Readings
Exodus 12:1-14;
Psalm 149;
Romans 13: 8-end;
Matthew 18: 15-20

Collect
Almighty God, you search us and know us:
may we rely on you in strength and rest on you in weakness,
now and in all our days; through Jesus Christ our Lord.  Amen.

Reflection

“This month shall mark for you the beginning of months” (Ex 12:1). So begins the story of the commemoration of the ancient Feast of Passover in Exodus. Passover celebrates the release, perhaps escape from slavery with the promise and beginning of new community, community based on a way of life where each one is valued and recognized and to which each one contributes. This is a community actively responding to the one who is instrumental in forming them – whom they call “the LORD”.

This word, here represented by “LORD”, is a bit complicated, but then I suppose one would expect that for a word representing the vast, sheer incomprehensibility of God. From Hebrew it is (usually transliterated) YHWH, four consonants, and the sacredness with which God is regarded means this word is not spoken out loud, not even pronounced in the mind of one reading it. Rabbinic tradition uses the word “Lord” when this appears in the text, but modern commentator Nahum Ward-Lev translates it as “Eternal Presence”.

So, why is Eternal Presence instructing people to begin the year, we may read this as beginning their new life as community, with a shared, communal meal? For one thing, a meal is one of the most basic of activities to share resources and to strengthen bonds of mutual support. This is not a one-off activity. This event, this moment, is to be remembered and re-enacted regularly, reminding participants who they are and to whom they owe their existence.

Passover is an ancient festival, celebrated to this day, but not one in the Christian calendar. In the Church, however, we are heirs of this tradition and may learn that Passover is a festival that is ever new and ever present. Notice the psalm for today: “Sing to the LORD a new song” (Ps 149:1). This new song is as much a brand-new song, as one well known and sung before but sung now, in the present. The words may be from yesterday, even from the imagination and experience of another, but it is being sung today, sung now.

Whatever else we may glean from the story of being wronged or sinned against in the reading in the Gospel according to Matthew today, and in the background is a serious dispute of some sort, there is an immediacy, even urgency to sort out the matter and not to leave it. At the end of the reading we recall when there are only two or three people gathered, that Jesus is there. Not will be. Not was. Is there, among us, within the community of mutual support, formed by one called “Lord”, sharing a common meal.

We have not been able to share in this common meal, which we call Holy Communion, for over five months now. And we are not yet able to share it. These last months, however, have taught us very pointedly what it means to be community, even without that meal, for the eternal presence of Jesus is still with us. And remains with us, to the end of the age (Mt 28:20).

O God, you bear all people ever on your heart and mind.
We know that you watch over us with your protecting love,
that, strengthened by your grace and led by your Spirit,
we continue to seek your way for us,
and then enter your glory, made ready for all in Christ our Lord. Amen.

Barry Lotz