Focus: God delivers from evil.
This is the hardest conversation of Esther’s life. At the urging of her adopted father Mordecai, Esther goes to a banquet with her husband the king. Her goal is simple: nothing less than pleading for the life of herself and her people against the wicked scheme of the king’s right-hand man Haman. She needs her husband to reconsider his consent to Haman’s plot to wipe out all the Jews in Persia. This is a difficult matter for a guy with a huge ego to change his mind. Moreover, we are told that in Persia, according to an ancient tradition, the king was NOT ALLOWED to change his mind once the law went forth. And we think Congress is dysfunctional! And all the while that this conversation is going on, who is at the king’s right hand looking over his shoulder: Haman, the one who came up with this plot, the one who has prepared gallows to put to death Esther’s adopted father Mordecai.
To say the least, this is a fraught conversation. All of us have had those conversations where we’d rather be anywhere else at the moment, but we know we have to stick it out. The wrong words, the pause at the wrong moment, the wrong tone, the wrong glance, the wrong timing could be lethally disastrous for Esther and for all the Jewish people. If Esther is going to get this right, every syllable counts.
Of course, Esther comes through. Gloriously so. She waits a whole day until King Ahasuerus is “merry with wine”—seems to be a habit with this guy, eh? And once she gets him in a good mood, he himself says: “Ask me for anything—even up to half my kingdom—and it shall be granted!” And Esther slowly, deliberately, humbly walks him right into the situation. She explains that her people have been sold to be killed! And then she lays on the flattery just how the king likes it: thick. She says, had they just been sold as slaves, she would have remained silent—but really, she is only speaking up because of the damage this will do to his majesty the king: the loss of his reputation, quite possibly even the loss of his wife Esther! And with dramatic suspense, she doesn’t say whose fault it is until the king asks, “Who is he and where is he who has presumed to do this!?” “HOW DARE HE?!”
And only then, only when the timing is just so, does Esther blurt out, “A foe and enemy, the wicked Haman!” The rest of the story works out with satisfying, even humorous justice. The king storms out in a rage. Haman lies down on a couch, trying to plead with Esther. Unfortunately for Haman, at exactly that moment, the king walks in and thinks Haman is trying to have his way with his wife in his own house—a much bigger offense it seems to our pompous blowhard king than merely attempted genocide!—and it’s at this that the king will not allow anymore. A eunuch serving the king looks out the window, and what’s the first thing he sees? The gallows Haman had put up to hang Mordecai on. And so the story ends with complete poetic justice: the Jewish people rescued at the last minute, Haman hanging from the gallows he had meant for Mordecai—hoisted on his own petard we might say—and, since we are in the book of Esther, much feasting—more on that in a minute!
Returning to our game of detective the last few weeks, where is God in this story? Well, we might imagine that our heroes Mordecai, Esther, the Jewish people lamented, mourned, prayed to God. We might look at the timing of certain events—the conversation at the feast, the king’s words, the king walking through the door while Haman prostrates himself on the couch next to Esther, even the eunuch looking through the window and seeing the gallows. Are they luck, coincidence, or something more? We could debate all day.
But one thing that is beyond debate is this: We can see God in Esther. Remember Mordecai’s words last week: “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 (Est 4:14).” Notice that Mordecai never comes right out and says: “God has made you queen for exactly this moment.” The truth is we never know whether we are put in a particular situation by luck, by chance, or by something more. Only God knows that. But we choose how we use the situation given to us: to be obedient to God or to our own wishes, to takes risks for others or to look after #1, to save others’ lives or to look after our own critter comforts.
Esther chooses to act bravely. She chooses to act with love and compassion on behalf of others. She has an opportunity to do good, and she chooses not to shrink from it.
There’s an old story perhaps you’ve heard before of a person looking at the latest human tragedy and saying to God, “Why don’t you do something about this?” And God responds to the person and says: “Funny, I was about to ask you the same question.”
Esther is a model of this. And in that way she can be a model for all of us, too. Of love in action. Of allowing God to use her life to answer the prayer of her people. There’s nothing about Esther that was loudly more pious or holy than anyone else; again the word “God” hardly comes up in this story. In Esther’s everyday life, she lived out her everyday faith even in the most extraordinary circumstances. But God as love, God as action, God as living in trust and being trustworthy colors every scene of the book. Esther is a saint for the rest of us.
And that is why to this day, Esther is still celebrated, through telling the story and of course through feasting on the Jewish holiday of Purim. But the feasting is a little different than the bacchanalia of Ahasuerus; notice the directions Mordecai gives? “That they should make them days of feasting and gladness, days for sending gifts of food to one another and presents to the poor.” What a legacy! Where is God in this story? That in Esther’s name, to this day, faithful Jews still send food and presents to the poor. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if this winter instead of talking loudly and piously about KEEPING CHRIST IN CHRISTMAS, we kept our feasts the same way Esther and her friends did: remembering one another and most of all the poor. And inviting others to an exciting game of detective that they might find God in our lives and our stories. Amen.