Chalice Lighting words: by Maryell Cleary For untold centuries people have drawn apart from the workaday world to worship, to celebrate, and to wonder at things beyond and within themselves. So we are gathered here to raise our sights and look at new horizons. Life is more than toil for bread; life has meaning and purpose. As we celebrate life together, let us seek harmony within ourselves, with one another and the world, and find our lives uplifted and made whole.
Passover: Re-birth to freedom
Let my people go. The universal cry of the oppressed. Of Israelites in Egypt; of Jews in concentration camps; of African American slaves in the United States; of refugees in Darfur. Let my people go. Historically, Passover began as a celebration of the liberation of the ancient Hebrews from the oppression of the Egyptians, as told in the biblical book of Exodus. For many today, the Exodus story has become symbolic of the human hunger and struggle for freedom. We tell the story of the children of Israel. But we hear the story with our own ears. Passover is a moment in time when time is collapsed. Long ago, Jewish people came to Egypt to live because there was a famine in their own land. Many years passed and all was well until one Pharaoh decided that the number of Jews in Egypt posed a threat to his security and so he forced the Jews to become slaves. They pulled huge stones in the hot sun and built Pharaoh's cities. It wasn't enough; Pharaoh still feared them. He ordered every newborn Jewish male to be thrown into the Nile river to drown. But one baby survived. His mother hid him and laid him in a basket among the reeds beside the Nile, where the Pharaoh's own daughter found him and raised him and named him Moses.
When he grew up Moses protested the treatment of Jewish slaves and even killed an Egyptian overseer to end a beating. Moses then fled to another land, the land of the Midian, where he became a shepherd. One day he came upon a bush that burned but did not burn up. As he stepped closer, the voice of God spoke to him and told him to go back to Egypt and demand that Pharaoh set free the Hebrews. Moses was reluctant, but he and his brother Aaron went to the Pharaoh, who said 'No.' God made the river Nile turn to blood--again Pharaoh said 'No.' Frogs covered the land but again Pharaoh said 'No.' Gnats crawled all over everyone and everything, the answer was 'No.' Flies swarmed, but the answer remained 'No.' Disease struck the livestock of the Egyptians. 'No.' Then the Egyptians themselves broke out in sores all over their bodies. Still 'No.' Hail rained down so heavily that it shattered trees and even killed cattle and people. Still 'No.' Locusts came and blackened the sky and ate up all the crops so th at starvation loomed. Still 'No.' Darkness covered the land. The sun did not shine for three days. Pharaoh was firm. 'No, no, never.' Then the first born child in Egyptian households, even the first born to animals working with Egyptians, died, killed. Jewish homes were "passed over" by the angel of Death because they had the blood of a sacrificed lamb on the doorpost. And Pharaoh said to Moses 'Go.' So the Hebrews packed up their belongings quickly, not even waiting for their bread to rise, and made their way out of Egypt.
Only when they camped beside the Red Sea did they realize that Pharaoh and his army had followed them, bent upon destruction. What would they do; their backs were against the sea. Once more God saved the Hebrews by telling Moses to stretch out his staff over the sea and when Moses did so, the water parted. The people passed through the sea as on dry land. The Egyptians charged after them, but God made the waters rush back over the soldiers and every last one of them drowned. The Hebrews were free. Free. (Story adapted from the curriculum Holidays and Holy Days)
Thus the story of the Passover and the Exodus out of Egypt and toward a life of freedom. It's a story about the relationship between a people and their God. It is not about peaceful relations between different peoples, nor about the love of God for all peoples. If we look for those qualities in this story, it does disappoint us. At the same time, mindful of the innocent suffering in it, can we find in this story some truth, some relevant and wise message? Even as we question it? At first the Israelites were overjoyed to be out of Egypt. They made thanksgiving for their deliverance. They sang songs, they danced. They were happy and relieved. And then they got hungry. There was no food in the desert and they wished themselves back in Egypt. Then they got thirsty. There was no water in the desert. And they wished they had died in Egypt. It was a time of realizing what they had left behind. Of knowing what they had lost, even if for the greater promise of freedom. But in the story God was taking care of the Israelites and God sent them food enough for the whole time in the desert. And God told Moses to strike a rock and gave them water enough for all the years in the desert. So they consecrated themselves to that provider God and they received the 10 Commandments and many other laws. They received the wisdom of how to be in relationship with their God and with one another. And they became happy again, and they rejoiced. But their new ways of being were difficult, and not always clear, and did not produce quick results. And so they entered a time of uncertainty and doubt and they left the new ways and they went back to the old ways. They fashioned a golden calf, and they worshiped it. In their time of uncertainty and doubt they turned upon one another. There was punishment; there was killing. They were torn apart. But they did not all want to die. Some raised voices of peace and once more they found reconciliation and they restored their community and they re-consecrated themselves to their God. But they continued to wander in the desert and they met many more hardships and much more blood was shed before they established themselves in that land they understood to be their place of freedom.
Here is some universality in the Passover story. When we undertake a journey from one place to another, whether we choose to leave the places that constrained us and held us back, or whether we are unwillingly pushed out of them, we often do not find the new places of freedom right away. We enter a period of "no t yet." Not here, not there. It's disorienting and we wonder, not only where we are, not only why we ever left in the first place, but we wonder if we still know ourselves. We wonder who we are. Moving away from situations and people who imprison us, or help us imprison ourselves, who oppress us and enslave us in some fashion is an exodus most of us make at some points in our lives. Sometimes we become very lost before we find those new places of freedom. The time for exodus, desired and not desired, can arrive in a relationship, in our work, upon retirement, with our homes, in friendships, with our bodies, The desert I currently travel through has to do with a change in my physical stamina.. I journey from a place of less strength and energy, brought about by a severe case of anemia, to an unknown destination. I welcome this exodus from the heaviness of exhaustion even as I find myself lost, in the sense of not knowing when my energy will come back and thus not knowing what I can and cannot do. I feel uncertain regarding how long it will last. I feel discouraged with its persistence and fearful that it will never move and I will never find my way out of the desert. Perhaps you too make an exodus from a person or situation that holds you back, perhaps you too wander in th e desert, looking for the oasis. What is that like?
What keeps anyone going as they travel through the desert? The reality that we can't go back. We can't go back to the conditions that we left behind. The ancient Israelites fought with their leaders, they left their God, they yearned for slavery while in the desert. But they persisted, if only because they couldn't go back to Egypt. Exodus was necessary. We will find the places of more freedom. Sometimes the very act of making exodus brings a certain freedom. Freedom to see things in different ways; freedom to do things in different ways; freedom to pursue different interests and work and relationships. Our birth, or re-birth into a new level of freedom comes in unmarked stages. Being born, or re-born, is a process of learning how to be different. Of practicing how to make different choices. It's an awakening, but it does not come all at once. Rather we awake and then go to sleep again, only to wake up more awake than before.
May we recognize when an exodus toward greater freedom is called for, or even thrust upon us, however that means in our lives. When we undertake exodus, may we have strength and patience for the wandering time in the desert. Then, when we emerge from the desert, having learned how to be different, may we know and experience a re-birth of ourselves within a larger context of freedom. May it be so.
Not for Children Only -- birth and spring, give out eggs and ask them to draw something they want to be be born in themselves and put it in the egg
Song #61 Lo the Earth Awakes Again
Easter: What does Jesus have to do with it?
Happy Easter. We mark both Easter and Passover in this congregation because it is a way of honoring our religious heritages as we find relevant meanings in them for us now as Unitarian Universalists. What does Easter mean to you? Or maybe the real question is what does Jesus mean to you? Today I want to look at Jesus in the context of re-birth to a greater freedom.
The Easter story has been told in many different ways. Let me try to tell it as the one who wrote the gospel called Mark told it. Mark was the first gospel to be written, some thirty five or forty years after Jesus' death, and many scholars think that because it was the first, it contains the most accurate account of what might have happened on those days so long ago.
Mark relates that the rulers of Jerusalem had been upset by the things Jesus had been saying and doing. He challenged the established laws of religion and those in power felt threatened. They turned him over to the Roman government and it was determined that Jesus would be executed with some other criminals, nailed to a wooden cross and left to die on what we now call Good Friday. After he died his body was put in a tomb, a cave cut into the side of a hill, by a man named Joseph of Arimathea, who then had a big stone rolled in front of the tomb for protection. This Joseph had not known Jesus before; he was not a disciple or follower. But almost all of Jesus' disciples, his closest friends, had been frightened and disillusioned when he was arrested and tried and obviously was headed for execution, and most of them had fled the city. But this stranger Joseph had seen Jesus as he was being led to the crucifixion and had watched him there as he was nailed to the cross and had wondered and marveled at the courage and special calmness he's shown during that awful time. And so Joseph wanted to see to it that Jesus' body was given a decent burial.
Then, two days after the crucifixion, on what is now Easter Sunday, at the very crack of dawn two women, both called Mary, who had been good friends and disciples of Jesus and had not fled the city, went to the tomb with spices or balsam that they hoped they could rub on his body in the Jewish tradition. They had felt strongly that after the Sabbath, they had to return and anoint Jesus' body with the sacred spices, in respect and love. But they were uncertain how they could do this. They'd seen the huge stone that Joseph had rolled in front of the tomb. So as they made their way in the early dawn before the city had awakened, they wondered who they could get to help roll that stone away as they knew it was too heavy for them to move by themselves. But when they got to the place they looked, and lo and behold, the stone had already been rolled back. They became frightened and worried. Had someone stolen Jesus' body? Trembling they crawled into the hole to see whether Jesus' body was still there and they were amazed to discover an unknown young man in a white robe sitting inside the tomb. The young man, seeing the women confused and terrified, said to them "Don't be troubled. You're looking for Jesus. As you can see, he is not here, look--the place where they laid his body. He is risen. Go--tell his friends that he has gone on to Galilee and he'll meet you all there." Stunned, the two Marys crawled out of the tomb and fled, trembling and afraid. They didn't say a word to anyone. And thus ends the oldest and possibly the most authentic Easter story.
Other gospel writers added elements as they told the story over the years. They wrote about Jesus physically appearing to the two Marys, and then actually joining his surprised and delighted friends in Galilee. They have Jesus scolding his friends for not believing him when he said that he would never leave them and that he and they would live forever with God. They say that Jesus remained on earth for some days and then he left again, this time to ascend into heaven. Ever since, people have tried to understand and make meaning of Jesus' life and death. Paul, one of the earliest Christian theologians, found meaning in Jesus' death as he saw in it a hope for humanity to overcome its destiny of eternal death and find eternal life with God. Paul taught that through Jesus' death and resurrection, God shows God's love=2 0for humanity. This is the predominant understanding of Christian doctrine. As the hymn lyrics tell it, #268 in our hymnal: "Jesus Christ is risen today, Alleluia . . . Love's redeeming work is done, Alleluia. Fought the fight, the battle won. . . . Death in vain forbids him rise . . . Christ has opened paradise. Alleluia."
But that's not the whole of it. Christians and others also look to Jesus' life for meaning and as an example for us to follow. Unitarian Universalist minister Mark Belletini wrote this about Jesus: "When he left home he studied the torah of the wilderness, and drank in the salty water from the river-prophet's angry eyes. Breaking bread with anybody who would eat with him that by so breaking he might also break taboos, and hearts that had never known welcome before. Turning to every human story as if it was a god's favorite tale, people learned to see him even if they had previously been blind. Hand held hand held hand held hand across the teaching fields, and sobbing mothers, and weeping fathers ran to him, bringing their children for his laughing arms, and their lives for his cradling words: 'Tell the truth about things, turn every day into a feast, do what you say, and stop holding on so tight. Give up holding your breath in a blue rage about how bad your luck is, and breathe in the spirit of life which knows all the colors of spring. Become homesick for a healthier day to come here on earth, bequeath your friendship like the sun and rain which hold nothing back, cross the boundaries of your worst fears, feel your way through life and make dead people want to live'. . . . 'Come,' he sang, 'come sit at the welcome table of mutual respect.' And Pilate, controlled, cool, trucking no festivities in his steam-rollered land, had him bound on a cross, naked, bent, burnt, without thorn or cloak or sign, alone, desolate, his blood bright in the sun. And in the third hour, he cried out for the last time, . . . But on that day, it was only his eyes he closed, and never his heart. It was only his life that ended, and never his heart. It was only his heartbeat that stopped, never his heart."
I find in Jesus' life a freedom. A freedom from ways that keep people disconnected from one another. A freedom in courage to challenge pre-conceived ideas and assumptions. A freedom in generous love. As this Easter day reminds us of Jesus' re-birth, it is Jesus' way of life, Jesus' welcome table of mutual respect, that I want to have re-born and to live forever.
We may feel sometimes that our world wanders in a desert of mutual disrespect, gross inequity, duplicity, corruption, violence that keep us enslaved. But ahead of us in that desert we do see an oasis. Jesus is there, along with every other prophet and teacher who points the way to a better world. The oasis is not a mirage; it is real and we are moving toward it even as we speak. We move toward it each time we find ways to make room at the welcome table, each time we identify and confront our fears of one another and each time we give away our friendship unstintingly. We move toward our own re-birth in freedom. Jesus' re-birth is our re-birth, to a better world.
In this season inspired by the renewal of life that is spring, we take meaning in the exodus from slavery and desert wandering of the Jews and from the example of Jesus' welcome table way of life. May we, too, be re-born. May it be so.