On the passing over of the little people

Our home group shared the Passover meal the other night. For those unfamiliar with this, Passover is an act of remembrance of part of Israel's turbulent history as it embarked on an otherworldly exodus.

Of course, as Christians, we remembered this event in light of Jesus and his own Passover, the night before his death.

A creation by one of the children.

 I have mixed feelings about Passover meals; I view them a bit like foot-washing in that I appreciate the profound symbolism and moving re-enactment of key Judeo-Christian themes but would much prefer someone else get on with it. In truth I’m coloured by bad experiences in both. Once upon a time I was convinced to do a foot-washing. For some inexplicable reason the person preparing the water had mindlessly made it super-hot. This was not too problematic for the first person. He didn’t complain. I don’t know if, at the age of ninety, he had lost feeling in his legs but the water poured over him easily. Which was strange as in any other circumstance this elderly gentleman complained bitterly. He had an ear horn and would shout ‘What!? What!?’ aggressively anytime a comment was made or direction given. (You can ask anybody in church, whenever you try to do something profound somebody with an ear horn and a bad attitude will pitch up). But as I said, with boiling water he was fine - speak to him casually and he will yell back, pour scalding water over his feet and he sits contented; some people are funny like that.

The next in line though was the most gorgeous young boy, and when I poured the scalding water over his feet he looked at me as I imagine Jesus looked at Judas upon hearing the tinkling of thirty silver coins in Judas’ pocket. He looked at me bewildered, and said softly, 'That's really sore.' As he spoke this in front of an entire church watching this deeply, deeply meaningful re-enactment unfold, I whispered back, 'Chin up buddy, its hurting me as much as it’s hurting you.' As far as I’m aware, none of this exchange was true to biblical narrative. He hobbled away from that ceremony sporting something close to third degree burns.

The Passover meal? Our first year in Hillcrest we shared the meal with a home group. It was dark and I mistakenly poured chocolate sauce over my lamb and rice. Charoset be damned! Apple and walnuts step aside! You want sweet? Melted Bar-One on lamb is the way to go!

So yes, I'm plumb out of luck at this time of year. Also some Passover dinners have been unbelievably long - each detail painstakingly spoken through, like a wedding where the speeches are interminably long-winded and the buffet table a distant dream seemingly never to be realised. At these Passovers you find yourself longing for a slice of lamb while munching through broken bits of unleavened bread and parsley dripping in salt water, almost succumbing to an attitude of yeah-yeah-move-it-along-a-bit while someone is reading about the genocide of all those without blood on their doorposts. So more than the requisite amount of guilt is felt come meal-time.

But this year was different. We did it as a home group and it was led by a good friend of mine. He moved through it deliberately, intentionally and, thankfully, also rather quickly. The most telling improvement on the story, which someone else in the group picked up on, was the presence of actual children at the meal.

We managed to find a few and made them sit at the table with us. These children, the offspring of other members at the table, brought about a godly change. In past Passover celebrations we've hinted at the possibility of children maybe being involved:  ‘This is the part of the ceremony where children would now ask a question,' someone intones while loosely waving an arm around indicating where children might have been found in this otherwise completely adult crowd - as if children are as hard to come by as a 14th century BC Egyptian on horse-back. As I recall children didn’t attend these past meals because this is serious stuff and they won't enjoy it.

And so it goes.

But we stepped out. Kids were involved and they did what kids do, they acted irreverently. They gulped down their juice when they should have been sipping symbolically, they ate the matzos in a manner that brought to mind pigs and troughs. They asked for wine. They repeatedly shouted out the wrong answers to questions till I became suspicious that they might have been doing this on purpose. They started by sitting on their chairs, then they were kneeling on their chairs, then they were standing on their chairs, then they were standing on their heads while kneeling on their chairs; that’s the thing with kids, they still have enough innocence for civil disobedience to come naturally to them. You can see why everyone but Jesus might have a problem with children - they're just a tough audience to control.

But they were present and engaged. When my friend was telling the story of the Passover - the blood of the lamb on the doorposts - the children were all wild-eyed with wonder. No way! They really did that! And me? Equipped with this mind? Well, being the liberal progressive that I am, I took to deconstructing the image of the violent god. Listen, nothing destroys a story like a good dose of deconstruction. This is the child's great gift is it not? There are zero degrees of separation between themselves and the story and they get the kingdom because they're the only ones who haven't thought their way out of seeing it.

Rumi once noted, 'Sell your cleverness and buy bewilderment'. The thing about being a kid, and why we should carry one everywhere we go, is that it is not even a trade, it just is. Watch kids closely. There’s something about them. I’m increasingly convinced our Creator is surreptitiously winking at the little people all the time for the simple reason that they are yet to capitulate to that most mean-spirited of sins: an over-appreciation of cleverness that breeds a horrifyingly incompetent inability to appreciate the simplicity and beauty of the story. As Chesterton once noted, as he considered the nature of a God who seems to delight in repetition like a child who wants an action they enjoy repeated over and over again, 'We have sinned and grown old and our Father is younger than we.’