I want to do things a little differently this morning. Usually I read the Bible passages first, and then delve into what I think they may be saying to us in our time. That’s the way it works in our faith tradition – one of the marks of the true church, along with it being the place where the Sacraments of God are rightly administered is that the church is also the place where the word of God is faithfully preached. This happens not just when one person speaks, but when the faith community hears that word and reflects on it, and then moves it out into the world.
But every once in a while the Lectionary – that list of suggested Bible passages to preach and center worship upon – offers up to us a text that needs to be fleshed out with the rest of the book from which it comes. This happens rarely, thank goodness, but it does happen – like when a selection from the book of Jonah comes up. Yeah, I know, it’s a fish story, but to just talk about that and not take in the whole, beautiful story of God’s grace knocking down walls and getting into our faces about loving our enemies would be a travesty.
The same applies to the book of Esther. We only get to hear from this book once every three years, if we stick to the recommendation. Sure, we could go off and make a whole series of it but I know that this congregation – as well as so many others – wants to hear what the Gospel of Jesus Christ has to say. So for this Sunday we will listen to Esther as it is given to us.
By way of introduction it should be noted that there is a reason why Esther is so rarely preached from. For one thing it was the last book to be included into the Old Testament canon (those books recognized as authoritative). It did so for one very strong reason: God’s name is not mentioned once. This is also why this book was not popular among our early Reformers – John Calvin never wrote a commentary on it, and Calvin wrote a commentary on everything. Martin Luther did not want to preach from it because he thought it was too Jewish for a Christian audience. Just shows that, as wonderful as they could be, our Reformers were fallible human beings with their own prejudices.
But it was included, because it is a story about the rescue of God’s people from a time of great persecution. To this day this book is read in most Hebrew synagogues, with great fanfare, during the Festival of Purim, or “Lots,” which occurs in February. It is a great Hebrew festival especially for children, but it is worth reading because of the movement of God throughout this book – whether acknowledged or not.
The book takes place during the days of the Persian Empire, after the Jewish people were allowed to return home after their years in exile. But there were those who chose to stay in the land of the country which had freed them. There was a significant Jewish community in Persepolis, the capital of Persia. The book starts off with the great emperor Ahasuerus giving a big feast with a lot of wine drinking and carrying on, and in the midst of that he wanted to show off his Queen, Vashti, wearing her crown to show off her beauty. Another way of translating this was that the King wanted Vashti to wear only her crown, which shows you that things haven’t changed much in 3,000 years.
To her credit Vashti refuses, setting up a situation where the King wanted to get a new wife (he undoubtedly already had a few others) to take Vashti’s place, and after a serious competition Esther was chosen. She was an orphan who was being taken care of by a man named Mordecai. They were both Jewish but Mordecai told Esther to keep quiet about her religion.
There are a lot of interesting movements in the plot, but I will just invite you to read the whole book on your own to pick up those. For now there enters the quintessential bad guy, named Haman, who is jealous of Mordecai and his influence around the palace, and seeks to destroy him and every other Jew in the Empire. Haman gets the clueless king to sign a decree for the destruction of the Jewish people, and then he and the king have some more wine and do some more carrying on while the rest of the empire is thrown into confusion. Power grabs and clueless leaders – again, things haven’t changed much.
With this crisis looming Mordecai exchanges a series of messages with Esther in the palace, appealing for her help. She says that due to royal custom she cannot just barge in to ask the king something anytime she likes. It really is a matter of life or death for her. But Mordecai sees that it’s even more a matter of life or death for the Jewish community. He says in the fourth chapter, 13th verse:
“Do not think that in the king’s palace you will escape any more than all the other Jews. 14 For if you keep silence at such a time as this, relief and deliverance will rise for the Jews from another quarter, but you and your father’s family will perish. Who knows? Perhaps you have come to royal dignity for just such a time as this.” 15 Then Esther said in reply to Mordecai, 16“Go, gather all the Jews to be found in Susa, and hold a fast on my behalf, and neither eat nor drink for three days, night or day. I and my maids will also fast as you do. After that I will go to the king, though it is against the law; and if I perish, I perish.”
Esther does get the king’s attention and approval, and she invites him and Haman to a banquet. The king asks what she wants, that he will gladly give it to her, and she says that all she wants is for the king and Haman to come back for a second banquet. This is where today’s reading picks up, in the seventh chapter of Esther:
“1 So the king and Haman went in to feast with Queen Esther. 2 On the second day, as they were drinking wine, the king again said to Esther, “What is your petition, Queen Esther? It shall be granted you. And what is your request? Even to the half of my kingdom, it shall be fulfilled.” 3 Then Queen Esther answered, “If I have won your favor, O king, and if it pleases the king, let my life be given me — that is my petition — and the lives of my people — that is my request. 4 For we have been sold, I and my people, to be destroyed, to be killed, and to be annihilated. If we had been sold merely as slaves, men and women, I would have held my peace; but no enemy can compensate for this damage to the king.” 5 Then King Ahasuerus said to Queen Esther, “Who is he, and where is he, who has presumed to do this?” 6 Esther said, “A foe and enemy, this wicked Haman!” Then Haman was terrified before the king and the queen. 7 The king rose from the feast in wrath and went into the palace garden, but Haman stayed to beg his life from Queen Esther, for he saw that the king had determined to destroy him. 8 When the king returned from the palace garden to the banquet hall, Haman had thrown himself on the couch where Esther was reclining; and the king said, “Will he even assault the queen in my presence, in my own house?” As the words left the mouth of the king, they covered Haman’s face. 9 Then Harbona, one of the eunuchs in attendance on the king, said, “Look, the very gallows that Haman has prepared for Mordecai, whose word saved the king, stands at Haman’s house, fifty cubits high.” And the king said, “Hang him on that.” 10 So they hanged Haman on the gallows that he had prepared for Mordecai. Then the anger of the king abated.”
Haman is dispatched but there is still the matter of that nasty decree to destroy all of the Jews in the empire. Esther gets the King to give Mordecai Haman’s former position as second in command to the King, and Mordecai works with the king to send out instructions for the Jewish people to defend themselves – which they do so well that entire empire fears the Jews and treats them with greater respect. This sets up a day of remembrance, as it says in the ninth chapter, verses 20-22:
“20 Mordecai recorded these things, and sent letters to all the Jews who were in all the provinces of King Ahasuerus, both near and far, 21 enjoining them that they should keep the fourteenth day of the month Adar and also the fifteenth day of the same month, year by year, 22 as the days on which the Jews gained relief from their enemies, and as the month that had been turned for them from sorrow into gladness and from mourning into a holiday; that they should make them days of feasting and gladness, days for sending gifts of food to one another and presents to the poor.”
So – what does a Christian community in the 21st century get out of a book about someone coming to the rescue of the Jewish community in sixth century BCE Persia? For one thing, the Christian tradition is a continuation of the story begun in the Jewish community. Their story is our story; the story of their deliverance from a time of persecution and genocide is our story. It is that way because our Lord and Messiah was a faithful Jewish man who studied and celebrated the traditions of the book of Esther. It is not just the story of one community being delivered; it is a reminder that holding to our faith may cause all kinds of conflicts with the world as it is. Sometimes we of the Christian faith can lift up conflicts which are not really there. We are not being persecuted in the way the Jews of Persia were. But there are times when our faith runs counter to the ways of the world, when the culture tells us God helps those who help themselves when we see so much injustice in the world that prevents people from helping themselves; when the slogan “might makes right” takes precedence over the ways of the Prince of Peace who calls on us to live with love toward all people; when the culture tells us to ignore the plight of the poor because they created their own situations, when the Bible over and over again reminds us that we are to take care of the poor, to share our festivals with them, for in so doing we are serving the One who became poor for our sake.
There is also the interesting note that this story is full of clueless men who are running around doing dumb things and making a mess of everything. The king, especially, doesn’t seem to grasp the seriousness of any of his decisions and is given to taking rash actions without considering the alternatives. But it is a woman – who is guided by a man, certainly – who is the one who is the instrument by which the deliverance of the people takes place. It is a strong woman who speaks the truth to power, who puts her life on the line so that the vulnerable are protected. This is not the only time in Israel’s history where a woman led them to deliverance given by God, but it is certainly one of the most prominent.
Still, there is the part about a book of the Bible in which God’s name is not mentioned once. God is not acknowledged, but that does not mean that God is not there. God may appear in the way the story unfolds; in the placement of Mordecai in certain places to do the right thing; in the courage and strength of Esther; in the celebrations of the people which includes remembering those who are marginalized. God is present in all of that. But I think there is one place where God’s presence is especially noted, although not acknowledged.
When he gets word of the plot against the people of Israel, Mordecai communicates with Esther that she may have been brought to the royal palace for such a time as this. That is a powerful statement about the movement of God in our times, and any time. It can be overused – I remember the last time I went to a General Assembly, 2001 in Columbus, Ohio, as the various candidates for moderator were placed in nomination, every one of those giving the nominating speeches said, “For such a time as this, this person should be moderator.” It got to be kind of comical; which I guess is what the book of Esther can be when you look at it closely enough. Comical in the sense of all these people running around doing dumb things. It’s a wonder it comes out as well as it did. Again, God’s name is not mentioned, but God is there in all of God’s power and grace, delivering people, sometimes from themselves.
“For such a time as this …” Maybe you are not called to be king or queen, to give a word so that millions are not murdered or abused. But to each of us is given a time to live out our calling as the people of God, called to live an active faith which lifts up those have fallen, and to bring to account those in power who have abused that responsibility. For such a time as this we have been made father or mother, leader or follower, teacher or student, guide or consoler. For such a time as this we have been called by a God who is often unseen but who is always there, using us and the gifts we have been given so that justice is done, loving kindness is exhibited, and a humble walk with God is the order of the day.
“For such a time as this…,” you have been gifted by a loving God to use those gifts to take care of others. Unlike those nominating speeches, the line “For such a time as this…,” is not used only to take care of ourselves. “For such a time as this…,” is used to remember our gifts from God are never for ourselves alone. They are given so that we may join in God’s work of loving and taking care of all, and letting peace reign in a world that often goes crazy.
Amen.