Promise of Passover

Exodus 12:1-14

A sermon by K. Toivanen at EMUC, 9/14/2008

Last week we began a series on the central stories of the book of Exodus. For those of you who weren’t here, last week, Moses received a message from God in an encounter with a burning bush. God, hearing the cries of the Israelites, calls upon Moses to go to the Pharaoh and tell him to set the Israelites free.

In spite of God’s promise to be with him every step of the way, a very reluctant Moses returns to Egypt to confront the Pharaoh. We’ve skipped over the many fruitless encounters Moses had with Pharaoh along with the nine plagues that only served to harden Pharaoh’s heart and strengthen his resolve against the Israelites.

We focus today on the Passover, the night, according to the book of Exodus when God passed through the land and the first born of every household died, except the first born of the Israelites.

According to scholars, the story of the Passover in Exodus is likely the weaving together of a number of different accounts - that of the night before leaving Egypt, and subsequent instructions that guided the celebration of the Passover in the years to come.

Without getting into all of the scholarly complexities, it is clear from the Exodus account that the Passover is not just to be celebrated on one grand occasion. Rather, it is to become a perpetual and foundational festival to mark not only the birth of a new people from slavery in Egypt, but also an annual feast to remember God’s ongoing work of liberating the enslaved and setting free the oppressed in every generation.

Each year in the celebration of the Passover, Jews reenact the drama of freedom. Now, we all like the sound of freedom, but we aren’t so sure we like all of the details in this story of freedom. The death of all firstborn Egyptian children and livestock rightly trouble us. This is a story of freedom that is not without struggle, not without cost, not without death.

It is troubling to hear a biblical text that states that God caused these deaths. It certainly doesn’t sit comfortably with me. If however, I look at this account from the perspective of an oppressed people who have watched their loved ones needlessly suffer and die at the hands of a tyrant; who have endured years of being treated as chattels, then perhaps I can begin to understand their interpretation of the events of the first Passover night;

I can begin to have some empathy with their belief that God spared them from the death that God set as a final plague upon the Egyptians. I may empathize even if I don’t agree with such an understanding of God. In my conversations with some of the Jewish faith that I have come to know over the years, I have discovered that this portrayal of God is also something that they struggle with as well.

In a Jewish home, the annual central celebration of the Passover is the Seder Meal. A number of us, not only from this church, but other folk from a variety of faith backgrounds in Mississauga have had the privilege of taking part in Seder meals at Solel Synagogue. One of the wonderful learnings I’ve had from these experiences with the folks of Solel is that the Seder meal is not only an occasion to reenact and relive that first Passover; it is also an occasion to reinterpret and to respond to the story in light of the present context.

Ideally, taking part in a Seder meal is the best way to experience the power of the Passover, both as a celebration of God’s gift of freedom in the past and as a promise of God’s liberation to come. However, Passover is a spring festival and rather than waiting until next April for an invitation to Solel, I’ve brought in the symbolic foods of the Seder plate and the Seder table as a way of lifting up some of the central themes of Passover.

By the way, the word Seder simply means order or arrangement and refers to the fact that the meal follows a certain order. In the Christian context, we might liken our celebration of communion as a meal that follows a certain order as we participate in prayers and actions that follow a definite pattern.

On the screen you’ll see a table set for a Seder meal. Even if we haven’t taken part in a Seder meal, most of us know that Matzah bread or unleavened bread plays a central role at Passover.

Matzah is called the ‘bread of affliction’. When Jews eat it at Passover they are reminded of a time when their diets were restricted to the bread of poverty. Due to their hasty retreat from Egypt, they were limited to the food carried on their backs - unleavened bread that they were unable to thoroughly prepare. Their experience with hardship following the exodus from Egypt inspires them to consider all who eat a ‘metaphorical’ bread of affliction today.

In a contemporary Seder meal, I found this reading that lifts up those who eat the bread of affliction today:

In our city and in our world today, some are forced to work in order to receive their meager welfare benefits, which barely enable them to survive.

Tonight we share their bread of affliction:

The affliction of work without dignity

The injustice of no minimum wage

The theft of protection from injury

The anxiety of work with no future

Panic at the threat of lost benefits.

The stress of leaving a child for work

The shame of forced placement

The death of educational opportunity

The robbery of the right to organize

Silenced voices of protest.

And Rabbi Arthur Waskow, adds that there are those who are not even able to eat the simple "bread of affliction:"

Some are so pressed-down that they have not even this bread to eat. There are so many who are hungry that they cannot all come and eat this Passover with us tonight. Therefore we say to them, we set aside this bread as a token that we owe you righteousness, ‘tzedakah’, and that we will fulfill it.

And with those words, each person at the Seder table sets aside one piece of matzah as they make a commitment either financially or through their own labours to support initiatives that advocate for justice for the poor and oppressed.

To accompany the Seder meal, 4 or 5 glasses of wine are consumed. When we were at Solel; there was sensitivity to the variety of religious backgrounds as well as the range of ages present, and so grape juice was provided instead.

In a contemporary Seder celebration, with the drinking of the first cup of wine, the participants envision and pray for their own nation as a ‘land of freedom’ where everyone has a standard of living adequate for their health and wellbeing including food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social services.

With the second cup, Jews envision a modern day Israel that will ensure complete equality of social and political rights to all its inhabitants.

The third cup looks to a day when in our world everyone has work and, without any discrimination, receives equal pay for equal work; a world where everyone also can enjoy rest and leisure, and periodic holidays with pay

With the fourth cup is envisioned a world where no one is held in slavery or servitude… a world without sweatshop laborers, where all workers are able to make a fair wage, regardless of which country they are born into; a world where all products are fairly traded, and no one country or financial institution can dictate trade policies.

If a fifth cup is poured, it is to represent a specific justice issue that is of concern to the local community.

Along with the drinking of wine, is the spilling of wine during the Seder. During the meal, 10 drops of wine are poured out to lessen the joy of the celebration as the 10 plagues set upon Egypt are remembered. Along with the remembrance of those ancient plagues, modern day plagues such as AIDS, cancer, child poverty, war, environmental disasters are remembered along with the prayer that people will cast out all plagues that threaten humanity and the earth.

Now let’s turn to the symbolic foods on the Seder plate.

Karpas, the green vegetable or herb, in this case parsley, signifies the growth of spring time and the greening of hope and renewal. Before it is eaten, the green herb is dipped in salt water, a reminder of the tears of those who were enslaved in Egypt.

In my research into contemporary Seder celebrations, I found this meaningful reading to accompany this part of the ritual:

As you dip the beauty of greens into the water of tears, please hear my cry. Can’t you see that I am slowly dying? My forests are being clear cut, diminished. My diverse and wondrous creatures -- birds of the sky and beasts of the fields -- small and large are threatened with extinction in your lifetimes. My splendid, colorful floral and fauna are diminishing in kind. My tropical places are disappearing before us, and my oceans are warming. Don’t you see that my climate is changing, bringing floods and heat, more extreme cycles of cold and warm, all affecting you and all our Creation? It doesn’t have to be! You, all of you, can make a difference in simple ways. You, all of you, can help reverse this sorrowful trend.

May these waters into which you dip the greens become healing waters to sooth and restore. As you dip, quietly make this promise:

Yes, I can help protect our wondrous natural places. Yes, I can try to use fewer of our precious resources and to replant and sustain more. I can do my part to protect our forests, our oceans and waters. I can work to protect the survival of creatures of all kinds. Yes, I will seek new forms of sustainable energy in my home and in my work, turning toward the sun, the wind, the waters. I make this promise to strive to live gently upon this Earth of ours for the good of all coming generations.

Bitter herbs, usually horseradish, is tasted as a reminder of the bitterness of slavery. Those who eat of its sharp taste are also to sharpen their concern for the stranger and those who are enslaved today.

Haroset is a mixture of apple, honey and sweet wine, combined together to remind us of the mortar and bricks that the Israelites used to build Pharaoh’s cities. It is both a reminder of slavery, but its sweet taste is also a promise of the sweetness of freedom.

The roasted bone of a lamb is a reminder of roasted lamb of the first Passover, the animal sacrifices that were once offered in the temple as part of the Hebrew worship, and a reminder of the importance of praying and learning the Torah as a way to show love of God.

And lastly the roasted egg is both a symbol of sacrificial offering and a symbol of life’s triumph over death. Its presence on the Seder plate is an encouragement to making sacrificial offerings of time or resources to support God’s desire for abundant life for all.

What is missing in the explanations I’ve offered here is the total experience of the Seder, the questions of the children and the responses from scripture and wise elders, the story telling, the singing, the warmth of gathering with family and friends, and yes even strangers… for the Seder table, like our communion table is an open table, a table where no one should be turned away, where all, regardless of their status in life are to be treated as royal guests.

For the promise of the Passover, is not just a promise for the Jewish people. In the celebrations that I’ve participated in at Solel, the Seder meal is experienced as a way of remembering those who have been enslaved and those and are enslaved today; it is a promise of God for freedom to God’s people everywhere, and it is the call of God to each person at the Seder meal, to actively participate in God’s ongoing work of liberation.

So whether we are Jews or Christians, may we come together to voice our hope in the final words of the Seder:

Peace! Peace for us! For everyone!

For all people, this our hope:

Next year in Jerusalem

And next year, in all the world, may all be free.

Amen.

The following resources were consulted in the preparation of this sermon:

• A Passover Haggadah, prepared by the Central Conference of American Rabbis
• various printed resources from Solel Synagogue, Mississauga, ON and from the Union for Reform Judaism