Our reading in Exodus 12:1-14 narrates the first Passover event in the faith journey of the Hebrew people. It can be described as the evening meal which God mandated the Israelites to take before the flight for freedom from the oppression Pharaoh. Egypt had become a land of bondage for the Israelites. God asked Moses to lead them out of Egypt. Nine kinds of plagues has been sent by YHWH against Pharaoh, but he will not let God’s people go. The tenth plague is about to come – all firstborn of both human and animal birth will die. The only way to be spared from death is to mark to the doorpost and lintel of their houses with the blood of the sheep or goat they will butcher for the meal. The meal is composed of fire-roasted meat of sheep or goat, eaten with unleavened bread and bitter herbs.

 

But how the meal is to be taken is quite different. You eat the meal standing up, not seated or anything, with your loins girded, sandals on your feet and staff on your hand. This meal you don’t eat leisurely, you eat in haste.

 

To tell someone to “gird up their loins” was to tell them to get ready for hard work or battle. It was the ancient way of saying “be prepared!”

 

This meal has urgency in it. It is done almost in secrecy but meant to be remembered. In order to escape from Egypt, the Israelites, about six-hundred thousand men, besides children and a mixed crowd, denoting the migrants among them (Exo 12: 37-38), marched out of Egypt in haste and urgency amidst looming counter-attack from Pharaoh.

 

The Israelites were under Egypt for 430 years (v.40).  In the case of the Philippines, the country I come from, was under Spain as a colony for 300 years and 100 years under US colonial and neo-colonial rule, briefly interrupted for 3 years under Imperial Japan. And today, Philippines is still ruled by puppets of foreign powers totalling to almost 420 years.

 

The conditions of oppression and exploitation remains in the land.

 

We ask, when will the Filipino people’s liberation come? When will their exodus towards a land of freedom and plenty be realised?

 

Like many subjugated peoples of the world, we believe that God’s provision will sustain the people’s quest for freedom from all forms of tyrannical rule in the same way that YHWH provided for the Israelites the means of obtaining their freedom.

 

In all that God did during this period of the Israelites journey of faith, one stood out to be very significant that needs remembered by God’s people – this the meal on the night of God’s pass over the blood-marked houses which will later be called the Passover meal and observed.

Jesus as a Jew, and his disciples, observed the Passover meal. In the accounts of the gospel writers, the last supper wherein Jesus broke bread and drank wine with his disciples before his arrest was held in observance of the Passover. This act will lend a new dimension in God’s continuing act salvation of God’s people though the sacrifice of the Lamb of God – Jesus Christ the Messiah.

 

In the Paul’s letter to the Corinthians, he wrote:

 

23 For I received from the Lord what I also handed on to you, that the Lord Jesus on the night when he was betrayed took a loaf of bread, 24and when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, ‘This is my body that is for you. Do this in remembrance of me.’ 25In the same way he took the cup also, after supper, saying, ‘This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.’ 26For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes.

 

Today, we commemorate this meal as a sacred tradition of the Church. Tradition to mean something which Jesus observed and handed on to the Disciples and passed on to the church. And so we commemorate and celebrate this Sacrament of the Lord’s Supper in remembrance of him and God’s covenant of love and salvation to God’s people.

 

Calling it the Holy Communion, we commune with God through the Holy Spirit and partake of Christ body and blood in the bread and the wine. Before we take part in this Sacrament, we are invited to a time of confession and to seek God’s forgiveness of our sins to God and our neighbours.

 

This bring us to a reflection on the Gospel reading in Matthew 18:15-20.

 

We often refer to this set of scriptures as a guide in handling conflicts that arise amongst members of the church or if the congregation finds some acts, behaviour, or words as offensive to another person or violative to the ethos and discipline of the church.

 

But “sins” here may not only be offense committed by an individual member. Sin can also be offences being committed collectively by the whole church. And more often, these transgressions can be far graver than a fault committed by one member, i.e. not being able to perform an assigned task.

 

Why I say this is because in using textual criticism as a field of Biblical studies, this tool compares ancient manuscripts of the Bible to see where spelling mistakes, dropped words, or added words may have changed the meaning of the text. The difference is usually minor.

 

Today’s reading in the gospel of Matthew may contain such a phrase. Some ancient manuscripts contains it, some do not. Was it dropped by some scribes? Or was it added? Consider all copies of Matthew were handwritten until the 1450’s.Biblical scholars believe it was added. The phase is “against you” in the verse “If another member of the church sins against you, go and point out the fault when the two of you are alone.”

 

So the original text might have been “If another member of the church sins, go and point out the fault.”

 

There might be very little difference. But when you expand the meaning of sin as not just an offence of one individual to another or to me, the offence is a committed to all. This becomes a social justice issue. For example, the attacks of a tyrannical regime on human rights activists becomes an attack on the whole society and the democratic principles and civil liberties it stands for.

 

As many church leaders and theologians pointed out, this is also an affront to God in whose image humankind was created.

 

In this situation, we are called to prophetic witness to point out society’s faults. If we keep silence and not act, and remain indifferent and uncaring, we collectively commit the sin of omission.

 

In Catholic teaching, an omission is a failure to do something one can and ought to do. If an omission happens deliberately and freely, it is considered a sin.

 

There are a lot of injustice and oppression going on around the world and even in our own backyard. Christ is already there ahead of us. We are called to follow Christ and be in the world to be God’s vessels and instruments of God’s saving grace and liberation.

 

Amen.