For Just Such a Time
Esther 4: 6-17, 7: 1-10
A Sermon by the Reverend Odette Lockwood-Stewart
Epworth United Methodist Church, Berkeley

Who knows? Perhaps you are exactly who you are and where you are for just such a time... as this.

Perhaps you are exactly who you are – with all your flaws and gifts, with all your cleverness and sadness...and perhaps you are positioned exactly where you are – with all the insecurity and ambiguity, power and powerlessness of this place... Perhaps you are here for a purpose.

The who... where... when... of your life, colliding with the realities of community and the world in which you live, call you to act boldly... for a purpose.

This morning, let’s enter into the story of Esther and meditate upon it.  Who knows? Perhaps it will help us to reflect on our purpose for just such a time as this.

Esther was an orphan ... but she was not alone.  She belonged to a people.   As a Jewish woman in the 5th century BCE Esther belonged to an exiled and enslaved people living in a troubled Persian empire.

When the Persian King Ahasuerus permanently banned his Queen, Vashti, for insulting him, Esther had extraordinary opportunity and she rose in the King’s palace and favor.  Esther became queen.  

Esther had to hide her Jewish identity as she rose to a high position of bestowed power in the palace of the Persian king.  As queen, it might have been easy for her to forget she belonged to an oppressed people. But Mordecai was always there to remind her who she was.  After her parents had died, Mordecai, an older cousin, raised Esther.  He became not only her support, but also her system of accountability.  By his example and relationship Mordecai refused to let Esther forget to whom she belonged.

When Mordecai refused to bow down to Haman, the chief minister of the king, Haman was enraged by this act of resistance.  He plotted to kill not only Mordecai, but all Jews, and to do so legally. He got the king to decree a law for the destruction of the Jews. The law even included a date, the day and month, for the order to “destroy, kill and annihilate all Jews.” Hearing this news, Mordecai stood outside the king’s gate in mourning and protest, dressed in sackcloth and covered with ashes. Esther... sent Mordecai clothes. He refused them.  Then she sent Hathach, one of the king’s eunuchs to learn what was happening and why. Mordecai told Hathach everything, and urged Esther to speak to the King to help save her people.

Esther was afraid.  This was not a small request.  She had not been summoned to the king for 30 days.  If she came into the king’s presence unbidden, she would break the law and would be put to death. She also knew that by revealing who she was, that she was a Jew, she would face the threat of death.

Mordecai reminded her that if she stayed silent, she still would not be safe.

By revealing who she was she owned the strength of the people to whom she belonged.

The book of Esther is about power and relationships.  Esther had access to the king and all the trappings of privilege that came with royalty.   But her real power was in solidarity and community.  She was mentored by Mordecai ... and she was aided by servants and custodians ... who were her people.  She fasted with her people.  While she lived in the house of power, she knew who she was. And when crisis and opportunity came together, she was reminded where and when she lived and what community required of her.  

Haman underestimated solidarity and community.  Scheming to further demoralize and weaken the resistance of the subject people, he built a gallows seventy-five feet high on which to hang Mordecai... But when Esther skillfully used her access to power to benefit the powerless, Haman’s deception was exposed, and he died on the gallows he had built to kill Mordecai.  The king issued a new law allowing the Jews in every city to defend their lives and destroy their enemies.

This story doesn’t have a simple happy ending.  Esther actions saved her people but there was no peace. Chapter 9 describes the turning of the tables of violence and the vengeance.

Throughout the Book of Esther there is no mention of God, or the law, or heaven, or prayer.  Where is God in this story? That’s left for us to discuss and discern.  The Talmud, the Apocrypha, medieval commentaries and modern translations all have sought reference to God, the law, or prayer in the text.  It is not written there.  Hidden in a history of oppression and a response of vengeance and violence, the hint of divine presence in this story is in verse 14 as Mordecai says to Esther, “Who knows? Perhaps you have come to royal dignity for just such a time as this.”

That is the intersection of context and capacity that we’re all invited to examine.  The purpose we discern in the events, circumstances, and decisions in our lives.

We are blessed by and challenged by this moment in history, the location of our lives.  We see connections and sense opportunities.

Who knows?  Perhaps this intersection has a purpose if we use the power we have – however little or precarious it may seem to be.  To risk, speak and act in solidarity with those who are powerless saves their lives and ours.

We can choose silence.  But refusing to live out our possible purpose for being and for being here does not mean we will be safe from risk.

Last Tuesday night, Epworth hosted a meeting with Rex Fernandez, an attorney working against human rights abuses in the Philippines.  Mission Intern, Lindsey Kerr organized the event.  I left a meeting in the library and went downstairs to Fellowship Hall to hear him speak.  I heard personal stories of the thousands of people killed and disappeared in the Philippines in recent years – church leaders, educators, community leaders killed for their solidarity with the poor.  Mr. Hernandez urged us to advocate that our government link military aid to the Philippines with human rights, and we join the international call for peace talks.  One thing he said spoke to me profoundly, that those murdered are murdered again in the forgetting.  

Esther’s story is set in the context of the oppression of Jewish people 2500 years ago.  That the oppression and discrimination has continued into our times is a source of shame and a call to remember, especially as Christians.  Holocaust survivors and other voices remind us of the terrible costs and consequences of forgetfulness.

Living in a palace how easy it is to forget who and whose and where we are.

So remember Esther.  When we reach out to those whose only cry is pain and whose only claim is justice, we are surrounded and upheld by the community of care.  When we remember to whom we belong, when we become a part of the change we want to see... we will be changed. Who knows?  Perhaps we have come to this place ... for just such a time as this.