Nineteenth Sunday after Pentecost
“Salt of the Earth”
Welcoming New Members
Rev. Brent Gundlah
First Reading (Esther 7:1-6, 9-10; 9:20-22 / NSRVUE)
Gospel Reading (Mark 9:38-50 / NRSVUE)
This particular Sunday in the middle of the long season after Pentecost is the only time during the Lectionary’s three-year cycle of readings that one from the book of Esther appears, so I didn’t want to pass up the chance to consider this amazing story. I apologize if you were actually looking forward to a reflection on what Jesus has to say about salt (like we don’t have enough of that around here) or about putting millstones around people’s necks and throwing them into the sea, and cutting off their hands and feet, and tearing out their eyes — some other time, perhaps.
Esther is part of the group of texts known as the Megillot (along with the Song of Songs, Ruth, Lamentations and Ecclesiastes); this group appears in the third and final section of the Hebrew Scriptures known as the Ketuvim or ‘Writings” (which also includes texts like Psalms, Proverbs and Job). For those of you looking to score big in your next game of Bible trivia, the Torah (the first five books of the Old Testament or the “Books of Moses”), and the Nevi’im (the “Prophets”) are the first two sections of the Hebrew Scriptures.
Interestingly, Esther is the only book in the entire Hebrew Bible that wasn’t found among the Dead Sea Scrolls. Both the rabbis of ancient Judaism and the fathers of the early Christian Church were unsure whether Esther even belonged in their official versions of the Bible, which is perhaps unsurprising given the story’s focus on a woman protagonist, on the one hand, and the fact that God isn’t mentioned in it (I mean not even once), on the other. God’s seeming absence from the text was such a problem for some folks, in fact, that later Greek translators actually took it upon themselves to put in multiple references to God (and a few prayers too); these additions to Esther appear in the Roman Catholic and certain Orthodox versions of the Bible.
Esther is set in the ancient city of Susa, which was the winter capital of the Persian Empire; it takes place sometime during the fourth or fifth century BCE, during the period known as the Diaspora — when the Jewish people who had been forced out of Israel by their imperial oppressors (this time, the Persians) were scattered throughout the ancient Near East. During the ten-year period in which the story’s action takes place, King AHA SUH RUS (or Xerxes the First) ruled Persia.
As the story begins, Xerxes (I’m using this version of his name because it’s way easier to pronounce than the other one) decides to throw a banquet for his officials and ministers (who were all men) and it seems to have been a bit of a rager; I say this because we’re told that it lasted almost half a year. Xerxes wife, Queen Vashti, throws a party of her own for the women, who apparently also had a quite good time; I say this because, at one point, Xerxes tries to break up their fun by summoning Vashti to appear before him so he could show all of his friends how beautiful she is, and she tells him “No.”
Fearing that Vashti’s rebellious streak will influence her party guests and inspire them to tell their husbands to take a hike too, those same husbands convince Xerxes not only to issue an edict ordering all women to honor their husbands but also to dump Vashti, which he does. Then Xerxes and his advisors undertake the search for a new queen in perhaps the most offensive way possible: they hold auditions. At the end of this year-long process, Esther, a young Jewish girl who is hiding her true identity, is chosen to be the next Queen of Persia.
Soon after becoming royalty, Esther, who is, of course, a Jew, learns of a plot by Xerxes number one official, Haman, to eradicate the Jewish people, which clearly puts young Esther in a bit of a bind. Esther’s cousin, Mordecai (who provoked Haman’s wrath against the Jews in the first place) tries to convince her to do something in order to save her people — and he reminds her that, once her true identity is discovered, she will meet the exact same fate that they do.
So Esther hatches a plot to stage a few more banquets, all sorts of hijinks ensue, and King Xerxes, after first having granted Esther a wish that enabled her to set all of this in motion, gives her one more wish. It is then that Esther declares her true identity, and asks that she and her people be allowed to live. The king grants Esther’s wish, foiling Haman’s plan and enabling the Jews to defend themselves against their enemies. In an ironic twist, Haman ends up being hanged upon the very same gallows he had planned to use to execute his adversary, Mordecai. In honor of their victory, the Jewish people rejoiced — and, in fact, they still do so; the festival of Purim continues to be celebrated beginning on the 14th day of the month of Adar, on which, as the legend goes, the Jews defeated Haman and gained relief from their Persian enemies.
This story is a real adventure ride and, at just ten chapters, it goes by pretty quickly. I highly encourage you to go read Esther when you get a chance because it’s fun, and kinda funny at times. But fun and funny aren’t really enough to secure a text a place in the holy scriptures of not one but two faiths (Judaism and Christianity), so there’s gotta be more to it than that. But why does this story (an unusual one by biblical standards) matter in a theological sense — especially since God isn’t mentioned even once in the version of it that we generally read around here? Well, maybe that is why it matters.
Indeed, amidst all of the seemingly secular drama and intrigue of this rollicking tale, lie some profound things to consider about our relationship to our Creator. You see, God’s conspicuous absence from the story leads us to a question of great importance, which is: Can God’s presence be known even when God is not explicitly named? Esther’s experience tells us that the answer this question is a definitive “yes.”
When the oppressors once again are humbled and the oppressed once again go free, the God who worked with and through Moses to liberate the Jews from slavery is there.
When Esther betrays her true identity and makes her bold and dangerous request to free her people, putting their needs and lives ahead of her own, the God who called upon us to love our neighbor as ourselves is there.
When Mordecai somehow rises to a position in Xerxes’s court second only to the King himself, like Joseph once did in the court of Pharaoh, God is there.
When the Jews are told to remember their liberation from the Persians, to turn their “sorrow into gladness” and their “mourning into a holiday” by celebrating the festival of Purim, the God who instituted the festival of Passover to commemorate the Israelites’ liberation from the Egyptians is there.
When Esther, this young woman of an oppressed people, rises to the throne of Persia and frees those oppressed people, we are reminded of all the other marginalized but strong women God calls upon to be partners in God’s work in the world — women like Hannah, mother of Samuel; and Mary, mother of Jesus; and Mary Magdalene, the first disciple to encounter the Risen Christ. And when Mordecai wonders, in another part of today’s story, whether Esther has “come to royal dignity for just such a time as this” as if she were being guided by some incomprehensible power, God is there.
Whenever we see the powerful being brought down from their thrones and the lowly lifted up;
whenever the hungry are filled with good things and the rich are sent away empty;
whenever the last become first and the first become last;
whenever people are freed from the ways of oppression, God is there — even if God isn’t mentioned by name.
But is the opposite true as well: I mean, can God be absent when God is mentioned by name? And a quick look around the world in which we live proves that it’s not too difficult to answer that question.
People perpetuating oppression and violence and claiming that they do so in God’s name.
People proudly displaying bumper stickers and signs with slogans like “God and Guns Made America Great,” as if those two things could ever be compatible in God’s reign — and as if God favored America over all the other nations of the world.
People strutting around declaring that “God Hates [Blank] — and the blank, of course, is filled in with the choice of the hateful because it’s not God who hates, it’s them.
People demanding the Bible to be taught in public schools, but not actually heeding what God’s Word says.
People using God’s name to justify saying and doing all sorts of things that aren’t consistent with what we know about who God is and what God’s priorities are.
And so you have to wonder which would be more pleasing to God: Living our lives like we’ve taken to heart what God is saying without mentioning God by name, or dropping God’s name all over the place while ignoring God’s call upon our lives.
I know which one I’d go with; how about you?