Navigating the Narrow Places
In this morning’s Time for All Ages story, I shared a bit of interpretation from the Book of Exodus, the Passover story. Passover began Friday night and will continue through sunset on April 30. During the Passover meal on the first night of the holiday, Jews and their friends all over the world remember the Exodus. The story and the ritual meal is meant to invite discussion about freedom, remembering the ways we have been liberated and the ways we have yet to live into liberation.
“Mitzrayim,” the name in Hebrew for ancient Egypt, literally means “the narrow places.” Passover is a time to remember and to dismantle all of the things that keep us trapped. We can also joke about the tight spots of Passover itself. At our house, like many Jewish and interfaith households, the Passover seder means many more people than usual crowded around the table, trying to all fit into the kitchen to cook, and re-hashing discussions about the meaning of liberation. It is a festival of freedom, and so we must also examine the flip side of not-freedom, of constriction, of stuckness.
Mitzrayim can be habits or attitudes that keep us from thriving to our fullest potential. We might be waiting to come to terms with our need for help or community before we can get out of it. Sometimes the narrow places are situations where we are caught up in a system of injustice, either as the oppressed or the oppressor. When we need to find a passage through a tight spot in order to be the people we are called to be, we are in the narrow places.
In the Passover story, we hear a couple of hints about resources we can use in the narrow places. First of all, we can team up. Partnering with another person or being part of a group struggling with the same tight spot gives us exponential energy to make it through. This worked for Moses, Aaron, and Miriam.
Second, we listen to the call. The voice of justice, liberation, and wholeness speaks to all of us in different ways, yet I believe we can recognize an authentic call when we hear it. There are also forces that resist the voice of wholeness. Self-doubt like what Moses expressed is one of those forces. An imbalanced status quo has powers of backlash and confusion that will try to drown out the call. We do the best we can by listening to the truth as we know it.
Third, we remember. Our ancestors and we have faced challenges before, and we can do it again. The Hebrews in Mitzrayim could reach back, deep into their history, to remember a time when they were free. Every year, Passover is another opportunity to remember.
Team Up
The first clue in the story is that no one character is all-powerful. Moses isn’t perfect. Even God needs help to move people toward freedom. We learn that teaming up is a strategy for navigating the narrow places.
Moses, for instance, was not the Lone Ranger. From the people who protected him as a baby, to the Midianites who sheltered him as a young man, to his brother Aaron who partnered with him to start a movement, Moses needed other people. After the Hebrews left Egypt and were safely on the other side of the Red Sea, it was Miriam who led the group in expressing gratitude. Later in the story, we learn that Moses asked advice from his father-in-law when he was called on to resolve conflicts between people in the wilderness. There is a lot of interdependence in the Exodus story.
Teaming up is a strategy for communities as well as individuals who are following the call. People of faith advocating for immigration reform often look to the Exodus story for inspiration, remembering the Hebrew immigrants in the land of Egypt. We hear over and over again in the Hebrew Bible, “When a stranger comes to dwell with you in your land, you will not mistreat him. You will not oppress her. You will love that one as you love yourself, for you were once strangers in the land of Egypt.”
Welcoming the stranger is a communal responsibility. Here at UUCY, we have made some efforts toward embracing that responsibility. When the staff and about a dozen members showed up at the York prison in September for the “We Belong Together” rally for immigration justice, we were among a rainbow of religious communities and secular organizations cheering the pilgrims forward in their journey to Washington, DC. UUCY’s Thursday morning conversation group that gives emerging English speakers a chance to practice with lifelong English speakers welcomes guests of many faiths. On April 11, Caryl Clarke and Steve Snell were in Harrisburg, along with four UU’s from our sibling congregations and about a hundred other folks, as they advocated for justice for our undocumented neighbors. In each case, it matters that Unitarian Universalists can coordinate with each other under a united banner to more effectively organize, and it matters that we can collaborate with interfaith coalitions. As the late UU theologian James Luther Adams taught, we need to leverage the power of organization and the organization of power. We seek justice for the stranger, because we were once strangers in the narrow places.
Opportunities abound for people to join together as they make their way through tight spots. Partners and groups can give us strength as we struggle for freedom from our personal demons. Communities help each other out through transitions and disasters. Collective efforts for compassion and justice are also reflections that none of us are alone. The Exodus story teaches us to team up when we are navigating through the narrow places.
Listen to the Call
The second clue in the Exodus story is to listen to the call, the voice of wholeness, even when other noises get in the way. These can be our own distractions of self-doubt, as Moses showed when he was hesitant to return to Egypt. The call can be obscured by exhaustion, internalized oppression, scare tactics from those in power, or simple inertia.
When Moses and Aaron started to organize for freedom in Mitzrayim, there was a backlash. Pharaoh doubled the work required of the Hebrew slaves. Their own people blamed Moses and Aaron for stirring up trouble, and spiraled into despair from their exhaustion. It’s hard to hear the voice of the Eternal when there is no rest from labor.
When they finally did get out of Mitzrayim and seemed to be trapped between the Pharaoh’s troops and the sea, the people said to Moses, “Were there no graves in Egypt that you had to bring us here to die in the wilderness? What have you done to us? It would have been better for us to serve the Egyptians than to die in the wilderness.”
Panic reduces our ability to find solutions. Anxiety itself leads to narrow places, more deeply than the situations that invoke anxiety. Yet there was a way forward, and the people took it.
In the Exodus story, we can recognize several ways that the voice of wholeness can be challenged. In addition to self-doubt, there is internalized oppression, the belief by those who are disadvantaged that there is nothing they can do, or even that they deserve to suffer. There is political pushback, such as when the brick-making conditions got worse before they got better. Pharaoh’s decree had the double-acting effect of exhausting the Hebrews and setting them against each other instead of against injustice. Fear can be paralyzing, as the Israelites found out by the shores of the Red Sea.
I think we can learn a lot from the ambivalence of the Hebrews on their way to freedom. In our personal struggles to be free of an abusive situation or a destructive habit or another tight spot, who among us hasn’t been tempted to return to the bad old days? When has our work for the common good gone two steps forward without one step back? Women’s suffrage, civil rights, environmental awareness, and other movements all dealt with or deal with doubt from within the active community and retaliation from the powerful. What the Exodus story tells us is that even the most authentic, the most pure, the most justifiable call for change faces these challenges. Ambivalence is part of the path that leads through Mitzrayim.
There are always forces that push back. Setbacks do not mean we were wrong to hear the call to wholeness, and they do not mean that we will ultimately fail in our struggle for liberation. We can listen to the call in spite of distractions, we can come back to it after we panic and stall, we can succeed in becoming free from the narrow places.
Remember
Teaming up and listening to the call to wholeness are two strategies in finding liberation. The third clue in the Exodus story is remembering. On the night when they were preparing to leave Mitzrayim, the Hebrews received instructions about how to remember their passage to freedom in future years. Passover is about remembering with story, food, and family that freedom is a holy calling.
The Exodus story demonstrates why I think sacred texts are worth studying for us as Unitarian Universalists. Certain stories act as memory banks, batteries to power our resilience when we need to reach beyond ourselves. Remembering stories of liberation inspires us to meet our challenges when we feel powerless and reminds us to dismantle systems of oppression where we do have power.
In addition to sacred texts, there are other stories that can act as memory banks for resilience. Family stories, congregational stories, and personal stories can do this, too. Ask yourself, when have I overcome challenges before? What worked in that case? How do I draw from my strengths now? You can ask the same question thinking about your ancestors or about this church.
Change is hard for humans. We are creatures of habit. We hold on to some of the same roles and patterns for generations. We forget that the people we love have grown over the years. Yet we have stories about the times when we were stuck, and we were able to try something new. We can point to the times when we followed the path of change, and came through enriched with abundant life. When change comes around uninvited, as it does to everyone sooner or later, we have some stories to work with as we figure out what to do next.
I think often of the stories of this congregation, of the strengths you have shown in the past and the present. You tell stories of moving from the YWCA to Springettsbury Avenue to South George Street. You tell stories of surviving the fire. You are writing a new story, about reconciling and re-forming your community after a difficult period. Since I arrived in September, I have heard so many unique stories, and I know deep in my heart that each story is welcome here. Remembering is a powerful practice.
Conclusion
Passover is a celebration with many layers of meaning. I get a different insight from this holiday every year. In this moment, standing on the cusp of another opportunity to enter the Exodus story, I think there are at least three things we can learn.
Team up. Whether we are in search of personal liberation or social justice or both, let us be united. The differences we bring will help us to grow toward freedom.
Listen to the call. Power does not return to balance without an argument. We may find ourselves arguing against our own liberation. We may face tactics of confusion-mongering and backlash. Most of us stumble somewhere along the path through the narrow places. Underneath all of that, wholeness still calls with an authentic voice.
Remember. Let us recall all of the stories in our minds and hearts. Each one may supply a piece of the map that helps us navigate out of Mitzrayim. Cultural stories, congregational stories, family stories, and personal stories all lend their strength.
This year we celebrate Passover, knowing we have further to grow and more to do. Next year, may we celebrate in a world that knows peace and freedom.
So be it. Blessed be. Amen.
“Mitzrayim,” the name in Hebrew for ancient Egypt, literally means “the narrow places.” Passover is a time to remember and to dismantle all of the things that keep us trapped. We can also joke about the tight spots of Passover itself. At our house, like many Jewish and interfaith households, the Passover seder means many more people than usual crowded around the table, trying to all fit into the kitchen to cook, and re-hashing discussions about the meaning of liberation. It is a festival of freedom, and so we must also examine the flip side of not-freedom, of constriction, of stuckness.
Mitzrayim can be habits or attitudes that keep us from thriving to our fullest potential. We might be waiting to come to terms with our need for help or community before we can get out of it. Sometimes the narrow places are situations where we are caught up in a system of injustice, either as the oppressed or the oppressor. When we need to find a passage through a tight spot in order to be the people we are called to be, we are in the narrow places.
In the Passover story, we hear a couple of hints about resources we can use in the narrow places. First of all, we can team up. Partnering with another person or being part of a group struggling with the same tight spot gives us exponential energy to make it through. This worked for Moses, Aaron, and Miriam.
Second, we listen to the call. The voice of justice, liberation, and wholeness speaks to all of us in different ways, yet I believe we can recognize an authentic call when we hear it. There are also forces that resist the voice of wholeness. Self-doubt like what Moses expressed is one of those forces. An imbalanced status quo has powers of backlash and confusion that will try to drown out the call. We do the best we can by listening to the truth as we know it.
Third, we remember. Our ancestors and we have faced challenges before, and we can do it again. The Hebrews in Mitzrayim could reach back, deep into their history, to remember a time when they were free. Every year, Passover is another opportunity to remember.
Team Up
The first clue in the story is that no one character is all-powerful. Moses isn’t perfect. Even God needs help to move people toward freedom. We learn that teaming up is a strategy for navigating the narrow places.
Moses, for instance, was not the Lone Ranger. From the people who protected him as a baby, to the Midianites who sheltered him as a young man, to his brother Aaron who partnered with him to start a movement, Moses needed other people. After the Hebrews left Egypt and were safely on the other side of the Red Sea, it was Miriam who led the group in expressing gratitude. Later in the story, we learn that Moses asked advice from his father-in-law when he was called on to resolve conflicts between people in the wilderness. There is a lot of interdependence in the Exodus story.
Teaming up is a strategy for communities as well as individuals who are following the call. People of faith advocating for immigration reform often look to the Exodus story for inspiration, remembering the Hebrew immigrants in the land of Egypt. We hear over and over again in the Hebrew Bible, “When a stranger comes to dwell with you in your land, you will not mistreat him. You will not oppress her. You will love that one as you love yourself, for you were once strangers in the land of Egypt.”
Welcoming the stranger is a communal responsibility. Here at UUCY, we have made some efforts toward embracing that responsibility. When the staff and about a dozen members showed up at the York prison in September for the “We Belong Together” rally for immigration justice, we were among a rainbow of religious communities and secular organizations cheering the pilgrims forward in their journey to Washington, DC. UUCY’s Thursday morning conversation group that gives emerging English speakers a chance to practice with lifelong English speakers welcomes guests of many faiths. On April 11, Caryl Clarke and Steve Snell were in Harrisburg, along with four UU’s from our sibling congregations and about a hundred other folks, as they advocated for justice for our undocumented neighbors. In each case, it matters that Unitarian Universalists can coordinate with each other under a united banner to more effectively organize, and it matters that we can collaborate with interfaith coalitions. As the late UU theologian James Luther Adams taught, we need to leverage the power of organization and the organization of power. We seek justice for the stranger, because we were once strangers in the narrow places.
Opportunities abound for people to join together as they make their way through tight spots. Partners and groups can give us strength as we struggle for freedom from our personal demons. Communities help each other out through transitions and disasters. Collective efforts for compassion and justice are also reflections that none of us are alone. The Exodus story teaches us to team up when we are navigating through the narrow places.
Listen to the Call
The second clue in the Exodus story is to listen to the call, the voice of wholeness, even when other noises get in the way. These can be our own distractions of self-doubt, as Moses showed when he was hesitant to return to Egypt. The call can be obscured by exhaustion, internalized oppression, scare tactics from those in power, or simple inertia.
When Moses and Aaron started to organize for freedom in Mitzrayim, there was a backlash. Pharaoh doubled the work required of the Hebrew slaves. Their own people blamed Moses and Aaron for stirring up trouble, and spiraled into despair from their exhaustion. It’s hard to hear the voice of the Eternal when there is no rest from labor.
When they finally did get out of Mitzrayim and seemed to be trapped between the Pharaoh’s troops and the sea, the people said to Moses, “Were there no graves in Egypt that you had to bring us here to die in the wilderness? What have you done to us? It would have been better for us to serve the Egyptians than to die in the wilderness.”
Panic reduces our ability to find solutions. Anxiety itself leads to narrow places, more deeply than the situations that invoke anxiety. Yet there was a way forward, and the people took it.
In the Exodus story, we can recognize several ways that the voice of wholeness can be challenged. In addition to self-doubt, there is internalized oppression, the belief by those who are disadvantaged that there is nothing they can do, or even that they deserve to suffer. There is political pushback, such as when the brick-making conditions got worse before they got better. Pharaoh’s decree had the double-acting effect of exhausting the Hebrews and setting them against each other instead of against injustice. Fear can be paralyzing, as the Israelites found out by the shores of the Red Sea.
I think we can learn a lot from the ambivalence of the Hebrews on their way to freedom. In our personal struggles to be free of an abusive situation or a destructive habit or another tight spot, who among us hasn’t been tempted to return to the bad old days? When has our work for the common good gone two steps forward without one step back? Women’s suffrage, civil rights, environmental awareness, and other movements all dealt with or deal with doubt from within the active community and retaliation from the powerful. What the Exodus story tells us is that even the most authentic, the most pure, the most justifiable call for change faces these challenges. Ambivalence is part of the path that leads through Mitzrayim.
There are always forces that push back. Setbacks do not mean we were wrong to hear the call to wholeness, and they do not mean that we will ultimately fail in our struggle for liberation. We can listen to the call in spite of distractions, we can come back to it after we panic and stall, we can succeed in becoming free from the narrow places.
Remember
Teaming up and listening to the call to wholeness are two strategies in finding liberation. The third clue in the Exodus story is remembering. On the night when they were preparing to leave Mitzrayim, the Hebrews received instructions about how to remember their passage to freedom in future years. Passover is about remembering with story, food, and family that freedom is a holy calling.
The Exodus story demonstrates why I think sacred texts are worth studying for us as Unitarian Universalists. Certain stories act as memory banks, batteries to power our resilience when we need to reach beyond ourselves. Remembering stories of liberation inspires us to meet our challenges when we feel powerless and reminds us to dismantle systems of oppression where we do have power.
In addition to sacred texts, there are other stories that can act as memory banks for resilience. Family stories, congregational stories, and personal stories can do this, too. Ask yourself, when have I overcome challenges before? What worked in that case? How do I draw from my strengths now? You can ask the same question thinking about your ancestors or about this church.
Change is hard for humans. We are creatures of habit. We hold on to some of the same roles and patterns for generations. We forget that the people we love have grown over the years. Yet we have stories about the times when we were stuck, and we were able to try something new. We can point to the times when we followed the path of change, and came through enriched with abundant life. When change comes around uninvited, as it does to everyone sooner or later, we have some stories to work with as we figure out what to do next.
I think often of the stories of this congregation, of the strengths you have shown in the past and the present. You tell stories of moving from the YWCA to Springettsbury Avenue to South George Street. You tell stories of surviving the fire. You are writing a new story, about reconciling and re-forming your community after a difficult period. Since I arrived in September, I have heard so many unique stories, and I know deep in my heart that each story is welcome here. Remembering is a powerful practice.
Conclusion
Passover is a celebration with many layers of meaning. I get a different insight from this holiday every year. In this moment, standing on the cusp of another opportunity to enter the Exodus story, I think there are at least three things we can learn.
Team up. Whether we are in search of personal liberation or social justice or both, let us be united. The differences we bring will help us to grow toward freedom.
Listen to the call. Power does not return to balance without an argument. We may find ourselves arguing against our own liberation. We may face tactics of confusion-mongering and backlash. Most of us stumble somewhere along the path through the narrow places. Underneath all of that, wholeness still calls with an authentic voice.
Remember. Let us recall all of the stories in our minds and hearts. Each one may supply a piece of the map that helps us navigate out of Mitzrayim. Cultural stories, congregational stories, family stories, and personal stories all lend their strength.
This year we celebrate Passover, knowing we have further to grow and more to do. Next year, may we celebrate in a world that knows peace and freedom.
So be it. Blessed be. Amen.