Sunday, September 7, 2014 | 9:30 and 11:00 a.m.

Practicing the Story

Shannon J. Kershner
Pastor, Fourth Presbyterian Church

Psalm 149
Exodus 12:1–12, 25–27

As we come to the text,
we are mindful that
we have not come first—
for others have been there before us.
We do not come alone—
for a cloud of witnesses awaits us. . . .
We are their heirs, children, continuers.

Walter Brueggemann, “The Grace to Be Haunted”
in Awed to Heaven, Rooted in Earth

It must have been a very unsettling moment—the moment when Moses broke into their lives with a different narrative, a different story than the one they had been living. There they were, our spiritual ancestors, the people called the Israelites, living day after day under the heavy yoke of slavery in Egypt, as they had for generations.

Now at some level of their collective memory, perhaps buried deeply in their imaginations, they must have known it had not always been that way. They had not always been slaves, living under Pharaoh’s power. The older stories of Genesis, from Abraham and Sarah to Joseph and his brothers, reminded them they had once lived out the promise bestowed on them by God—the promise of blessing and life, a promise carried from generation to generation. But by this time, the time when Moses broke into their lives, as Walter Brueggemann puts it, that “life-force, that blessing given by God, had been completely submerged and robbed of its vitality. Israel had been reduced to nothing more than a pitiful band of helpless slaves, without any clout or significance” (Walter Brueggemann, The Threat of Life, Charles Campbell ed., p. 25). Truly. Many of the Israelite households had been devastated not only by the backbreaking work of making bricks without straw (their latest punishment), but even more so by Pharaoh’s orders to take newborn Israelite baby boys and to replace the waters of the womb with the waters of the Nile.

Ripping apart their bodies with the work was one thing. But I imagine ripping apart their hearts by the taking of their sons was almost more than they could bear. And so it is difficult to imagine what those early enslaved Israelites must have felt when Moses gave them this alternative story to enact that night, a story that marked standing on the edge of promised freedom and a new start. For that is what this liturgy of the Passover represents. It is an alternative story provided by God into which the Israelites were called to fully immerse themselves. It was, it is, a story that demanded not just to be told, but it demanded, it required, to be enacted. It was, it is, a story that had the power to help them remember their identity as people of God and to transform their lives through the power of that remembering.

And we, their Christian brothers and sisters many generations later, understand the power of that kind of remembering, don’t we? It is what we do in here every Sunday. Every Sunday, here in this place, like our Jewish brothers and sisters do as they live out the liturgy of their tradition, we are also immersed in God’s story as revealed in scripture. We are fully and repeatedly dunked in the Living Word by the power of God’s Spirit.

And that weekly immersion into our alternative story is what this time of worship is all about. Worship is not so much about getting our spiritual batteries recharged as it is about hearing, remembering, and rehearsing the alternative story we have been given by God. Theologian and pastor Will Willimon claims that we have it backwards if we think we move from Sunday morning worship back out into the real world. “Worship is the real world,” Willimon states. “At its most profound, worship is a way of ‘entering the world as it really looks in its full, transparent reality,’ . . . [Worship is] a place where we hear and see and experience what is genuinely true, unmasking the illusions of the world outside” (quoted in Tom Long, Testimony: Talking Ourselves into Being Christian, p. 42).

That is exactly what was happening during the liturgy of the Passover meal as the Israelites worshiped. The world outside told our spiritual ancestors they were nobodies, worth nothing. The world outside told the Israelites their whole lives were meant to be lived in oppression and under domination. The world outside had long ago done its very best to submerge their story of being God’s people and to rob them of its vitality and transformative power by trying to force them to forget they had ever lived as those who were free.

I think knowing the testimony of the outside world that was being forced upon our ancestors gives this ancient liturgy of Passover even more meaning, because the very first time the Israelites lived it out, the first time they enacted this story, it was not yet fully true. By that, I mean that when they first received these detailed instructions, this complicated liturgy from Moses, they were not yet free. They were still enslaved. The great cry had yet to go up from the Egyptians, and Pharaoh had not yet agreed to let them go.

But still, as our ancestors went through the cooking of the lamb, the mixing of the meat with the bitter herbs, the marking of the doorposts with the blood, the eating quickly with loins girded, sandals on feet, and staffs in hand, they actively anticipated their freedom. They actively practiced their liberation so they would be ready as soon as Moses proclaimed it was time to go. They were actively rehearsing their alternative story so that through that rehearsal God could help them unbury those deeply held collective memories of promise and blessing that Pharaoh had tried so hard to wipe out.

And by actively participating in the liturgy of that very strange and particular meal, the Israelites began to remember that what the world outside told them was illusion, was rubbish. Pardon my double negative, but they started to remember they were not nobodies. They were not worth nothing. They were not meant to live in oppression and under domination. They were God’s people. They were worth more than the world could count. And they were meant to live in freedom and in wholeness, living out God’s call to bless all the nations of the world. That was their true story.

That was the alternative narrative they were practicing. That was what this Passover meal was meant to evoke in them as they lived it out not just that first year, but year after year, generation after generation. As Rabbi Joseph Telushkin points out when writing about the ritual of Passover, the whole spirit of the event is summarized by one teaching: “In every generation, a man is obligated to regard himself as if he was liberated from Egypt” (Rabbi Joseph Telushkin, Jewish Literacy, p. 644).

And that is probably why Moses also instructed them to have questions for the children. Part of the reason this liturgy is so particular and so different, so alternative to the way things are usually done, is precisely to engage the next generation. It is to provoke the curiosity of children. Year after year, when this liturgy is performed, a child is instructed to ask, “Why is this night different from all other nights?” And later, “On all other nights, we eat bread and matzah; why tonight do we only eat matzah?” For those questions open up the space for the adults to remind the children of their story.

That time of instruction is hugely important. First of all, it gives space for the adults to tell their children the alternative story about who they truly are, despite any narrative the outside world tries to give them. But in addition to the necessity of that kind of identity-remembering, the retelling of the story, the practice of the liturgy, also provides all of them—adults and kids alike—a kind of double vision with which they are challenged to see the world and all who live in it. For by remembering the story given to them by Moses and the liturgy, they are also reminded that it is precisely because they used to be enslaved and lived under an oppressive power yet God set them free that they now have a responsibility to look out for and to care for any who continue to be enslaved and who continue to live under an oppressive power.

In other words, as they remember this story, as they participate in this liturgy, they are given new Passover eyes with which to see the world. Then, after the meal has ended and all the questions have been asked and answered, they are called to leave the real world of worship in order to go outside and cut through the illusions. They are called to look around with those new Passover eyes and purposefully seek out the poor, the widow, and the orphan so they might care for those most vulnerable, just as God cared for them. Their Passover eyes, given to them by that memory of liberation, remind them that with great freedom comes great responsibility.

But sisters and brothers, as I have hinted at all throughout our conversation, this kind of worship- and liturgy-fueled vision is not only something to which our Jewish brothers and sisters are called. This practice of double vision is part of our call, our responsibility, as well. Frankly, it is why we are here. For we come into this set-apart space, Sunday after Sunday, so that we, too, can be given and practice a particular kind of double vision. Just like the observance of Passover, our time in worship is meant to train us to see people, including ourselves, as flawed and broken, sure, but also as created, chosen, and beloved by God.

In our time of worship, as well as in our time of Christian education and spiritual formation, we are to be so immersed in God’s story as told in scripture that we cannot help but see our world through the lens of those texts. That was John Calvin’s conviction: that scripture becomes the lens through which we see the world and our lives. Our hope is that this time in worship, the time we spend in Christian education and spiritual formation, will dunk us so completely and repeatedly in the stories of our faith that they will become our primary spectacles, if you will. And then, perhaps when we hear about some of the horror in our world, like the terror unleashed by ISIS, as we react, we will also remember God’s promise in the poetry of Revelation of the coming day when God will wipe away all tears. And that worship- and liturgy-fueled double vision might give us the courage to figure out how to respond as people and as a nation.

Or when we see our brothers and sisters living enslaved by poverty, because of our immersion into our alternative story we will immediately remember that we, too, used to be slaves in Egypt’s land and we, too, have been set free to care for others. Or if our own courage starts to fail and we start to shrink away from doing justice or from speaking out against racism or extremist fundamentalism, our weekly practice in worship will cause the words of Micah to pop into our imagination: “What does the Lord require of you? But to seek justice, to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God.” Or maybe at that moment of tenuous courage, Jesus’ call in Matthew 25 will sneak up on us as he reminds his disciples that “just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me.” I could go on, but I bet some of you have your own examples of the biblical stories that inform your life and your double vision as you move from this real world of worship and try to cut through the illusions that persist outside. Maybe you can take time this week to remember what those stories are.

But you know as well as I, as well as our ancient Israelite ancestors knew, this kind of alternative vision, this double vision of faith, takes practice to learn how to use. It takes time and study. It takes hearing God’s story repeated and regularly from the pulpit and lectern, in Children’s Chapel, through anthems, embedded in prayers, talked about in adult Sunday School classes, and sung in hymns, which is why we gather and worship and hear our alternative, God-given story every week.

This kind of faith double vision takes training, repetition, and practice (Tom Long, Testimony, p. 42). And that is why I am so glad we are all in here together and able to cheer each other on. It is also why I and your other pastors hope that as we keep moving forward together in ministry, we, as a congregation, might be able to keep finding new ways to include our children and our youth in this time of worship more and more so they might be provoked into curiosity about why. So they might start to form the questions that need to be asked for the passing on of the story. And then perhaps, one day as they look up here, they might ask, “Why do we give an offering?” or “Why does Pastor Hardy offer prayers for the world?” or “Why do we have choirs singing and instruments playing?” Because then you, as their parents or as their Sunday School teachers or as other adults who care for them, will be able to respond.

And you, like our spiritual ancestors the Israelites, will have the great opportunity to pass on this alternative story about who they truly are as children of God, despite any narrative the outside world might try to give them. In addition to that, we will also be able to remind them that with this great gift of freedom found in our God comes a great gift of responsibility to care for our world and for all who live in it. And both they and you will get to practice and strengthen this worship and liturgy-fueled vision so that we are more than ready to go when it’s time to go. So that we are more than ready to fully live and to fully love as together, week after week, we move from the real world of worship to the outside where we make and live our lives, practicing and remembering our true story until we meet again. May it be so.

Notes

1. A resource I used for this sermon is Jewish Literacy by Rabbi Joseph Telushkin. It is a very reputable resource for Jewish history and thought and helped me remember all of the whats and the whys that are involved in the Seder service.