Faith In Real Life Blog: “ESTHER”

 

Rev. Vernon Gramling

 

Decatur Presbyterian Church

 

July 28, 2022

Esther is a ten chapter book of the bible written like a short story.  It describes how an orphaned young Jewish woman living in Persia during the rule of King Ahasuerus becomes a member of  the King’s harem, rises to the rank of Queen, and almost single handedly, saves her people from genocide.  In the Jewish tradition, her heroism is celebrated every year in the festival of Purim.  

 

The theme of the book fits an oft repeated pattern in the Old Testament— God acts in unexpected ways and uses unlikely people to protect and save his children.  He chooses a small group of wandering nomads to be his chosen people,  He frees and redeems the lowest rung on the Egyptian ladder.  He chooses the ‘runt of the litter’, David, to be their king.  And in this case, uses a teenaged girl to protect his displaced people from genocide.  The historicity of any of these events is subject to doubt and questions but the faith that God cares for his children  (and perhaps especially his children that are disregarded in the secular world), is the unshakeable faith of the Jewish people—and by extension, the Christian people.  All of these stories, including Esther, describe a God who cares and a God who often acts outside of secular expectation. 

 

I say all this because there are more doubts and internal inconsistencies in the book than usual.  There is no mention of such a queen in the Persian records and it is almost inconceivable that a Persian king would have a Jewish consort in his harem, much less that she would become the queen.  But that doesn’t really matter.  The faith that God is acting does. The final editorial decision to include Esther in the bible was based on its ability to reveal something basic about God. 

 

We have no evidence that I am aware of that George Washington cut down his father’s cherry tree.  But the story is told and retold because it tells the story of George’s character—honest and accountable.  We believe, and it is a faith claim, that George was such a man.  In a similar fashion, we believe that the character of God is revealed in the stories in the Bible. The search for ‘proof’ in the bible is a futile exercise. In this regard, it helps to remember that there was nothing that Jesus did that was so convincing that all who saw believed.  It is far more important to focus on what the scriptures reveal about the character of God and our relationship with God than trying to figure out the biblical equivalent of asking if George’s father really had a cherry tree—much less figure out if his son cut it down.  

 

We hold fast to the promise that God cares for us whether we are lost, wandering, disregarded in the world as a runt, a child or a woman. All of those distinctions are human rather than Godly. 

 

That said, the means by which Esther succeeds are filled with deceit, cunning and manipulation—certainly not politically correct modus operandi for God. Esther’s story could easily have been the basis of an episode of “Mission Impossible”.  Esther entered the court under a false identity.  Mordecai, her uncle and adoptive father, serves as the brains of the operation. He tells Esther to change her name (originally it was Hadassah) to conceal her Jewish identity in order to ‘audition’ for the king’s harem.  She is chosen and she uses her beauty and her wit to win over the king. (“The king loved Esther more than all the other women; of all the virgins she won his favor and devotion, so that he set the royal crown on her head and made her queen instead of Vashti.”)  She advances further when she passes information, in the name of Mordecai,  to the king about a plot to kill him.  Her position in the court was solidified but not secure.  

 

The plot thickens when Haman  (the bad guy in this story) becomes offended when Mordecai would not bow to him. Angered, he bought the right to issue an edict calling for the complete eradication of all the Jews in the land. The entire Jewish community was in danger.  

 

It was time for Esther to use her position of influence to thwart the plot. Gaining an audience with the king, however, was dangerous. No one, including her, was allowed to approach the king without a specific invitation.  To do so risked death.  In a moment of drama, the king chooses to call her forward  instead of killing her and says “What is it, Queen Esther? What is your request? Even to half of my kingdom, it shall be given to you.” Esther puts him off telling him:  “If I have won the king’s favor, and if it pleases the king to grant my petition and fulfill my request, let the king and Haman come tomorrow to the banquet that I will prepare for them, and then I will do as the king has said.”  Having so carefully set up Hamen, Esther reveals her true identity as well as the plan to kill the Jews. The story ends with Hamen being hung on the gallows built for Mordecai, Mordecai replacing Haman as the king’s advisor and the Jews “ who were in the king’s provinces also gathered to defend their lives and gained relief from their enemies and killed seventy-five thousand of those who hated them.”  

 

Rather than encouraging Esther to be more like a man, this story celebrates her femininity. She is in no position to use force.  She uses her beauty, her guile and her courage to prevail.  When I was in the parish working with teenagers, it was a fairly common occurrence that someone felt left out.  I would ask the group to form a tight circle of interlocking arms and tell the ‘outsider’ to find a way in.  The boys would almost always try to crash the circle but the girls had to do something else.  For the most part they simply were not big enough to use that tactic.  One, particularly small girl was completely blocked until she went up behind the biggest boy in the circle—and tickled him.  He broke the circle and she was in.  When we talked about the exercise later, I commented that such a strategy would not even occur to most of the boys.   In “The Big Fat Greek Wedding” the wife says her husband is the head of the household but she is the neck that turns the head.  That is an art form that most of us (both men and women) are well aware of.  It requires an ability to ‘read the room’, the ability to choose the ‘right’ time, persistence  and the willingness to take action.  But these same skills are often labeled manipulative and conniving. 

 

While many of us have a prejudice against the word ‘manipulation’,  no teacher or parent could be effective without the skill.   Good salesmen read books about ‘closing the deal.’  When are these tactics ok and when are they a bridge too far? In Esther we celebrate Esther’s ability to manipulate the king.  Yet if any of us discovered we had been played as efficiently as the king, we would not be so pleased. 

 

The book of Esther was not written to address gender questions.  It was written to remind the people of God’s saving activity.  But I think it is worth noting that Esther used what she had in the service of God’s larger purpose.  It is jarring to ask if deceit and manipulation are tools acceptable to God when it is so obvious that good has prevailed against evil.  But in real life there are no ‘pure’ motives.  We are complex people with complex agendas.  God works her purposes out using unexpected means and with unexpected people.  We need to be mindful of our prejudices and be accountable for our motives.  Anything that can be used can be misused.  Assertiveness and ‘straight talk’ can deteriorate into coercion and violence.  Careful timing and a sophisticated awareness of nuance can also deteriorate into a covert coercion.  The better it is, the harder it is to see, but it is coercion nonetheless.  BUT— just because something can be misused does not mean it should not be used.  

 

We live with the unending, and highly ambiguous, responsibility to discern what is loving.  We will make many mistakes and sometimes we will be dead wrong.  We have no certainty about what is best.  We have examples, often contradictory, to give us direction.