Christian “Passover Seders”
This year I was asked by a handful of members if we could do a Passover Seder next year. My answer was a swift, definitive, and very firm “No.
I have no doubt that those who wish to hold such services have motives that are pure. They are seeking a link between Christianity and its roots, which I think is admirable. However, I have some fundamental objections to the practice, and I cannot in good conscience participate in a “Christian Seder.”
First of all, Christians celebrating Seders represent the very worst in cultural, religious, and ritual theft. I would no more observe a Seder than I would have us chant the Heart Sutra as part of our liturgy. This does not mean that I find something wrong with the sutra, or that I don’t appreciate its beauty or meaningfulness. But alas, it is not ritually or culturally mine. the same applies to Seder. I have been to an actual Seder meal, put on by real, live Jewish folks. It was mystical and beautiful. The prayers and symbolism were moving. The food and wine were wonderful. I am grateful to have been invited. But I was just an outsider looking in. To attempt to replicate this is to take something which does not belong to me, and I find it incredibly disrespectful to faithful Jews.
Secondly, while Jesus would have observed Passover as a feast, he would NOT have observed a Seder as we know it. The Haggadah, or structure of the meal with its symbolism, ritual and prayers, is rooted not in First or Second Temple period, but rather in Talmudic Judaism. Most of this stuff is from at least 200 years after Christ, and the Haggadah itself did not take a stable form we would recognize until the 9th or 10th century. This simply reinforces the fact that it grew in a very unique and distinct culture of Jews, and is not something to be plundered by Christians.
Finally, we as Christians have our own proper rituals for Maundy Thursday. The Divine Service is to be celebrated with reverence and vigor as we recall and relive that “On the night in which he was betrayed, our Lord Jesus took bread. He blessed it and broke it and gave it to his disciples saying, ‘Take and eat, this is my BODY given for you.” We also remember “That after supper, He took a cup of wine, and when he had given thanks, he gave it to his disciples saying, “Take this and drink it, all of you. This is my blood of the new and everlasting covenant, shed for you and for many for the remission of sins. Do this in remembrance of me.” There is nothing that I can imagine that makes the night more meaningful than the knowledge that Jesus left us himself in the Sacrament of the Altar.
Here is a link to a Jewish perspective on Christians holding these meals. I think it is interesting that the good Rabbi points out that there is an element of anti-Christian polemic contained within the meal.
Another article, this one entitled, Some Jews See Trespass in Christian Seders.
April 11, 2009 at 8:42 am
Thank you for writing this. I am uncomfortable with “Christian Seders,” but wouldn’t have been able to articulate my discomfort as clearly or knowledgeable as you. Thank you.
April 11, 2009 at 9:14 am
PS, here’s something on the matter from the ELCA website:
http://www.elca.org/Growing-In-Faith/Worship/Learning-Center/FAQs/Seder-Meals.aspx
April 11, 2009 at 9:32 am
I definitely have mixed feelings about taking part in this event. However, the one I attended was a feast and did finish with the communion. I think it was a good learning experience linking us with those in the past whom God saved during the first Passover.
More generally speaking, Christians have always appropriated cultural symbols and events from various groups around the world. Some groups calling themselves Christian are dead set against this practice and see Church as tainted by doing this. Then these people generalize that the whole denomination is therefore not really Christian.
April 11, 2009 at 10:05 am
Thanks for writing this.
In response to PS: It is true that Christians have appropriated cultural symbols and events- but that appropriation involves transformation.
The earlier term for Easter is Pascha- the Greek word for Passover. The symbols and events of the Passover have been transformed by the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus.
April 11, 2009 at 10:29 am
One of the ways I’ve seen to connect the institution of the Eucharist to its “roots” is to say at “He took bread and when he had given thanks to you”, the Hebrew blessing over the bread, and then the Words of Institution and then likewise with the wine. Because presumably, he gave thanks in Hebrew in similar words to what has come down in Jewish tradition.
April 11, 2009 at 10:31 am
Thank you, thank you, thank you. I agree with everything you say here, point by point.
I can think of only one exception. I know a woman who holds a Christian Seder with her family every year, but she was born and raised Jewish and converted to Christianity as an adult. The Christian Seder is a way to honor both her childhood heritage and her adult faith. I have no objection to that at all. But it’s rooted in her very particular experience, which is not the experience of most Christians. There impulse to appropriate Judaism is quite different and, in my view, misguided.
April 11, 2009 at 10:32 am
Their, not there. So sorry.
April 11, 2009 at 10:35 am
and to reply to caelius, I was at a synagogue recently and before the kiddush meal, the hazzan gave a blessing over the challah and then a blessing over the wine. A small portion of the blessed wine was distributed in tiny cups to all present, and we all drank together and said l’chaim. It was completely unlike the Christian Eucharist, in many ways, and yet so familiar.
April 11, 2009 at 11:55 am
Anastasia–
When I used to live in a much more heavily Jewish community, I used to go to synagogue fairly frequently for bar and bat mitzvot. The kiddush always made me feel the same way.
April 11, 2009 at 6:43 pm
I agree with you completely. My congregation did one this year (on Tuesday of Holy Week), at the insistence of the interim pastor, who apparently served a congregation of Christian Jews (or Jewish Christians – I forget what term she uses) at one point in her life. I have too many Jewish friends to feel comfortable taking part in that ritual meal outside of its proper religious context – and even then, I’ve only participated as a welcomed outsider. I didn’t go, though it didn’t make her happy as I am the faith formation chair on council. I explained my reasoning, but I don’t think she agreed with me.
My fear is that now that we did it once (apparently people lobbied the former pastor for it, and he didn’t want to for whatever reason), people are going to want to do it every year. If we are going to share a meal (other than the Eucharist on Maundy Thursday) during Holy Week, I’d much rather keep it within our own cultural context and do a crawfish boil.
April 22, 2009 at 8:53 am
The Orthodox paschal hymn “Let God Arise” has the following lines:
A sacred Passover has been revealed to us today, a new and holy Passover, a mystic Passover, an all-venerable Passover, a Passover that is Christ the Redeemer, an unblemished Passover, a great Passover, a Passover of the faithful, a Passover that has opened for us the gates of Paradise, a Passover that makes all the faithful holy.
A Passover of delight, Passover, the Lord’s Passover, an all-venerable Passover has dawned for us, Passover. Let us embrace one another with joy. O Passover, ransom from sorrow! Today Christ shone forth from a tomb as from a bridal chamber, and filled the women with joy, saying, ‘Proclaim it to the Apostles’.
Of course, I have replaced the normal term – ‘Pascha’ – with the term it is derived from – ‘Passover’. Pascha is the preferred Orthodox term for the Feast of the Resurrection, Easter. It is a transliteration of the Greek word Πάσχα, which is a transliteration of the Hebrew pesach, both words meaning ‘Passover’.
It gives it a different fell, doesn’t it?
I wonder if the Christian Seder concept would have taken off as much as it has if English had retained a term for the Feast of the Resurrection that was more obviously Christian than ‘Easter’.
(That being said, Fr. Michael Meerson, a Russian-Jewish convert to Orthodoxy who serves in NYC and teaches in DC, supposedly holds Orthodox Christian Seders, so…)
August 5, 2009 at 12:02 pm
As Paul stated we are grafted into the vine (Rom 11:17), this is of the Jewish People / God’s chosen people, so we too are chosen. I believe in Passover. as a way for Christians as celebrated at the time of Christ, not Seder. However there is little to gain by hosting a passover, truly to be invited and attend and Actual Jewish Passover would be enlightening.
cheers