Tag: Passover

Exposed and Naked: We are Hurt

“‘Dear Lord God, I wish to preach in your honor. I wish to speak about you, glorify you, praise your name. Although I can’t do this well of myself, I pray that you may make it good.’”[i]

Introduction

We are not in control; this bothers us. Further, we are hurt, by others and by our own hand; this grieves us. To be out of control is one thing, but to be burdened with hurt, too? Undesirable. Why is it undesirable? Because, as the modern adage goes, hurt people hurt people. Hurt people will do whatever they need to in order to protect themselves; this is why they strike out and hurt others. We can say that trauma traumatizes, pain causes pain, and wounds wound. When someone nears applying any pressure on our hurts and wounds, we react (at times even violently) to stop the pain. It doesn’t really matter if these hurts and wounds are emotional, psychological, spiritual, mental, or physical; hurt people hurt people because hurt people are doing everything they can not to be hurt again. We don’t want to hurt others from our own hurts, but we do. We are stuck repeating old patterns of self-defense and offense to keep our worlds in some sort of stasis. We are trapped and held captive by our pain, so we just move through life going through the motions, just barely surviving. It’s as if we are the walking dead or dried bones lacking life and vitality, too scared and unable to live into life because of the risk of being hurt again and causing pain one more time (intentionally or unintentionally).

So, our lack of control wedded to our being hurt makes us feel lifeless. Watching the events of the state of our world—local, national, and global—we see how situations escalate when pain is at the wheel. Whether it is injured pride, a hurt ego, or a wounded little child stuck in the body of an adult, hurt people hurt people, wounded people wound people, people in pain cause pain in others. Those who have worked through their trauma and faced their inconvenient and uncomfortable past and its accolades of pain and hurt do not resort to reactivity, picking up weapons and arms to respond to perceived threat (even when one doesn’t exist). Those who refuse to look back, deny curiosity her full range of movement, and decline looking in the mirror of self-truth and reflection, react without reasonability and rationality. Our world is filled with these men and women, these human beings positioned with great power and leadership wreaking havoc on the world oblivious or indifferent to the death they leave in their wake. Is it really any surprise to see the world entrenched in a massive dumpster fire right now? Our lack of control bothers us; our hurt grieves us.

Ezekiel 37:1-14

The prophet Ezekiel is confronted by God’s Spirit[ii] and brought out (like a captive to divine power[iii]) to a deserted plain,[iv] filled only with bones. As Ezekiel tells us, he is moved by God’s hand[v] “all around [the bones].” The thing that strikes Ezekiel initially is the dryness of the bones and how many there were, “very many” and “very dry.” In other words, these many bones had been sun baked and deprived of life for a long time. Thus, God’s question to Ezekiel, “Mortal, can these bones live?” seem to demand a negative answer. How could all these very dry bones have life again? Ezekiel’s reply to God is not only humble; it betrays a bit of his human limitation, “O God, you know.” If anything can resuscitate such a lifeless situation, it would be the Lord of Life, Abba God. Ezekiel knows that of his own strength these very many bones will one get very drier.

God then solicits Ezekiel’s participation and commands him to prophesy to the bones,

“‘O dry bones, hear the word of the Lord. Thus says the Lord God to these bones: I will cause breath to enter you, and you shall live. I will lay sinews on you, and will cause flesh to come upon you, and cover you with skin, and put breath in you, and you shall live; and you shall know that I am the Lord.’”

And, the text tells us, as Ezekiel prophesied, the bones moved and changed, acquiring sinew and flesh and skin. However, they still lacked life; having been formed into a body wasn’t enough, these bones needed another external intervention. So, Ezekiel is commanded to prophesy again, “‘Thus says the Lord God: Come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe upon these slain, that they may live.’” As Ezekiel prophesies, before him stood a resurrected and restored people.[vi] Out of nothing, out of dead death, out of sun-bleached and sunbaked dryness, these bones live again by the Word of God.

Ezekiel didn’t have in mind a literal eschatological[vii] resurrection from the dead.[viii] However, he did have in mind a literal restoration of the people Israel out of their current lifelessness. God tells Ezekiel that God has heard the people in their lifelessness, they lack hope and cannot foresee help on the horizon; they feel so stuck that they do not feel any connection to God and God’s mission of the divine revolution of love, life, and liberation. The whole house of Israel is caught in their hurt and pain to such an extent that they are the walking dead, the hurting hurt, and the pained painful. God knows that these are so frozen in their pain and hurt that they will become a threat not only to others but also to themselves. Where they are, they will only turn inward more and more, accentuating their isolation and alienation.

So, God tells Ezekiel to prophesy to the whole house of Israel,

“Thus says the Lord God: I am going to open your graves, and bring you up from your graves, O my people; and I will bring you back to the land of Israel. And you shall know that I am the Lord, when I open your graves, and bring you up from your graves, O my people. I will put my spirit within you, and you shall live, and I will place you on your own soil; then you shall know that I, the Lord, have spoken and will act,” says the Lord.

It seems that the whole house of Israel needs another Passover event, a Passover event so effective that liberation from death into life by the love of God is once and for all.[ix] It’s this second Passover, this permanent Passover, that will lift the house of Israel out of its curved in state, out of its hopelessness and helplessness, out of its disappointment and despair, out of its pain and hurt, out of its self-imposed grave. The whole house of Israel will find themselves, once again, on the terra firma[x] of God’s love, liberation, and life like they did all those years ago after crossing the sea out of oppression and captivity. But this time, this liberation, this Passover will be once and for all, and God will be even more personally invested than God was before with God’s own body on the line.

Conclusion

The Israelites are caught in their pain and hurt because they believe they are abandoned and isolated from God and God’s life and love; in this pain and hurt they are trapped and held captive, they are not the free ones they once were, way back when Moses led them across the sea basin and through the walls of seawater into liberation from the oppression and threat of Pharaoh and his army. Hurt and pain fester in and grow from the cracks and fractures emerging between God and God’s people (both among themselves and within themselves). Hurt and pain are compounded as those cracks and fractures grow into caverns and fissures creating uncrossable distances. The human being, whether ancient Israelite or post-postmodern person, cannot overcome, on their own without intervention, this depth of pain and hurt born from deep seated belief that God is against and has forsaken them.

As it was for the Israelites, so it is for us.

Lent commands us into a state of being exposed and naked, into an honesty that will peel back our facades and remove our masks, bringing us to a very naked state that will feel like complete and total death. We are brought to our most dreaded confession: we are not in control, and we are hurt creatures bearing immense pain, scared and grieving. But it’s out of this death, this confession, out of this naked and vulnerable place, where God’s word liberates us out of death and into life by God’s love. This word that brings this divine life to dead creatures, God preaches through God’s son, Jesus the Christ; it is this incarnate word that becomes the source of our bond with God even when God feels so far away, in our hurt and pain, and at our most exposed and naked. It is the very source of our new life, new love, and new liberation. God is coming to clothe God’s own in the righteous garments of divine love, life, and liberation so they can become creatures who have new eyes and ears to see and hear the pain and hurt within themselves and from others, bringing love where there is indifference, life where there is death, and liberation where there is captivity.

[i] LW 54:157-158; Table Talk 1590.

[ii] Abraham K. Heschel, The Prophets, (New York: JPS, 1962), 443. “In the prophetic event, where the moment of decision is experienced solely as a transcendent act which the prophet can neither determine nor occasion, no scope is given for the exercise of the prophet’s will. His awareness is one of being subject to a transcendent intensity, to overpowering force, so that he does not merely listen to inspiration but feels compelled to listen to it. He experiences power, not only a word, and is swept into a position in which he can do no other than experience and accept.”

[iii] Heschel, Prophets, 444. “The prophetic moment, as said earlier, was not experienced as the prophet’s long-coveted opportunity to attain knowledge which is otherwise concealed. He does not seize the moment, he is seized by the moment. The word disclosed is not offered as something which he might or might not appropriate according to his discretion, but is violently, powerfully urged upon him. The impact of the anthropotropic event was reflected in the prophet’s awareness of his being unable either to evade or to resist it.”

[iv] Sweeney, “Ezekiel,” 1113. Vv 1-2 “Valley, or ‘plain,’ the location of his initial visions.”

[v] Heschel, Prophets, 444. “‘The hand of God,’ a synonym for the manifestation of His strength and power…is the name the prophet uses to describe the urgency, pressure, and compulsion by which he is stunned and overwhelmed…The prophet very rarely speaks of God’s face; he feels His hand.”

[vi] Marvin A. Sweeney, “Ezekiel,” The Jewish Study Bible Jewish Publication Society Tanakh Translation, eds. Adele Berlin and Marc Zvi Brettler (Oxford: OUP, 2004), 1113. “Ezekiel’s vision of the dry bones symbolizes the restoration of the people Israel.”

[vii] Sweeney, “Ezekiel,” 1114. Vv 11-14, “Traditional Jewish exegetes find here the idea of the resurrection of the dead before the day of judgment, a fundamental belief of rabbinic Judaism ascribed to Moses…”

[viii] Sweeney, “Ezekiel,” 1113. “Ezekiel is speaking metaphorically in this vision; he was not envisioning an actual physical resurrection of the dead.”

[ix] Sweeney, “Ezekiel,” 1113. “…the restoration envisaged here is interpreted as a second, liberation Passover-like experience or because of the rabbinic tradition that the second, ultimate liberation would transpire on Passover.”

[x] Sweeney, “Ezekiel,” 1114. “In its plain-sense meaning, the image symbolizes the restoration of Israel to its own land.”

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“Prone to Wander”: Human Judgment, Judged

Psalm 116: 1,10 I love Abba God, because Abba God has heard the voice of my supplication, because Abba God has inclined Abba God’s ear to me whenever I called upon Abba God. How shall I repay Abba God for all the good things Abba God has done for me?

Introduction

Our journey through Lent to Holy Week has brought us to the reality of our situation. We have seen that we’re prone to forsake and give up following the way of the reign of God; we have seen that we’re prone to tromp and tread on the land, on our neighbor, on God, and on ourselves; we have seen that we’re eager to estrange ourselves and become strangers to God, thus to our neighbor, thus to ourselves. While we would love for the exposure of Lent to be over, our exposure is, only now, getting personal.

Maundy Thursday isn’t really about “foot washing” or about finding ways to make yourselves smaller and more servant-like to your neighbor—even though such acts are exposing and can bring a certain (healthy) amount of humility. Rather, Maundy Thursday is about Peter being exposed for what he doesn’t understand about who Jesus is and what his mission on earth is all about. And, thus—if it’s about Peter being exposed—it’s about us being exposed for not really getting what Jesus is truly up to. While we claim all year to know what God’s mission is in Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit, we don’t really know and we often forget what it is once we’re told, and we conflate it and force it to conform with our own desires, and (then) walk away from it completely. Maundy Thursday is designed to drive some of those final and big nails into our coffin of exposure. As we gaze upon Christ in the gospel story, watch him remove his clothes and don only a wrap around his waist and begin to wash the feet of his disciples, we should feel the urge building up to blurt out, with Peter, “‘You will never wash my feet!’” A simple statement meant for respect yet exposing how much we really don’t understand what is happening or why Christ is here. On Maundy Thursday, our judgment is called to account for itself, and it will be found lacking.

We are prone to bad judgment because we are prone to wander from our God of love.

Exodus 12:1-14

Here in our First Testament passage from the book of Exodus, Moses and Aaron receive the instructions for the Passover event. The Passover marks the beginning of a new era for Israel. While the exodus event through the Sea of Reeds is the tangible component of Israel’s promised liberation, it is the meal that marks the beginning of the new era defined by redemption. [1] It is this Passover event that is, for Israel, the break in time and space between what was and what will be. Their liberation begins in believing God, trusting God’s word—faith manifesting in action; this is why the Passover event of liberation becomes the mark of a new year for Israel and will always be a mark of a new year: each new year will solicit a new faith to enter the dusk setting on yesterday and dawn rising on tomorrow.[2]

The response of Israel built on faith in God’s trustworthiness and truthfulness is to prepare, eat, and perform a meal in a specific way. God informs Moses and Aaron that on the tenth day of the month all of Israel is to take an unblemished, one year-old, male lamb (one per household or one per a couple of small households), and on the fourteenth day they must slaughter their lambs at twilight. The blood from this sacrifice is to be painted onto the doorposts and lintels of the households where the Passover lamb must be eaten. God then gives very specific instructions regarding the eating of the lamb and the Passover meal:

“They shall eat the lamb that same night; they shall eat it roasted over the fire with unleavened bread and bitter herbs. Do not eat any of it raw or boiled in water, but roasted over the fire, with its head, legs, and inner organs. You shall let none of it remain until the morning; anything that remains until the morning you shall burn. 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.” (Ex. 12:8-11)

This isn’t any other meal; it’s a meal that’s refusing enjoyment, merriment, and lingering. Every part of this meal must take place with intention and presence; it’s to be done in haste as if the threat of death looms on the boundary of the meal—because it does loom.[3] “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,” (v.13). They will eat this meal, putting all their faith in God and that God is faithful to God’s promises that those who follow what has been told to Aaron and Moses will be exempted from this final curse of the passing over of God and the execution of divine judgment on all the firstborns of the land.[4]

The Israelites must suspend their own judgment. They must step into the void from where God beckons them and faith lures them. They must not pause and consider what is common sense or what aligns with what they know to be good and right. In this moment, human judgment comes under attack by the unstated, whom do you love? The Israelites, individually and as a community had to give their answer. That night, as the angel of death swept over Egypt striking down all the firstborn of the land, divine judgment was executed; that night as families woke up human judgment received its verdict.

Conclusion

Would you? Put yourselves in Israel’s shoes. Would you kill the lamb, paint its blood on your door frames, and eat that meal in haste? Would you risk the life of your child, the life of your sibling, the your own life to appease what made the most sense to you? While we read this as a myth, it’s still a myth with a purpose to expose us. The question comes to us through these Ancient Israelites stuck in captivity and oppression. Would each of us, would we as a community, be able to see the depth at which God is doing a new thing in our lives to liberate us from captivity? Would we be able to trust that God is doing this thing and that God is truthful and trustworthy and will make good on God’s promises? Would we be able to suspend our judgment long enough to let God be God?

I’m neither advocating for “blind” and “uninformed” faith no affirming that voice in your head you think may God’s Spirit telling you to do something a bit uncharacteristic (always have those ideas checked by scripture and teaching!). What I am advocating for is this: are we able to suspend our human informed judgment long enough to see when God is doing something new in the world even when it contradicts our conception of what should be done in the world? Are we able to suspend what we think is right and good long enough to see when God is working a new thing for the wellbeing of our neighbor, which ends up being (ultimately) for our own wellbeing? Are we able to unplug our eyes and ears from what we have grown accustomed to seeing and hearing long enough to see and hear when God is calling us into liberation, into love, and into life and away from captivity, away from indifference, and away from death? Would we be able to learn something new about God’s divine mission in the world so to echo Peter’s eager and desperate response to Jesus, Wash not only my feet but my whole body, inside and out!? Would you be able to suspend your judgment long enough to let God be God?

The bad news is that we, as fleshy meat creatures prone to wander, will deliver our answer; the good news is that God knows this and comes to do something about it.

[1] Jeffrey H. Tigay, “Exodus,” The Jewish Study Bible Jewish Publication Society Tanakh Translation, eds. Adele Berlin and Marc Zvi Brettler (Oxford: OUP, 2004), 125. “Preparations for the exodus” “Israel is to prepare for the coming redemption with a sacrificial banquet while the final plague is occurring and is to commemorate the event in the future on its anniversary by eating unleavened bread for a week and reenacting the banquet. This banquet became the prototype of the postbiblical Seder, the festive meal at which the exodus story is retold and expounded each year to this day on the holiday of Pesah (Passover), as explained below.”

[2] Tigay, “Exodus,” 125. “Since the exodus will be commemorated on its anniversary every year…the preparatory instructions begin with the calendar. Henceforth the year will commence with the month of the exodus, and months will be referred to by ordinal numbers rather than names….Since the number will mean essentially ‘in the Xth month since we gained freedom,’ every reference to a month will commemorate the redemption.”

[3] Tigay, “Exodus,” 126. “The Israelites are to eat while prepared to leave on a moment’s notice.”

[4] Tigay, “Exodus,” 126. “In most European languages, it is also the name of Easter (as in French ‘Paques’). The translation ‘passover’ (and hence the English name of the holiday) is probably incorrect. The alternativity translation ‘protective offering’ is more likely…”

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