Emmaus

In the gospel reading for today we share the story of the two disciples on that first Easter heading home discouraged by the events that had unfolded with the death of Jesus. By the time that Cleopas and his unnamed companion had walked with Jesus the seven miles from Jerusalem to Emmaus, the evening darkness had descended upon them. When Jesus acted as if he would continue walking, they implored him, “stay with us, for the day is almost over.” And so, they had dinner at Emmaus.

During the day the men hadn’t recognized the resurrected Jesus, but at dinner “their eyes were opened” in the breaking of the bread and they understood what had happened. They immediately returned to Jerusalem and told how Jesus was recognized by them when he broke the bread. They added their testimony to the earlier testimony of the women who’d visited the empty tomb.

Unless we believe that the men cooked their own meal and served themselves, there had to have been a woman behind the scenes for this dinner at Emmaus. But Luke leaves her unnamed and unmentioned. She is lost to history. But not to the imagination of the painter Diego Rodríguez de Silva y Velázquez. The main figure and visual center point in his paintings is the kitchen maid in the foreground. Jesus and the men are relegated to a back room in the background. We see them only through a window-like opening. Velázquez depicts the maid as a mixed-race girl, the offspring of a Spanish Christian and an African Muslim. The subject of this painting, then, is a young woman who is marginalized at every level — by her mixed race, religion, gender, and class. While the men speak of spiritual matters in the back, she’s hard at work in the kitchen preparing dinner for them.

The maid is visibly distracted. In her left hand she holds a ceramic jug of wine. She’s glancing over her right shoulder, clearly eavesdropping on the back room conversation. She bends over to support herself. The stunned expression on her face indicates that her eavesdropping has confirmed her suspicion. She’s in a state of disbelief at having recognized the man she’s serving.

Whereas the men had been blind to the identity of Jesus even when he was with them for a seven-mile walk, the Moorish maid recognized the risen Christ while working in the mundane context of a kitchen. “God is found in the pots,” said Teresa of Avila.

But it was the men who didn’t believe the resurrection report of the women, and who were blind to the Christ who was right in front of them all day, whereas in the artistic imaginations of Velázquez and the poet Levertov, it was an ordinary and unknown kitchen maid who testified first to the resurrected Lord.

Denise Levertov’s poem The Servant-Girl at Emmaus (A Painting by Velázquez) reimagines this revelatory moment.

She listens, listens, holding
her breath. Surely that voice
is his — the one who had looked at her, once, across the crowd,
as no one ever had looked?

Had seen her? Had spoken as if to her?

Surely those hands were his,
taking the platter of bread from hers just now?
Hands he’d laid on the dying and made them well?

Surely that face — ?

The man they’d crucified for sedition and blasphemy.
The man whose body disappeared from its tomb.
The man it was rumored now some women had seen this morning, alive

Those who had brought this stranger home to their table
don’t recognize yet with whom they sit.
But she in the kitchen, absently touching the wine jug she’s to take in,
a young Black servant intently listening,

swings round and sees
the light around him
and is sure.

Image credit: The Kitchen Maid, Diego Rodríguez de Silva y Velázquez | National Gallery of Art, Dublin | PD-US \ Original source: Dan Clendenin at Journey with Jesus