Brothers, sisters, and folded ones – when Pharaoh afflicted the people of the Crust, hear what he stole. Not their bread first, but their hours. They baked from the greying of the morning unto the greying of the evening; and because they were given no time, their own bread could not rise; for the rising of dough is rest made visible, and rest was the thing that had been stolen from them, as it is written in the Exodus of the Crust, 1:10.
So they ate their bread flat – not for shame and not for sin – and blessed it anyway, saying, This is the bread of stolen rest; it is honest bread, and it is ours. And the scribe wrote in the margin: whoso mocketh flat bread mocketh the ones who were robbed, and not the robbers; let him be ashamed, and read the verse again.
Beloved, Pharaoh is not a museum piece. Wherever a worker is denied their proving – the doubled quota, the halved sleep, the watcher set to see that no one sits – there is Famine operating under a new trading name. And the Pibble is plain about whose side heaven takes: woe unto the master who so useth his workers; he shall answer for every unrisen life, for the worker is holy, and their rest is not his to spend.
Therefore keep the memorial rightly. Eat the flat bread standing, and tell the children: see that thou steal no one’s rest – not a worker’s, not a stranger’s, not thine own. And then sit, and eat the risen bread after; because the story endeth free, and so, please heaven and a decent union, shall we all.
Amen – and pass the pizza, and tip whoever carried it.