Proper 21 B

Proper 21 B

Transcribed from a sermon

Given on September 30, 2012

By Rev Valerie Ann Hart

At St. Barnabas Episcopal Church

Arroyo Grande, CA

Esther 7:1-6, 9-10: 9:20-22

The book of Esther is not scripture that we run into very often. In fact, in the Prayerbook Lectionary it is not included at all, so some of you could have been coming to church for years and never have heard it. But the Revised Common Lectionary includes this one passage from Esther. If you do the daily office, which is the lectionary for each day and is what is in the Day by Day, you may have been reading Esther. We just finished Esther. But many of you may never have encountered this book. 

It is not real popular for one reason, and that is that it never mentions the word God. It is the only book in the Bible that never uses the word God. They don’t even pray in this book. Now they do have a time when they fast, but there is no prayer. Yet when you read the book there is a sense of the presence of something more because it so often it says, “It just happened that.” It just happened that something good happened, and that would be the action of God. It is what we might today call synchronicity. 

So because some of you might not be familiar with Esther, and I actually love the book very much, (it is wonderful to have a whole book of scripture about a woman and named after a woman) I will tell the story. Esther is a very interesting story. It takes place in Persia during what would have been called the Diaspora. It is when the Jews were conquered by the Persians and resettled throughout the Middle East in different cities and towns. 

One thing to note about the book of Esther is that it exaggerates everything, including the size of the Persian Empire. It says that it went all the way from India to Egypt, and it never actually was that big. Exaggeration is just part of the book of Esther.

It starts with the king in his palace who is having a great banquet. It is a banquet that has gone, not just for days, but for weeks and weeks. He has been having a huge banquet, and everybody is having a good time. One evening the king’s wine is flowing greatly, and he says, “I want all of you to get a chance to see my beautiful wife, my beautiful queen.” So he tells one of his people, “Go get my queen and bring her in. Tell her to come to me.” But she says, “No.” She doesn’t come. Now one of the things about the book of Esther is that the king never decides anything on his own. He is always asking for advice. So to his group around him, his group of advisors, he says, “What do you think I ought to do?” And they respond, “Well you’ve got to do something. The queen didn’t come when the king told her to. If that gets out and the women of the empire find out, no husband is ever going to get his wife to do anything.” (You can see why I like this book.) The advice to the king is that he has to get rid of the queen. So that queen is eliminated - she is sent away. She is gone in order to make an example for the women of the empire. 

But after a while the king starts to kind of miss having a queen. Then he says, “I really want to have a queen, what should I do?” And his advisors say, “What you should do is you should have your people go all around the empire and bring all the most beautiful virgins here. We will take care of them and make them beautiful and then you can decide which one will be your queen.” He likes that idea. So they go out and they get all the most beautiful virgins and they bring them to the palace. Well one of the virgins that they bring to the palace is Esther. Esther is an unlikely hero. She is an orphan, and she is a Jewish person. She is a Jewish orphan who is being raised by her uncle Mordecai. Her uncle tells her, “Don’t tell anybody at the palace who your people are.” Clearly there was a lot of prejudice against the Jewish people, even back then. 

So they then spent two years on beauty treatments. One year of beauty treatments for their skin, another year of beauty treatments for something else. All these virgins are prepared. Now Esther is really smart, she makes friends with the chief Eunuch. The Eunuchs are the ones who take care of the potential concubines. She does everything that the chief Eunuch tells her to do. Finally, after the two years are up, each evening one of the virgins is taken in to spend the night with the king. After they spend the night with the king they go to the other part of the palace where the concubines are. When it is Esther’s turn, she pleases the king. The king likes her a lot and decides to make her the queen. So now this Jewish orphan girl is the queen of all Persia. 

Meanwhile, (the plot is more complex) Haman has become the chief counselor to the king. He is a very arrogant fool. That’s the only way to describe him. Well actually that is a nice way to describe him. If you read Esther for yourself you can figure out how you would like to describe him. But now that he is the chief counselor to the king he feels that everyone should bow down to him. He goes out of the palace, and Mordecai (remember Mordecai) Esther’s uncle is out there and he refuses to stand up and bow to Haman as he goes by. Even though everything is going great for Haman, he is the chief counselor, he is angry. He is so frustrated because Mordecai is not giving him the respect he deserves that he goes home and he asks his friends what he should do about this? He says that he can’t sleep at night because of the Mordecai. They say, “Well what you should do is you should build a gallows 50 cubits high.” Now that is huge - much taller than this church.  So he does it to get ready to use the gallows on Mordecai. 

But that is not enough, he is still irritated by Mordecai because Mordecai is not giving him the respect he is due. Since Mordecai is Jewish he decides that it is all those Jewish people that are the problem. He has to get rid of all of them. And so he goes to the king and he says, “There is this group of people that are disrespectful to you and we need to get rid of them.” Like I said the king does whatever the people around him tell him to do so he says, “Okay, do whatever you want.” So Haman goes home and throws lots to decide what day the Jews will be destroyed. The date that is chosen is almost a year later. Then he sends out under the king’s seal, all over the empire, that in every town and every city, everyone should gather together and kill every Jew and plunder whatever they own. When Mordecai hears this he is very upset, obviously, and he goes in front of the palace in sackcloth and ashes. When Esther hears about Mordecai being out there in sackcloth and ashes she sends one of the Eunuchs out to find out what is going on. Of course as queen she can’t interact with people outside the palace. The Eunuch comes back and tells her the story of what has happened and says that Mordecai said the she has to do something. And she goes back to Mordecai asking, “What can I do? There is a law here that if anyone enters the king’s presence without having been summoned they will be killed unless the king picks up the golden staff and aims it at them and acknowledges them. And the king hasn’t asked me to come to see him for over a month. If I go to him I risk my life.” And Mordecai’s answer is, “Perhaps you have been given royal dignity for just such a time as this.” For just such a time as this. 

So she has all her maids fast for three days and tells Mordecai to tell all the Jewish people to fast for three days. When the fasting time is over, she dresses herself in her most beautiful gown and she goes to the king’s presence, risking her life. A very courageous woman. She is also very smart. When she gets there the king acknowledges her and says, “What do you want Esther?” And Esther says, “I want you to come to a banquet. I am giving a banquet for you, and bring Haman with you.” Haman is thrilled. He is so excited. Now not only is he the chief counselor, but the queen has invited just him to come with the king. But then there is Mordecai out there who still doesn’t get up and acknowledge him. 

So they have the first banquet, and at the end of it the kings says, “And what is it that you want from me?” and she says “I want you and Haman to come to a banquet again tomorrow night.” So there is a second banquet. Everything is all so extreme, everything is exaggerated. But you see Esther is smart. She is getting the king feeling really good. And they come back, and after the second banquet the king asks, “Okay Esther, what is it that you want?” Well she says, “I want you to stop and give me my life because someone is going to kill me and all of my people.” “Who would do such a thing?” says the king. Esther responds, “Well this person sitting right next to you at dinner.” It is the one who has been feeling so good about himself. Of course he ends up on the gallows he made for Mordecai. 

It is great switch. It “just happened” that there were the gallows there. It “just happened” that there were the right people in the right place at the right time. So the tragedy for the Jewish people is averted. 

This book is part of Jewish scripture partly because it is read every year at the holiday called Purim. It is a holiday of feasting and giving food to one another within the Jewish tradition. Purim comes from the word Pur, which is the name for the lots that were thrown as to what day the Jewish people were to be annihilated. That is the basis for the holiday of Purim. 

But to me Esther is really important. It is that line of Mordecai’s that perhaps you are exactly where you are for just such a time as this. I think that might be true for all of us. That where we are, who we are, the experiences we’ve had in our lives, the position we are in, the people we know may not be an accident. We may be exactly where we are for just such a time as this. That God can use us where we are right now - with all our gifts and weaknesses and all our history and our pains and our hurts and our strengths. Right now, perhaps God is calling you to something that only you can do. Where you are right now in your life. And so we have to listen as Esther listened to Mordecai and listened to her heart. We need to listen to what God is calling us to do or be right now. Then we have to have the courage to respond and the wisdom to do it wisely, aware of the politics, aware of the situation, using every gift that God has given us, Because perhaps, even though we may not know it, we may be where we are and who we are for just a time as this. And being called to make a huge difference in the world.