A PASSOVER REMEMBRANCE

A sermon prepared by Rev. Tim Kutzmark
Sunday, April 20, 2008 • Unitarian Universalist Church of Reading

Note: As a Unitarian Universalist people of faith, we look to many wisdom traditions for spiritual lessons and truth.  Today’s service is an exploration of the Jewish celebration of Passover.  Today’s service is not an attempt to recreate a Seder meal or to appropriate in any way the beautiful and rich religious and secular culture of the Jewish people.  Today’s service is a chance for us to honor this tradition, and to deepen our own Unitarian Universalist faith in the process.

Opening Words

Today we gather to remember the Jewish Festival known as Passover.  For some of us, this celebration is part of our childhood, for we were raised in Jewish homes.  For others of us, we married into this tradition, or chose it for ourselves.  And for most of us, the Jewish faith is not our tradition.  But we, as a Unitarian Universalist people of faith believe there is wisdom and truth to be found in all the World’s religions.  So today, we recall an ancient story, told for thousands upon thousands of years, at this time of year:

Moses was called by Yahweh—God of Fire and Thunder and Clouds—and told to go down to Egypt-land.  There a people were enslaved.  On a night dark and deep, Moses told the slaves “fasten your sandals, prepare to walk to freedom.”  On a night dark and deep, the warm blood of slaughtered lambs was smeared over Hebrew households.  That night, the Angel of the Lord brought death to the first born of Egypt.  But the terrible shadow passed over the homes of the Hebrews.  Singing songs of new life, the slaves burst forth from the place of captivity.  They turned toward the land of their soul.

Candle lighting

Baruch Ata Adonai Elohaynu Melech Haolam, asher keedshanu b’mitzvotav v’tzivanu l’hadleek ner shel Yom Tov.

Blessed are You Adonai, Eternal One, Who enables us to welcome Pesach by kindling these lights.

Shehehayanu
Baruch Ata Adonai Elohaynu Melech Haolam, shehehayanu, v’keeyomanu v’higeeyanu laz’man hazeh.

Blessed are You Adonai, Eternal One, Who has kept us alive, sustained us, and encouraged us to celebrate this joyful festival.

Reading and Reflection

Compiled and Offered by Maria Kempner and Sarah Hickok, Worship Associates

MARIA:

Passover is the Festival of Freedom, the Festival of Spring. It is celebrated at the time of the first full moon following the spring equinox. As did many Jews worldwide last night, I gathered with friends and family to celebrate the Seder meal, the special Passover ritual.

We gathered around a large table set with ritual foods. A lamb shank to symbolize the Paschal sacrifice, parsley greens to celebrate Springtime renewal; bitter herbs, such as horseradish, reminding us of the bitter suffering of slavery; matzah or unleavened bread for in leaving slavery there was no time for the bread to rise; hard boiled eggs to symbolize spring time fertility and the cycles of Life; and salt water, for the tears of slavery.

During the Seder, the story of the exodus of the Israelites from Egypt is retold. The Jewish people were slaves to Pharaoh in Egypt. Moses had asked Pharaoh to release the slaves, but he refused. So ten plagues were set upon Egypt, with the 10th being the killing of the first-born son. Moses instructed the Israelites to smear the blood of a sacrificial sheep or goat over their doors so that the plague would PASS-OVER their houses but kill the first born in each Egyptian household. The night of that plague, six hundred thousand Israelite families were led out of slavery by Moses, through the Sea of Reeds to freedom and redemption; from a time of hardship to a time of blessing.

We celebrate Passover to remind us that the Israelites escaped from the ignorance, hatred and oppression of the Egyptians, but that ignorance, hatred and oppression are still with us.

SARAH:

Since the Middle Ages, at the Passover Meal, the youngest member of the family has asked the questions beginning Mah nishtana: “Why is this night different from all other nights?”  The child’s question and the parent’s response mark the beginning of the narrative, the personal and family experience of slavery and redemption.  For our service today, the congregation will play the role of the youngest child, by reading the questions, which may be found in your order of service.   Let us join together in reading those questions now.

Congregation:

Why is this night different from all other nights?

1. On all other nights we eat either leavened or unleavened bread. Why on this night only Matza?

2. On all other nights we eat herbs of any kind. Why on this night, only bitter herbs?

3. On all other nights we do not dip herbs even once. Why on this night do we dip twice?

4. On all other nights our ancestors ate sitting or reclining. Why on this night did they all recline?

SARAH:

Why do we eat only matza tonight?

When Pharaoh let our ancestors go from Egypt, they were forced to flee in great haste. They had no time to bake their bread. They could not wait for the yeast to rise, so the sun beating down on the dough as they hurried along baked it into flat unleavened bread called matza.

MARIA:

Why do we eat bitter herbs tonight?

Because the Bible tells us that our ancestors were slaves in the land of Egypt and their lives were made bitter by their oppressors.

SARAH:

Why do we dip the herbs twice tonight?

We dip parsley into salt water because it reminds us of the green that comes to life in the springtime. We dip bitter herbs into the sweet haroset as a sign of hope. Our ancestors were able to withstand the bitterness of slavery because it was sweetened by the hope of freedom.

MARIA:

Why do we recline at the table?

Because reclining at the table was a sign of a free person in olden times. We follow the tradition by remembering that our ancestors were freed on this night.

The Four Questions
A Short Sermon for Passover

“We are a people in whom the past endures,
in whom the present is inconceivable
without moments gone by.
The Exodus lasted a moment, a moment enduring forever.
What happened once upon a time happens all the time.”
—Rabbi Abraham J. Heschel

What do we remember?  What do we forget? 

When we gather at the dinner table with family or friends, what runs through our head?  As we break bread, drink wine, sip our filtered water, slice the free range roast or the organic tofu—as we celebrate food and family—what do we ask each other?  What do we expect of each other?

I grew up in a family that was, at times, quite challenging.  Today, psychologists would describe us as “well intentioned but dysfunctional.”  We were loved, no question about that, but in that imperfect and incomplete way of young parents struggling to make sense of their lives and their circumstances.  Over the many years since then, we’ve made our peace with each other, in that illusive way adult children and aging parents sometimes do.

But, for me, my childhood memories of eating dinner with my family are complex.  There was a lot of fun—big smiles in the glowing birthday candles on my mom’s homemade chocolate cake.  There was the nightly retelling of the details of the school day, shared over chicken fricassee, canned creamed corn, and wonder bread soaked through with homemade chicken gravy.   We would giggle at knock-knock jokes long after the desert had been served.  I’ll never forget the time my sister Tammy laughed so hard she squirted milk through her nose.  I just about peed myself in delight! 

But the mood at that dinner table could change quickly, without warning.  Raised voices, raised hands, dark moods, fears, tears, and deadening silence—oh, the deadening silence— could turn any meal into an ordeal. 

Families are complex.   We are interwoven in beautiful and difficult ways. 

In the Jewish tradition of Passover, the meal that is shared and the story that is told becomes an opportunity to acknowledge and honor the complexity of our human condition.  That Passover meal, with all its questions and rituals, is an opportunity to acknowledge the contradictions of our relationship with each other and the world.  See, Passover is not solely a culinary recreation of one moment in Jewish history.  It is a reminder that our own his-stories and her-stories must be claimed, understood, celebrated, forgiven, and released.

I imagine that first Passover meal on that mythical night so many thousands of years ago was as sensitive as many of our own family meals have been.  In at least one Jewish home that night, I’m sure there was a son who was an alcoholic, a second son who was struggling with his sexual identity, a fiercely independent daughter with no intention of following in the footsteps of her parents, a mother struggling with her moods and depression, and a pressured father.  Think of your family with all its strengths and all its challenges.  My guess is that those ancient Jewish families were not that different from the imperfect and oh-so-beautifully human families we grew up in, the families we have raised or are raising, the families that we love.

Last night, in Jewish homes all across the world, the youngest child at the Passover table asked four questions.  Questions revealing the past and the eternal present, questions reminding us “what happened once upon a time happens all the time.”

“Why do we eat Matza,” the youngest child asks.  The reply: When Pharaoh let the Jewish slaves escape, they fled fast—no time to finish baking bread for the journey. There was no time for yeast to rise, the legend says.  The sun beating down on the dough as they hurried along baked it into flat unleavened bread called matza. 

Who here doesn’t feel rushed by the demands of our lives, and the lives of those around us?  Who doesn’t feel the steady tick-tock, tick, tick, the passing of time?  How many of us are able to take the time to (literally or metaphorically) bake bread, to carefully watch something slowly come to life?  We hardly have time to touch hands, let alone kneed something into being.  Our fast paced lives often flatten the fullness of what it means to be part of the human family.  Can meaningful life rise amidst our hurried disconnection?

“Why do we eat bitter herbs,” the youngest child asks.  The reply: The Israelites were slaves and their lives made bitter by their oppressors. 

Who here doesn’t know the bitterness of disappointment, of deferred dreams, of reshaping images, of broken promises, of the death that is always part of life?

“Why do we dip the herbs twice tonight,” the youngest child asks.  The reply: We dip parsley into salt water because it reminds us of the green that comes in springtime. We dip bitter herbs into the sweet haroset as a sign of hope. 

Who here hasn’t seen a yellow tulip pushing up through the warming earth?  Who hasn’t felt the gentle relief of a fresh morning?  We must never forget that we overcome bitterness because life—our life—is sweetened by hope.

“Why do we recline at the table,” the youngest child asks.  The reply: In olden times, reclining at the table was the sign of a free person. 

We are free.  Free to raise our children in a way we choose; free to believe in the God of our own understanding; free to seek new answers to the questions troubling our times; free to vote and force change; free to stand up and demand an end to policies that diminish, distort, and destroy; free to revitalize our environment and our planet; free to restore and renew our families despite—and because of—their unique dynamics. 

Although most of us are not Jewish, although Passover may not be the center of our faith, we always possess the ability to pass over from one way of choosing to another. We always possess the insight to pass over from one way of seeing to another.  We always possess the strength to pass over from one way of being to another.

As the Jewish Sabbath service proclaims:

There are times when we feel that all is possible. 
We are surging—within. 
There are songs we sing
when we feel our souls are able to soar.
 
Come then all people and sing now a song:
a song to freedom’s might,
a song of opportunity reborn!”

May it always be so.  Blessed be.  Amen.