Road to Canada Park
Luke 24:13-35
Today we are looking at a story of two people walking back home from Jerusalem to Emmaus. I want to say that it is hard for me to pronounce this word in English, so if I say the Arabic equivalent عمواس I am referring to the same place.
One of these two people is identified as Cleopas, which means “vision of Glory,” an oxymoron for Cleopas’ inability to see Jesus. The other is unknown. The Greek word used to describe the second person is non gendered so it could be a man or a woman. There is a strong scholarly agreement that the second person was probably his wife, Mary of Cleopas.
As readers we enter a scene where two disciples meet with who is identified to us as readers as Jesus, but to them he is a stranger who “journeys along with them” (v.15). They do not recognize him because “their eyes were constrained so as to not recognize him” (v.16). In our version something kept them from recognizing Jesus. These two people were discussing and debating the events that took place in Jerusalem. And Jesus asks them in his known rhetoric fashion, What are you talking about? What’s making you so emersed in your conversation?
Will Gafney describes their state as someone who has just experienced a sudden trauma, trying to understand, make sense of something that is unsensible. Rightly so!
They knew a lot of about him, but from their answer I suspect they understood Jesus’ work as an equivalent to a political liberator who was supposed to free Israel from the Roman occupation. He was not supposed to die. His body is missing and the women who went earlier said that he lives. But when others went to the tomb themselves, Jesus was no longer there and neither his body. A lot of confusion and a heightened sense of loss. They had hopes and aspiration of liberation that were shattered. The closest I could relate to this sense of trauma is when you lose someone suddenly, and you go through a process trying to wrestle to a new reality. Your mind and your heart have not caught up with what happened. But he appears at this crucial yet confusing time, in the height of their trauma. He begins to explain to them beginning with Moses and the prophets for 2 or 6 hours.
When I looked up this account, I was interested to know where Emmaus was geographically, because as someone from that part of the world, I was unaware of any village with such a name. What I discovered pierces into my own people’s intergenerational trauma.
There are four possible locations for Imwas (عمواس). One of the words that narrowed these locations is in verse 14, in our versions translated as “sixty stadia” but in earlier transcripts it is “160 stadia”. Sixty stadia is about 11 kilometres (just under 7 miles) and 160 stadia would be 30 kilometres (18 miles). To walk 7 miles is about 2 hours, and 18 is about 4.5-5 hours, not counting in doing so while talking ardently in a mountainous terrain. One of the four locations is the village of Emmaus (عمواس). It changed its name to Nicopolis in 220 AD, then was re-established after a plague in 639 Ad as the last station on the way to Jerusalem for the Crusaders in 1099. In modern times, it was inhabited by Palestinian farmers.
Unfortunately and unnamed to many of us, (عمواس)was destroyed and levelled by the modern state of Israel following the 1967 war. I came by an Italian documentary (Return to Emmaus) that tells the story of this village 20 years after its destruction, in 1987. I am happy to share this documentary with you. The documentary reveals first-time photage of the destruction of (عمواس) from a young Jewish photographer, who lived in a nearby Kibbutz at the time. The documentary presents several Israeli and Palestinian witness accounts to the end of (عمواس). A village of five thousand defenceless inhabitants who were forcibly evacuated. The documentary narrator eloquently explains “For the people of Emmaus, 1967 was the beginning of their exodus.” Another witness was an Israeli pacifist, Amos Kenan, who recalls pleading with the Israeli soldiers that they didn’t have to evacuate the village. Amos and his regiment tried to comfort, to help, these refugees. They offered them water and food. They begged them to leave. He says, “As soldiers, we were not asked to participate in the destruction of the village, we only had to stand guard to prevent the inhabitants from returning.” The destruction was the work of the professionals who came with their bulldozers and reduced (عمواس) to a pile of rubble.
Then, the documentary shifts to a scene of 1987 where 4 Israeli men are having a picnic playing a board game with loud music. The Italian narrator explain, “Not only the houses were destroyed, but even the ruins of (عمواس) were obliterated… People come here to escape the mugginess of Tel Aviv and Jerusalem. In fact, a park has been established on destroyed (عمواس) that fills up the Israeli tourists on weekends. It is called “Canada park” because it was built with contributions from the Jewish community in that faraway country.”
For me, the most powerful scene in the documentary is when they show a Palestinian family going back to their levelled house reduced to a concrete square in the park. As they walk, one of them explains “this is where our metal door was, you see.” And “here is where one of the four bedrooms was.” Their saddened expressions echoes my understanding of Cleopas and Mary’s expressions when they answered Jesus what happened to them.
Today, when I think of the “road to Emmaus” portrayed and painted by many artists as a romantic, idyllic, serene and overly spiritualized account contrasts with its 21st century reality of a “road to Canada Park” built on the rubble of a destroyed and extinguished Imwas where Jesus possibly dined with the now displaced ancestors of these Palestinian villagers. I ask myself, how do we, as a community of faith, wrestle with this contrast? How can we fathom such a reality of loss and how can we walk alongside our Palestinian brothers and sisters who were guardians of such sacred places? And if I may add, what constraints some of our eyes from recognizing their witness accounts and yearning for restoration?
When I read this account, I recognize that Jesus is with us in the midst of our traumas. He walks alongside the refugees of (عمواس) and the Israeli tourists of Canada Park. He meets us where we are.
What is interesting in this passage is throughout the time of their journey – whether walking 11 or 30 kilometers, Jesus was not revealed to them while teaching and interpreting scriptures to them, but rather when he is sitting in Cleopas’ house to break bread.
Hospitality in Palestinian culture, similar to other cultures, is one of our virtues. Palestinian culture is known to be very hospitable. It is embedded in different aspects of our lives. In traditional Palestinian homes there are two “living rooms”. One for guests and the other for the family. I call the one for guests Holy Saloon, because the family is not allowed to sit there. It has to always be clean, tidy and ready to welcome people, because you never know who might show up. Usually, it has the most expensive furniture and ornaments. In addition, for example, when my mother used to cook food for us when we were younger, she always made extra because she assumed that someone else will join us. She was usually right. In the kitchen pantry, there is a section designated with food for guests. It is usually where the best treats and mixed nuts are, which were off limits to us. Every household is always ready to welcome strangers. They are the first to be served. They are given the best dish, both aesthetically and in substance (largest portion or best part of the meat for example). They are the first to sit, usually at the center of the table.
I imagine when Cleopas and Mary invited Jesus to stay with them, their house was also ready to host him. They took out whatever food they had in the stash designated for guests. They sat together at the table. Most likely, they were not alone, but there were probably other members of their immediate community (maybe the family, village elders, the in-laws and so on). By the way, eating together literally means eating together, from the same plates. If you go to a traditional Middle Eastern restaurant, you are served Mazze, which is a number of little plates with different salads, dips, olives, pickles and so on. There is no cutlery. You use your hand to break the bread and pass it to the person next to you. You use a piece of bread to scoop your food. Eating is a very intimate act, and sometimes messy. If I had time I’d tell you my own experience eating Mansaf (rice cooked in yogurt with lamb) with Jordan’s Wadi Rum Bedouins. Anyhow, as Jesus “reclined at table with them, he took the pita and blessed it and they recognized him. Their eyes were open.” They head back to Jerusalem to tell the others (11 disciples) about this.
Sometimes we think God reveals himself to us while reading or studying scripture together. When I feel overwhelmed with life, I find myself resorting to finding answers by studying scripture in hope it can comfort my pain, but what I take from this story is (1) Jesus has been with me all along, but perhaps my eyes have not recognized him – come on May 7th and hear how God was with my family during Nakba - and (2) he is revealed at the table with my community of faith. There is something about the act of eating together, about an embodied hospitality, where God reveals himself to us.
Notice that Cleopas as the host invited Jesus the stranger. But when they were at the table, Jesus became the host and Cleopas and his household the guests. In a similar way, we are all guests at God’s table. And when we welcome the stranger as a community of faith, we are following our host’s commandment. And at times, listening to each other’s stories and experiences, might feel like 2 to 5 hours talk filled with ups and downs like in a mountainous terrain, we might be someone’s God send walking with along Cleopases and Marys in their times of confusion, trauma, or sadness.
Ahalan Wasahlan, “you are welcome here”. for me affirms that like you, I am a guest at the table. May my eyes, and yours, be opened to recognize that the risen Christ walking alongside us in our healing journey.