or is it a case of the ongoing effects of trauma, as a result of the crucifixion of hope, that is, the overwhelming nature of traumatic experiences (the force of the violence) hindering their ability to orient the resurrection experience into a new framework of meaning? Can this be why in the other resurrection appearances, the rising-up one shows the nail marks with a minimum of words? There are many situations and circumstances today that are in desperate need of resurrection: from pandemic to endemic, the injustices within and between nations are multiple as they are intersecting and systemic. If Emmaus seems to suggest that gestures of hospitality, friendship and openness is where faith thrives, grace breaks through, and life may just flourish again then perhaps, we may do well to consider the many roads around us where protests against the agents of death continue to threaten and kill, and re-commit to walk those roads in solidarity. The Zapatistas of Mexico deployed the expression: preguntando caminamos (walking, we ask questions) pointing to a model of witness-solidarity-struggle. As people of the Jesus way, have we forgotten what it means to join the struggle, these walks? Have we become co-opted chaplains to the systems or shitstems?
detour and retour So, onto to my detours around some roads/walks where numerous rising-up are taking place, roads that we need to be on protesting and in solidarity with those taking INSiGHT | April 2021
