Welcome to the CommonsCast. We're glad to have you here. We hope you find something meaningful in our teaching this week. Head to commons.church for more information.

Welcome here to the livestream. If we haven't met, hello. I'm Bobby. And let me say happy Easter. It is Easter, the second Sunday of the Easter season in which there are seven Easter Sundays.

And all Easter season, we are giving away copies of the newly printed prayer book from a season like no other. Just swing on by the church during the workday and ring the bell for your copy and if you come by after business hours you'll find copies in the black mailbox. We can't wait for you to have one for free. The book is beautiful and we believe it will be benefit to your spirituality for many many years to come. Did I say it's beautiful?

Because it's so beautiful and it is for you. Last month Jonathan and I got out of town for a few days and it felt weird because we really haven't gone anywhere for, a year. And that is strange for us. We are dual income, no kids, so traveling features high in our marriage. And we interrupted that no travel streak with a short Wednesday to Friday trip to Jasper.

And hilariously, in the planning, I thought Lake Louise was Jasper. So when Jonathan said, are you ready for the five hour drive? I was like, oh, not Lake Louise. I could tell you after adventure story about our time away. No, wait.

Actually, I can't because all we did was nap and eat and read. And here's the thing about this trip that surprised me. I spent a bunch of money. Being that we didn't buy flights and weren't gone for two weeks and didn't cross an ocean I was probably a little less careful about making my funds go the distance. So when I got home and I added up what I spent we ate our way through my bank account and maybe that's a bit of an exaggeration but still all that eating and drinking it adds up.

And I don't exactly regret it but it felt opulent. Our setting majestic, our meals were marvelous, our hotel room was not too shabby. But maybe more than anything this little story of my feigned opulence tells you a couple of things about me. My over spending money and my wanting sense of geography. And I tell you the story to actually bring you into our new series, My Queen.

The Old Testament book of Esther transports us to the ancient Persian Empire where opulence is everywhere. And in this story opulence of both possessions and power exists to tell you about the characters, their hang ups, their desires. And let me prepare you for this series. The story of Esther might live in your mind as this endearing tale of victory over enemies by Esther and her sweet uncle Mordecai. But the story in Esther is titillating.

It's elaborate. It's full of exaggeration. And even on a first pass Esther can feel kind of offensive and you are welcomed to it all. If you love an outline and take notes in your journal these are your four points: one. Persian opulence two.

Plot queen three: out of place stories and four: powerful center. Before we dive in let's pray. Loving God, we take a moment to be still, to sense our breath in and out. And the Persian poet Rumi says the light inside the heart's light is the light of God. Can we sense you this close?

Can we trust that at the center of all our good and strangely maybe even our bad we find you. For those in need of light today remind them of their source and for those who carry the burden of a loved one remind them Jesus' resurrection light is near and suffering. Spirit of the living God, present with us now. Enter the places of shadow and pain and heal us of all that harms us. Amen.

Chapter one. This is what happened during the time of Xerxes. The Xerxes who ruled over a 127 provinces stretching from India to Kush which is now North Sudan. At that time King Xerxes reigned over from his royal throne in the citadel of Susa and in the third year of his reign he gave a banquet for all his nobles and officials. The military leaders of Persia and Medea, the princes and the nobles of the provinces were present.

For a full one hundred and eighty days, he displayed the vast wealth of his kingdom and the splendor and glory of his majesty. Imagine with me. You are walking into a Jewish synagogue. It's mid March. Instead of wearing your favorite clothes to Shabbat you're wearing a wacky costume like the wackier the better.

It's the Jewish holiday of Purim and you can't wait to get your hands on some tasty Hamentaschen. Every Purim Jewish communities gather to celebrate. This year many gathered as we do on YouTube and Zoom and they read the entire story of Esther out loud from the Ketuvim or the writings. There's cheering for the heroes and there's booing for the bad guy who's feasting and singing. The Hebrew scholar Robert Alter says the most unusual aspect of Esther for a book that made it into the biblical canon is that offers strong evidence of having been written primarily for entertainment.

Of course, like some of our best entertainment, Esther carries wisdom about good and evil, resilience and oppression, bodies and their vulnerability. But don't go thinking you're about to get a textbook lesson. Esther has been described as a novel, comedy, farce, fable, and my personal fave, burlesque, meaning carnival or sex comedy. More Judd Apatow's 40 year old virgin or Seth Rogen's blockers than your favorite historical docuseries on Netflix. In the first words, this is what happened can even be translated as once upon a time.

And one of the central motifs in Esther is that of the feast or in Hebrew Mishta. Mishta occurs 20 times in Esther and 26 in the rest of the Old Testament. So like I said this is a rager. And the writer of Esther points out that everyone who's anyone is there. In the gardens they are draped with linen fastened with silver rings onto marble pillars and under our feet are mosaics and mother of pearl everywhere gold goblets overflow with wine.

Now the writer of Esther taps into the history his readers know. There was a time when a Persian king, also known as Xerxes, suffered a crushing defeat against Greece. And Xerxes fought for four years and depleted his royal wealth in that war. But rather than introduce the king as that guy who lost to Greece at Hellespont, the writer introduces Xerxes at the height of his wealth. Wealth meant to say, I am unstoppable.

And of course, the readers know, yeah, he is. And for that, they're in on a joke about a guy who's at the top of his game but then comes crashing down. And Karen Jobes calls this narrative maneuver unstated reversal and it sets up the stage for many reversals to come. But before the whiplash reversals let's get clear about something. There isn't a detail lavish or imagined offensive or strange energetic or completely zapped that can't be woven into the story of God in your life.

There's truth in every detail lessons about our inner connectivity our needs our dreams. I worked at an affluent church for a long time, or a long time ago, not all that long. And the leaders loved to say that the church did so well because God had just like so blessed them. And also the church hurt a lot of people so what is opulence or that kind of affluence a sign of? You can be sure it's not just one thing but if you're lucky someone will come along and point out what's true in a scene adorned with glitz and gold distraction and power.

Someone like Vashti our plot queen. Verses nine to 12. Queen Vashti also gave a banquet for the women in the royal palace of King Xerxes. On the seventh day when King Xerxes was in high spirits from wine he commanded the seven eunuchs who served him Mehuman, Biztha, Harbona, Bigtha, Abagtha, Zither and Carcass to bring before him queen Vashti wearing her royal crown in order to display her beauty to the people and nobles for she was lovely to look at. But when the attendants delivered the king's command, queen Vashti refused to come.

Then the king became furious and burned with anger. Okay let's uncover a layer. In a collection of ancient writings gathered by the philosopher Plutarch we find this description of the behavior of brides and grooms in Persia. The lawful wives of the Persian kings sit beside them at dinner and eat with them but when the kings wish to be merry and get drunk they send their wives out and send for their dancing girls and concubines. The quote goes on, They are right in what they do because they do not concede any share in their licentiousness and debauchery to their wedded wives.

Did you catch the difference between the texts? Rather than have Queen Vashti present and then send her away when the king wants to really party Vashti is at her own event and the king then sends for her as if she's one of his dancing girls or concubines and our Vashti is not that kind of woman. Vashti is queen. And as if that summons isn't grabby enough we get salacious details about the king and his entourage. And the translation of the king's state of mind is that he is merry with wine.

And the Hebrew does something interesting here. We are told that the king is feeling tov meaning good or pleasing and the queen is tovat meaning her appearance is good or pleasing to look at. Vashti is an object of exhibition and the rabbis spin further. In the Midrash they presume that Xerxes orders Queen Vashti to appear at his party wearing a crown and nothing else. And when Vashti gets this order she refuses.

She says no. So start your engines folks. This plot has roared to life. And the truth is we don't know what motivates Queen Vashti's refusal. We're not taken into her inner world.

Up until this moment the king gets everything he wants. Land for miles and miles, power over militaries, drink that does not quit, parties for endless days, attendants who agree to every imperial impulse. He's got it all. And then all of a sudden into the story the king hears no. It's like you can hear that one word echo down marble marble hallways and across the evening's courtyard and into the ear of the king making him burn with anger and violence.

There's something that haunts me in this exchange. I keep thinking about how lonely Vashti's no is. She resists the king's demands alone and something in that lonely resistance grieves me. Like, I wanna jump into the pages of this story and add my no to Vashti's. While we're at it, I wanna show up on the street in Calgary every time a person is harassed and add my no.

I wanna go back to the night of March 3 in South London and add my no to Sarah Everard's no. If I could have one superpower, it would be to amplify every lonely and desperate no. Then I get that I don't really get superpowers because amplifying one word is definitely not a great superpower, but maybe it should be. One of the best themes in Esther is the power of no. But even in its holy refusal, Esther is out of place in the Bible.

Now here's what I want you to be mindful of as we make our way through Esther. The book of Esther refuses to fit neatly into your Bible and I would argue into our lives and that can actually be a comfort. Esther is a diaspora story. It's about Jewish people stuck in a situation they can't control. Rather than living large in dreams God has for them, they are oppressed.

But unlike Joseph in Egypt or Daniel in Babylon, no one utters a thing about God and Esther. God is just not on the page here. It's parties and feasts, it's antics and power grabs, it's hatred, threat and straight up wiliness just to stay alive. So with zero God talk what on earth is it doing in your Bible? Jewish scholars have three main reasons for debating Esther's acceptability: the absence of religious elements, the improbability of Esther's story as authentic history, and the festival at the center of Esther, Purim, isn't that Jewish to begin with.

From the early church fathers to Martin Luther, Christians have also debated Esther's place in the canon. Esther is kind of raunchy. Esther is non compliant. Esther colors outside the lines. And that is why we need Esther.

The book of Esther is for you if you've ever felt like you don't fit in, like people don't understand your story, like you aren't spiritual enough or the things you love aren't godly enough or you just honestly don't sense God working throughout your life like God seems to be working in someone else's. And still, it is hard to wring out insight for ourselves from such a strange story. Like, what do you learn from an opulent king and an entourage of eunuchs? I mean, there are a lot of eunuchs in Esther. And can you relate to a hundred and eighty day party set in linen draped gardens?

I mean, we're still restricted to, like, 10 people max in backyards right now, aren't we? We need to wrap it up before anyone needs to even use the washroom inside. Esther can feel like such a distant story from our modern lives and still amongst the opulence in the story the message of Esther addresses our fear. And you might ask like what fear, Bobby? The fear that an uncontrollable force will threaten the well-being of you and everyone you love.

I know you know something of that fear. Esther reminds us that if we survive the tragedy in our lives and you know what no one can promise that you will but if you survive well then you will have a reason to celebrate. That kind of resilience while hard fought forms in you a powerful center. After Queen Vashti refuses the king's order the rest of the chapter it plays out like this. The king calls on seven wise men who a Hebrew idiom conveys see the face of the king.

It's like these men are so close they see the real king and they use this intimate knowledge to their advantage. So the king and the wise men they have this meeting asking like what do we do with Queen Vashti? And the men assert that Vashti has not only wronged the king but she has also wronged men everywhere for as soon as people know of her refusal wives will disrespect their husbands. Read our wives will disrespect us. So they recommend new laws.

They want them translated into all the languages of the empire and they should never be repealed they say. Dhanish Vashti. Notice that they strip her of her title here. They say give away her position to someone better. And they say, all women must respect their husbands.

And with the use of this great Persian infrastructure, dispatches go out into all the corners of the kingdom to proclaim that every man is ruler of his household. So be it. Okay. Check out the irony here. Mimukhan is concerned that everyone will hear about Vashti's offensive refusal to obey the king, but he and the wise guys send that very message out into the kingdom.

This is the working of a sexual politic that reveals the inner workings of the empire. We're invited to take a look at what's really at the center of power. And what we see is a kingdom where good judgment is clouded with a lot of drinking and yes men manipulate the king and unstable leadership grips power. And chapter one of Esther is this comedic setup for the story and the joke is that by removing Vashti, the king will end up with a queen who, as one scholar says, controls him completely. Here's the deal with Esther.

As a work of sacred text it addresses the trauma of the past not for people who've always had power or knew their freedom or could speak up but for people who've been marginalized, ruled over, enslaved, exiled, and killed for people who can't catch a break. Esther addresses the the trauma of the past not with lectures or rallies or great YouTube content though I'm for some of that but the book addresses the trauma of the past with imagination. With carnival and humor the author says, okay, okay, it's been years. So let's go back and take another look at a time when we didn't think our people, the Jewish people, would survive. If a system scares you, patriarchy, colonialism, the police state, conservatism, liberalism, if those systems offend you or make you so mad, good.

Now look more closely at what's driving them. Look until you find something you can laugh at. Humor deactivates fear. Your imagination holds a key to dismantling what harms you. You should absolutely care about the facts of your trauma and those facts should be known and taught and used to inform how we organize our world for the common good.

But all that data isn't going to free your soul. The invitation of Esther is to reshape your relationship with the past to lead you to a place where you can finally be free to let go. There was a time in my life years ago when I was working on some deeply lodged pain from my past and I kept circling around a part of my story that really bummed me out. And I knew I needed to let it go so I could move on. I had new skills to make a better way for myself thanks to therapy.

But I struggled. So one night alone in my apartment I dimmed the lights and I pictured myself making a box. I didn't really make a box I just pictured it. And then I imagined myself putting this chapter of my story right into the box, shutting the lid. And I got up from my couch and I walked into the middle of the room and I set my imaginary box down on the floor and I walked away.

Using imagination and action I took steps that changed something for me. I let go. I found some ways to move on. There weren't big emotions just a sense of yes like this is what I need to do. There are so many things that can help you have a little distance from your trauma and help you let go of what no longer serves you or keeps you safe.

Maybe it's time or fiction or dark humor, a good costume for real. Purim is all about the costumes. Maybe it's psychology, imagination, somatic somatic work, journaling, putting pain in an imaginary box and walking away. This is the stuff that can help you with your trauma. Not opulence, not more stuff you buy online, not being surrounded by people who agree with everything you say, but the powerful center that forms in you as you learn to let go.

Letting go says more about what's best in you than anything you possess ever could. Let us pray. Loving God, as we think about our own relationship to maybe some of the fancy things in our lives, our own version of opulence and what it reveals. Will you remind us of your generosity, that all of life is available to us and we are invited to work at making sure everyone has enough. Christ, we celebrate the pattern of new life in this season of Easter, blossoms, sunshine, warm breezes, are reminders of your nearness.

That on the other side of a dark winter we find you, spirit. You guide us in joy and in sorrow. With us and in us cultivate an inner plentitude, a powerful center where we can live from a place of compassion and humor and imagination right here in our everyday lives, be they marked with some sorrow or full of joy or somehow profoundly holding onto both. Amen.