Esther 7:1-10; Mark 9:38-50
…And the Life of My People”
Today’s lesson comes from a book of the Bible bearing the name of a woman, Esther. It is unique, not because it has a women’s name, but because its text never mentions the name of God or says anything at all about religion. It is a fascinating book with a rich and complex story, telling of the Jewish people’s deliverance a long time ago from death at the hands of Haman, the wicked assistant to the Persian king, Ahasuerus. Each year this story is remembered when the Jewish people celebrate Purim, a holiday of feasting, sharing gifts, and time for remembering the poor (February/March).
The book of Esther has everything good movies are made of: irony and intrigue, an ever-thickening plot, clever wits and evil villains, royal splendor and a weak ruler, and, of course, a heroine who rises to the challenge and saves the day. It is a story of survival in the face of overwhelming power and circumstances not of her making.
In chapter one, the king divorces his first wife Vashti for standing up to him. He has a beauty contest to replace her, and Esther wins. Esther is timid and submissive at first, but as the story progresses she becomes a subtle manipulator of the king and in the end, with prodding from her uncle Mordecai, she uses her favor with him as queen to save her people, who are about to be sent away to their death. Because of her courage, she saves Mordecai from the gallows and her people from annihilation.
Esther did something she didn’t have to do. It would have been easier for her not to say anything at all, to go on living the life of a queen – which had to be pretty good – but she didn’t. Esther put everything on the line when she included herself as part of her community and asked “for the life of her people.” So, 1) What did Esther mean when she said, "If I perish, I perish?" 2) How can we live in this world and at the same time “be of the Kingdom” Jesus talks about? and 3) What courage does ‘our’ community – the people of which we are a part – require of us?
Remember earlier when it was noted that the book of Esther, in the original Hebrew text, does not mention God or prayer, or anything at all about what religious people do, or don’t do for that matter. And yet, because it is a book of the Bible, we know God has to be there somewhere, even when it may not be obvious at first glance, but where? After all, throughout the stories of the Bible (which are the stories of Israel, the people of God) God provides and protects? With that in mind, UCC Pastor Kate Huey suggests “Providence runs through this story as a thread of evidence pointing to God's presence with God's people. Esther is a religious work, even though no reference to God is ever made. “It is like.” she says, “God is there standing in the wings, following the drama and arranging the props for a successful resolution of the play… provided its players do their part by acting wisely and courageously."
In other words, God works through human beings. And as the book of Esther points out, those human beings can just as well be flawed and “living in the world” of which they are a part. You see, God’s work is accomplished more often than not through the actions of imperfect but courageous human beings who were probably never sure they were doing the right thing. Ted Kennedy, in the eulogy for his brother Robert, said "he saw wrong and tried to right it." What better testimony to a person’s life, regardless of political party, than that? But it isn't always easy to know how to go about righting wrongs, and we're not always confident that we're the ones called to do so in a particular situation, or we're unsure about how to do it. Uncle Mordecai’s urging of Esther to step out of her comfort zone and to consider that she was made queen specifically for this moment when she could save her people rings true for all of us.
"It is possible," Sidnie White Crawford writes, "that Esther became queen just to fulfill God's purpose, but humans cannot know that. They must act, with profound hope that they are thereby participating in the divine scheme and all they can do is act, in the hope that their action corresponds to the plan and purpose of God." Esther listened to her uncle. She turned herself over to Providence saying, "If I perish, I perish." Her hope is for her community – her people – and in what God will do.
How can we live in this world and at the same time “be of the Kingdom” Jesus talks about? In Esther, there is no mention of religious practices or the institution of Judaism. Perhaps it was omitted so we might understand how much the Jewish community had been assimilated into the Persian empire around them. If it happened then, wouldn't it be just as easy today, for the same thing to happen? Living under the pressures and conditions of “this world,” where so many people are completely wrapped up in today’s culture and its values, might it be just as easy for God’s people today to not realize who they are and the life they are in danger of losing? Sure it would.
Our being of the kingdom Jesus talks about doesn’t require our living apart, in isolation, from “this world.” It does, however, require our taking a stand - our sticking our necks out - and owning the community of which we are a part, even to the point of putting the community, which may have lost its identity, first. It is “in this world” we best remember who we are.
And yet who we are is not revealed in the things that shape the rhythms of our life - our sporting events, our music, our politics or our patriotism, but in those places we feel most at home. Kenneth Carter, Jr. asks an unsettling question when he says, “Is it possible that our reaction to his words, our discomfort, reflects our own degree of assimilation and how much we have forgotten that we follow a Teacher who taught us to love our enemies, turn the other cheek, and lay down our lives? A Teacher who observed how difficult it is for a rich person to enter heaven, and encouraged the earnestly religious to "sell everything and give it to the poor"? He concluded, “We've somehow managed to make ourselves feel quite at home with very different values, even as we claim to follow Jesus.” Jesus said, “The kingdom is near.” God is close, even in “this world.”
While we may seem very far away in place and time and, to an extent, in circumstance, we share the ancient Jewish need to be a faithful people in the midst of all the values and pressures unrelated to who we are. How then can we, like those ancient Jews, live where we live, not withdrawing into a separate culture, and yet remain distinctly true to who we are and what we say we believe, true to the One to whom we belong?
An unnamed God can still be known
H. James Hopkins, observes that "we are drawn to Esther's story and to the hope that though God is not named, God can still be known." In the stories and places and experiences that are not explicitly religious, the Still-speaking God finds ways to reach us, and to show us that God can be known, and heard, and trusted with our lives and the lives of those we love. Like Esther, we are called to step out in faith, courageously, on behalf of our community, and to say with her, in those supplementary verses, where she does indeed pray: "Save me from my fear"
Living in a more or less secular culture, where questions of faith are often seen as marginal or irrelevant, we might learn from the story of Esther that a person’s tangible faith does matter. It does have consequence. And it does say something about our ‘saltiness’ within the community we live. (Mark 9:50) It has a profound effect on my life and “the life of my people.”
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