Call to Worship for series on Esther, Becoming Brave:
The God of the universe calls us
For such a time as this
To be brave
Even when we are afraid
To believe
Even when we cannot see
To pray
Even when all hope feels lost
We will live for God
For such a time as this. Amen.
Sermon:
Is Esther a story for us?
Many faithful Christians haven’t thought so. Neither Luther nor Calvin published commentaries on Esther. And Luther didn’t keep his negative views about Esther to himself: “I am so great an enemy to the second book of the Maccabees, and to Esther, that I wish they had not come to us at all, for they have too many heathen unnaturalities.” What can we do with such a book that speaks of pagan parties and violence? What are we to make of a book that never mentions God at all? Is Esther a story for us?
Jewish commentators have long noted that the first Hebrew word of Esther (wayyehi) as a distressing word, a word of trauma. Often translated as “Now it came to pass” it was a word which named an incoming threat. Other translations capture this by translating “There was woe . . .” And the woe was real for the story was about the very real threat of Jewish extermination. Is Esther a story for us?
And perhaps in this “paganism” and woe,” we might recognize the similarities between Esther’s world and ours. We might recognize Xerxes in the impulsive, egocentric tyrants ruling empires today. We might encounter vile Hamans who are bent on destroying whole groups of people. The global #Metoo and #Churchtoo movements show the pain, raised in Esther, of misogyny, sexual assault, the objectification of women, and sex trafficking. We feel it in the story’s depiction of political hatreds and the felt-need for violent vengeance against those who are racially and religiously different. We might recognize in ourselves the human capacity for evil, vengeance, and violence. And like the Jews in the story, we often experience our world as a place where God is hidden and silent – a God whose providence is often seemingly, achingly absent. And yet . . . is he? Can justice still prevail? Will goodness still conquer? Does God still have a part to play? Can Esther be a story for us? To begin with, Esther woefully reminds us . . .
Be wary of foolish kings
The first chapter of Esther invites us into the grandiose world of the powerful and inept King Xerxes. This world – when seen through the lens of other ancient historians, Biblical texts and archaeological findings, all substantiate Xerxes as a powerful and foolish king.
A few quick remarks:
The excesses of Xerxes banquets are not exaggerations but reflect royal extravagance and overindulgence. A number of ancient Greek historians discuss the pretentious feasting and drinking of Persian parties where “no one is able to stand straight enough to walk out.” In fact, Persian royalty were known for often making important decisions while drunk, and thus had written protocols which mandated re-evaluating any decisions the next day (which Xerxes doesn’t do). Proverbs 31:4-5 speaks to Xerxes’ character well. The king is advised to drink neither wine nor beer “lest they drink and forget what has been decreed, and deprive all the oppressed of their rights.” (c.f. Daniel 5:2.) Wine, the audience knows, has transformed Xerxes from a king to a clown.
Much of the wealth Xerxes loved to flaunt was acquired at the expense of conquered peoples. When such partying, wealth, and power is contextualized within the moral universe of the Hebrew Bible, it aims to reveal the poor character of a man who holds the world’s most powerful office (Prov. 11:28; Ps. 52:7)
We see this use and abuse of wealth and oppression, even in the mention of multiple eunuchs (vs. 10). Often these started as young boys who were traded, bartered, and sold, as costly slaves. Such abuse was forbidden by Old Testament and once more points to Xerxes negative traits.
Do you get the point? The author is wanting us to inhabit the world of a powerful and petty king. We are invited into the courtyard where white and blue linens hang, where gold and silver couches adorn a stunning mosaic floor crowded with drunken people with golden cups. We are to imagine debauchery as the king’s law, enshrined in vs. 8 “No restrictions! No constraint!” We are to be shocked by such opulence, license and poor law-making. We are to say to ourselves, “O how very, very foolish and dangerous!” This drunken, immoral, clown-king is the guy who calls for his wife. Should she go? Unfortunately, many Christian interpreters have thought so. In fact, it really wasn’t until the 19th century that Christians spoke positively of Vashti at all. With that “woe” in mind, let’s . . .
Celebrate courageous women!
Ancient historians reveal that royal woman understood that such drunken parties described in ch. 1 were dangerous events. This is why the queen holds her own banquet for the women in her quarters (vs. 9). The Greek historian Plutarch (ca. AD 46-120) claimed that “the lawful wives of the Persian kings sit beside them at dinner” until the drinking gets out of hand and the “music-girls and concubines” are called in. So it was more than mere polite, gender segregation. Vashti aimed to keep the women safe.
Vashti is the example of a courageous queen, a queen who refuses to allow her honor, her dignity, her worth, to be tarnished by men who wish to claim authority over her, who simply want to look at her, ogle her, see her as entertainment. There is a rabbinic tradition that reads vs. 11 quite literally imagining the Xerxes was demanding that the Queen appear wearing ONLY her crown.
Her action, however, put her in a very dangerous position in the honor/shame culture of the Persian empire. Her refusal to obey Xerxes’ command was an act of shaming that triggered a royal decree intended to shore up the patriarchal order. According to Herodotus, “the greatest of all taunts in Persia [was] to be called worse than a woman.” Vashti might initially have been simply advocating for herself but now she is seen as advocating for all women and the men don’t like it.
Take a look at our image. It invoked quite a discussion. What emotions does it stir? We intended it to reflect Esther as a brave and powerful woman. Why do so many of us imagine that she’s scary? (discussion)
Would you be surprised to learn that one of the earliest, positive Christian assessments of Vashti came from a the nineteenth century African-American poet - Frances Harper? Before most Christian commentators, she accurately grasped Vashti’s dilemma and her amazing courage:
"Go, tell the King," she proudly said,
"That I am Persia's Queen,
And by his crowds of merry men
I never will be
seen.
"I'll take the crown from off my
head
And tread it 'neath my
feet,
Before their rude and careless gaze
My shrinking eyes shall meet.
"A queen unveil'd before the crowd!
--
Upon each lip my name! --
Why, Persia's women all would blush
And weep for Vashti's shame!
"Go back!" she cried, and waved her hand,
And grief was in her
eye:
"Go, tell the King," she sadly said,
"That I would rather
die."
Similarly, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, a leader of the U.S. Suffrage movement, suggested that Vashti modeled the early American slogan, “Resistance to tyrants is obedience to God.” It’s worth asking, “What are we to learn from this? What does God want for male/female relationships?”
Christian interpreters beginning in the nineteenth century see within chapter one a Vashti who is brave woman facing down a foolish king and thus an antidote to misogyny and those who would seek to use male power as a means of denigrating woman.
The verb for “rule” is used twice in the Bible in reference to husbands and wives. 1) The first is Genesis 3:16 which states that one of the consequences of sin was that the husband would (not “should”) rule his wife. 2) The second is found in Esther 1:20-22 in which Xerxes decreed that husbands should rule their households. I’m pretty sure that Christians should not take their moral cues for living from the consequences of sin or from decrees by foolish kings. Is Esther a story for us? Finally, is . . .
A hidden God for us?
We need eyes to see and ears to hear, if we’re going to find God in Esther. In this, perhaps Esther is more of a book for us than we initially might realize. It’s a book for all of who’ve cried amidst the terrible struggles of life, “God, where are you?” It demands both honesty and creativity and way of seeing our story with God perhaps in the cracks of crevices of our lives. And ways of reminding ourselves of God’s presence even when we can’t see. Because even when we can’t we can at least still know.
Jewish tradition inserted God into the scroll of Esther in two ways: 1) Scribes would manipulate the placing of words in the text so that each column begins with hamelek, the word for “king” (very common in the story), emphasizing God, the heavenly king’s presence. 2) Other manuscripts take the initial or final letters of words (1:20, 5:4, 5:13 and 7:7) and write them large to reveal the name YHWH as an acrostic. 3) Finally, in perhaps the most famous vs. in all of Esther, 4:14, the OT scholar David Cline, notes that “who knows” is a phrase used elsewhere in the OT to exalt an unrelenting and active God. So “who knows” was Hebraic code for the active, hidden God. One seventeenth-century Christian said:
What power is, is from Divine directions;
Which oft (unseen through dullnesse of the minde)
We nick-name, Chance, because our selves are blind (Francis Quarles, 1621).
Friends, be "who knows" for someone this week. Be who knows for one who is hurting. Be who knows for someone with questions. Be who knows for those who need an advocate, or a friend. Be like Vashti and be brave enough to say "no" to those powerful forces which seek to rob us of our dignity, our meaning, our inherent worth.
Is Esther a story for us? God knows.
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