Let My People Go

Passover Plate - image by David Silver 

The first time I was invited to a Passover Seder at my friend’s house, I was surprised to find that it’s not just a meal, it’s a ritual, and a story and a feast that takes the whole evening. The Seder tells the story of the Jewish flight from slavery in Egypt. There are special foods that remind us of the key moments in the Exodus story, (the Charoset which reminds us of the mortar the Hebrew people used while working while enslaved is surprisingly delicious!) The Seder involves 4 glasses of wine, singing and after a lot of waiting, a delicious feast and a scavenger hunt for the kids! As a religious educator, I’ve always been impressed by this traditional ritual that involves the whole family, and storytelling that involves all the senses. I know sometimes in this church we can’t remember what we did last year, so I’m moved by this beautiful practice that has kept the Passover story alive for centuries.

Though there are Jewish Unitarian Universalists, I am not Jewish, but I wanted to take time this morning, as our Jewish neighbors and friends prepare for Passover (which begins at sundown on Wednesday) to remember the story that is important to our UU tradition, and to liberatory theology. For those who are Christian, today is Palm Sunday, and it says in the Christian gospels that the reason that Jesus was traveling to Jerusalem on Palm Sunday was to celebrate Passover. So whatever your beliefs, I hope that by spending some time with this important story, we will find resonances and wisdom that will serve us in our own time.

This is also, I’m sad to say, often a week of anti-Semitic violence and speech[i]. So I invite all of us to be on the lookout for that in the coming days, and bring our UU values of pluralism and love to the conversation, should you hear antisemitism raise its ugly head.

The story of Exodus, found in the Jewish, Christian and Muslim sacred texts, is too long for us to read from the scriptures this morning; it takes 11 weeks to tell, a portion each sabbath, in the Jewish tradition.

But it goes something like this. Centuries ago, the Jewish people were slaves in Egypt. Moses was just a baby at the time when Pharoh decreed that all Jewish infants should be killed. His mother placed him in a basket and set him adrift on the Nile River, where he was rescued by the Pharoh’s daughter. Moses grew up in Pharoh’s household, raised and educated as a prince. But the treatment of the enslaved Jewish people made him so angry he killed an overseer who was beating a Jewish person, so he fled to the hills, where he met his wife and began a family.

Scripture says that during this period “The Israelites, groaning in their slavery, cried out for help from the depths of their slavery and their cry came up to God. God heard their groaning” remembered his covenant and took note. [Exodus 2:23-25]

One day, as Moses was tending his family’s flock, Moses saw a burning bush that was not consumed by the mysterious flames, and God spoke to Moses asking him to lead his people to freedom. So Moses and his brother Aaron go to Pharaoh and tell him that God has commanded him to “let my people go.”Pharaoh refuses, and God visits a series of 10 plagues on Egypt, but “Pharaoh became obstinate, and did not let the people go.”

Finally the last and most terrible plague; to kill the firstborn in every Egyptian household. In preparation, God gives a series of very precise commandments about sacrificing a lamb (religious animal sacrifice was traditional at the time) and how each Hebrew family must mark their door with the blood of the lamb dipped on an herb called hyssop. Any house marked with the blood would be passed over. The scripture says that they must observe this as ritual for all time, “and when our children ask you ‘what does this ritual mean’ you will tell them, it is the Passover sacrifice in honor of Yahweh who passed over the houses of the Israelites in Egypt” [exodus 12:27]

This tragedy finally moves the heart of Pharaoh. When his own son dies, and he at last says the Hebrews can go.

Here I want to pause for a bit, and notice that this is not an easy story. I remember hearing this story as a 2nd grader visiting my friend’s Sunday school, and being horrified by the violence. I mean, there’s a LOT to be disturbed by in this story.

But one part never made sense to me - throughout the story, the scripture says after each plague “God hardened Pharoh’s heart”[ii] Which always bothered me. If God had the power to change someone’s heart, why wouldn’t God soften Pharoh’s heart and give him compassion?

In their book You Only Get What You’re Organized To Take, the authors note that:

“people have wrestled with this moment for centuries. Why must a society suffer for the sins of a few, and why must its ruler become crueler as conditions deteriorate? Why would God make things harder for the very people God claims to love and protect?”

Thank you! That was just what I was wondering!

They continue “We have always thought of this moment in Exodus less as an ethical quandary and more as an accurate depiction driven by deep inequality.” Dan Jones, a Jewish organizer writes “what use would we have for this story if Pharaoh let the Israelites go simply because he saw the error of his ways and not because he was forced to do so? Our long experience tells us that only a society in crisis is a society ripe for transformation.” [p. 191]

Certainly, this version, with the hardened heart could have been written in our own times. For centuries this story has been passed from generation to generation because it resonates with something we recognize in our own experience. We recognize that when the people ask for their freedom, the leaders, the oppressive systems don’t just say “no worries, glad you asked.” As the author says rather “the powerful double-down on deceit and violence.” That story we recognize, as our ancestors recognized before us.

This story has been told by oppressed peoples in every age, (Consider the song "Go Down Moses" from the African American Spiritual Tradition - just one example of how the story has inspired the folks impacted by slavery and racial oppression in the United States). It is one of the foundational stories of liberatory theology, at the core of which is the notion that God wants us to be free, especially those folks, like the enslaved people in the Passover story, who are most oppressed. There is a different story we hear in our times, the story that that we can tell who God has chosen because they are wealthy, they are powerful, their lives are going pretty well. But in this story we find in the scriptures, God is clearly and repeatedly siding with folks at the bottom of the power structure. This is a central idea in liberatory theology, that God sides with folks who are poor, folks at the margins, folks who are struggling, folks in pain. In our UU congregation we are theist, atheist and agnostic, so if you are having trouble with this image of God, consider Liberation theology as an ethical standpoint in which we view the ethics of a society through its impact on the most vulnerable. We UUs believe that we have a responsibility to help create a more compassionate, ethical world. And when we are choosing our actions, we are called to let the needs, the pain of our most vulnerable neighbors guide us. And when we are the most vulnerable, to know our voice, our experience is important and will help guide us to a better world.

Well, after that terrible last plague, Pharoh sends the Jewish people away. They leave the only home they have ever known, taking with them their flocks and herds. Scripture tells us “the people carried off their dough still unleavened, their bowls wrapped in their cloaks, on their shoulders 12:34 “and with the dough which they had brought from Egypt they baked unleavened cakes, because the dough had not risen, since they had been driven out of Egypt without time to linger or to prepare food for themselves.” 12:40 This is the story of the Matzoh you see on Passover tables, and enjoy in delicious matzoh ball soup.

But then, as we are learning to expect, God hardens Pharoh’s heart, and Pharoh sends his troops after the refugees. After all, the Egyptian economy is going to suffer without all that unpaid labor.

There are resonances here for the struggle in our own country, in our own time; even battles we have already fought, human rights we thought were settled law can be taken away by hard-hearted leaders. But we persist. We keep going towards liberation for all.

When the Israelites see the troops coming, the people are of course frightened and discouraged. They say: 14:10-14 “Was it for lack of graves in Egypt that you had to lead us out to die in the desert? What was the point of bringing us out of Egypt? Did we not tell you as much in Egypt? Leave us alone we said, we would rather work for the Egyptians! We prefer to work for the Egyptians than to die in the desert!”

That’s so human, isn’t it? We yearn to leave behind a hard reality, but the process of liberation is scary. It is so hard for us to let go of then known, even if it oppresses us. We get discouraged; we lose faith. Liberation is not a sprint; it is a journey.

It is then God parts the red sea for the freed people to cross in safety.

Where do you see yourself in the Exodus story this year at Passover? 
I feel like maybe one of the Hebrew people in the middle of the plagues; the waves of bad things keep happening, but the hearts of our decision makers seem hardened against the cries of the oppressed in our own time. Yet I am still eating leavened bread, waiting for something to shift, for a movement, a moment, when a way opens for us to be free.

So often religion is used to uphold the status quo, but this Exodus story takes the perspective of enslaved people, who then become refugees as they flee oppression.

The book of Deuteronomy, where many of the religious laws are found, points to this story as a reminder of why we must be ethical and compassionate in protecting the rights of the most vulnerable. The book of Deuteronomy repeats “Remember that you were slaves in Egypt” as it instructs us that we “must not infringe the rights of the foreigner or the orphan” and that we always leave for hungry people.[iii] Even when we are comfortable, and our plates are full, this story serves as a reminder that it has been otherwise, and it may be again.

I invite you to carry this Passover story with you in the coming days, to notice where it resonates for you this year in our own time as peoples longing to be free encounter oppression. I invite you to remember that, as it says in the scriptures, God sees those who suffer, God hears our cries, and God will be with us on the road to freedom. And for the Humanists among us, we see one another’s cry, we see one another when suffer, and together we make the journey to freedom .

End Notes
[i] https://religionnews.com/2020/04/03/palm-sunday-the-most-anti-semitic-time-of-the-christian-calendar/

[ii] Exodus 7:13 ("...heart was hardened, and he would not listen..."), Exodus 9:12 ("But the LORD hardened Pharaoh's heart..."), and Exodus 8:32 ("Pharaoh hardened his heart this time also...").

[iii] Exodus 24:18 and 24:22, 15:15, and 16:12