You are welcome to use parts of this sermon, but if you do, please attribute them properly!
Some
scholars think that the Book of Esther should never have ended up in our
Bible. I mean, what could possibly be
sacred about a story that has not one iota of theology in it – and is named for
a woman, no less?
You
see, the Book of Esther never mentions God, Jerusalem, the Babylonian Exile –
or even prayer. It does not outline any
aspect of the Jewish Law or point to any important Jewish practices
either. All in all, there is nothing
overtly spiritual about it - and, besides, the Bible just does not regularly
serve up the successes of women anyway.
Instead,
the Book of Esther reads like the screenplay for some epic movie. It is complete with sex, lies, palace
intrigue, clever wits, a weak ruler, and an evil villain. Of course, we also find a hero (or, in this
case, a heroine) who rises to the challenge set before her and saves the day.
Although
the Book of Esther is quite short, as Biblical narratives go, the lectionary
has us read only excerpts. That is too
bad because it is wonderful little tale.
It takes place in Persia – right in the midst of the seat of power, right
there in the Persian Court. Esther and Mordecai (Some say he was an
uncle, others a cousin.) were what we would call Diaspora Jews. That is, they chose to remain abroad – as a
number of Jews did - after the Babylonian Exile even though they were allowed
to go home. They were perhaps two of the
first expatriates.
However,
being part of a minority (which, of course, they were) is never easy. It is always fraught with the potential for
intolerance and danger, and you can get caught in events over which you have no
control. And so it happened that Esther
and Mordecai were pulled into a situation that they could never have imagined -
by people they never dreamed they would ever encounter.
You
see, the Persian king, Xerxes, known to be pretty much a blowhard and a
drunkard, was hosting one of his multiday debacles (kind of like an extended
bachelor party) when he called for his lovely queen, Vashti. All he wanted to do was show off her beauty
to his inebriated cronies, and so he specifically directed her to wear her royal
crown - with perhaps the implication that the crown was all she was to
wear.
At
any rate, Vashti the queen defied King Xerxes by telling him in no uncertain
terms - absolutely not. She would not be displayed in such a repulsive fashion.
The king and his buddies could get their kicks somewhere else.
Xerxes,
of course, was enraged by her disobedience and so dethroned her and sent her
packing. As Methodist scholar and pastor
John C. Holbert writes, the king “is convinced by his courtiers that if news
got around that the king's wife has rebuffed a command of her husband, well,
all wives might get the idea that husband-rebuffing is just the thing. And we
don't want that, do we….”
It
is not long, however, before King Xerxes wants a replacement queen. After all, the nights are cold. His advisors suggest a beauty pageant - something like “The Bachelor” where the
most gorgeous representatives from all 127 provinces under the King’s command
come and live at the palace mansion and spend a good deal of time getting all
gussied up for their one-night stand in the fantasy suite with Xerxes.
Esther,
quite the beauty, is one of the women in this harem that the king is creating –
and he develops a hankering for her. So
much so that he marries her and makes her his queen.
Sounds like a fairy tale ending – except
that it is more like the endings on “The Bachelor”: The truth comes out in
“After the Final Rose.”
You
see, neither Xerxes nor Esther had been completely honest in this whole
process. He does not know that she is
Jewish, and she does not know that she is little more than his prisoner. You see, only when Xerxes holds out the golden
scepter for her to touch (so the story reads and I’ll let you play with that
symbolism) only then can Esther do much of anything at all.
Both
of them seem to work around their lack of knowledge about the other for a
while. Then something happens that blows
the whole relationship – and actually the whole country - apart.
Haman,
the king’s right hand man and a person who intensely disliked Jews was prancing
through the capital city one day, expecting most people – and certainly all Israelites
– to grovel in his presence. However,
Esther’s uncle (or cousin) Mordecai refused to flatten himself out in the dust
like everybody else.
Haman
was furious, and his raging anti-Semitism just boiled over. He was spitting mad when he came to King
Xerxes and, as theologian Frederick Buechner wrote,
“It was the break Haman had been waiting
for. He told Xerxes about Mordecai's insubordination and rudeness and said it
was a vivid illustration of how the Jews as a whole were a miserable lot. He
said if you let one of them in, they brought their friends, and Persia was
crawling with them.
He
said the only laws they respected were their own, and (as Buechner continues)
it was obvious they didn't give a hoot in Hell about the king or anybody else.
He then said that as far as he was concerned, the only thing to do was
exterminate the whole pack of them like rats and offered the king ten thousand
of the best for the privilege of organizing the operation. Xerxes pocketed the
cash and told him to go ahead.”
It
looked like the entire Jewish populace was doomed, and so, at this point, as a
last ditch effort, Mordecai went to Queen Esther and told her that she was the
only one who could save her people – the Jewish community – from certain
annihilation because she had an in with the king – being his wife and all.
Esther,
not surprisingly, was rather reluctant to get involved. She reminded Mordecai that King Xerxes had a
really short fuse, was unpredictable, and rather lacking when it came to anger
management. After all, she reasoned, she had her own
skin to worry about. Surely someone else
could take on this dangerous responsibility.
But
then Mordecai said something to her, words that are perhaps the most memorable
in the entire story. He first reminded
her: “Don’t think that just because you
live in the king’s house you’re the one Jew who will get out of this
alive.” Then he told her, “If you
persist in staying silent at a time like this, help and deliverance will
(perhaps) arrive for the Jews from someplace else; but who knows? Maybe you
were made queen for just such a time as this.”
If not you, Esther, then who? If
not now, then when?
Those
words must have resonated in the very depths of Esther’s soul (as they should
in ours as well) because Esther rises to the occasion with both courage and
guile, using her best gifts to save her people.
Here is what she did.
She
put on her royal robes to look her most bewitching and approached the
king. As one translation of the story
reads, “When he noticed Queen Esther standing in the court, he was pleased to
see her. The king extended the gold
scepter in his hand. Esther approached and touched the tip of the scepter. The
king asked, “And what’s your desire, Queen Esther? What do you want? Ask and it’s yours—even if it’s half
my kingdom!”
“If it please the
king,” said Esther, “let the king come with Haman to a dinner I’ve prepared for
him.”
And
so it was. And one night of festive
dining turned into two, and Haman was thrilled, convinced that not only did he
have the king wrapped around his little finger, but he had ensnared Esther as
well. His star was surely rising.
Except
his star was quickly imploding instead because that very night Esther revealed to
the king both Haman’s treachery as well as her own Jewish heritage. By the time she was through, she had
convinced the king not to kill Mordecai and, even more importantly, not to
exterminate the Jewish people. Instead, the king decided to hang Haman on the
75 foot gallows purpose-built for Mordecai. And, as a final insult to Haman, he
gave Mordecai Haman’s job.
“If
you persist in staying silent,…who knows? Maybe you were made for just such a
time as this.” If not you, then
who? If not now, then when?
The power of
one: that is what this story is about. The
fate of God’s chosen people turns on the axis of one heroic person. It has happened at other times in history, course. Think of Joshua Chamberlain at Little Round
Top in Gettysburg, for instance. Think of Columbus defying the flat earthers and
Alexander Fleming discovering penicillin in a moldy petrie dish. Think of
Martin Luther King who stood alone and made a difference.
And if you figure
those people I mentioned are somehow different from you, then remember all the
times that a single vote has changed an outcome: In 1649, one vote caused Charles I of England
to be executed. In 1776, one vote gave
America the English language instead of German. In 1868, one vote saved
President Andrew Johnson from impeachment.
The power of
one: The courage of a single individual
to make a difference. You know, ever
since the very beginning of time, God has chosen not to work through the high
and mighty throwing their weight around in grandiose military operations or
trampling the masses.
God has chosen
to work through individuals – and, most of the time, through individuals of
questionable heritage, little people: a
shepherd boy with only a slingshot to face a giant, an old man looking forward
to retirement to defy an Egyptian pharaoh and lead an embattled people to
freedom,
a bunch of illiterate fishermen to start a church, a couple
of teenagers to parent a boy who would one day change the world. The power of
one: The courage of a single individual
to make a difference.
The power of
one: not something to tuck, forgotten,
between the covers of our Bible, descriptive only of folks like David and Moses
and Peter and Mary. If God is still
speaking, as I believe God is, then what is God saying to all of us about this
power of one?
As a pastor, I
always hope that on a given Sunday here in worship, you will hear something
said or sung or prayed that will make a difference in how you choose to live
your life in the next week – or better yet, for all time. I always hope that someone will go home and
do something good that he or she might not have done otherwise. I always hope that the message you will leave
here each week is this: “If you persist
in staying silent,…who knows? Maybe you were made for just such a time as
this.” Maybe your gifts are what the
world needs now. If not you, then
who? If not now, then when?
This past week
when Pope Francis addressed our joint Congress, he said, “Let us treat others
with the same passion and compassion with which we want to be treated. Let us seek for others the same possibilities we seek for
ourselves.” “If you persist in staying silent,…who knows? Maybe you were made
for just such a time as this.” If not you, then who? If not now, then when?
Stephen
Colbert once pondered what it would mean for us to be a Christian nation. Whether we are or not is not a topic for this
sermon, but the implications for what it means for us as individuals to claim
the name of Christian certainly is.
Colbert said,
“If this is going to be a Christian Nation that doesn’t help the poor, either
we’ve got to pretend that Jesus was just as selfish as we are, or we’ve got to
acknowledge that he commanded us to love the poor and serve the needy without
condition…and then admit that we just don’t want to do it.”
That
is the challenge for each one of us as a Christian, and that is the challenge
that I as your pastor put before you every Sunday – and pray the rest of the
week that you, like Esther, will find the courage to take on this
responsibility and acknowledge the power that lies in the soul of each one of
you.
It
is the power of one: The courage of a
single individual to make a difference.
“If you persist in staying silent,…who knows? Maybe you were made for
just such a time as this.” Maybe your
gifts are what the world needs now. If
not you, then who? If not now, then
when?
by Rev. Nancy Foran, Raymond Village Community Church U.C.C., Raymond, Maine
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