NL 304: The Promise of Passover - Exodus 12:1-13; 13:1-8
image: Flickr from The Magnes Collection of Jewish Art and Life, UC Berkeley
Exodus 12:1-13; 13:1-8
Initial Thoughts
World Communion Sunday
Unlike the RCL- this reading specifically includes the ongoing ritual of the passover and the remembrance of being brought out of Egypt
Bible Study
Direct response to Exodus 1 and Pharaoh’s inability to have power over life and death
Not sure if it is appropriate to focus too much on the killing of “firstborn” or dwell on the details:
God is willing to massacre children in order to make a point? Ends justify the means? This is a slippery slope
If God is truly all powerful then surely there is a solution that doesn’t result in slaughtering children
If God is going to kill all the firstborn - wasn’t Pharaoh a firstborn? The scripture says nothing about children
Amazing look at the plagues and Pharaoh from G-dcast:
“Plagued by the Plagues” by Rabbi Ellen Weinberg Dreyfus
“We read this epic story of our liberation and we are left with gnawing questions. It would be much easier to tell the story in black and white, with clear good guys and bad guys, and no ambivalence. If God was going to liberate the Israelites with "signs and marvels," did it have to be at the expense of others? The "extraordinary chastisements" fell upon the innocent Egyptians as well as the guilty. We can rationalize that they were all paying the price for benefitting from centuries of slavery or we can simply accept that our present-day ideas of fairness may not work in hindsight. There are no easy answers. Every good story has layers of meaning. The questions and the struggle are all part of the process of wrestling with our sacred text.”
Defining moments for Israelites - Exodus and Exile:
New year- beginning- sets the stage for everything that is to come
Exodus - People who are saved by a God who saved slaves and oppressed
Community - the lamb is to be killed and shared in community- family and neighbors
Boundaries
The blood on the door sets the home as a sacred place of safety and peace amidst fear and death
Sean White, Feasting on the Word - “In the obedience of the people, God's purposes unfold, so that their faithfulness and God's faithfulness somehow converged in the fulfillment of the promise. Uncertainty, anxiety, fear, obedience, and shalom all comprise the arena of experience with God.”
Passover remains a time to annually remember God who has saved, is saving and will save God’s people
Bread - matsot is strange in its negative definition: bread without leavened”
Same bread Lot served the two strangers who came to his door
Blood - a recurring motif throughout this narrative: the blood of the children thrown into the Nile, the blood of the Egyptian Moses killed, the blood of circumcision, the plague turning the Nile to blood, and here the blood as a sign for”the destroyer” to pass over
Ritual (E. Lane Alderman Jr., Feasting on the Word)
How does this compare to communion?
Passover: festival, communal, remembering God’s saving power, acknowledges fear, oppression sin and death - but trusts in God’s saving grace in the midst
Does your Holy Communion liturgy also communicate these things? Should it?
Are people any more distracted now than they were at the time of Moses?
Does communion remind people of God saving grace- what they are saved from and what they are saved for?
“Rituals anchor us in the past, but their real power is in their ability to propel us into the future. It is vitally important for the people to remember what God has done in the past, but the real celebration comes in seeing what God is doing in the present. People are still being liberated. Lives are still being renewed. Hopes are still being restored.”
The Israelites share the Passover with girded loins, sandals on and staves at the ready- preparing for what is to come. The Disciples break bread and share the cup with Jesus knowing his death is imminent.
When we bread bread and celebrate God’s saving actions- are we prepared for what is to come?
Communion Liturgy by Carol Penner (Leading in Worship) done in the “passover style” i.e. what makes this night different?
Resources:
Communion Liturgy by Carol Penner (Leading in Worship) done in the “passover style” i.e. what makes this night different?
Great video Jewish commentaries on the plagues from G-dcast:
“Bo” by Joel Stanley- What’s it like to be the greatest sidekick ever? Actor and writer Joel Stanley takes us INSIDE the head of Aaron, Moses’s number one man (ahem…and his brother). Plagues! Confrontations! And poison-tinged political drama where Moses and Pharaoh's attendants attack each other…with snakes??
“Va’eira” by Rabbi Katie Mizrahi- Possibly the best known Bible story, period. A rousing “Let my people go” kicks off weeks of frogs and hail and boils, but Rabbi Katie Mizrahi explains that those weren’t even the REAL plagues. ?#@$% Find out just what was afflicting those Israelites in this week’s story.
Dedication of the first born
“The firstborn daughters and sons of Israel are equally sacred to God in this text” Later in the chapter, v. 13 narrows this broad sanctification to males only but then goes back to include all children in v. 15 - perhaps this reveals some tension within the early community as regards inclusion (a tension which, unfortunately, continues to this day) Wilda Gafney, Womanist Midrash
There indication that the firstborn served as priests both men and women until the tribe of Levi was set aside to be the priests. Robert Altar, The Hebrew Bible
Women would have served as priests as well to address the ritual cleansings and issues that women were required to perform or needed to address.
How are the firstborn sanctified? Wilda Gafney, Womanist Midrash
Animals are sanctified either through death (sheep and goats) or by being ransomed (donkeys) by the death of another animal (a sheep or goat). Un-ransomed donkeys would also be killed
There is no indication that child-sacrifice was practiced - to the contrary considering the sparing the firstborn in the passover
Numbers 18:15 specifies 5 shekels as an appropriate ransom for a human
Thoughts and Questions
What do we do to make places safe and sacred but not isolated or ignorant? Churches are dedicated when they are built- what about after that?
How do we celebrate the passover without creating an us/them environment? ex: They are killed while we are saved.
When we break bread and celebrate God’s saving actions- are we prepared for what is to come?
Celebrating the work of God saving “us” is not the same as celebrating the destruction of “them” - the text emphasizes the saving work of God much more than the destruction of “them”/our enemies
Opening music: Misirlou, One Man 90 Instruments by Joe Penna/MysteryGuitarMan at MIM
Closing Song by Bryan Odeen