20161002
After Pentecost 20
World Communion Sunday
Psalm 149
Exodus 12:1-13; 13:1-8 ‘It is because of what the Lord did for me when I came out of Egypt.’
May the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable to you, O Lord, my rock and my redeemer.
Grace to you and peace from our lord and savior, Jesus Christ.
Either we have here a very particular, micro-managing God, or this is a very, very, very special meal.
It is so special, in fact, I had a hard time coming up with a secular equivalent. Is it Thanksgiving? With turkey and mashed potatoes and remembering to be grateful to God and our forefathers? Well, some of that is in there…
Is it like Christmas? Where, at least in some households, everything must be “just right” with traditions steeped in everything from the ornaments on the tree, to the hors d’oeuvres, to the candy dish. A bit…
Is it a New Year’s celebration with the recommitments, celebratory drinks and the joy of the fresh and new? There is something there too…
The trouble with either of these comparisons is that this meal contains in it a power that fails to come across in simply words. In fact, if you ever experience a seder or Passover meal with Jewish friends, you know that the words there are not just spoken, but are enacted with the eating. The bitter herbs, the flatbread, the egg, the lamb… each food symbolizes a specific action and promise of God. Each course of the meal is intended to more than remember, but to relive! To relive the great gift that God gave the family of Joseph, Jacob, Sarah and Eve - the family called Israel. You see, the whole point of the Passover story is that the people, through this meal, were freed from slavery.
I want to show you a trailer of a movie that is coming out soon, it’s called “The Birth of a Nation.” You may have heard about it. It tells the story of Nat Turner, a former slave in America that leads a liberation movement in 1831 to free African-Americans. This trailer gives us a glimpse into what slavery in America is like. And from the Biblical description, we can assume it isn’t all that different across time, culture and place for the Israelites. [watch: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wIlUerVomDE]
‘It is because of what the Lord did for me when I came out of Egypt.’ – the last verse of our reading today.
It is because the Lord freed us from this wretched slavery, Says Israel. Now of course, American slavery and Egyptian slavery are very different historical time periods, but the subjugation, the treatment, the pain of one group of people above another, is the same.
I imagine this meal being eaten on the underground railroad. The bread that could not rise, the bitter herbs of hardship, the wine of freedom.
There is nothing easy about this meal.
For when a people lives enslaved, their hope is on freedom. //
How did they get here? Last we heard, the Israelites were receiving promises from God and faithfully watching them be fulfilled, and now they are slaves in Egypt?
Joseph’s brothers and their wives grew to be a family that overwhelmed the Pharoah, the king, of Egypt. The pharaoh forgot. He forgot that it was this family who had given Egypt life through Joseph. He forgot that it was God who had told the Egyptians about the famine before it came and gave Joseph the wisdom to understand and prepare. The pharaoh forgot that these people came to Egypt as guests, as brothers and sisters of one humanity. Pharoah, worried about his own security, forgot their common humanity. He made slaves of them. And so the people cried out to God. They cried out against the harsh treatment. They cried out against the bondage. They cried out when a whole generation of their children were killed by Pharoah. They cried out to God to free them.
And God did.
And to this day, when Passover is celebrated, the people Ask “How is this night different from all other nights?” and answer, “We remember this night how God led us out of Egypt and through the Red Sea.” It is not those people back then, but “us” (the practicing Jews) now who God led. Past and present are joined together. They say: We were slaves, but have been set free by the God who loves us.
See, it’s more than just remembering… it’s more than Thanksgiving or Christmas or New Years. If I had to pick a meal it comes closest to, I would choose Holy Communion. Appropriate, as today is World Communion Sunday where we celebrate our union with the body of Christ around the world.
For while the Jewish tradition is in itself right and holy. We who have been grafted in by Jesus Christ have also been given a meal to remember – a meal to never forget. We do it each week, rather than each year for a 7 day celebration of Passover. It is how we are “grafted in” to use Paul’s biblical language, to the Jewish family. We too have been slaves and been freed by Jesus…
In fact, we might ask even today… How is this morning different from all mornings?
Answer: This is the morning Christ rose from the dead.
This is the morning Christ had victory over death for our sake. Christ became the sacrificial lamb, our hope for survival in the midst of the bondage of evil.
In Communion, as in the Passover, we celebrate and thank God for the great gift God has given us: Freedom.
It’s not just words, it’s an enactment. The bread and wine are Christ’s body and blood. Christ is truly here once again. Past and present joined together.
You may remember, it was at the Passover meal that Jesus gave us the sacrament of communion. It was on a night that his very life was threatened. And for the sake of us all, Christ’s self-sacrifing action gave us all the gift of a new exodus. Christ, being God, laid his own life down so that we might be free.
So, as always with God’s Word, these stories give us a choice. We can receive the gift of freedom offered here. At this table, in bread and wine. Or we can refuse the gift, believing we are free already. We can, in our fantasy of freedom, concern ourselves more with our own security and risk the real threat that in so choosing, we may, like Pharaoh, forget our common humanity.
Both the Passover and Holy Communion are meals to enact our freedom. To remember who we are and whose we are. We are not of the world, but in it we live as God’s people. We are a freedom people, called to share the good news with the world: Christ has freed us!
God has freed you!
It is because of what the Lord did for me when I came out of Egypt…
It is because of what the Lord did for me when he died and rose again…
It is because I am God’s alone, and no one else’s. I stand to proclaim that God’s freedom is for all.
Will you pray with me
We whisper the word, and we shout the word,
FREEDOM!
Sometimes it’s ours, sometimes someone else’s
FREEDOM!
We love the sound of it ringing in our ears.
FREEDOM!
God, you are Love
Free us from fear of being hurt,
so that we might freely love!
Jesus, you are our Hope
Free us from despair …,
so that we might freely hope,
Spirit, you are Truth
Free us from lies about ourselves
so that we might freely live.
Love, Hope and Truth,
We come. We worship. We are free.
Amen.
