Trinity Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)

Sermons 

Title: "Day of Remembrance"

Text: Exodus 12:1-14

we would hear that reading from Exodus

at the time of Passover every year.

In our families, or maybe in our synagogue,

we would have a traditional Seder meal,

which is probably what Jesus and his disciples

were eating at that last meal they shared together.

We would eat herbs dipped in salt water,

to remind us of the tears our ancestors shed

while they were slaves in Egypt.

We would eat a mixture of bitter herbs

to remind us of the bitterness of their servitude.

We would eat a food called haroseth,

made with honey so it’s real sticky,

to remind us of the mortar they used

to hold bricks together.

We would eat matzoh, the unleavened bread,

to remind us that they had to leave so quickly

that the bread didn’t have time to rise.

We would eat lamb,

to remind us of the lamb they ate that night

and the blood on the doorposts.

And we would drink lots of wine, and sing songs,

and have a really good time.

We would remember and celebrate

not just our ancestors’ release from slavery,

but our own redemption and release.

Passover would be for us a day of remembrance,

a festival to the Lord,

one big party.

But I can’t imagine that that first Passover

felt very much like a celebration, or a party.

Try to imagine yourselves as the Hebrew people in Egypt,

enslaved and oppressed.

Moses has returned to the scene of his earlier crime, so to speak,

along with his more eloquent brother Aaron,

but so far they have been unable to persuade Pharaoh

to let God’s people go.

Never mind the frogs, the locusts, the Nile turned to blood, etc. …

Pharaoh’s "heart is hardened," we are told.

On a couple of occasions, mid-plague, he has given in,

and said okay, okay, get these people out of my sight!

But as soon as the relevant plague ends,

he changes his mind and says "King’s X,

you don’t really get to leave after all."

By this time in the story,

we might have thought Moses was just a little

"tetched" in the head.

Would we have been willing to go through

that long laundry list of things he just said we had to do,

after everything else, so far, had failed?

Slaughter a lamb in this way,

mark your house with the blood just so,

cook it just like I tell you,

eat the whole thing,

eat it with your bags packed and ready to go.

Good grief!

Why does God care whether we eat it

boiled, or roasted?

And yet … and yet …

God’s story with God’s people continues,

as weird as it sometimes sounds in the details.

God will rescue those who are oppressed.

God does hear the cry of those who are enslaved.

And God will answer them,

though sometimes in ways we – and they – would never have anticipated.

Ah, but here’s where it gets tricky.

When we read the story of the Passover,

which side are we on?

Are we the oppressed,

or the oppressors?

Are we the slaves,

or the enslavers?

Are we the Hebrew people

anxiously awaiting freedom?

Or are we the Egyptians who have grown very comfortable

having hot and cold running slaves

to do the kingdom’s dirty work?

In a church-history sense,

it’s easy to see that at one level,

we are on the side of the slaves.

The Hebrew people in Egypt

are our ancestors in the faith,

in the same way that they are

the ancestors of Jewish people of today.

As followers of Jesus Christ,

we also are heirs of the promise that God made

to Abraham, and to Moses, and to many others,

centuries and centuries ago.

So in that sense,

the story of the Hebrew people is our story.

We were once slaves in Egypt.

God rescued us by the hand of Moses,

and brought us out of the land of our oppressors,

and took us to a promised land.

So, although we don’t celebrate Passover

in the same way as our Jewish sisters and brothers,

we recognize it as part of our heritage,

and we recall it, often in times such as this

when we are celebrating communion with one another.

But in another sense …

perhaps you could call it a "world-history" point of view

rather than a "church-history" angle on the question …

In another sense,

if we’re truthful about it,

we have to place ourselves squarely on the side of the Egyptians.

While I’m 100% certain that none of us here owns a slave,

we benefit in ways we can scarcely imagine

from the enslavement of other human beings.

They sew our clothes,

in maquilas in Mexico and Central America,

and their equivalent in Asia.

And I have to confess,

I hate shopping and so I love to find a bargain fast

and go grab it!

But if I’m paying all of $10 for a polo shirt,

what does that mean about the wages that were paid

to the person who sewed it?

How can it be less expensive to ship the raw materials

thousands of miles away, and ship them back,

than it is to pay someone here a living wage?

Do the math …

I’ve seen the inside of maquilas in Central America,

and I know what those women are paid,

and I can tell you, they are slave labor.

So … some of our clothing, at least,

is sewn by slaves.

The new homes sprouting up all over the metroplex

are built, in part, by slave labor.

And we can complain all we want to about "illegal immigration."

but I can guarantee you that the construction industry would shut down overnight

if there were no more "day laborers"

waiting every morning for jobs,

and just hoping that whoever picks them on that day

will in fact pay them at the end of the day.

Do you want to hazard a guess

about what we would pay for our groceries,

if those crops weren’t tended and harvested by virtual slaves?

The treatment of migrant farmworkers within this country is bad enough …

you can scarcely imagine what it’s like in other parts of the world,

where people have had their land taken away from them,

and are then forced to work that same land,

growing foods for export to us

rather than to feed their own families.

And most of us have no direct control over any of this!

But we must remind ourselves,

lest we too easily set ourselves down along with the slaves

and feel sorry for ourselves over our oppression in Egypt.

Because we are at least partial beneficiaries

of a system of economic oppression

that is probably unparalleled in the history of the world.

But what can we do about it?

Any more than,

what could your average Egyptian subject have done

about the fact that the Pharaoh and the Egyptian upper crust

enslaved and oppressed and mistreated people?

Job one is to be truthful with ourselves about it.

Even our middle-class, not-very-powerful lives would be very different

if there were not oppressed people working somewhere

to keep our prices low and our trash picked up

and all the other things that near-slaves do in our system.

Though we aren’t in much of a position

to control the oppression of others,

we do benefit from it.

And thus, if and when the Lord decides to act,

we may find that we are on the receiving end of the plagues

along with the powerful who are far more responsible,

just as all the Egyptians lost a first-born,

not just the wealthy and powerful ones.

What do we do?

we say no to powers that enslave.

We find out which clothing manufacturers have fair labor standards,

and we pay a little more for the clothes on our backs.

We try to buy from the farmers market, or the equivalent,

instead of factory-farmed and/or imported food products.

We support businesses that pay their employees a living wage …

not merely minimum wage …

and who provide full-time jobs,

not just twice as many part-time jobs with no benefits.

If we own stock,

we cast our shareholder votes not always for the bottom line,

but for justice and equity for everyone.

We personally pay a fair wage to those who clean our house,

or cut our grass, or babysit our children, or make home repairs for us.

We ask hard questions,

and we demand that they be answered,

or we take our business elsewhere.

Is this hard? Yes, it is.

But it’s not as hard as trying to live on minimum wage or less,

or trying to decide between buying your child’s food, or medicine,

or watching your loved one die

because he was forced to continue working in the field

while pesticides were being sprayed.

God’s liberation is coming.

The slaves will be freed,

the oppressors will suffer,

and God’s people will have plenty.

On this day of remembrance,

we must ask ourselves:

which side are we on?

And if we don’t like the answer,

are we willing to let God direct us

as to what we should do about it?

I pray every day for the strength to say yes …

I hope that will be all of our prayer as well.

Amen.