Exodus 12:1-14

Year A - Pentecost +13 or Community Practice ¹³

September 7, 2014

Exodus 12:1-14

“You shall let none of it remain until the morning; anything that remains until the morning you shall burn.” So much for literal legalisms based on biblical mandate selected to support my bias.

This passover is not a feast. Feasts are leisurely. This has a manic feel to it. It is like trying to play Twister and eat at the same time. This is serious competition eating. Imagine miscalculating the proportion of lamb to diners. Somebody is going to be throwing up from cramming too much too quickly.

In observing Passover as a perpetual ordinance we diminish its power. The sign is not the experience. Emphasizing the repetition of a once wonderful sign dims our ability to catch a next wonderful sign. We get so caught up in doing it just right the second or two thousandth time that we can easily let a quieter and deeper transformation slip by.

Conclusions:

• Literalism carries within itself its own contradiction.
• It is difficult to carry desperation past its time.
• Familiarity blinds us to beauty as we yearn for novelty.

This is not an easy place for the generation of a sermon. It is a helpful place to wrestle with some of the persistent tensions on a pathway to freedom, except for those are simply subjected to active genocide such as that experienced by Indigenous Peoples everywhere. There is no redemptively violent exodus for them.