Old and New

Part one:  Old Testament Commentary

It’s Passover. The holiday when Jews celebrate their liberation from slavery in Egypt. They were only liberated, of course, after God visited the 10 plagues upon the Egyptians. I taught a group of kindergarteners once about the plagues, and ask them if they had a favorite one. I expected them all to pick the raining down of frogs, but Joshua yelled out “The Wiver of Bwood!” which I supposed shouldn’t surprise me. He’s the same adorable kid who tried to write “I hope you get better soon” in a get well card he made for a member of our congregation but he forgot the t’s in better, and so wrote “I hope you get beer soon.” The card may single handedly have cured her, if humor works as well as I suspect.


Back to the plagues, the one that finally got Pharoah’s attention required God to slay all the first born children of Egyptians but pass over the Jewish households (here‘s where it gets complicated for those of us who love non-violence AND the Sacred Mystery.) That God of the Old Testament -- definitely mysterious, but he hadn’t yet invented Jesus, Ghandi or Dr. King, I guess.

Chametz means “not kosher for Passover” or not kosher-enough anyway. Sadly, hummus is Chametz. The processing seems to be most suspect. So, if you grew your own chickpeas, lemons, garlic, sesame, and harvested your own salt AND if your food processor had never been used for food that was not kosher, you might be okay. But you can’t be sure. So for Passover, better safe than sorry. No hummus. Bummerus

Unless you aren’t kosher, then what the heck! My first spouse was Jewish and not kosher and my brother-in-law used to eat ham and cream cheese on Matzoh. We tried to figure out how many dietary laws he was breaking at once by doing that. But we got distracted by the macaroons we were eating like crazy as they are delicious and KFP. But not hummus macaroons.

Part Two:  New Testament Commentary

Yesterday was Maundy Thursday, the celebration of the last supper. Did you know that in art portraying the last supper, the size of the food portions has increased over the centuries? Yes, I read that somewhere! Or maybe I dreamt it? Well, MT services used to be one of my favorites back when I went to a more conventional church. Leaving quietly with lit candles and contemplating Jesus' last meal with his disciples. But yesterday, all the attention was on April Fool’s Day, and MT got pushed to the back of my mind, until I saw a church marquee reminding me that it was also MT. So I felt like an April Fool. Today I will contemplate the last supper which probably did not include hummus since it’s chametz. And I will think about non-violence.