"Deliverance" - Sermon for the Fourth Sunday after Pentecost

Deliverance 
Pentecost 4 – Sermon Series
July 2, 2017
Grace, Mankato, MN
Esther 6.14-7.10; 8.1-8, 15-17; 9.1-10, 15-17, 20-22

Like a mystery novel that unfolds slowly but wraps up quickly in the last 20 pages, here we are rushing to the end of Esther, as fine a thriller as you’d find anywhere, TV, movie or book. And like any good hero, Esther has grown in courage and agency as the story moves along. She becomes bolder and more responsible for her future. As we’ve noted in previous sermons, she has arrived at her moment of destiny, for “just such a time as this” and has discovered that her real power comes in her influence over the ones closest to her. It’s her private power more than her public power that carries her through. In the end, it’s her willingness to sacrifice herself that saves the Jewish people from extinction.

On the face of it, the story is both familiar and riveting at the same time: a people who are oppressed and face long if not impossible odds, but who through a series of almost improbable reversals come out on top. We have a natural inclination to root for the underdog or victims in any situation, especially the vulnerable, and that’s certainly true in the story of Esther and the Jewish people. Still, we almost hold our collective breaths as Esther finally tells King Ahasuerus what she desires of him. For we know that the greatest danger comes as she reveals her Jewishness to a very unpredictable king. If there’s any doubt about how he’ll respond, the tide turns as the king sees Haman “assaulting” the queen.

Yet, as in any good tale worth telling, there remains a conundrum: the king’s original edict. As we’ve been told several times, an edict of the king cannot be revoked. Wanting to fix the situation but also wanting to distance himself from the mess he made, King Ahasuerus gives great power to Esther and Mordecai to do whatever they wish in the king’s name. They come up with a creative solution: an edict almost identical to the first authorizing the Jews to fight back. So effective is the edict that there are Persians falling all over themselves to convert to Judaism before the fateful day arrives.

Even so, the Jews launch a pre-emptive strike and then celebrate their deliverance from their enemies with a wild party. So we learn that the real purpose of the book of Esther is to provide the back story for the celebration of Purim, a Jewish festival. As one person noted, most Jewish festivals can be summed up this way: “They tried to kill us. We survived. Let’s eat!”

But, wait; there’s that little detail about the 75,800 people who were slaughtered by the Jews. The Revised Common Lectionary, that series of readings used by many churches, skips over this tidbit, but I’ve included it because we dare not take death and victory lightly. Now, the issue of war and violence in the Old Testament is an important one, but not able to be covered in a 12 minute sermon. But, it’s important to know that in Esther’s time there was a sense of righteous war borne out of necessity but that it is proportional to that necessity. You must do only what you need to do and nothing more, nothing less.

Furthermore, that when the Jews celebrate Purim it’s not the smash mouthed bloodshed that gets lifted up, but rather their survival. That’s something we might want to remember as we celebrate our independence from Great Britain: we don’t glorify the bloodletting that happened 241+ years ago. Rather, we rejoice that a nation we were once at odds with is now one of our greatest allies.

Finally, it’s vital we recognize that we who were once an oppressed and beleaguered people must not only resist becoming oppressors ourselves but also have a responsibility to others who are oppressed. How often do the oppressed become the oppressors or walk away from others who are in a similar situation? In other words, like Esther we are often called upon to sacrifice ourselves for others.

With freedom and deliverance comes great responsibility. In our study of Revelation beginning next week, we’ll go deeper into what it means to resist Empire. For now, we remember that we follow the one who showed us how to be vulnerable, who emptied himself and gave himself over so that we might have abundant life, Jesus our Savior. Amen.