For Such a Time as This

Esther 4:1-17; Matthew 5:13-16

Uncle Mordecai said to Queen Esther: “Even if you keep silent at this time, relief and deliverance for the Jews will arise, one way or another. But who knows? Perhaps you have come to royal dignity for just such a time as this.”

Queen Esther strikes me as one of the most interesting and relatable characters in all of Scripture. She is plucked from obscurity to live in the royal palace of one of history’s great empires – and it sounds like a fairy tale, the orphan who out of nowhere becomes a princess.

And yet her life is not all glamor and glory. She is cut off from her people – she cannot even speak directly to her Uncle Mordecai, but must pass messages to him through one of the kings’ eunuchs. People assume she has power, that she can influence her husband, the great King Xerxes, but that’s not how their relationship works. She cannot even see him without being called, and she hasn’t been called in more than a month. And she knows what happened to her predecessor – she knows she is not free to say “no” to her husband. She lives in a gilded cage, a life of luxury beyond the imagination of most people, but she is lonely, trapped, afraid.

I don’t know about you, but I feel as though I can relate to much of what Esther’s life must have been like. Yes, I have more material possessions than many other people do in this world, even in this country – I probably have a better material life than even Esther did in the royal palace of Persia 2400 years ago. I have indoor plumbing and electric light and a big-screen TV. I have a car and can fly anywhere in the world that I want. I have more information in this little device I carry in my pocket than was in the Great Library of Alexandria. I have access to a variety and quantity of food unimaginable in most of human history, and to modern medicine, and so much more. And yet, with all this abundance, we are all remarkably isolated these days, with anxieties and worries and fears because we have so much to lose, and we know how easily it could all fall apart.

One day, we read this morning, Esther looks out her window and sees Uncle Mordecai in sackcloth, standing outside the gate of the place. And she thinks to herself, Poor Uncle Mordecai, he doesn’t have the right clothes to come into the palace. Quick, somebody send these nice clothes to Uncle Mordecai.  Esther is so isolated in her gilded cage that she doesn’t know why Uncle Mordecai is suffering – and she can’t ask him. I mean, a queen can’t just go out in the public square and start talking to men not her husband.  She wants to help but she’s so cut off that she doesn’t understand what’s happening so she doesn’t know how to help.

And I don’t know about you, but I can definitely relate to Esther on this one. There is a lot of suffering in this world, I can see it from my window, and I want to help. But so often I don’t have the human connection with people to really know why they are hurting, to really know what they need that would in fact be helpful, and there are barriers to making that human connection with so many people. Physical barriers, cultural barriers, and I don’t know how to make those connections. Do you ever feel that way? I know I do.

Eventually Esther is able to send a messenger, and through the messenger Uncle Mordecai tells her about Prime Minister Haman’s plan to commit genocide against the Jewish people. How King Xerxes signed off on it and was promised a lot of money in return. And Esther’s response is, you think I can do something about this, but I can’t. You don’t understand. He banished his last queen when she stood up to him. I’d be taking my life in my hands if I spoke up.

Uncle Mordecai’s response is fascinating. Don’t think, he says, that because you are the queen that this genocide won’t affect you. Because it will. They will find you out. And you know, even if you keep silent, relief and deliverance for the Jews will come. When the Jewish people cry out for relief and deliverance, it comes, it always does. But if you stay in the closet about your identity out of fear, the relief and deliverance that are coming may not help you. Who knows? Perhaps you have come to be queen for just such a time as this. Perhaps you are the relief and the deliverance that was promised. Maybe that’s why you’re where you are right now. Who knows?

Relief and deliverance are coming for the people as a whole. Count on that. That’s why we’re all wearing sackcloth and repenting. That’s what the people of God do when they’re asking God for the relief and the deliverance that God has promised will come. It’s what the prophets did, it’s what John the Baptist did – God is coming, relief and deliverance are coming. But are relief and deliverance coming for you? That depends on whether you are willing to associate yourself with the people who are counting on God’s promise. Whether you are willing to be an instrument of God’s purposes of relief and deliverance. Who knows? Perhaps all the privileges and blessings you have received were simply a preparation for just such a time as this. Perhaps not, who knows? God’s plans are rarely that clear. But this we know – relief and deliverance are coming, and you can be a part of that or not, as you choose.

Esther’s response – Have the whole community here in the city fast for three days. I and my community here will do the same. Then I will go to the king, whether the law allows it or not, and if I perish, then I perish. So be it. Amen.  Esther asks to have the community join her in three days of fasting – so that when she takes her life into her own hands, she will not do it alone. She will do it with her people – in community, for community.

Violence and threats of violence against the weak and the vulnerable and the different – these things are not relics of the ancient Persian past, they still happen today. Prime Minister Haman may have been the first to plot the genocide of the Jews, but he was not the last. And antisemitic words and even deeds have been increasing lately even here in our own country – escalating and becoming more normalized even in the last few days.

And likewise violence against LGBT people. Just yesterday – yesterday! – in Columbus, Ohio, a church was planning to host a “family-friendly LGBT holiday event.” It was a Unitarian church; not many other denominations would go so far as to host such an event. Well, the Proud Boys announced that they would hold a protest of this event at the church – this is the armed group of vigilantes who have done a number of these events around the country recently. The organizers of the event at the church asked the police for help, didn’t get the support they were looking for (although the police dispute this), and the event was cancelled at the last minute. Yesterday.

I’ve mentioned this growing, often violent, anti-LGBT movement a lot lately, and some of you may be wondering why. Part of it is that I know from my own experience what it is to grow up as a queer kid in an unsupportive family, in an unsupportive church, in an unsupportive school, in an unsupportive community, and I know how much damage that can do, and I don’t want to see anybody else go through what I did – and so when I see people looking for vulnerable groups to bully picking on queer kids today, it gets my mother bear instincts going. Part of it is my shame that much of the energy behind this movement comes from people calling themselves Christian, and I want us to do better as a church.

But a big part of my passion here is that I know many pastors who respond to this situation exactly as Esther did to Uncle Mordecai – I’d like to help, but you don’t understand my situation. People in my congregation will find it divisive. My denomination will cause problems for me. I live in a parsonage, I have a family to support, I can’t risk losing my job. And I don’t have any of those worries. Worst comes to worst, I have a non-church job, I won’t be homeless or in poverty if I go too far. Perhaps I am in the position I am in right now just for such a time as this. And maybe I talk about this so much because I want to know that, whatever I may say or do on this question, I will do as part of a community. Of a community that supports me, or at least tolerates me, of a community that shares the same concern and passion for including and welcoming all, and I mean all, of God’s beautiful children.

I won’t spoil too much of the rest of the book of Esther – if you’ve never read it, there are more twists and turns to the story, but she does in the end convince the king, the Jews are spared, and the evil Prime Minister Haman and those who plotted the genocide – well, they meet the same gruesome end that they planned to inflict on others. It is a bit disturbing but you can’t say it’s unjust. Most importantly, the relief and deliverance Uncle Mordecai was so sure was coming did in fact come, and Esther’s courage and thoughtful actions did in fact help it along.

One of the amazing things about the book of Esther is that the word “God” never appears once in the story. But central to the story is the faith that Uncle Mordecai has that – even in the midst of grave threat and danger – relief and deliverance will come to God’s people. Even if God is never named, both Uncle Mordecai and Queen Esther act on this faith that, for God’s people, in the past a way was made where there was no way, and a way will be made again even when we don’t see it. Whoever it is who makes that way, whoever it is that makes and keeps this promise, whoever it is who sends the relief and deliverance that are to come – whoever that is is what we mean when we say “God,” and what we say about that God is not nearly as important as the faith that gives us the ability to act with confidence in that God and in those promises.

In this Advent season, when we remember and proclaim the relief and deliverance that – it has been promised – are sure to come, as we wonder how the gifts we have been given enable us to act in such a time as this, as we join with our neighbors and our community in prayer and waiting and so identify ourselves with these promises that are to come – may our faith in these promises be strengthened, and deepened, and called to life.

Local Columbus news story on this event: https://www.dispatch.com/story/news/local/2022/12/03/royal-oak-school-drag-storytime-canceled-proud-boys-protest-columbus/69691753007/