Laboring for Justice

Text: Exodus 12: 1-14

Cedar Hills UCC Sept 4^th 2011

The story of Moses, Aaron, Pharaoh, the Early Israelites and the Egyptians is certainly a complex one.  It is the story of economic and labor justice, of the freedom to worship, of the journey of faith, of the support we gain from friends and family when faced with thought times, of God’s presence in the hardest of times, and the vindication that God will reign down on those who do not act appropriately.  The story is a well known one.  It is a Passover meal we celebrate at communion.  Every year we see the story of Exodus played out on TV with Charlton Hesston in the lead role. The story of freedom in that comes to fruition in Passover was a source of inspiration for African slaves escaping Southern slavery.  And it is easy to parallel the situation of the Israelites and the Egyptians to many unjust circumstances in the present day.  I am even tempted on occasion to imagine the divine hand of God dealing harsh punishment to those who oppress our neighbors, wishing for a divine intervention that would even the scales of injustice.

This week, our text focuses on the ritual requirements of Passover, a tradition that we as Christians do not consistently observe, but which is an integral part of our tradition.  So let’s set the scene.  Moses returns from his career as a shepherd, to lead the labor negotiations with the Pharaoh, freeing the Israelite slaves from bondage.  He demands merely the allowance to leave a life of unjust overseers, deplorable working conditions and inhumane treatment to worship in community.   Pharaoh, however does not negotiate, but instead makes the work harder for the people of Israel, taking away their straw from their building material, yet requiring the same quota.  After several failed attempts, Moses and Aaron give notice of a last plague that will befall the Egyptians if he does not let the people go, death.  Greedy Pharaoh – – who makes and breaks promises, knowing that it might be inconvenient to him, but assured that his privilege will protect him – – cannot protect himself from the effects of this plague.  After leaving Pharaoh, the sentence given, Moses and Aaron converse with God on how to properly prepare the community to memorialize this day.  In effect, they are given a Divine instruction manual on how to appropriately ritualize the massive death sentence God has just imposed upon the Egpytians in the last plague.  We can hear the urgency for action in this passage as they are told to Eat in a hurry, sandals on your feet and walking stick in hand.  It wouldn’t have been a small thing however to mobilize the entire Israelite community to leave their homes and run toward freedom.

What I love about that commandment, this instruction manual is that we are told to celebrate in the same breath that we are told of the disaster that is coming holding onto nothing firm but faith that conditions will improve.  Celebrate the uncertainty in your life! Celebrate even though the work you do today is backbreaking!  Celebrate the possibility of release from this way of life. I say possibility since so far, 9 times these plagues have buried the Egyptian people, and the Pharaoh in God’s judgment. Each time without release.  We know, of course, that THIS will be the one that clinches it.  The loss of Pharaoh’s son is too much for him, and he does in fact let the people go.  So the memorial-ization doesn’t seem quite as odd to us, but think about being in that situation.  It’s like a planning a party without knowing who it is being held for.

Today’s Passover meal is a far cry from the one outlined in the text we are given today.  The elements are there, bitter herbs, unleavened bread, roasted lamb.  But in the meal I described with the children today, we see the attention to memory that has been added to this commandment to remember.  In the Seder plate, we remember the hard work of laying bricks, the bitterness of the times, the sweat and tears poured out through their labor.  And we remember the speed that was so important, in the use of unleavened bread.

And yet… we cannot live in the past.  It does you no good to live in history, to live in your memories.  They will not clothe you, or feed you, right?  If the study of the Christian history can tell us one thing, it is that there is no golden age in our lives, in the lives of the Israelites, in the lives of Christians anywhere in the world.  The truth is that we are part of the constant flow of time.  Our actions are created from our past and our actions will create our future.  By creating ritual, the ancient Isrealite community’s memories have become an integral, but not consuming part of future generations.  In the Passover rituals, we remember the history, we are renewed for the work that it requires to learn to our history, and we are revived on the path that leads us from injustice to freedom.  We remember it as a PIECE of who we are today.  There is ritual, and there is ceremony, but there is also constant work toward change.

The injustice the Israelites suffered under Pharaoh, is a common take away from this story.  The injustice suffered here, and the strength it required to stand up to that oppression has filled oppressed people throughout the world with hope that change CAN come, that deliverance from slavery is a value we can attribute to our Divine source.  That hope for change can be reasoned as a constant in our tradition.

This weekend as we celebrate Labor day, we also celebrate the release of our fellow worker from unjust overseers, deplorable working conditions and inhumane treatment in our own history.  We celebrate today the freedoms struggled for, pleaded for, died for, in the 1800s when labor relations might be seen at their worst, and in more recent years, the constant battle that engulfs our world as power and justice so often stand at odds from one another.

We remember the history of unjust labor practices, unsafe working conditions and impossible employer expectations that is the industrial revolution.  We celebrate the privileges that most of us take for granted: reasonable hours, safer working conditions and the ability to gather a community of fellow workers to negotiate.  But, we also memorialize the sacrifices made by those who gave life, and limb to the cause.  It is a celebration in process, however, as economics and corporate policies continue to make harsh demands on many workers lives here, and around the globe.

In 1894, Jacob Coxey led a march on Washington to demand justice and employment relief for unemployed men.  In a statement for the press, he said, “We stand here today on behalf of millions of toilers whose petitions have been buried in committee rooms, whose prayers have been un-responded to, and whose opportunities for honest, remunerative labor have been taken away from them by unjust legislation, which protects idlers, speculators and gamblers.”

In 1963, Martin Luther King Junior led a march on Washington to demand civil rights laws, a massive federal works program, full and fair employment, the right to vote, and adequate education for all.  In his famous “I Have a Dream” speech, King said “This is our hope. This is the faith that I go back to the South with. With this faith we will be able to hew out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope. With this faith we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood. With this faith we will be able to work together, to pray together, to struggle together, to go to jail together, to stand up for freedom together, knowing that we will be free one day.”

And in 2009, President Obama wrote in the introduction to his first US budget “The time has come to usher in a new era – a new era of responsibility in which we act not only to save and create jobs, but also to lay a new foundation of growth upon which we can renew the promise of America. … Our problems are rooted in past mistakes, not our capacity for future greatness. … It will take time, but we can bring change to America.  We can rebuild lost trust and confidence.  We can restore opportunity and prosperity.  And we can bring about a new sense of responsibility among Americans from every walk of live and from every corner of the country.”

I would add to President Obama’s statement that we must learn from our past mistakes, but we must also learn from our past greatness.  Our past is also filled with beautiful moments of great responsibility, of great compassion, and many who have stood up to seek fairness and justice.  From prayer and petition, to hope and faith, to responsible action, at the center of each of these flashes of history, is a concern for justice in every age and for all people.  It takes work to hew a mountain of despair into a stone of hope.  It takes commitment to our neighbors to listen to the petitions for justice.  And it takes diligence to remember our past and rebuild trust and confidence.  We must learn from the moments of history we ritualize, and the moments we seem to forget about.  We must learn from each other and the lives of all those who stand with us for justice.  We must continue to provide meals to the hungry, proclaim release to the captives, give socks to those without dry homes in which to warm their toes, and listen to the stories from our faith tradition that give us sustenance for the journey.

This weekend, we memorialize the significant work toward justice that CONTINUES to be needed in today’s growing global economy.  Much as the Israelites were instructed in how to memorialize the Passover before salvation had come, we today must celebrate in the same tone.  We remember how the past was significantly different, and we cannot just pat ourselves on the back and call it a day.  No, we must be diligent in continuing to stand with those who need the opportunity to speak.  We must celebrate with our sandals on and our staff in hand because it's the Passover to God’s march toward justice!  We will walk alongside those who are continuing to suffer under unsafe practices as they find voices to speak to the Pharaohs of today. We must seek out the unheard story and try our best to build a future that is more fair, more just and more equitable than the one we currently live in.

In the middle of King’s speech, he quotes the book of Amos, "We are not satisfied, and we will not be satisfied until justice rolls down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream." My hope today is that we too will not be satisfied until justice is as plentiful as the waters that fill not just our streams, but our rivers, lakes and oceans.