First Church of Christ, UCC, Woodbridge, CT
September 30, 2012
A couple had two little
boys who were always getting into trouble. Their parents knew that if any
mischief occurred in their village, their sons were probably involved. The boys' mother heard that an elder in town
had been successful in disciplining children, so she asked if he would speak
with her sons. The elder agreed, but asked to see them separately.
So, in the morning, the
mother sent her youngest son first. The elder, a huge man with a booming voice,
sat the boy down in front of him and asked him sternly, “Where is God?” The boy's mouth dropped open, but he made no response.
So the elder leaned
forward and repeated the question in an even harsher tone, “Where is God?!!” Again the wide-eyed boy made no attempt to
answer. The elder stood to his full
height, raised his voice and bellowed, “WHERE IS GOD?!” The boy screamed and bolted from the room, ran
directly home and dove into a closet, slamming the door behind him.
When his older brother
found him hiding, he asked, “What happened?”
Gasping for breath, the younger brother replied, “We are in BIG trouble
this time. God is missing, and they think WE did it!”
I like to use this
story for two reasons: one, it’s funny,
and funny is good, especially in times like these, when there is tension before
a congregational meeting. And more
importantly, so we can think about where is God with a lighter heart so that we
might actually find God. Or be found by
God.
There are times on our
journey of faith when we are always on the lookout for God, wondering when God
will show up and in what way. It seems
that when we need God the most we do not get to see God coming but only recognize
the Holy One after the fact. We see the
wake in the water, the clouds moving off in the distance, the sun coming out
after rain, and like a point on the map of our lives, we say, “There! God was there!”
The Book of Esther is a
rarity in that not only is it named after its main character, a woman, but it
is the only book in the Bible where God is not mentioned. Not only that, but there is also no real mention
of the Laws of Moses nor of their practices.
There is only scant notice of it in Haman’s description of the Jews to
the King when he says that they don’t fit in, that “their customs and ways are
different from those of everybody else.” [1]
This morning’s reading
from the lectionary comes toward the end of the book of Esther. But it’s important to know her whole story to
make any sense of it. It all begins with
a queen who won’t do the king’s bidding.
In the middle of a huge party Queen Vashti is summoned by the king just
so he can show off her beauty to his drunken guests and officials. Like any self-respecting queen she
refuses. He consults with his advisors
and counselors about to handle ‘the situation’, and they tell him that the
queen has not only insulted the king but all leaders in the provinces. Imagine if word got out and women started
treating their husbands this way! So in
his anger, the king has Vashti deposed and he has a nationwide beauty pageant
to find a new queen.
Enter Esther and
Mordecai, her uncle, who are among the thousands of exiled Jews living in
Persia. Mordecai tells Esther that she
should enter the contest but tell no one of her Jewish heritage. And of course Esther pleases the king; he
falls in love with her and makes her queen.
Yet unlike a fairy tale, the story isn’t over yet.
Mordecai overhears two
guards plotting to overthrow the king.
He tells Queen Esther who, when she tells the King, gives credit to
Mordecai. The event is then entered into
the king’s logbook. Sometime later the
king promotes a man named Haman, making him the highest-ranking official in the
government. Whenever Haman passed by the
King’s Gate, all the king’s servants would bow down and kneel before
Haman. That’s what being promoted is all
about, after all. But Mordecai wouldn’t
kneel before Haman, presumably because he is an observant Jew who bows before
no one but God. Haman predictably becomes
outraged.
Not long after that,
the king is reading his logbook and comes across the entry that makes note of
Mordecai saving the king. The king asks
Haman how the king should honor a man of great importance. Haman thinks the king is talking about him,
so Haman suggests that this person be dressed in elegant robes and led through
the streets on the king’s horse, with a servant proclaiming this is how the
king rewards great deeds. The king says,
“Fine. Go ahead and do this for
Mordecai.” Haman then must lead Mordecai,
dressed in elegant robes, riding on the king’s horse through the streets of the
city, proclaiming the king’s reward. When
Haman finds out that Mordecai is a Jew, Haman sets about to find a way to get
rid of not only Mordecai but all Jews in Persia. Haman begins his evil plot by having gallows
built seventy-five feet high upon which to hang his perceived enemy, Mordecai.
Haman then informs the
king about these strangers who live in his kingdom, these people who just don’t
fit in. He gives the king 375 tons of
silver, saying that he will pay for the destruction of these people. The king gives Haman his signet ring and
tells him he can do whatever he wants with his money.
When Mordecai hears of
the news of his people’s imminent destruction, he pleads with Esther to go to
the king and tell him of this murderous plot.
But no one can go to the king without an invitation; to do so would be
fatal. Esther is risking not only her pretty
face like Vashti before her; she is putting her life on the line for her
people. Mordecai tells her that perhaps
she was made queen for such a time as this.
As love would have it,
King Ahasuerus is enamored with his new queen and would give anything for her,
even half his kingdom. Esther desires
that Haman and the king dine with her, not once but twice. As we hear in this morning’s lesson, after
the second dinner, Haman’s true colors are revealed to the king, he is hung on
his own gallows, and Esther effectively saves her people.
God’s name and presence
are strangely absent in a story where God’s people are far from home and in the
clutches of apparent disaster. Yet even
though this story ends with violence and bloodshed and the survival of God’s
people, even so we witness an awkward grace displayed in the very human
characters of Queen Esther, Mordecai, King Ahasuerus, and the deposed Queen
Vashti.
In this world where God
can sometimes seem as though God’s presence is strangely absent, I wrote a poem
about God’s presence and awkward grace in two other queenly figures. One is a snowy white egret that I saw at a
lake near my home:
As
the egret stretched out
her
neck, throat of
a
bendy straw pulled
to
its full extension,
I
realized her kinship
to
the giraffe.
Same
disproportionate
neck,
body, whose legs
fold
like an elbow.
Queen Esther too
stretched out her neck, and though some might call her timid, she worked within
the system to save her people. The other
queenly figure is a young woman I saw in a crosswalk in Ridgefield:
Then
there was
another
strange bird,
a
young woman
who
passed twenty feet
in
front of my car,
her
awkward grace I thought
had
to do with a tattoo
beside
her knee,
or
was it a decorative pair of hose,
slight
limp of her left leg
stretching
out from underneath
a
brief sundress on a golden September day.
No,
it was a prosthesis,
best
of its kind,
reaching
all the way to her hip,
gamely
walking in the matching sandal
gripping
her other foot
in
a soft embrace.
Though
Queen Esther might not have been used to wearing royal robes and living like a
queen, she was regal from the inside out, like this woman and her courageous
sundress and sandals, with her prosthetic leg.
God
is always a character in the narrative of life, even if not always visible or
apparent. God is seen in the actions of
others, in their quiet bravery, in knowing who they are, or in a bird whose
body makes no logical sense but speaks volumes of what embodies true beauty and
grace.
One
reason that the author of Esther may not have had God as a character in the
story is that the people of God were living in exile, away from the temple in
Jerusalem, away from home and all that was familiar. They were strangers in a strange land. It was all too appropriate then for the
characters themselves to rise up in God’s place and act as God would have
acted. Queen Vashti in her stubborn
refusal to be anything other than a royal queen; Mordecai in his steadfast
loyalty to Esther and to himself and his people as a Jew; King Ahasuerus, when
we hear him say that he will give anything Esther asks, even half of his
kingdom; and Queen Esther herself, who gathers her courage about her like a
royal robe, remembering that her uncle believes in her and that she is more
than just one person—she is one of her people.
When
this story is told in Jewish communities during the feast of Purim, it is done
with sound effects: “Aaah!” for Queen
Esther; “Way to go!” and applause for Mordecai.
And “Boo!” for Haman. In truth
this really is a fairy tale, because in real life neither the bad guys nor the
good guys are so easily seen and identified.
We all have a mixture of darkness and light in us and in our motives and
intentions.
We’d like to think we
could be Esther, the king, Vashti or Mordecai, but we also have it within us to
be like Haman, to be our own worst enemy.
We can all scheme toward our own desires, our own fears, even though it
can appear we are serving others. Do we not find it easier to trust that people
will behave badly rather than according to their better nature, especially when
we are anxious? And yet love demands
that we lose every battle; love insists that we remain close enough to be hurt;
love offers no control over others or how events play out.
In
times of tension and anxiety, fear and change, it can seem as though God has
left the building, that God is not as easily perceived and seen and heard when
the future appears to be uncertain, the present is rocky and tumultuous, the
past a longed-for and cherished memory.
But that is precisely the time when we are called to rise up and we become
supporting characters not only in our story, but in God’s story as God works
through us. You, the congregation, are
the supporting characters in the story of the First Church of Christ, United
Church of Christ, God’s story enfleshed in the Body of Christ here and now. Perhaps you
have come to royal dignity for just such a time as this.
Indeed,
this is a time when you may feel like you are being asked to stretch out your
necks, to walk with each other with a vulnerable, awkward grace. You may not trust yourself or others around
you. You may not even trust that God is here,
working through you and everyone else. But
that is also when God is most alive in us, most visible: when God reduces us to our essence, strips us
of all pretense and false pride, and clothes each one of us and all of us
together in royal robes of courage, quiet strength, and a love that never ends. Amen.
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