“Passover and Deservedness” – 9.6.26

9.6.26

1INTRO

Today, we enter one of the most challenging texts in Scripture. We’ve followed the people of Israel from enslavement to baby Moses being floated down the river and last week to the name for the Divine – “I AM” or Yahweh. Our text last week said that “I AM” is the name forever, through all generations. Consequently, it would be more appropriate for us to replace all names for the Divine with Being, but for now, I’ll use the term “God” only for its practical value, but I want us all to remember that God is not a “thing”; rather, God is Being, God is is-ness. Moreover, we are too. We pick up the story there.

 Exodus 12:1-14

12 The Lord said to Moses and Aaron in the land of Egypt, 2 “This month shall mark for you the beginning of months; it shall be the first month of the year for you. 3 Tell the whole congregation of Israel that on the tenth of this month they are to take a lamb for each family, a lamb for each household. 4 If a household is too small for a whole lamb, it shall join its closest neighbor in obtaining one; the lamb shall be divided in proportion to the number of people who eat of it. 5 Your lamb shall be without blemish, a year-old male; you may take it from the sheep or from the goats. 6 You shall keep it until the fourteenth day of this month; then the whole assembled congregation of Israel shall slaughter it at twilight. 7 They shall take some of the blood and put it on the two doorposts and the lintel of the houses in which they eat it. 8 They shall eat the lamb that same night; they shall eat it roasted over the fire with unleavened bread and bitter herbs. 9 Do not eat any of it raw or boiled in water but roasted over the fire, with its head, legs, and inner organs. 10 You shall let none of it remain until the morning; anything that remains until the morning you shall burn with fire. 11 This is how you shall eat it: your loins girded, your sandals on your feet, and your staff in your hand, and you shall eat it hurriedly. It is the Passover of the Lord. 12 I will pass through the land of Egypt that night, and I will strike down every firstborn in the land of Egypt, from human to animal, and on all the gods of Egypt I will execute judgments: I am the Lord.13 The blood shall be a sign for you on the houses where you live: when I see the blood, I will pass over you, and no plague shall destroy you when I strike the land of Egypt. 14 “This day shall be a day of remembrance for you. You shall celebrate it as a festival to the Lord; throughout your generations you shall observe it as a perpetual ordinance.

If you recall, this is the final plague – the 10th – of a series that included the water turning into blood, infestation of frogs, swarms of gnats and then flies, livestock disease, boils, hail, locusts, and darkness. Depending on how one reads the text, it appears that God is the source of all these calamities. Countless deaths occurred, whether it be animal or human. But here, the most outrageous of them all: every firstborn son is going to be killed by God.

2CONNECTIONS

I’ll be honest with you, as I prepared for this meditation, I realized that there is far too much important and interesting information embedded in this story for one service. We really need a short lecture series on the topic, because each small piece of the story opens to something much bigger and more profound.

Alright, that’s just me complaining to you, essentially taking time to tell you that I don’t have enough time. Yes, it is a poor use of my time 

We’ve already discussed the power of myth, so I won’t spend too much time there. I’ll only say that this appears to be a foundational myth that grounds a people who have long experienced suffering and enslavement. It’s not untrue; indeed, it is more than true. So, how did this story come to be?

As we know, the Hebrew scripture isn’t the only tradition that contains important stories and festivals. Communities throughout the world have passed down oral histories designed to help build families, societies, and larger city-states. All of that was happening around the people of Israel, and we shouldn’t be surprised that we find similar stories in the same region during the same period. 

For instance, there was an ancient Syrian spring festival, predating the people of Israel, called Zukru that was celebrated over 7-days, like Passover, where people anointed sacred stones and doorways with blood and oil as sacrifices primarily to their supreme god, Dagan.

Another 7-day agrarian festival was called Matzot, and it coincided with spring barley harvest. The people would eat flat, unleavened bread to celebrate the new harvest.

There were also nomadic pastoral rites that took place during the spring, where an unblemished lamb or goat was sacrificed to the gods, seeking protection for the entire flock. There were many springtime festivals, and it should come as no surprised that Passover is another.

3DISPLACED

So, it is important to note first that these practices and stories were very common at the time. Second, it is important that we look at when these stories were being told and recorded.

We outlined the people of Israel’s history a few weeks ago, but we need a bit more for context here. Once they left Egypt, they had Judges who oversaw the 12 tribes, but then things united under Kings Saul, David, and Solomon. Then, the Kingdom split into Israel to the north and Judah to the south. In 722 BCE, Assyria conquered Israel, and then in 586 BCE, Judah was overthrown by the Babylonians, who had also defeated the Assyrians.

The Babylonians burned down Jerusalem and the Temple, displacing the people of Israel by moving them nearly 500 miles to what is modern-day Iraq. They were treated harshly, and they felt trapped and hopeless.

It was during this time that scholars believe the book of Exodus was compiled, edited, and preserved in writing. The oral tradition had been circulating for hundreds of years, but in their despair and anguish, they returned to the Exodus story. In other words, the people of Israel were in a new type of Egyptian enslavement, needing a story that could bring them hope and liberation.

4PLAGUES

Before concluding, there is a rather major part of this story that we should explore: the plagues! If you have time later this week, a very interesting research project is to compare the plagues to the gods of Egypt. Each plague coincides with an Egyptian god, seemingly telling this story in a very precise way that demonstrates how Yahweh is greater than the Egyptian gods. That is your homework for the week – investigate how the Egyptian gods align with the plagues. I will not be grading on a curve, so keep that in mind.

Importantly, this Exodus story is connected to the people and the land. In other words, although it seems incredibly unlikely that these events happened as recorded, all these plagues were likely experienced at some point in history by people in this region.

And modern biologists and ecologists have said as much. For example, there is evidence that there was likely a significant drought in this region thousands of years ago. During such a severe drought, it is not unusual for “burgundy blood” algae to make waterways turn red. This alga is toxic, which could cause significant fish and cattle loss. Furthermore, without their water environment, frogs might move into villages and homes searching for water. With all the animal loss, insects likely swarmed to eat the decomposing carcasses.

The significant death could have brought diseases that cause boils on skin. There also appears to have been a volcanic eruption 500 miles away on a Greek island around this time, which could explain many of the plagues, but particularly hail and darkness.

The death of the firstborn sons seems like a creative way to connect the story to the beginning of Exodus, where the Pharaoh told the midwives to kill all the Hebrew male babies. This ties the stories together nicely, but there could also be some historical evidence for it as well.

Two things could have happened. First, the empire might have witnessed these natural disasters and interpreted them as anger from the gods. One solution is to make a great sacrifice, like the firstborn sons. Another option is that the firstborn sons would have been given the first “fruits” of the land, including meat. Due to the diseases circulating, there could have been mass deaths to the firstborn males. 

Whether metaphoric, comparative, theological, or actual, these plagues provided an important aspect to the larger story of Yahweh liberating the people of Israel.

5ATONEMENT

I remember the first time I heard this story as a child because I thought, “Oh, lucky me, I’m not the firstborn in my family!” Who knows, maybe God will get mad again and kill all the firstborns in the U.S. I mean, there’s a lot to be angry at!

But lucky me, I’m not the firstborn, I’m the 3rd! In my relief, though, I remembered that it was not the firstborn who is killed but instead the firstborn son, which I am. In truth, as a child, contemplating this story, I did feel dread and fear, nervous that I might be the next to suffer God’s wrath.

And for many Christians, that is the overall tenor of Scripture – God is mostly angry, ready to dispense his rage on anyone or anything that crosses him, and in this case, I am using the masculine pronouns on purpose.

For many, the arc of Christianity is one of human failure and God’s fury that was only pacified by killing Jesus in our place. We’ll talk much more about this down the road, but this perspective is often called “atonement theory.” And let me just tell you, there isn’t just one atonement theory. No, this genre of theology is so pervasive that there are no less than 7 of these theories. I cannot get distracted by them now, though!

If you are so bold, who was raised in a Christianity where God was portrayed as very angry, either at us or at least at our sin? We’ll meet in the back after church for a group therapy session.

This Exodus story, then, becomes a prime example of how cosmic rage materialized, annihilating an entire ecosystem in anger that we simply must accept as divine judgment. The Egyptians deserved it, after all.

6CLOSING

And this brings us to the end for today, this notion of deservedness, one of the most pernicious teachings in Christianity, in my opinion. It goes like this: because of what the Egyptians did, they deserved harsh judgment. Indeed, those people over there, that is, whomever we dislike, deserve what they get. It’s a beautifully simple equation that distances us from difficult situations in our community and world.

When we lived in California, there were terrible wildfires. Strangely, instead of Christians pouring out love and sympathy, many from our faith said that the fires were divine judgment, punishing Southern California for its liberalism.

But the entire story of Creation is one of un-deservedness, grounded in Love. Yes, our actions have consequences, and our ecological crisis is a shining example of that. But more fundamentally, we are included in a Liberation story, where we are invited to seek liberation within ourselves, within our families, and within our community.

This is how offensive the story is, which we’ll see again in a couple weeks.

As long as we believe that some people deserve despair and death, we’ll never experience True Peace within ourselves and within the world.

That does not mean we don’t speak out and fight against injustice, but it does mean that we recognize that even the oppressors are in need of liberation. They are in need of un-deserved Love – we all are. That is very offensive and possibly insulting. And yet, it’s our path because it is the path of Jesus. Our liberation is when we accept undeserved love for ourselves and then share it with others, especially the least “deserving.”

And so, may we free ourselves of judgment, enabling us to move effortlessly in Love. May we accept the audacity of Love not only for ourselves, but also for others, especially those who we believe are undeserving. Amen.