Scriptures: Exodus 12:1-20; Ezekiel 33:7-11 Romans 13:8-14, Matthew 18:15-20
We’ve been following the story of the Exodus of the
Israelites from Egypt, the land of slavery.
In verses that were skipped over, Moses had repeatedly
demanded that Pharoah let the Israelites go, and Pharoah had repeatedly refused
– Scripture tells us that Pharoah’s heart was hardened – and so through Moses,
God brought a series of plagues on Egypt – the Nile turning into blood, frogs,
flies, death of livestock, boils, hail, locusts, and darkness. God is about to bring the worst of the
plagues on Egypt, the death of their firstborn children. But, God tells them, Israel will be spared.
Today’s reading tells of the pivotal moment – when they
essentially eat their last meal in Egypt before departing. God give Moses instructions on what they are
to eat. And then God tells them how they
should eat it: “Loins girded, sandals on
your feet, and hurriedly.” That is to
say, they are to be prepared to move out at any moment. And then, these instructions are followed by
instructions for a seven-day feast of unleavened bread. “On the first day of this feast, all leaven
is to be removed from the house; anyone who eats leavened bread during this
period is to be cut off from the nation of Israel.”
Oddly, I think this passage has a word for us. No, the angel of death isn’t passing through
Bridesburg. But for us as Christians,
thousands of years later, this passage gives us a sense of urgency that is
often missing in our churches and in our lives.
God said to eat the Passover with your clothes on and your shoes on,
ready to move out at any moment, with the conviction that God was about to act,
and quickly. Because God was about to
act! And God acted!
How about us? We’re
not slaves, and it would be presumptuous to compare our circumstances to those
of the ancient Israelites. We’ve not known
suffering as they did. But we live in a
hurting community, and in a hurting world. Illness, addiction, broken relationships, poverty,
oppression mark all of our lives, in one way or another. Like the ancient Israelites, we cry out for
deliverance, from our own sinfulness and brokenness, and from the impact of the
sins of others and the impact of this sinful society, with its greed and
violence, its materialism and militarism, on our lives. We cry to the Lord, and ask, where is
God? Where is God during those times of
desolation and desperation, those dark nights of the soul we all experience?
Like the Israelites, we cry unto the Lord, and like the
Israelites, God hears our cries. And though God’s timing may seem slow, God’s
time to act is always the right time. But
when God acts, will we be ready to respond?
I think that’s a question that our reading from Exodus asks us.
When God acted for the Israelites, two things changed. For generations, all the Israelites had known
was unrelenting hard labor and suffering, day after day, year after year, for
hundreds of years. Now God was putting
an end to those long years of suffering, and opening up a future in which
things would be different. And God would
work so that the Israelites themselves were changed, were different – would no
longer think of themselves as slaves, but as free people, as a nation. That second part took a while – 40 years of
wandering in the wilderness, and of those who escaped from Egypt, only Caleb
and Joshua were allowed to cross into the land of promise. The others who entered the land were the
children and grandchildren of those who had left Egypt. But over those 40 years, God was working to
turn the former slaves into his people.
When they left Egypt, the Israelites were a people on the
move. For those years in the wilderness,
and for many years even after entering the land of promise, they had no temple
in which to worship. Rather, there was a
tabernacle – a tent, a portable worship space – in which, along with the ark of
the covenant, God was said to be present.
Like the Israelites, God is forming each of us, and forming
us as a congregation, into his people, into a people whose love of neighbor is
the fulfillment of God’s desire for us. It’s
a lifelong process – none of us are there yet - and so each of us are
unfinished, works in progress. And while
we are not physically tramping through the wilderness, God still calls us to be
a pilgrim people, a people on the move, a people on a journey of trust in and
obedience to God. Now, church folk like
to stick with what’s familiar – familiar buildings, familiar hymns, familiar
people. Me too. And in a church like Emanuel, that’s been
around for over 150 years, our beautiful building carries holy memories. But like the Israelites, there are times when
God calls us to move, to let go of the past in order to move into the future
God has for us. It can be painful to leave what’s familiar behind in order to
trust that God’s new thing will bring joy.
On the other hand, for those whose past carries a great deal of guilt
and shame and pain, God’s invitation to leave the past behind is a blessing. In our 2nd Old Testament, Ezekiel extends an invitation to his
listeners, and let’s hear his words again:
God is speaking to Ezekiel: “Now
you, mortal, say to the house of Israel, Thus you have said: "Our
transgressions and our sins weigh upon us, and we waste away because of them;
how then can we live?" Say to them, As I live, says the Lord God, I have
no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but that the wicked turn from their
ways and live; turn back, turn back from your evil ways; for why will you die,
O house of Israel?” These are words we
hear every Sunday in our assurance of pardon:
“As I live, says the Lord God, I have no pleasure in the death of the
wicked, but that the wicked turn from their ways and live.” In our reading from Romans, Paul extends a
similar invitation to his readers, and let’s hear his words again: “You know what time it is, how it is now
the moment for you to wake from sleep. For salvation is nearer to us now than
when we became believers; the night is far gone, the day is near. Let us then
lay aside the works of darkness and put on the armor of light; let us live
honorably as in the day, not in reveling and drunkenness, not in debauchery and
licentiousness, not in quarrelling and jealousy. Instead, put on the Lord Jesus
Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to gratify its desires.” “Now is the moment for us to wake from sleep”
– Paul is trying to give his readers a sense of urgency about turning to
God. Turn to God today! Do it now!
Tomorrow may be too late!
After telling the people to eat the Passover hurriedly, God
told the people to eat unleavened bread – bread that had not risen, bread
without leaven or yeast - for seven days, and on the first day, to get rid of
all the old yeast, all the old leaven. And in observant households, people of the Jewish
faith do an intense housecleaning in preparation for the Jewish New Year –
which, by the way, will be coming up near the end of September. One reason for the unleavened bread was
again, that the Israelites were leaving Egypt hurriedly, so hurriedly that
bread would not have time to rise. But
in Scripture, yeast or leaven also has a meaning of sin and corruption, so that
getting rid of the old leaven symbolically was doing a spiritual housecleaning,
leaving behind the sins of the past so that we can walk with God into the
future God has for us. As St. Paul wrote
the church at Corinth: “Let us celebrate the festival [of Passover], not with
the old yeast, the yeast of malice and evil, but with the unleavened bread of
sincerity and truth.”
St. Paul writes: “Owe
no one anything, except to love one another; for the one who loves another has
fulfilled the law. The commandments, "You shall not commit adultery; You
shall not murder; You shall not steal; You shall not covet"; and any other
commandment, are summed up in this word, "Love your neighbor as
yourself." Love does no wrong to a neighbor; therefore, love is the
fulfilling of the law.” May we at Emanuel
leave behind anything that hinders us from acting with love toward our
neighbors here in Bridesburg. Amen.
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