KES Chapel Reflection, Week of 1 May
Interpretation is all!
How do we learn anything? What does it mean to learn? In Latin, and subsequently in English, a learner is a disciple, one who follows a teaching in the sense of coming to know or discern meaning. It derives from discere, to learn. In Greek, a learner is mathetes, derived from mathein, to learn. It is from this that we get mathematics which is really a certain process or form of learning. In schools and universities we talk about different disciplines meaning different areas of learning. This suggests that discipline in its moral and social sense about behaviour really concerns habits of mind. In that sense discipline is more than a matter of external authority and regulatory compliance and more about self-control and responsibility. That is something worth learning for all of us!
The story of the encounter between two disciples and Jesus on the Road to Emmaus is a wonderful illustration about how we come to learn or to know certain ideas. In this case, the story belongs to the understanding of the Resurrection. The story shows how the learning happens through their engagement with Jesus. They are in perplexity and confusion about the events of the Passion and its aftermath. They are on the road to Emmaus, a little village about seven miles away from Jerusalem. While “they communed together and reasoned,” Jesus comes alongside them, unrecognized by them. That is part of their confusion. Thinking he was dead, they aren’t looking for him.
He enters into conversation with them and draws out of them their perplexity and confusion. They recount to him what had happened concerning Jesus in terms of his crucifixion and burial, the report from certain women about the empty tomb, about the vision of angels, and, subsequently, the confirmation of the fact of the empty tomb by some of the disciples. In other words, they acknowledge what they don’t understand and what perplexes them and confuses them. It is all contrary to what they expected.
It is only at that point of knowing our not-knowing that learning can begin. But how? In what way? The Chapel reading from Luke this week gives us the first form of learning in this story. Jesus names their unknowing: “O foolish ones and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken.” What the prophets have spoken is what is written in the scriptures. “And beginning with Moses and all the prophets, he interpreted to them in all the scriptures the things concerning himself.” What things? The things concerning the suffering and the glory of Christ.
