September 30, 2012 – Esther 7:1-6, 9-10; 9:20-22
Esther 7:1-6, 9-10; 9:20-22
No Ditching
18th Sunday after Pentecost – September 30th, 2012
First Lutheran Church – Winnipeg, MB
Once upon a time there was a mighty Persian king named Ahasuerus who,
it turns out, needs a new queen.
So he had a beauty pageant arranged for him in which his lackeys paraded before him
the most beautiful women from all 127 provinces of his vast kingdom.
He chose Esther.
Now this heathen king did not know it, but Esther was a Jew.
She was an orphan who had been brought up in the care of her uncle Mordecai.
Mordecai said, “I think you should probably marry him even though he’s not Jewish.”
Well, why not? She was a poor nobody, he was a mighty king.
Now the king had a wicked prime minister named Haman.
Haman, too, did not know that the Queen was a Jew.
But this wicked prime minister Haman didn’t like Mordecai and
he didn’t like Mordecai’s people, the Jews.
So he devised a plot to get rid of them.
He simply set a date for the executions of all the Jews in the kingdom.
Then he cosies up to the king and says, “O great king: in your kingdom are those who
have their own laws and who will never be loyal subjects.
May I, uh, take care of this problem for you?”
This sounded good to the king, so the king said, “Okay.” A date was set for the evil day.
When Mordecai and the Jews discovered they were all about to be slain,
they were in great distress.
So Mordecai takes action and he sends word to Esther about all this.
He says to her, “Who knows? Perhaps you have come to be in your position for
just such a time as this.” (Esther 4:14)
And Esther replies, “I’ll do what I can. I’ll try to see the king about this.”
Now in those days you didn’t just go in to see the king even if you were the queen.
For going to see the king unasked for was punishable by death.
But Esther decides to take her chances for the life of her people.
For three days she screws up her courage.
And on the third day, scared out of her wits, she enters the king’s throne room.
And surprise of surprises, the king simply asks her to speak.
“Dear king,” she says, “would you do me a favour?”
And the king replies, “Whatever you want, gorgeous, even half my kingdom.”
So she says, “Would you and your Prime Minister Haman do me the honour of
attending a dinner I will give you?” And the king says, “Okay.”
At the dinner, everything goes so well and Esther is so beautiful the king says,
“Esther, you are soooo lovely and sooooo swell. Tell me something I can do for you.”
So the Queen screws up every bit of courage she has and says,
“King: in your service is one who is plotting to kill me and all of my people:
this will be a great loss to you, for not only will you lose your Queen,
you will lose all these people working for you in your kingdom.
Just let me and my people live: that’s what you can do for me.”
Upon hearing this, the king becomes extremely angry.
“Who’s the guy who wants to do this to you?, he yells. Tell me!!!”
And pointing across the table at Haman she says,
“He’s right there finishing up his crème brulee!”
Haman was pretty surprised: he didn’t even know that Esther was Jewish!
And so, in an episode of poetic justice, the king had Haman hanged on
the gallows he’d got ready for his enemy Mordecai.
To celebrate, the Jewish people proclaimed a holiday – the holiday of Purim –
during which they rest, feed each other, and collect gifts for the poor.
Controversy has surrounded the inclusion of Esther in the Bible because God never once
Appears in the story and not once is God’s name even mentioned.
I’m sure Esther would love it if God had directly intervened in the story:
I mean, who doesn’t want God to just do something when there is trouble?
Sometimes God does. And sometimes God doesn’t seem to.
But sometimes, maybe most of the time, God works hiddenly behind the scenes,
through ordinary people, people like Esther, people like you, people like me.
Because God is always, though often hiddenly, coming to you, coming to me,
working through you, and working through me.
Perhaps God has put you precisely where you are in your life for just such a time as this.
Esther herself is put into a position to be able to side with her people and
to risk her life for their benefit.
Esther refuses to ditch her people, even though it would have been much easier to do so.
As preacher Samuel Wells observes,
Esther goes to the heart of the empire to save the Jewish people. She becomes Christ.
(at http://www.faithandleadership.com/sermons/for-such-time)
In Christ, the Triune God sides with us, resides with us, and walks beside us.
Jesus of Nazareth is God’s way of refusing to ditch us,
even though it means a cross for him.
In the baptism of his death, Jesus sides with all the suffering ones of this world.
With the unjustly executed. With the unfairly treated. With the unsure and the anxious.
With the excluded. With the misunderstood. With the hungry and thirsty. With the hurt.
In the baptism of his death, Jesus is linked permanently and for all time with these.
And because we, too, are baptized into his death, we too in our baptisms are linked
not only to his suffering – which not only binds us close to him in our suffering –
it links us to all the suffering ones he is linked to.
It links us permanently and for all time with one another.
And it links us permanently and for all time with the suffering ones of this world.
The triune God has sided with us in Jesus.
In Jesus the triune God has decided not to ditch us – not any of us.
And so, in Christ, there is no one we may safely ditch.
The theme of the Canadian Lutheran Anglican Youth Gathering this summer was
Hyperlink.
We explored the ways in which God has linked God’s self to us in Jesus,
and the way in which therefore we are linked together and to the world and
what that means for us.
Before we left, our Home Team – Bethany, Julia, Lauren, Saige and Melinda and I –
had to write a covenant and agree to its terms for the duration of the trip.
One of the key terms of our covenant was, “No Ditching!”
The covenant bound us together for our benefit and for our well-being.
I’m not sure any of us realized how closely our covenant not to ditch each other was
bound to the “hyperlink” theme, but looking back I can see that it was.
We realized, I think, that in the church we’re called to stick together,
to not ditch one another, through thick and thin, no matter what:
and that that is for our benefit.
This was really brought home to us on the bus trip in a very real way.
In Banff, all the teams had some free time to wander around together.
On another home team, though, one that had also covenanted to not ditch on another,
one girl had a falling out with the rest of her group.
So she ditched them.
She got lost, though, couldn’t get reoriented, and wound not being able to find the buses.
The bus trip leaders knew she was missing, of course, and made the decision that
Pastor Larry would stay behind with Bishop Elaine’s car and look for her while
the buses went on ahead to Edmonton.
The girl, though, didn’t know this.
All she knew, was that while she cried and cowered and drew more and more into herself
– all she knew was that she saw our buses leave town without her.
Pastor Larry eventually found her after quite a search and all turned out well.
But it brought home to all of us the importance of never ditching one another.
There is no one we may safely ditch.
What we learned on that bus trip is that in our baptisms,
God has linked us together for our blessing and for our benefit.
And what we learned at CLAY was that in our baptisms God has linked us together
as the church for the blessing and benefit of the world.
Despite everything, God has sided with us and has refused to ditch us.
And despite everything, we need to side with one another as
members of First Lutheran Church and continue to meet and grow in community.
And despite everything, as members of First Lutheran Church we need to side with those
whom Christ has sided: with the suffering, with the hungry, with the imprisoned,
with a groaning, groaning creation.
With Christ, we are linked with the hunger of the world for goodness.
With Christ, we are linked with the hunger of the world for the goodness of
community life in which care for the vulnerable is a priority.
Yes: there is much suffering in our world.
Yes: as the questions you wrote last week show, we want to know how that can be.
Yes: God sends us Jesus, but not to answer those questions, but to join us to the suffering.
Yes: we wish God would intervene and that God would directly do something about it.
Often it seems like God doesn’t, but, as in Esther, perhaps God does do something else:
perhaps God puts us in the position we’re in, in close proximity to one another,
in the heart not of an empire but of the West End of Winnipeg,
for just such a time as this, and works hiddenly through us.
Perhaps, perhaps you have come to this place, to this moment,
to these people, to this congregation, to this place in your life,
with all your limitations and with all your gifts, for just such a time as this.
Perhaps at this moment you can do what no one else can do.
Perhaps at this time you can be what no one else can be.
Perhaps you, linked together now, are here for just such a time as this.
In a few minutes, you will be fed here at this table once again,
when God in Christ will renew the link of the covenant
God made with you in baptism to be your God.
Here at the table God will link God’s self to you through the gracious gift of food and
Jesus will bind Jesus’s very self to your molecules and his very life,
his blood, will run through your veins, hidden in you, but real.
The life that never ditches.
The life that sides with one another. The life that sides with the vulnerable.
I think God has put us in this place for just such a time as this.
In the coming weeks you will receive an invitation to participate in a great venture of
First Lutheran Church – the venture to ensure that
twice a month community meals will be served here
in conjunction with the Wednesday Food Bank.
We’ll have a sign-up sheet with opportunities to serve on
26 different Wednesdays a year.
Perhaps God has put you in a position to
cook food for a few Wednesdays or a lot of Wednesdays.
Perhaps God has put you in a position to
serve the food on a few Wednesdays or a lot of Wednesdays.
Perhaps God has put you in your current position for just such a time as this,
knowing that there are none – not one another,
not the vulnerable of this neighbourhood – that we may safely ditch.
For God has linked us together, now and always, with the life of the Triune God,
with the lives of one another, and with the lives of the vulnerable.
So together let us say, “Amen.”
Pastor Michael Kurtz
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