The next two weeks,
the Lectionary takes us to Biblical myths that invite us to think a little
deeper about the nature of God. Those who take part in the Highlands Book Club
experienced that journey with Bishop Shelby Spong’s most recent book
“Unbelievable.”
“God,” Spong argues,
“is not a being” but rather is “being itself.” God, he said, becomes visible in
the transformation of the world, what he called “the outbreak of human
wholeness.” Spong locates his views of the nature of God in scripture, citing
among others Isaiah 35: 5-6.
5Then the eyes of the blind shall be
opened, and the ears of the deaf unstopped;6then
the lame shall leap like a deer, and the tongue of the speechless sing for joy.
For waters shall break forth in the wilderness, and streams in the desert
Isaiah saw God as the
experience of the reversal of fortunes, a moment when injustice is righted, the
oppressed freed, the hungry fed, the lions laying down with the lambs and the
lambs no longer nervous. God is not separate from these human experiences but
is those very experiences.
Who or what do you
think God is? Let’s dig down on that question.
How fortuitous it is
that after the last week the Lectionary asks us this morning to tell the story
of Esther and how the suffering of others was avoided because a man in power
chose to believe a woman, a story that speaks to the nature of God without ever
mentioning God by name. Her book is the only book in the Bible that doesn’t
mention God Yet, it teaches us more about the nature of God than we can
imagine.
Once upon a time,
King Ahasueras, who reigned over much of the known world from India to Ethiopia,
gave a banquet for all of his princes and servants, nobles and governors. It
lasted 6 months
When it ended he gave
a second banquet for the people of the capital city of Susa. It lasted another
7 days. When the king was drunk with wine, he ordered his 7 eunuchs to retrieve
the queen t come before him and the partiers, for he wanted to show her off to
the others.
Queen Vashti Tweeted
the King, “Sorry, that’s not happening, I will not dance in front of the king
and his drunken buddies. ##MeToo.” Queen Vashti knew that it took powerful
women to put an end to the games men were playing.
Unaccustomed as the
men of the day were to women asserting control over their own bodies, the King was
flummoxed. He consulted his advisers. These were all powerful men, wise enough
to know the queen’s refusal to do as told was not just a problem for the king
but them as well. If one woman was allowed to say no, it could prove
contagious. Once their wives learned a wife could refuse a husband’s command,
the entire empire would be in turmoil.
They advised the king to get rid the kingdom of this
queen and find a new one. So,
it was that the king sent letters to all the royal provinces, to every province
and to every people in its own language, declaring that every man should be
master in his own house.
The king held auditions for a new
queen. Women from throughout the kingdom were brought before the king that he
might replace Vashti.
There was a Jew named Mordecai who had
adopted the orphan Esther whose parents King Nebuchadnezzar carried away to
Babylon. She was a young woman as smart as she was beautiful. Esther was one of
the young women brought before the king though she had to hide the fact that
she was a Jew. When the king saw her, she immediately won him over and Esther
was chosen to be the new queen.
Mordecai, meanwhile, went to the
king’s gate each day to try to get a glimpse of Esther. One day he overheard
men plotting to kill the king. He told Esther who told the king and the
plotters were executed and Esther gained the king’s confidence.
It came to pass that a man named
Haman was selected by the king to be his chief of staff. Everyone feared Haman
and bowed down before him, everyone, that is, except Mordecai. Haman was
furious and decided to take revenge by slaughtering all of Mordecai’s people,
the Jews. But, first he had to get the permission of the king.
“There are certain people among the
peoples of your kingdom,” Haman told the king. “They are, shall we say,
different. They speak a different language. Their culture is different. Their
religious beliefs are different. The color of their skin is different. Remember
how the Pharaoh worried that those who were different would take over his
kingdom? Well, that is what is happening to our country,” said Haman. “There
are just too many people among us who are DIFFERENT. That cannot be tolerated.”
“I know what to do about these
people,” said Haman. If it pleases the king, let a decree be issued for their
destruction. I will pay ten thousand talents of silver so that it may put it
into the king’s treasuries.”
So, the king pocketed the dark
money, signed a decree giving Haman the right to kill all the people in his
kingdom whom Haman thought to be DIFFERENT, and he and Haman sat down to share
a drink.
Mordecai learned of the plot. Went
to Esther. Would she speak to her husband to stop the slaughter? Esther was
afraid. Women couldn’t do that. Even queens couldn’t approach kings without an
invitation. The penalty was death.
Mordecai replied, “If you keep
silence at such a time as this, others will suffer because you would not speak.
Who knows? Perhaps you have found yourself in a place where you can make a
difference for just such a time as this.”
Esther went to the king who
received her happily. “What is it dear Esther?” he said, “I will give you even
half my kingdom if you ask.” Esther asked the king to invite Haman to a banquet
she was preparing.
Meanwhile, Haman was feeling good
about life. All was good. Even the queen wanted to honor him. He confided in
his wife that as good as things were going there was still that troublesome
Mordecai, living and breathing and refusing to bow to him. His wife told him he
should go ahead and build gallows in anticipation of hanging that loathsome
Jew.
Unbeknownst to Haman, the king, one
sleepless night, read through the records of the kingdom and found the entry
reporting it was Mordecai who uncovered the plot to assassinate the king. “Has
Mordecai ever been honored for this?” he asked. “No,” no honor had been
bestowed on the man who had saved his life. Without naming the man he wished to
honor, the king asked his chief of staff, “What shall be done for the man whom
the king wishes to honor?”
Haman said to himself, “Whom would
the king wish to honor more than me?” Haman said to the king, “For the man
whom the king wishes to honor, let royal robes be brought, which the king
has worn, and a prize horse that the king has ridden, with a royal crown on its
head.
Let the robes and the horse be
handed over to the king’s most noble official; let him robe the man whom the
king wishes to honor, and let him lead the man on horseback through the open
square of the city.”
The king said to Haman, “Thus shall
it be done for the man whom the king wishes to honor.” Haman and the king
hurried off to the banquet Esther planned, Haman under the impression that he
was about to be honored by the king. After they had wined and dined a couple of
days, the king asked Esther, “What exactly would you like from me? Whatever it
is, I will grant to you.”
Esther told the king someone was
plotting to annihilate her people. “Who?” the king demanded. “It is he.” The
queen pointed at Haman. The king left to contemplate whether or not he should
believe a woman who was accusing one of the most powerful men in his inner
circle. While the king was gone, a now very frightened Haman went to Esther to
beg mercy. In his exuberance, he fell onto the couch where Ester lay just as
the king returned. It didn’t look good. Things just got worse.
One of the king’s eunuchs whispered
to the king, “Did you know Haman prepared gallows to hang Mordecai, the man you
are preparing to honor. They are ready.” The king said, “Very nice. Then use
them to hang Haman.” And so, it was done.
Then the king issued a new decree
revoking the authority to kill the Jews and permitting them to defend
themselves if attacked. Haman had plotted against the Jews and cast his lot
to crush and destroy them; but
because of Esther the king gave orders that his wicked plot should come upon
Haman’s own head, and that he should be hanged on the very gallows Haman had
built.
It was a stunning reversal of fortunes, the sort of
reversal of fortunes in which the nature of God can be defined.
And as we read the story of Esther, we ask how it is
that an entire book of the Bible can tell a story like this without once
mentioning the name of God, a story of a man in power choosing to believe a
woman led inexorably to justice. There we witness is the hand of God in this
story.
This is the nature of the God we worship; not a
bearded old man on a heavenly throne who sides with humans because of their
gender, race, religion or other human construct. God is never mentioned by
name. Esther is never judged by creeds or church doctrine. Not once is Esther
asked whether she has been saved or born again. Her church attendance or
whether she tithes is not measured.
As Bishop John Spong says in his book, “While God may
be present in the experience, the experience can never be identified with God.”
The common theme in many Bible lessons, Spong argues, is that “God is not a
being separate from the beings who are human.”
For those Esther saved, God is experienced and need
not be mentioned. God’s hopes for the world in that one moment of history are
accomplished by the hands of a human being. Esther acts out of love, Vashiti
out of self-respect. Therefore, God exists through the choices of humans like
the two Queens, both of whom God created for such a time as this. AMEN
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