Speaker 1: 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.
Speaker 2: Hello, everyone. Welcome to Church Today. My name is Scott, and I am part of the team here at Commons, and we are delighted that you've jumped into the mystery of this virtual community thing. Whether you found us more recently or maybe you've made YouTube part of your regular Sunday routine. Perhaps you're a podcaster and there's a time lapse, in which case, hello from the past to you.
Or maybe you've been away for a while and you've decided to check-in on us as a community. We really do appreciate it all and we make space for you just as we affirm our trust in a God who does the same for everyone. So thanks for spending some of your weekend with us, especially as the weather slowly starts to be more spring like and we find ways to get out. And that said, there are still some ways to connect with us during the week here at Commons. There are online groups.
There's midweek liturgy. And also, just quick plug here, on Tuesday nights in May starting this week, we are offering another online course in our theology series, thinking this time about a theology of work. And maybe that's something you're curious about with your career changing during the pandemic, maybe you're looking for some more meaning in your business or your work, or maybe you're starting out in something new and feeling a little disoriented. The point is that we really do think that the divine might be showing up in all that you do, and we would love to share the discussion and conversation. So for more info or to register for that course, visit our website, click on the next steps tab, and look under events.
Now, today, I am thrilled to be jumping into this my queen series that we're in, and I have been loving the journey so far. The book of Esther with all of its intrigue and salacious scenes and its cliffhangers, it is such a good story. And it's also rated r, so sensibilities be warned. But I have so appreciated Bobby's curating of the conversation. And quick recap here.
Over the past few weeks, she has led us to within earshot of queen Vashti's no, a clarion reminder to join our voices in the refusal still needed in the world. We then explore the ways that Esther's story is hardly one of her own choosing and that, like her, we are invited to trust how the divine leads us and accompanies us and provides for us, not that we often see or sense that presence very clearly. And then last week, we looked at the hate that's burning at the center of this story's evil and then at how hate burning at the center of our own tales of loss, resentment, and seething rage can pop up, up where Bobby invited us to try an alternative to the hate that burns us alive. A reminder that sometimes the scriptures tell us an extraordinary story to give us an example of what not to do, which brings us to today where we go hurdling into the heights of drama here as we cover three chapters plus a few verses, so buckle up. And if you are taking notes, we're going to talk about holy curiosity, hidden hope, picking up power, and a great reversal.
But first, let's take a moment to breathe, to pause, pray with me now. God of all, of ancient story, and of all we faced this last week, we pause here in part because that's what we need sometimes. We need these moments to stop and to reflect and to consider our next steps. And this is holy work, and we trust that your spirit guides us even as you guide us into the scripture today where we will be startled, where we will see ourselves, where we will come to a place of choosing. So we ask, be near.
Be the light that we need to see. We pray in the name of Christ, our hope. Amen. In 2017, Jordan Peele's film entitled Get Out was released, and it immediately garnered widespread praise and celebratory reviews for its incisive cultural commentary. And just a quick note here, it is a horror film.
So don't send me a note this week telling me that you watched it through your fingers wondering why I endorsed it because I'm not. And I kinda am, actually. Because Get Out became what Peel called a social thriller using satire and farce and all kinds of blood spilled to explore the dynamics of race in the twenty first century. To explore, Peale said, the discomfort of, quote, being the only black guy in the room. And for those of you who won't ever watch it, here's the basic premise.
The film's protagonist played by Daniel Kaluuya, a black man. He goes to meet his white girlfriend's family for the first time, and they live in a stately house in the woods and through a terrifying series of events including a scene set around the dinner table just like Esther chapter seven has a chilling dinner scene, so hold on to that, where fear and threat menace just below the surface. This main character realizes that he has to get out and that this family may not let him, which is all I'm gonna say about it. Hey. Except to say that the film offers a unique and unprecedented voice to the experience of people of color, and it uses excess and farce and overwrought characters.
It gets you laughing, and it horrifies you. It raises questions about the role normative white America plays in continuing race conflict. It keeps the audience guessing and asking what is happening right now and why and who is going to act next. And this is exactly what the book of Esther does too. Jump back with me to the scene that we left off at last week.
The scheming official Haman has tricked the Persian king, Xerxes, into signing an edict to annihilate all the Jews. And those two guys sit down to seal the agreement with a drink or two, and we see the Jewish people around the empire erupt in mourning, including Mordecai, Esther's childhood guardian, who has torn his clothes. He's put on sackcloth and ashes, and he has gone out into the city publicly wailing. And this is a sign that tension is mounting, that things are beginning to unravel for the Jewish characters in the story, and we will get to that in just a second. But first, it's important to note that while what Mordecai has done is obvious, we aren't really sure why.
Has he done this thing as an act of religious devotion? Is he calling on the divine for help? This kind of behavior appears in other places in the Hebrew Bible like the book of Job, for instance. Or has Mordecai done this as an expression of humiliation and regret? Has he put on sackcloth and ashes because he regrets not diffusing this situation and bowing to Haman?
Is he afraid for all those he loves? The point is that we don't know. And in this and many other places, the scripture seems so uninterested in making the lines clear, in ironing out the plot, in answering our questions. And scholar notes Carol that part of the artistry of Esther as a piece of biblical literature is how it has this knack for making us ask questions, which I think is a great reminder as we launch into the conversation today that one of the functions of scripture is to get you asking questions about the stories and the characters, yes, and about the seeming contradictions and paradoxes, oh, for sure, but also about god, the mystery of divine presence in the world and also about yourself, especially when you start to see yourself on the page. Because questions can carry us to the truth, but sometimes they are the truth.
They are the confession on our lips as we read, helping us to cultivate a tender form of faith that's built on curiosity, a curiosity curiosity that leads us ever on. So let those questions fly, friends. And I say that here because that's exactly what Esther does. She hears that Mordecai is raving and inconsolable at the gate. So she sends some eunuchs in her service with some clothes for him to change into, which he refuses.
She also sends a question with them literally in Hebrew asking, what is this and what is it about? Because Esther doesn't know what's going on. Mordecai sends those same servants back to inform her of the threat on their lives as Jews and asks her to do something about it. And you can imagine the eunuchs filling her in and the queen, the main character in this story, becoming aware that she is still subject to the kinds of disruptions that set her on this path in the first place, which, side note, is what it actually feels like to live. Right?
Like, doesn't it feel like you're in the dark about the script of your own life sometimes? Anyways, Esther responds by telling him that she can't just walk in uninvited and speak to the king. People die when they do that. Oh, and by the way, the king hasn't wanted to see her for about a month. Maybe his affections and her time are waning.
I'm just gonna lay low, she implies. That was always the plan. And the servants take these words back to Mordecai, and he responds with some of the most familiar lines in the whole story. He says, do not think that because you are in the king's house that you alone of all the Jews will escape. For if you remain silent at this time, relief and deliverance for the Jews will arise from another place, but you and your father's family will perish.
And who knows? But that you have come to your royal position for such a time as this. And in effect, he's saying, yes, laying low and staying quiet was the plan. But the plan has to change. Don't think that you're above this now that you have power.
Is it possible that this is why you're there? And we're gonna come back to this idea of power in a moment, but I wanna point out something that doesn't get a lot of airtime in many readings of Esther. This phrase that Mordecai uses where he seems so confident that even if Esther doesn't speak up, relief and deliverance will come for the Jews from another place. And scholars ruminate on this. Like, Mordecai has been aware of espionage and intrigue throughout the story.
So does he know something here that we don't as readers? Or more sinisterly, is he using his position in Esther's life to manipulate and pressure her? And while these literary considerations, they're interesting, I I think it's far more provoking to pay attention to the fact that, as some scholars point out, this is the closest we come to a reference to God's presence in the text. Mordecai seems so hopeful that help will come in spite of the odds. And actually, if you look closely, you can see that some of that hope rests on what he believes Esther can do.
And that is something we shouldn't miss, that hope hidden here in this story, hidden out there in the middle of yours, your fragile longing for a shift in this moment that we're living in, your hope for a relationship to flourish or to change, your hope for your character to shine through in the things you do day in and day out, your hope for someone you know that's facing challenge and loss and heartache. All of these are divine. Each tender expression carrying the power to hold you maybe just barely during this week ahead. Yes. But also each of them with divine potential to change those you share hope with, those you tell it's gonna be okay.
And even if it's not, I'm here. Maybe it's in sharing hidden hope that we find it. Now Esther hears Mordecai's words and immediately tells him to gather all of the Jews in the city to have them fast for for her, and she commits to do the same. And then she says, when this fast is done, I will go to the king even though it's against the law. And if I perish, I perish.
Then the text says that Mordecai does what she says because Esther is now front and center. Chapter five begins, on the third day, Esther put on her royal robes and stood in the center of the inner court of the palace in front of the king's hall. The king was sitting on his royal throne in the hall facing the entrance. And when he saw queen Esther standing in the court, he was pleased with her and held out the gold scepter that was in his hands. So Esther approached.
And when the king asked, what is it, queen Esther? What is your request? Even up to half the kingdom, it will be given to you. Now couple things here. First, this is a profound literary moment because Esther emerges from those three days of fasting more transformed than from her earlier twelve months of beauty treatments.
In the text, the verb shift from passive to active, where before she took the clothes given to her, where before she follows others' advice, advice, where before she waits on the whims of a pagan ruler, here, Esther puts on her own royal robes, and she enters restricted space, and she stands. Remember, this is a story composed by the Jewish people, exiled and taken from their homes, living under the control of expansive empires for hundreds of years. They are the ones who've come up with the story, weaving a tale that imagines the tensions that they have felt for generations, A people always having to negotiate how to survive, keeping their heads down and staying hidden. And this is why this image of Esther standing in the throne room matters. Remember, in chapter two verse 10, we were told that Esther would not reveal her ethnic or cultural identity during the selection process.
She did everything to conform and to fit in, and yet here she is backlit as other characters, including the king, slowly pan to see her. She is their queen. She is our queen. She is my queen in this moment. She is the epitome of power.
We see the complete inversion of appearances. There is no more hiding, no more being a minority, no more cowering in the hopes of approval. Oh, no. And if we were sitting in a theater full of Esther movie nerds, the audience would erupt in applause here because we love a good inversion. And we're gonna come back to this in a second.
Because there's something else to note here, and it's connected to how king Xerxes sees her, welcomes her, and then asks her what she wants up to half the kingdom. What's curious about this is how it parallels the imagery used by the Greek historian Herodotus who records a similar story about the same Persian king. That story goes that Xerxes' wife, Amestris, had made him a beautiful robe, and he loved it. And, well, he would wear it when he was going to be with one of his mistresses, a woman named Arsante or Artante. And one time, while he and Artante are together, he tells her that he will give her anything in exchange for the joy that she's brought him.
And she says, are you sure about that? And he promises. And then she asks for his robe, the one that his wife had made, and he squirms. He offers cities to her. He offers her mountains of gold.
He offers her the command of an army, and she refuses them all. And he relents. And as you might imagine, chaos and revenge unfold, and there is no happy ending. Now there are significant differences between this story and Esther's, namely that Herodotus presents Xerxes in a Greek tragedy tragedy that and that Esther is far more farcical and comedic. But the point in both is that Xerxes plays his part.
He does what he's supposed to. He lives for himself. He exhibits the extent to which power clouds judgment and turns its users into caricatures of themselves, to which Esther is a foil. In just a moment in the climactic scene, we will see that she has stepped into this room. She has stepped into the presentness of her life for the sake of others.
In an act of solidarity with nameless and faceless Jews throughout the empire and for the sake of Jewish generations to come who will tell this story because she showed up. And I I would not presume to tell you what places in your life that maybe you need to shift from being a passive presence to being an active one. It could be in reimagining your career as the world changes before our eyes for you and for your family. It could be in being honest with those you love and taking the risk to be yourself and to be healthy and to be strong. It might be in choosing to be more than aware of someone struggling near you or being aware of some cause or some group whose situation grips your heart to becoming a source of help to them.
Whatever the case, if you are looking for what direction to step in, I think you can follow Esther's lead here because stepping into solidarity with your true self and with others and for others, this is a beautiful way to pick up power in your life. Now this brings us to the climactic moment of this tale. The king asks Esther what she wants, and she, knowing that the king loves invites him and Haman, boo Haman, to a banquet later that day. The king naturally loves this idea. So he and Haman arrive a little later and Esther throws them a party in which after a few drinks, which is what the text says, he asks again, what do you want?
Remember? Half the kingdom. He seems to be enjoying this game they're playing and the tension is mounting. What is Esther going to do? Well, curiously, the text builds the drama as she says, my petition and my request is and we all wait.
Is this it? Is this where she comes out into the open? And then she surprises us. She says, if you favor me and if it pleases you, bring Haman and come to another banquet tomorrow. Then I will answer.
And if we think of this rescheduling deferral as passivity or fear or inaction, we just need to pause for a sec because what we're observing here is the inverse of the opening chapters where the king orders Vashti, the queen brought before him. Here, the queen belays the king's power and his bumbling, drunken stupor by requesting that he come to her. And that is the surest sign that even if Esther is drawing things out, even if she's having some second thoughts, there is something at work in all her plans. Because listen. The delays in Esther stating her request give the story time to fully ensnare Haman as the antagonist of god's people.
See, his jealousy and hatred of Mordecai get the better of him, and there are some plot twists that you need to go and read for yourself. But what we learn is that Haman prepares some gallows on which he plans to have Mordecai impaled. And this builds the tension again. Not only are the Jews facing annihilation in a matter of months, but now Esther's relative is about to be hunted down and executed. The villain is is closing in.
Time is running out. The pressure is excruciating. Even as the king and Haman make their way the next day into queen Esther's banquet, or quite literally in Hebrew, the drinking party that she's prepared, where we read in chapter seven verse two that on the second day of that party, the not so sober king asks again, what is your request? And Esther replies, if it pleases you, grant me my life. This is my petition.
And spare my people. This is my request for I and my people have been sold to be destroyed, killed, and annihilated. And this is it. As a reader, you should have goosebumps on your neck just like you're watching that get out dinner scene because Esther has outed herself. Her secret is out of the bag.
Darkness is now crouching, waiting to smother her, and yet she is not cowering. She has not asked for half the kingdom but for life, to make life, to save life, and the reversal happens. The king lashes out and asks, who? Who would dare threaten you? And Esther says, an adversary and an enemy, this vile Haman, and the trap is sprung.
We we realize that the terror we felt has been misguided. Where we thought Esther was in danger, in fact, she has planned, she has schemed, she has outwitted all those evil forces that conspire. And by the end of the chapter, Haman will be hanging on the stake that he had intended for Mordecai. The immediate danger will be averted. And for a complete resolution, well, you're gonna have to come back next week for that.
Because I think if we're honest, if we read this story too quickly, it tricks us. We see the unquestioned opulence of those in power, We see maniacal and deceitful plans laid out. We see the helplessness of the outsider and the dispossessed, and we fail to see the author's tongue planted firmly in her cheek. We fail to see how the king is nothing more than a partying frat boy, a caricature of true power. We fail to see how the schemes of the hateful villain always have a way of turning that guy into the victim.
We fail to see how a Jewish woman's choice to stand up, to host a meal, to bring the dealers of death to her table, a table stocked with enough wine to get the truth flowing freely. How her simple actions enact a great reversal. A reversal that gets you laughing, that gets you shaking your head saying, I didn't see that coming. A reversal meant to stop you in your tracks and consider just what needs to turn around in you. See, because maybe all you can see is how things never seem to change, how the powerful stay that way, how the hurtful seem to wield their trade unhindered, leaving you and so many you know feeling more and more helpless.
That's probably a lot of us today. For which Esther spins a different tale, one in which this woman finds her way, guesses her way, risks her way, surely wondering just like you and me just where god is in it all. And I love what scholar Carol Bechtel points out. She contends that god is a character in the story, notoriously elusive, yes, but there in the gaps where things don't make sense, in the pauses that Esther takes, in every timid, calculated, and willful step that Esther makes. And so too with you.
Your fumbling efforts, your best attempts, your solidarity with those around you, all the way that divine reversal shows up in the world. Let's pray. God, Great storytelling god. We are humbled today because this is such a good tale, and Esther is such a good queen. And we can see ourselves here too, how we are caught up in the many things, how our questions spark truth, how the hope we share brings divine life so others can see, how our power is greatest when we stand up and fight and contend for others, and how you show up in it all, dancing in and through all our efforts.
And so we ask that you would give us holy, vivid imagination to see this way. Would you bring comfort for our tired hearts, courage for our tired hands? And though there are many tears, it seems like these days, we ask that you would set us to laughing at the sheer wonder of the story we're in. We pray this in the name of Christ, our hope. Amen.