October 1, 2006
World Communion Sunday
Text: Esther 7:1-6, 9-10, 9:20-22
Mealtime Grace
At a critical moment in this country’s history – in the depths of the Great Depression – President Franklin Delano Roosevelt looked into the eyes of the American people in his first inaugural address and declared that “We have nothing to fear but fear, itself.” Many would respond, “That’s enough!” Fear drives so much of what we do, sometimes steering us toward safety; other times seducing us into crime. Wasn’t it fear, after all, that stirred President Kennedy to plot the Bay of Pigs invasion? Wasn’t it fear that led to the undoing of President Nixon? Isn’t it fear that fuels corporate spying and border fences and mandatory sentences; that forces you to practically strip in order to board a plane? Was it really a sense of duty that kept German soldiers from decrying and refusing orders that led to Holocaust, or was it fear of demotion, punishment and reprisal? And isn’t it fear that patrols the silence of children abused, employees complicit, and Christians offended? Fear is a powerful and oppressive tyrant.
There are lots of ways to slice this little Hebrew novella at the center of our attention, but fear is somewhere in the thick of them all. Set sometime around the 4th century B.C. in and around the Persian Palace of King Ahasuerus, the story centers around the place of the Jews who have been displaced into the midst of a foreign land and people. The verses we’ve read this morning obviously represent a highly edited telling of the story that in its fuller form includes many other thickening details to the plot well worth our reading and entertainment. It is, after all, a good story that culminates in the wonderfully satisfying denouement included in our reading. Not always does it happen in our experience that the “good folk” win and the “bad guys” get their just desserts. But here it is in gratifying perfection.
So who are these people, what are they afraid of, and why should we care? The heroine of the story is the orphaned Jewish girl for whom the book is named: Esther. She is adopted – either formally or informally – by Mordecai, a relative of some sort – an uncle perhaps – who becomes a mentor to Esther and a lightening rod to the advisors of King Ahasuerus, specifically a man named Haman, the King’s Vizier. Early in the story, the queen at the time displeases the king, who replaces her, through something of a beauty pageant, with Esther. He doesn’t seem to know that she is a Jew, but then neither does he seem to care – more interested, as he is, in her other considerable attributes.
The tension of the story erupts in the background, between Haman, the King’s Vizier, and Mordecai who singularly devotes his worship to the Hebrew God instead of the King. Taking offense at this man’s presumed arrogance, Haman elicits from the king an agreement to put to death all those who kindly refuse the King’s gracious invitation to worship him. Of course the King is oblivious to the implications. He has no reason to make any connection between this decree and his lovely new queen; certainly no connection with Mordecai and the rest of the Jews.
And with that, the tension continues to build. Gallows are constructed, nooses are tied and secured into place, and a cloud of dread settles upon the condemned in anticipation of execution day. But Mordecai has an idea: the queen could ask for mercy. The King just might listen to her. But as Esther is quick to point out, the plan is not without considerable risk. People who approach the King uninvited quite typically leave in more pieces than they came. Esther has good reason to fear for her life. The “right” thing to do is not always the “smart” thing to do. In our experience we have plenty of examples of people like Haman – people who work behind the scenes to maneuver and insinuate and frame and spin main stage affairs to their own personal advantage – twisting policies away from the good of the many and toward the benefit of a few.
But every so often we witness a very different example – the occasional “whistle-blower” who brings to light the illegal or duplicitous activities of his or her employers, or who buck the political pressures to serve special interests at the expense of the general public; who find the courage to embrace one’s inner truth.
Parker Palmer recalls a retreat he facilitated some years ago for some twenty elected and appointed officials from Washington, D.C. “All of them had gone into government animated by an ethic of public service [and] all were experiencing painful conflicts between their values and power politics… One participant had worked for a decade in the U.S. Department of Agriculture, after farming for twenty-five years in northeastern Iowa. On his desk at that moment was a proposal related to the preservation of Midwestern topsoil, which is being depleted at a rapid rate by agribusiness practices that value short-term profits over the well-being of the earth. His ‘farmer’s heart,’ he kept saying, knew how the proposal should be handled. But his political instincts warned him that following his heart would result in serious trouble, not least with his immediate superior.
On the last morning of [the retreat], the man from Agriculture, looking bleary-eyed, told us that it had become clear to him during a sleepless night that he needed to return to his office and follow his farmer’s heart.
After a thoughtful silence, someone asked him, ‘How will you deal with your boss, given his opposition to what you intend to do?’
‘It won’t be easy,’ replied this farmer-turned-bureaucrat. ‘But during this retreat, I’ve remembered something important: I don’t report to my boss. I report to the land.’”[1]
One could forgive Queen Esther had she turned her back on Mordecai’s proposal, concluding that she “reports to the King, not some abstract principle or heart’s desire. Not only dangerous, Mordecai’s plan was a long-shot at success. But for whatever reason – thrill-seeking, perhaps; gambling certain death for the thin possibility of life; or maybe she glimpsed what Parker Palmer meant when he talked about the “Hidden Wholeness” that unites our external behaviors with our passionate and principled core self– Esther heard Mordecai’s prophetic observation that “perhaps you were born for just such a time as this” and agreed. The scene we read earlier captures the moment of truth. It is a banquet scene – one of ten such banquets in this short little book. And somewhere into the wine course, the King turns to his Queen and recalls over the rim of his goblet, “You said something was on your mind. What is your request?”
And Esther spills her heart – about herself, and her people; about the ethnic differences and religious conflicts; about the self-serving Haman and the conspiracy that had manipulated the King, himself. And right there – there around the table, in the midst of the meal – something miraculous happened: grace was dispensed, rather than the judgment it supplanted.
“Table grace” typically refers to the prayer that typically precedes a meal. But in this story, and in the story at the center of our worship this day, it bespeaks the saving blessing made plain in the sharing: the grace of life quite literally spared during the meal. Deliverance. For isn’t that the remembrance each time we gather in the company of loaf and cup and the awareness of our estrangement: body broken and blood spilled for the forgiveness of our sins?
If the book of Esther is a story of deliverance from the duplicitous jealousy and trickery that had threatened the entire people – the story of truth winning out, bravery rewarded, and justice resulting – ours is the story of deliverance from death of a different sort; the triumph of mercy, and the length and breadth and depth and width of the grace and love of God.
In a world of
genocide and terrorism, ethnic cleansing and religious tension, blue state and
red, urban versus rural, snow belt versus sun belt; in a world of neighborhood
bickering and office feuds, grudges and prejudices and doors slammed shut,
would that, in imitation, we might wonder if perhaps we, too, were born for
just such a moment as this, and spread a cloth, offer a blessing, break bread
and pour wine, and manifest among those around us a little table grace of our
own. For deliverance.
[1] A Hidden Wholeness: The Journey Toward An Undivided Life (