Esther 7:1-6, 9-10; 9:20-22
I pastor a tiny church. Like, seriously small. I’ve preached to one person; I’ve preached to more children than adults; I’ve preached when there were more visitors than regulars. This is a regular test of my faith. I am the heir to a kingdom that cannot be shaken, but scripture doesn’t say anything about my particular little Nazarene church.
The book of Esther tells the origin of the Jewish festival of Purim. This is a festival of celebration. In fact, one traditional (not biblical) component of the festival of Purim is getting so drunk that participants cannot distinguish between the phrases, “Blessed be Mordecai” and “Cursed be Haman.” These people came to party.
The characters in the book of Esther are larger-than-life: Ahasuerus, the weakling foreign king who is constantly consulting his advisors before he acts; Haman, the Agagite whose association with Agag and the Amalekites alerts us to his propensity towards wickedness; Mordecai, the faithful Jew who refuses to compromise his values; and Esther, the who becomes the student, discovering her Jewish identity in a foreign palace.
In the Christian scriptures, Esther precedes Job—that intimidating Old Testament book that wrestles with questions of theodicy: what happens when bad things happen to good people? But Esther is much more straightforward: good things happen to good people, specifically faithful people. The story ends with the larger-in-life characters in proper order in the world. The weak king is merely a puppet of his righteous second in command; the evil Agagite is humiliated and killed; the faithful Jew is raised to a position of respect and authority; and the student discovers that she was, indeed, given her position for “such a time as this.”
I can imagine Jewish people celebrating this festival and re-telling this story. I imagine there were some years when the world was as it should be—when faithfulness was, indeed, rewarded with prosperity and security. But it doesn’t take much knowledge of Jewish history to know that for the vast majority of Jewish people celebrating this festival, this story described a reality they weren’t seeing before them.
What did they do then? They were commanded to celebrate. They had to celebrate. They were commanded to celebrate what God had done once in the past and what their faith told them God would do again. And so they did and still do.
This speaks a powerful word to us. The lectionary text is the turning point of the book of Esther. Up to the beginning of chapter seven, we are caught between Haman and Mordecai. Both have been honored; both have been humiliated. Will good triumph over evil? Or will evil win out in this dangerous foreign kingdom? In the opening of chapter seven, Esther makes her move, asking the king to spare her people, taking hold of her identity as a Jew. Her boldness is rewarded, and her people are spared.
This is an important story in Jewish culture and tradition. It tells its hearers that foreign kings ultimately have no power, good triumphs over evil, God’s people will always be saved, and faithfulness is rewarded. It invites the listener to, along with Esther, courageously step up and claim identity as the people of God. And then we celebrate.
My particular denomination eschews the consumption of alcohol, so we won’t observe the festival of Purim exactly in line with the Jewish tradition. But we need these stories. We need stories of celebration. We need to look defeat, despair, hopelessness, poverty, and heartbreak in the eye, and not just white knuckle our way through; we need to see the reality of a sin-filled, broken world and choose to celebrate anyway.
There is a time and a place for Job. There is a time to wrestle with big questions and heavy philosophy, and I think we’ve done that pretty well in my experience of Christianity. But there is also a time and a place for Esther. There is a time to simply declare that foreign kings have no power, good triumphs over evil, God’s people will always be saved, and faithfulness is rewarded, and then to get down to the business of partying like there’s no tomorrow.
Tomorrow will come, and reality will still be as it is. Tomorrow I will still be preaching to six people. Tomorrow I will still wonder what in the world God is doing here. But after reading Esther, I will enter into that work with a renewed sense of God’s sovereign power at work in the world, with a renewed conviction that it is worth whatever cost I may pay to take hold of my identity as a child of God and be bold and courageous no matter what threat lies before me.
Sometimes we need nuance and complexity, but sometimes we just need to know that faithfulness is worth it. And sometimes we just need to party. The book of Esther gives us that space. With this passage in the lectionary, allow that space for faithfulness and celebration in your own life and in the life of your congregation.
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