For Such a Time as This
Exodus 20:13, Esther 4:12-17
A
Sermon Preached by
University
Congregational United
Sometimes the scripture asks that we just stop and listen to it.
Will you join me in prayer,
Quiet us
down, God, so you
might work your word into our souls.
Amen.
I was driving home from church
on Tuesday evening and turned on the radio.
A story came on about the sentencing of a
There is both horror at the violence in our world today - and a deep numbness to it. The violation of the 6th commandment, “do not murder” is such a part of everyday life that we don’t even notice it anymore.
It is that numbness that we sometimes feel in the face of the violence, murder and death in our world that I want to address today. For I think we all want to be something more than numb.
For numbness leads to cynicism, hopelessness, powerlessness, death in all those guises.
How instead do we choose and stand for life in a culture of death?
There is a Biblical story about how someone did just that. And in it are clues as to how we too might choose life in our culture of violence, murder and death.
The story takes us back 2500
years to the king’s palace in the capital city of
He sent for her, and she sent back one word in response, “No”. Queen Vashti knew exactly what was going on. She knew that the king had called for her not because he wanted to see her and spend time with her but because he wanted to show her off to his friends, to let everyone gawk and gaze and paw at her. She had enough self respect to say, “No, I will not come.”
The king was outraged. His advisors told him, you’ve got to DO SOMETHING for what if word of this got out and all women in the empire defied their husbands like this?! So the king dumped Vashti and decided to hold a beauty pageant to find a new queen.
In the king’s palace lived a Jewish man named Mordecai. When the Babylonian Empire had conquered Jerusalem in 587 B.C.E., Mordecai’s family had been among those taken to Babylon. 70 years later when the Persians conquered the Babylonians, he had been taken to Persia. Mordecai had a young cousin, a teenage girl named Esther. When Esther’s parents died, Mordecai adopted her. Fast forward the story one year, and this young Jewish girl, who was also gorgeous, wins the beauty contest and the king chooses her to be his queen.
Enter – the bad guy, Haman. Haman was a very important guy, the chief government official in the Persian Empire, and as VERY IMPORTANT PEOPLE can sometimes be, he was very full of himself. He commanded that everybody should bow down before him. Everybody did. Everybody that is but Mordecai. He said, “No, I will not bow down before Haman.”
Haman was outraged, he was so mad at Mordecai that he couldn’t see straight. Haman had found out that Mordecai was Jewish and he hated to waste his incredible fury on just one Jew so he looked for a way to kill not just Mordecai but all the Jews throughout the Persian Empire. He went to the king, “King”, he said, “There is an odd set of people scattered through the provinces of your kingdom who don’t fit in. Their customs and ways are different from those of everybody else. Worse, they disregard the king’s laws. You shouldn’t put up with them. If it pleases the king, let orders be given that they be destroyed. I’ll pay for it myself. I’ll deposit 375 tons of silver in the royal bank to finance the operation.” (Esther 3:8-9, from The Message Biblical paraphrase)
The king took off his ring, gave it to Haman and said, “It’s your money – do whatever you want with those people.” (Esther 3:8-11)
The order went out sealed with the king’s ring, to massacre, kill, eliminate all the Jews – young and old, women and babies on a single day, the thirteenth day of the twelfth month.
When Mordecai heard what had happened, he ripped his clothes, put on sackcloth and ashes and went into the street and wept. Esther heard what Mordecai was doing. She was stunned. She sent her servant out to find out what in the world was going on. Mordecai gave the servant the copy of the bulletin ordering the massacre. And he told the servant to tell Esther that she must go to the king and plead for the lives of her people.
Esther sent back this message: “Everyone who works for the king here, and even the people out in the provinces, knows that there is a single fate for every man or woman who approaches the king without being invited – death. The one exception is if the king extends his golden scepter, then he or she may live. And it’s been thirty days since I’ve been invited to come to the king.” (Esther 4:9-11)
Mordecai sent back this message, where the scripture for today continues,
“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. If you persist in staying
silent at a time like this, help and deliverance will arrive for the Jews from someplace
else, but you and your family will be wiped out. Who knows?
Maybe you were made queen for just such a time as this.”
Esther sent back her answer
to Mordecai: “Go and get all the Jews living in Susa
together. Fast for me. Don’t eat or drink for three days, either day
or night. I and my maids will fast with
you. If you will do this, “I’ll go to
the king, even though it’s forbidden. If
I die, I die.”
Mordecai left and carried out Esther’s instructions.
In a culture of death, Esther chose life. She did the right thing in a time of great wrong.
And she makes us wonder, in the time of violence we live in, how are we responding?
If in the story of Esther the story of the killing of Jews, the Holocaust, the Shoah begins, the story played out most recently in the Holocaust in Nazi Germany in the 1940s. During this time of horror, 5000 Europeans did an amazing thing. They stepped out of the comfort and safety of their lives and rescued Jews. Several years ago, a church educator, Doug Huneke became interested in learning what these people had in common. 5000 people out of the millions of people living in Europe at the time – this was not very many people. It made it seem pretty unlikely that if you were in trouble that anyone besides the police or fire department would stop and help. Did these people share any traits in common? Anything we could teach each other, teach our kids so that we too might do the right thing and in our own way and time, stand for life in a culture of death?
He discovered 5 simple things these people had in common. Simple things that Esther had as well. I believe if we do any one of these things, we are standing for life in a culture of death. And as these gifts deepen and grow in us, maybe we like Esther and 5000 courageous people before us, will do what is right and do our part to stand for life in a culture of death. None of these things require a new church program or budget expense. They are all about recovering basic things about what it means to be human.
First, each rescuer had a parent who taught their children moral values. Esther had her adopted father, Mordecai. The rescuers of Jews in Nazi Germany had at least one parent who made them think and ask about what they were doing and why they did it. They asked them questions at dinner, “What would you do if…?” They made them realize that we have to be conscious about the choices we make and can’t let choices decide for us.
Second, they all had a spirit of adventure. Now entering a beauty contest might not seem that adventuresome, but it is. It’s putting yourself out there. It is being willing to risk, not shying away, cowering. In a culture of fear where “security” and “safety” are the favorite words, it is no small thing to be willing to risk. Do you like adventure? Are you a risk taker? How might you step out and stand up for life today?
Third, they were all socially
marginal people. In other words, they
were different. They were odd. They marched to their own drummer. We all know people like that – some of us are
them! Esther was one of those
people. She was Jewish. She was a girl. She was a teenager. She was “a nobody”
in the
Fourth. People that are independent, think for themselves, a bit out of step with their peers are people who often really understand what it is like to be the underdog. They are good at putting themselves in the place of those who are hurting or in danger. They see their own face in the face of others. They have what is called “empathy”. Esther saw her face in the face of the people that were being ordered to be killed. And because of that, she acted.
Finally, and most importantly, rescuers are hospitable people. Dave shared in his sermon last week a definition of what hospitality is from Henri Nouwen,
Hospitality is the creation of a free and fearless space for people to be authentically themselves. A place that transforms hostility to community and offers food, comfort, warmth, friendship and strength.
If we all learned that definition of hospitality, we’d know everything we needed to know about the practice of Christianity.
In a culture of violence, murder and death, we are called by Jesus to live another way. To be people of life in a culture of death. Any ways in our culture today that we risk reaching out, being kind, being compassionate, seeing in another our face, speaking the truth, is a small and mighty act of standing for life.
You know I think we all long for ourselves and for our kids something more than just being just secure and comfortable. There are higher Christian values than those.
We want to stand for life. We don’t want to just go along with the world as long as it is inhumane and dangerous.
Perhaps, we have been given our skills, our status, our positions, our education, our wealth for just such a time as this. Perhaps we too are being called for just such a time as this to stand with Esther and say with Esther, “Yes”, I will go to the king.” I will stand with God. I will stand for life. Amen.