Our Old Testament reading for this morning comes from the Book of Esther. This is the only Sunday in our entire three-year lectionary cycle that we hear from this book, so I am willing to bet that most of you do not know the story that this book tells. For that reason, I am going to tell you the story this morning. Don’t worry it is a short story not a novel.
It is a strange story, as it doesn’t ever seem to reference God, as almost all of the other stories in the Bible do, but it is a story of the Jewish people, and in particular the story of a very courageous Jewish woman, Esther.
The story is set in the reign of a Persian king, Ahasuerus more than 400 years before the birth of Christ. The location for the story is Persia, the place that the Jewish people were taken to when their land was conquered, and they were cast into exile. The Jewish people had done the best they could during their exile to make a life for themselves and for their people. They have done so well that one Jewish man is an advisor to the king, and his orphaned cousin, Esther, becomes the Queen of Persia as part of his harem.
The King of Persia was looking for a new wife, and so he holds a beauty contest to find a bride. Mordecai, the Jewish advisor to the king, gets Esther into the contest, and she wins. Neither of them tells the king that she is Jewish or that she is related to Mordecai.
In the passage we heard read for today, we find ourselves in the middle of a great deal of political intrigue and brinkmanship. Mordecai had earlier thwarted a plot to assassinate the king, but now he has fallen into disfavor with the king’s chief advisor, Haman, because Mordecai failed to give due recognition to Haman’s position. Haman develops a hatred for Mordecai, a hatred that grows so large that Haman decides to kill all the Jews living in the kingdom. You have to think that a lot of prejudice against the Jews already existed.
Mordecai convinces Esther to appear before the king and to work to change the king’s mind. He says to her:
“Do not think that in the king’s palace you will escape any more than all the other Jews. For if you keep silence at this time, relief and deliverance will rise for the Jews from another place, but you and your father’s family will perish. Who knows? Perhaps you have come to royal dignity for just such a time as this” (4:3-14).
She could only intervene at considerable risk to herself, and as powerless woman throughout time have done, she creates an elaborate plan to seduce and then convince the king to change his mind. In the end, her people are saved when the king promises to give Esther anything she asks. The King also discovers that Haman is planning to kill the very man who earlier saved his life, and Mordecai is also spared. Haman is hung on the very gallows that he had prepared for Mordecai, and Esther and Mordecai are given Haman’s house. The decree to kill all the Jews cannot be lifted, but they are given permission to defend themselves—again supporting the idea that there must have been widespread prejudice against the Jewish people, because presumably a king can do anything he wants, unless his actions risk causing a popular uprising. All these events become the basis for the Jewish fest of Purim, seen in the text as a celebration of the defeat of the enemies of the Jews.
Esther was an advocate, and not just any advocate. She was an advocate with no real worldly power who used the few resources she had to advocate for and save her people. Though this is not an outwardly theological book, the reader of this book knows that the Jewish people are a people because God made them so. There are many stories in the Old Testament of God’s direct intervention into the affairs of the Jewish people, this story is the story of people using their God-given gifts of wisdom and courage to save the Jewish people. Sometimes God acts directly, but most of the time we are the hands and feet of God, using what God has given us to bring about change in the world.
In this season in which we are celebrating creation, Esther’s story is an important reminder of our call to be advocates for the threatened earth that is our home. We are not as powerless as Esther, though we often feel that way. It can feel as though the big corporations, the fossil fuel industry, and greedy politicians hold all the cards. But they don’t. The corporations can only sell what we will buy. If we don’t buy it, they will stop selling it. Politicians may receive a lot of money from corporations, the fossil fuel industry, and other interests, but ultimately these entities can’t vote, but we can. We need to vote with care of creation at the top of our agenda. We are far more powerful than Esther was and look at what she accomplished with her courage and wisdom. Surely, we can accomplish so much more with the greater power that we possess.
So, if we are to be the advocates for creation that God is calling us to be, we need to vote. We need to know who represents us. Locally, each town in this area has a select board, planning board, and budget committee. Look up who is on these boards/committees. Read their minutes. Ask them what they are doing to help your community care for creation and mitigate climate change. Our Governor is Janet Mills. Look and see what she is doing to care for creation and mitigate climate change in Maine. If you live in Alna or Jefferson, you are represented at the state level by Edward J. Polewarczyk. In Bristol, Damariscotta, Newcastle, and Nobleboro, we are represented by Lydia Crafts. In Edgecomb and South Bristol you are represented by Holly Stover. In Bremen and Waldoboro, you are represented by Alden Simmons. Check and see what they have done to care for creation and mitigate climate change. Let them know what you think about what they have done and tell them what you think needs to be done. Speak up. Do the same with the select, planning, budget, and finance boards of the town you live in. Contact our Governor, Janet Mills our U.S. Representative, Chellie Pingree, and our U.S. Senators, Susan Collins and Angus King. Better yet, join with others and speak out. You have a voice. Use it.
Educate yourself about what is possible right now so when you do speak up you can give concrete ideas about what we should be doing. Don’t assume that those who represent us know these solutions already. Help our officials make the connections they need to make in order for change to happen. If you have particular skills, like grant writing, volunteer to use them on behalf of your community. Perhaps you have no particular skills to give, but you have time. Volunteer your time on behalf of creation. Be persistent and clear when you communicate. Elected officials are busy. Use phones, emails, their websites, or Facebook pages, social media, and local newspapers. When you send an email put your ask in the subject line. Write personal letters, form letters are the least effective. Tell a personal story that brings the issue home. Say thank you when our representatives do the right thing.
Esther was an orphan, a woman, and a Jewish person. She was at the bottom of the hierarchal heap. It would seem that the best course of action for her would have been to lay low and keep quiet, hoping that no one would discover her ethnic identity. Mordecai reminds her that as a Jewish woman she is at just as much at risk as the rest of the Jewish people in Persia, and he reminds her of her greater vocation to be an advocate for her people, to use what little power she has as one of the King’s wives, to save her people. In turn the story of Esther reminds us, that though the easy course of action may be to throw up our hands and give power over to those who are destroying our creation, in the end this will lead to our destruction and the destruction of our children and grandchildren too.
To paraphrase Mordecai: “Who knows? Perhaps you have come to this place in your life for just as such a time as this.” All of creation is waiting for you to use your voice. Amen.
