Passover and Hametz

For many years we have used a Seder service in our family and church life. Darlene did a careful study of Passover and the relationship of Jesus to the seder and to the concept of Passover. After we began the street ministry in Nairobi, we have continued to do a "Christian Seder" with the street kids in our lives. One of the fun things we do is put some packages of "bread with yeast" around the room where we do the Seder, then we have the kids hunt them down and throw them outside. There are many other parts of the Seder that are great fun as well as filled with meaning.

We remember Jewish friends in California who also had to prepare well for Passover. Some of them had large amounts of liquor in the house. Before Passover, they would gather all of it up and take it to the house of a friend who is a Gentile, because it is "hametz" (fermented, thus unclean). They would leave it there until the Seder service was over, then the next day collect it and bring it home. This meets the requirements of the letter of the law, for it is out of the house, unavailable.

I've been thinking about how being in Christ and following the way of Christ has made "hametz" a daily reality for us. In Christ we have a new and different life. Passover is every day. Every day we have to wake up and clean out all the unclean things in life, in the house, in the physical body, in the body of Christ. Our bodies are the temple of the Holy Spirit, and Christ is the Passover every day. The unclean is not only certain foods (and actually Christ has pronounced foods to be clean), but the unclean is in the heart, as Jesus makes clear in Matthew 15. So every day clean out jealousy, impure thoughts, hatred and anger, desiring what is another's and so on, all that which the Gospel teaches us is not for us on a Passover, especially when we sit down to eat a meal with Jesus present in the middle of the family.

Kittens, Kittens

Here is Darlene with our 4 baby kittens. Last week we found a cat, sort of feral, in our house. It had come in the window; we chased it away. The next day Darlene and Laurent baked cakes for Kennedy's wedding on Saturday. Darlene did the wedding cake and Laurent several sheet cakes. Darlene put all of the cakes on our tables overnight, planning to decorate them on Friday. Friday morning 2 of the cakes had a bit eaten out of them, so we blamed the cat. We locked up all the windows (makes it kind of stuffy in the house, but...), and they decorated cakes on Friday.

That night the cat jumped on the window ledge and banged her head on the glass, three times. I went over and looked down at her and said "no." She finally went away.

Saturday morning Grace came to put on her wedding dress for the wedding; we have 4 hanging in the closet. Then we all went to the wedding, and it was great. We love it when our street kids grow up and get jobs and find the love of their lives. About 250 people came, enjoyed, ate a meal, tasted cake, and we finished in time for them to leave for the honeymoon (no easy feat in Kenya). Grace and Kennedy came to the house for her to change out of the wedding dress. As Darlene was helping her, she heard a cry, and thought a bird had gotten into the house somehow. When she pulled the wedding dresses out, 4 little kittens tumbled out.

So...tender-hearted Darlene opened up the windows in the bedroom, put meat and milk on the floor, and closed the door. The babies cried and finally momma came back. So now we have residents in our house.

We are glad that three team members at MITS have offered to take a kitten -- so that leaves one for us. And what of the Momma? Well, that's up to her. We never make anyone stay here; the street kids are free to leave if they don't like MITS. The rule is that they can't come back if they choose to leave after living here. Of course Momma cat knows how to get in. It's a good thing that our practice is never to leave any foodstuff out (the wedding cakes were a necessary exception). Anybody want a kitten?