The Emmaus story … Anthropocentric or Ecocentric Exegesis?
P. Mark O'Loughlin cfc
[August 2003]
I am grateful to have found much of exegetical interest during Brendan Byrne’s recent Sunday morning presentation on Luke’s Emmaus story. Such as Brendan's understanding of Luke’s contextual thinking about Jesus as “host” of the “hospitality of God”, and of Redemption as overcoming a “blockage” in the Creation story, and of Jesus as “God’s original design for humanity”. And his reference to the human anger and resentment evident as blockages to the “hospitality of God” in Luke’s Zacchaeus and Prodigal Son stories. And his opinion that the unnamed disciple of the Emmaus story was another man and not a woman, because of the apparent lack of faith shown by these two disciples (described as “foolish and slow of heart to believe” … Scriptural women were generally not “slow of heart to believe”!) And his projection of Rembrandt’s painting of the moment of illumination in the inn, with its explosive burst of golden light (so evocative for me of a more recent Turner) and deep chiaroscuro and teasing presence of only two figures, one dumbfounded, one in enigmatic profile. And his comment that the experience for the two disciples of the “disappearance” of Jesus did not bring disappointment but rather insight and empowerment. And I found myself reflecting that this story was about an Exodus, this time leaving Jerusalem after an earlier leaving of Egypt.
But at the same time as these stimulating reflections were being presented I also found myself deeply disturbed. I found myself thinking that this whole exegesis was anthropocentric (centering on man). Like Lot's wife we were looking back! I began to find it intolerable. I was interested to recognise that an earth or cosmic spirituality is consolidating for me. So my question became: “How do I reflect on the Emmaus story from an ecocentric or cosmocentric viewpoint?” And this question, of course, has implications for all exegesis and theology and religious education! I began to discover some new entry points into the Emmaus story. Quite central to the story is an unrecognised significant presence. I do not find it difficult to think of this presence as a mother earth or planet earth or cosmic presence in my life journey. If I am open to this presence I do experience it as a transformative enlightenment and empowerment. It offers hope in the face of disillusionment within an anthropocentric worldview.
The prophets are significant in the story, and I can, with Lot's wife, suffer immobilising loss by looking back, or I can be empowered by looking to contemporary prophets. To a Thomas Berry and his invitation to embrace the Universe story as central myth, to believe that there is “no out there, but rather a Divine omnipresence”; to Brian Swimme’s view that all things have “being”, that the universe has an evolutionary energy for “differentiation, diversity and communion”, and that humanity is living a “pathology of destruction”; to David Abram and his invitation to embrace “the more than human community in which the human community is embedded”; to Charlene Spretnak and her call to “homo-economicus to radically reorientate to the earth community reality”; to Fritjof Capra and his recognition that everything is related (“systems” view of the world rather than “mechanistic” view), and that “world” is appropriately seen as “relationships and processes, not objects”; and to Jean Houston’s belief that “we inhabit only a very small part of our total reality … that we are in the sunset of traditional ways of knowing and seeing and believing … that we are invited to enter into the wisdom of the myths arising everywhere around us”.
The road invites me to know that I am on a journey with planet earth. And the hospitality of the inn invites me to know that planet earth hosts me and nurtures me and celebrates with me and enlightens me.
Brendan offered us the thought that the Emmaus story is the paradigm for the life and mission of the Church … to offer disillusioned humanity Word and Sacrament. I found myself responding with a notional assent, but I was more compelled to ask “What Word?” and “What Sacrament?” I am cautioned about being Lot's wife!
In the 2002 Chapter brochure, “The Heart of Being Brother”, we are invited to embrace the Emmaus story as central myth for our brotherhood, and also to engage in “radical relationships of equality with all God’s creation”. It appears to me that we must bring these invitations together by engaging in an ecocentric exegesis when reflecting on the Emmaus story.
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