This Sunday Rev. Peter tells the story of Passover and examines its modern-day implications. Please read the sermon below or watch the complete service by clicking here.

As Unitarian Universalists, we claim among our sources of understanding and knowledge “wisdom from the world’s religions which inspires us in our ethical and spiritual life; and Jewish and Christian teachings which call us to respond to God’s love by loving our neighbors as ourselves.” Because of our heritage and history, at this season we often lift up the Christian stories of Palm Sunday and Easter, with perhaps a passing reference to Passover as the “Last Supper” celebrated by Jesus and his apostles. Next Sunday we’ll celebrate Easter, but I thought today I’d like to center the upcoming Jewish observance of Passover. Many UU’s claim Jewish origins and identity and, to be honest, we tend to alienate them in December when we celebrate Christmas with perhaps a nod to Hannukah, and at this time of year when we elevate Easter over Passover.

As a non-Jew I struggle with the Passover story, and maybe you do, too. There’s the whole issue of Jews being brutally enslaved by Pharoah, as well as God’s brutality in God’s efforts to free them. What can we learn from God’s decision to kill all the first-born Egyptian children and livestock while sparing Jewish kids, or God’s choice to grant safe passage in parting the Red Sea for the Israelites and then slamming the door shut and drowning the entire Egyptian army? What are we to make of the Exodus, the Jews wandering in the desert for 40 years and Moses dying within sight of the Promised Land?

This is a time for those of us who don’t identify as Jewish to sit back and listen. To ask our Jewish friends what this story means to them. What the tradition of the seder brings to mind as they celebrate it. What they were taught about Passover as children and what has stuck with them into their adulthood. Where they find meaning and connection with the Exodus, notwithstanding our own struggle to connect with it. It’s a time to respectfully keep our mouths shut and our ears open, to honor and respect not only those among us who are Jewish, but all those of Jewish identity or origin. And I think that’s especially true these days, when antisemitism is on the rise and our Jewish siblings are feeling particularly vulnerable.

The Passover story is central to Jewish identity. It’s the story of a people who were once invited and welcomed in, but that welcome turned to persecution, oppression, and slavery. Because long before the event of Passover, the Bible teaches that the Israelites were welcomed into Egypt when they were experiencing a famine in their own land. But then they became too prolific and too powerful, and they threatened Pharoah’s power. And so they were enslaved for generations. 400 years of slavery. So the story of Judaism has, at its core, an element of betrayal and mistrust. And a huge element of oppression.

But all that is prologue to Passover. Because when God warns Moses of his intention to slay Pharaoh’s first-borns, and all those of all the Egyptians, and when God instructs the Jews to paint their door frames with lambs’ blood as a sign that the Angel of Death should “pass over” those households, the lesson learned is that the Israelites are God’s chosen people. What Passover teaches is that God takes sides, and God stands on the side of those who are oppressed and enslaved. That is a particularly powerful statement of faith, especially for the Jewish people who have endured, and continue to endure, so much persecution. The Passover story says to Jews today that God once freed them from slavery. And to say that God did that once is to affirm that God will do that, again and again, past, present, future.

Memory, too, plays such an important role in Jewish identity. As we heard from author Jonathan Safran Foer a few moments ago, “JEWS HAVE SIX SENSES:” Touch, taste, sight, smell, hearing … memory. The seder, the ritual Passover meal, reinforces the memories of their enslavement, their sacrifice, their tears, and their release from bondage. The seder meal feeds the memories of generations, bonding families together as each brings its own adaptations and permutations to the table. Stories of how grandfather would sneak a five dollar bill to the child who found the afikomen, the hidden piece of matzo. Or how a play written by your six year-old daughter has now been incorporated into your family’s Haggadah and is re-enacted each year as part of the sacred text. The seder reminds families not just that they are Jewish, but that they are families, each interdependent, each intertwined into each other’s life.

When I asked one Jewish friend of mine what the meaning of Passover was to him, his immediate response was “self-determination.” The freedom of Jews from slavery under the Pharoah was one thing, but that event speaks to him of the need for all people to be free from oppression, to choose their own fate for themselves. In that sense, how could Passover be more relevant today, as we witness the horrors of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, how a modern-day Pharoah seeks to enslave another people – many of them Jews – who have a right to independence and self-determination. For Jews, Passover says that the pursuit of freedom, the release from bondage is not a “one and done” thing. Passover reminds them, and us, of our responsibility to work for justice and equity today, for all those who are oppressed or enslaved.

Which brings me to what might seem to be a brief detour. But it’s related. Because the institution of slavery still exists. It didn’t happen just to the Jews in Pharoah’s time, or only here in the United States a couple hundred years ago. Through my research for today’s sermon, I discovered an online tool that calculates, based on your lifestyle, how many slaves you currently use to support you. What the website calls your “slavery footprint.” If you want to engage in a sobering exercise, go to www.slaveryfootprint.org, take the quiz, and find out how many slaves are working for you. My number is a chilling 37. The site also provides ways to reduce your slavery footprint and to work for the global eradication of this horrific institution. In this way, Passover reminds us that it’s not just up to God to free the enslaved.

There’s another message contained in the Passover story as well, and that is that freedom is not the end of the journey, but the beginning. The escape from Egypt doesn’t lead the Israelites directly into the Promised Land. Their freedom doesn’t guarantee their success, or even their survival. We could ask ourselves why it would take 40 years to walk the approximately 250 miles from Egypt to Israel, but we’d be missing the point. Our freedom calls us into the struggle. The struggle to maintain freedom. The struggle to persist. The struggle to support each other through times of drought and famine and privation. The struggle to simply carry on when the Promised Land feels elusive or even absent. And given their history, this is a particularly important message for the Jewish people. But it is, of course, not just a message for the Jews but one for all of us. It is the message of Moses and the message of Martin. We may never get to the promised land, but we must, in the face of adversity, always walk toward it. Walk toward it with faith that one day, perhaps in future generations, the prize will be won.

Lately I’ve been listening to a podcast called “Chutzpod!” It’s a conversation between the actor Joshua Molina, whom you may remember from the TV shows West Wing and Scandal, and a reconstructionist rabbi who serves a congregation in Washington, DC, Rabbi Shira Stutman. Chutzpod!’s subtitle is “ancient texts for modern living,” and it seeks to enlighten Jews and non-Jews about how portions of the Torah, the Hebrew bible, apply to our lives today. In their latest episode, which focuses on Passover, Rabbi Shira has this to say about the Passover story:  “Who knows whether the Jews were actually an enslaved people in Egypt? We don’t know if that factually, actually happened. What’s most important is that we still tell the story so that we are able to try to do differently in the world in which we live…” That sounds like a pretty UU perspective on Passover, doesn’t it?

The Passover story is not ours – non-Jews – story to tell. But it is a story to which we can listen and a story from which we can learn. During this perilous time in our history, when Jewish lives are at risk both here and abroad, let us reaffirm our kinship with our Jewish siblings. Let us commit to standing shoulder to shoulder with them in their struggle for freedom from oppression. Let us join them as they recommit themselves, in the words of Rabbi Shira, to “trying to do differently in the world in which we live.”

Shalom. Blessed Be. Amen.