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"A Party for Whom?"
Esther 6
A Sermon Preached by The Rev. Douglas M. Donley
July 29, 2001
University Baptist Church
First Congregational Church
Minneapolis, MN
Here we are in our third week of sermons on the book of Esther. For those of you who missed one or both of the previous joint services, we began with a review of the Book of Esther from beginning to end, telling this comedic and tragic tale of lust, power, betrayal, murder and triumph. Interestingly, God is not mentioned at all in the Hebrew Bible version, perhaps because vengeance is antithetical to God’s purposes. Last week, we looked at the fourth chapter in which Modecai convinces Queen Esther, winner of the Miss Persia Pageant, to use her royal dignity to foil evil Haman’s plot to kill all of the Jews. In the process, Esther needs to decide if she is willing to risk her life for her own people, a life likely preserved by her royal status. Mordecai asks all of us royal people, "who knows, maybe you have been given royal dignity for such a time as this." Next week we will look at the feast of Purim and the transformation of mourning into dancing as we conclude the book of Esther.
But before we get there, we need to examine more odd twists in this ironic and, if it were not so bloody, comedic tale. In the sixth chapter, Queen Esther is in the background and we now have the battle between Mordecai and Haman. In tragic irony, Mordecai gets the party Haman plans for himself and we see Haman begin to unravel before our eyes.
The chapter opens with the King, the scribe and a case of insomnia. The king asks that the story of his life be his bedtime story. Nothing like self-aggrandizement to put you to sleep. I can imagine that this paranoid King wanted to make sure that history would cast things in the right light. Maybe this was an editing ritual he participated in often. We don’t know. What we do know is that the King stumbles upon the story of the assassination plot that is foiled by Mordecai and Esther. There it is in parchment. The King, seemingly oblivious to the fact that he has already signed Mordecai’s death decree, decides to throw one of his great parties for Mordecai.
Haman, meanwhile, has just finished supervising the construction of Mordecai’s gallows on the town square. He walks in to the King’s court and finds the King talking about how he wants to honor one of the bravest and greatest men in all of the land.
"Haman, what is befitting such a man?" asks the King. Haman, thinking he is talking about himself suggests a huge parade with all the trimmings: royal robes, a horse, a crown. Haman can almost see himself as king, now. He has been doing all of the work for the king anyway, why not be treated like a king. Haman was proud of his plan and even happier when the King said, "do it." But we can just feel the wind flowing out of his sails when the king adds, "for Mordecai." We can just hear Haman saying to himself, "You want me to throw a party for whom? Mordecai, my nemesis, my arch rival, the one who shows me no respect. The one who has the audacity not only to save the King’s life, but send subversive messages to Queen Esther? You want a party for him?"
Mordecai gets treated like a king. Haman, who could not get Mordecai to bow to him, now has to lead a royal-looking Mordecai around and watch others bow to Mordecai. Haman had people bow to him because of their fear. Mordecai had people bow to him because of his bravery. In my mind’s eye I see Haman, dripping with sweat, filled with rage and stuck in a cycle of anger and shame. It is the beginning of his end.
His wife and his friends say the same thing. "If Mordecai, before whom your downfall had begun, is of the Jewish people, you will not prevail against him, but you will surely fall behind him."(6:13) Sure enough, in the seventh chapter, Esther reveals herself and reveals Haman as the enemy of her people. Haman is killed on the gallows built for Mordecai and the Jews then have a bloodbath against all of Haman’s family.
Mordecai becomes ruthless in the end, perhaps more so than Haman. As Eric suggested this is a good reason for God to be absent from the story.
According to the caricature, Haman is the megalomaniac who can’t stand it when anyone disagrees with him. He obviously had something wrong with him. Was he not held enough as a child? Was he dropped on his head, abused. Was he short, as some have supposed? Or was he a cartoon, a caricature of abusive power running amok? This is a tragic picture of self-destruction. It’s like people going on Jerry Springer to help "solve" their problems. They will ultimately look like fools and words will fail them as they implode under the power of their own rage. And the bouncers have to hold them back from ripping each other to shreds.
Don’t think that because we’re Christians that we are any better than the vengeful Hamans and Mordecais of the world. Brian McLaren in his book, The Church on the Other Side writes: "All of us who take the name "Christian" claim a faith that is supposed to unleash spiritual power in us, but the darker powers of hate and fear (not to mention lust and greed) seem stronger. I see my own country—also among the most "Christian" in the world—born through the near extermination of one race, reared on the subjugation of another, and enriched through the rape of one of the finest environments on the planet, as Jim Wallis of Sojourners poignantly suggests. Where was our faith?" (p. 30) We can walk a fine line between triumphal religion and religiously sanctioned abuse.
As Eric and I sat at Annie’s burger joint this past week, I told him I didn’t know which aspect of this story to focus on. Do I focus on Haman, the man who couldn’t stand anyone to disagree with him and subsequently how we deal with people who disagree with us? Do I make the Christian leap and say that Jesus throws a party for all of us, the poor, the lame, the outcast, in fact everyone on the highways and byways. We all get parties thrown for us by Jesus and it really ticks off those in power. Eric got one of those quizzical far-off looks and said, "what about the scribe?" As usual, he had something there, so I want to talk briefly about the power of story-telling.
Preachers learn in preaching school that we need to put stories in to our preaching, otherwise people won’t remember them. Until next season the latest show in the Star Trek craze is the one called Voyager. There are those who believe that Star Trek stories are so popular because they seek out new worlds. That process of exploration and discovery is somehow archetypal for our existence. Without this fantasy and newness, goes the argument, we would be somewhat less than whole. In the Star Trek universe, they have evolved beyond the need for commerce and warfare. Their existence is designed to better themselves.
In one episode, the crew of Voyager encountered a race of people who preyed upon other people's stories. It was their lifeblood. The planet was famous for their hospitality and that hospitality would lure other cultures to their world. All they asked in return was to hear their stories. The hosts would then feed on the stories of their visitors. It is what gave them a sense of their place in the order of the cosmos. I found that basis for civilization most profound.
A number of months ago, when we came to the Twin cities for candidating weekend at UBC in the dead of sinter, Amanda, our four-year-old upon entering the hotel room picked up the Gideon’s Bible from the nightstand and held it up and said "This is a really good story." Luckily, the chair of the Search Committee was standing nearby.
I recently had the pleasure to read the life story of UBC’s own Fred Battell. Hearing of his travels, his many degrees, his family story and his interests was very profound. Fred said in the introduction that he wanted to tell this story because he was the last surviving member of his family and he wanted their stories to go on. When you tell a story, you grant immortality to a person or an event.
When we tell our stories with one another, we invite them into an intimacy and a trust. Whenever Jesus was faced with a difficult dilemma, he told a story.
I wonder if that is the role of the scribe in today’s scripture. In Esther, there are a whole lot of nobodies that intrude into this tale and beg to be recognized. Why is it that all of the eunuchs are named? This never happens in scripture, but here it is over and over again in Esther. God is not named, but the eunuchs, the outcasts, the sexually, religiously and socially impure are named.
What if the scribe was truly the key player in this story? The scribe could have written thousands of pages of text about the exploits in the Kingdom. But is it any accident, that on this day, the day Haman constructed the gallows for Mordecai, the scribe just happens to tell the story to the king of Mordecai’s saving of his life? Or was it the king who had a feeling that Haman was up to no good, began conspiring with Mordecai to expose Haman’s hatefulness and spite? Maybe the King asked the scribe to do some research on this family he had ordered destroyed.
I think the scribe told the King the story that needed to be told. He reminded him of his own story. And the king realized that if Haman was capable of betraying Mordecai, then he was capable of royal betrayal, too. The King knew he had sentenced Mordecai to death. He knew that he had listened to Haman’s one-sided story about how Mordecai and his family were evil.
The King staged the Mordecai Day Parade to rub it in Haman’s face. He gave Haman the opportunity to ‘fess up. But he didn’t and when Esther finally told the king what he already knew, that Haman was the fly in the ointment, it became clear that Haman had done all of this to himself.
But what if the scribe had handed the king a different chapter of the annals of King Ahasuerus? What if the scribe had not stepped up to the plate at such a time as this? What if his story was never told? What then?
And that is where it comes to us. Once you determine who tells your story, you determine reality. If you leave some voices out of history, might there be a truth-gap?
Multinational corporations own our so-called free press. Do you think we would get self-criticism on the nightly news?
The majority of popular theologizing these days ignores the stories of all but men of European descent. In this third millennium, in these few renegade churches here and there, we are looking to other voices to shed new light on faith and experience. It’s great to be among two of those churches this morning.
A number of us have been to Central America. When I went to Nicaragua in the 80’s, I came back loaded with stories which I was eager to share and which were ignored by our media. But thousands of people went to Nicaragua during the Contra War and as we came back relentlessly with our stories, we were able to change US policy.
That struggle still goes on at the School of the Americas where people of faith continue to tell the stories of the training of third-world death squads with our tax dollars. That struggle still happens as people travel to Vieques Island in Puerto Rico where the US has a military base, to demand that the stories are heard of the people of Vieques.
That struggle continues as our churches continue to tell the stories of how we live an authentic faith in the midst of a watered-down theological world of the self-aggrandizing.
Sisters and brothers, not only are we Esther, the one who came to royal dignity for such a time as this, we are also the subversive scribe who might just be called upon to tell the story that needs to be told to the right person in power in order to save the life of a people. How often have you told your story? Is there some wisdom that needs to be shared? Your story may save another’s life. Telling it, may cause you to remember who you are.
A few weeks ago when I was in Cleveland, my mother gave me a wonderful birthday gift. It was a book of her memories of me over the past…many years of my existence. She took the time to write down the stories of her memories of me. What a tremendous gift. As I was pouring through this book, Amanda was very interested in the stories of me as a child. She now wants me to tell all sorts of stories about my childhood. And I realized that I have not told her much about my childhood. I have not told her the stories that helped shape me and helped shape her family. So, now that my mother has reminded me of my story, I am telling it to my daughter, too.
I can imagine the scribe at every Purim feast telling the story once again about how he slipped in the story about Mordecai saving the king’s life. I hear him laughing and saying how wonderful it was and important it was to remember the Eunuch’s names. "And can you believe it, the editors left their names in the Bible, too. And the look on Haman’s face when he had to lead Mordecai around the town. That was priceless."
We laugh with him and we celebrate with him because it’s our story. We are included in the story. We celebrate with the scribe because we gain the power and the wisdom to tell our own stories.
And we know that when we do that, then our world begins to change, because reality changes. And all of a sudden, we don’t feel so alone anymore, because stories are being told of hope, deliverance, faith, questioning, defeat, struggle, surprise and most of all joy. It is the joy of being heard. It’s not enough for God to know your story. Something happens when we share our stories, we have to look at the world with new eyes. The former things are cast in new light, and we witness a resurrection.
So, with the audacity of Esther and the scribe, for such a time as this, might we too sing with the old gospel hymn writer, "This is my story, this is my song. Praising my savior all the day long. This is my story, this is my song. Praising my savior all the day long."