“THE PROSPECT OF FUTURE JUSTICE” A Sermon for Passover

A Sermon by the Rev. Melanie Morel-Ensminger
First Unitarian Universalist Church of New Orleans
Sunday, April 13, 2008

Passover is well suited as a holy day for UUs, since it celebrates liberation from slavery, religious and economic freedom, and justice for oppressed people. For thousands of years, Jews have kept alive the memory of the release from bondage in Egypt, instilling a passion for freedom and justice and a sense of personal involvement in the story. The annual repetition of the traditional narrative at the Seder supper, always retold in the first person, lends an air of immediacy, for, as it says in the Haggadah, “In every generation, every man and woman must regard themselves as if they personally were redeemed from Egypt.” (Some UU churches hold Seder suppers, and this church has in the past; I think that will be something for us to look forward to after our new kitchen is built.)

The exodus story is one that appeals to all who yearn for liberation, for release from injustice. The great American patriot, Ben Franklin, who held Unitarian theological views, thought the Exodus story so emblematic of freedom and liberty that he suggested a picture of Israel’s liberation for the reverse of the official seal of the United States. Unfortunately, Congress adopted only half of old Ben’s design, and, ironically, they substituted a pyramid for Franklin’s Sea of Reeds.

Like all great religious myths, the Exodus story has deep spiritual resonance far beyond questions of its literal truthfulness – indeed, to insist on its scientific or historical veracity is to miss the point. The story of Passover is a universal human story of victory in the face of overwhelming odds, an unlikely but inspiring story of slaves freeing themselves from captivity without resorting to violence. Indeed, if you didn’t already know the modern parallels in the stories of Mahatma Gandhi and the struggle for Indian independence, and Martin Luther King and the American civil rights movement, you might be justified in thinking that it’s an impossible story. The glory of it is, it’s a true story, and we have seen it happen in our own lifetimes.

The story’s many aspects can teach us about our contemporary situation, if we will only listen. The subjugation of Israel in Egypt did not happen all at once, but gradually, over generations. Over this long period of time, the Hebrews became inured to the loss of their liberty; they lost the ability to even dream of a better, freer, life. Enslaved and oppressed for generations, they developed a “slave mentality”: they thought and acted as slaves; they lived in fear and cringing submission. Perhaps, like hopeless people even today, they felt self-hatred and turned against one another; maybe their violent crime rate against each other was much higher than Hebrews against Egyptians. Before they could be ready to throw off servitude and liberate themselves, as a reading from the Passover Haggadah reminds us, they had to get a “taste of freedom’s hope”.

“Liberate themselves.” Pay attention to the story and note what doesn’t happen as well as what does. God does not appear personally, in divine glory and power, to free the Israelites, there is only a voice from a burning bush to urge Moses onward. The Hebrews have to do the work themselves, with only the ambiguous plagues to influence hard-hearted Pharaoh. They have to stick together as a community, and not scramble for individual privilege or security. They have to have faith – faith in their leaders, faith in each other, faith in their God, and most importantly, faith that freedom is both possible and attainable. And then, when freedom is almost in sight and the Hebrews are faced with the obstacle of the Sea of Reeds, there is a further requirement of their active participation.

In Exodus 14:15, God says to Moses, “Why do you cry out to me? Tell the people of Israel to go forward,” or, as we might say today, “Quit yer belly-achin’ and just do it.” In the Midrash, the collection of rabbinic interpretations of the Torah that have been passed down for centuries, the ancient rabbis say, “…only after they had gone ‘into the sea’ up to their very nostrils did the waters divide and expose ‘dry ground.’ “ (A reflection of that same expectation of having to “get their feet wet” is also found in the African-American spiritual “Wade in the Water.”)

In this heroic tale of human liberation, Yahweh does not play deus ex machina and save the day; the work and cooperation of human beings in united community, taking risks, meeting challenges, dealing with hadrships, facing the unknown, is called for in the work of ending oppression. “Tell them to go forward.” It is not a job for God, or time, or history, but for us.

In 2008, the Exodus story still has resonance, maybe especially so for us New Orleanians. Who is Egypt today? Who is the powerful and rich and seemingly unstoppable empire? Who is Pharoah? Who is the leader more concerned with power than with justice, building up monuments to injustice? Who are the oppressed people, kept from their real home, made to work for little or nothing, treated as expendable cogs in the mighty machine of empire? Who among us needs to be told that there are still thousands of people pressed down by injustice and prejudice, by unyielding labor, by unreasonable expectations of productivity, by unfair divisions of society, by economic uncertainty, even by an inability to come home. Who among us needs to be told that money being squandered in a counterpruductive war in Iraq could have been used to save a drowning Crescent City, to build affordable housing, to provide desperately needed health care, to rebuild destroyed schools, to replace and improve what was lost in the Storm? We do not have to look very far afield to find people still so beaten down, so hopeless, so despairing, in their situation that they cannot even imagine “the prospect of future justice.” It is not a job for God, or time, or history, but for us.

Look again to the Exodus story – Moses himself was a comfortable, well-off guy; a well-placed executive in the Egyptian administration, he did not have to stick his neck out. After all, he wasn’t one of the ones expected to labor under the brutal sun. He could have said that the whole deal just wasn’t his problem, that no matter his ethnic or religious background, he identified more with Egyptians than with Israelites. But somehow within Moses, raised in privilege and affluence, the sacred flame of community was lit; he felt his connection to the people, the poor people, his people. Once that happened, he was not even tempted when Pharaoh offered to let only Moses, his brother Aaron, and the rest of the able-bodied men go, holding the women, children, and old folks as hostages. All of us go free or none of us, declared Moses.

Last Sunday, our youth challenged us to see ourselves connected with those at the bottom of society’s ladder, the ones always told to “move along.” Will we “pass over” those whose lives are mired in hopelessness and despair? Or will we say with Moses, “All of us or none of us”? Scripture tells us that not only the Israelites left Egypt that day after Passover. Some Egyptians, privileged though they were, had awakened to their true situation and elected to join their lives with oppressed people and make the exodus to freedom with them. Look at the front of the Order of the Service. A group of people are on the move – men, women, children, different races, different classes. They have not been promised an easy time, and indeed, Scripture says they were to wander in the desert for 40 years. But they march forward together. They hold onto each other and cling to the hope they treasure – the prospect of future justice. Behind there is security – even in oppression there is a kind of security, at least you know exactly you stand – and regular meals and the small comfort of the familiar. Ahead is the unknown, and hardship and hard work. But they move forward, making their way from oppression to freedom, from injustice to justice, and they cannot be stopped. Are we in that number? Whatever we must face, whatever tragedy and hardship we must bear, let us too cling to the prospect of future justice.

Every year at Passover, devout Jews recite the Exodus story, saying “This is how God brought us out of the land of Egypt.” This is the true meaning of Exodus: once we were slaves, and now we are free. Sweet Honey in the Rock sings a song that goes, “We who believe in freedom cannot rest until it comes.” May we be challenged us to wade deeply in the waters of justice and freedom, and help those less able than ourselves get to the other side. So might this be! AMEN – ASHE – SHALOM – SALAAM – NAMASTE – BLESSED BE!