Where is Queen Esther When We Need Her?, The Reverend David R. Williams, Pentecost XVII--Year B--October 1, 2006

Give us Grace, O Lord, not only to hear your Word with our ears, but also to receive it into our hearts and to show it forth in our lives; for the glory of your great name. Amen.
 
Have you ever heard the story of Esther the Queen of Persia of Biblical times?
 
A legendary drama of the forces of good and evil unfolds before us as the principal characters of the Esther story move to a feast.  “So the King and Haman went in to feast with Queen Esther.”
 
In their casual stroll to the dinner table, none of the players-- the King, Haman or Queen Esther--is aware of the life-changing events about to besiege them.
 
As in any dramatic story, the principle characters plot ways for a “winning” outcome. Intrigue and mystery are felt by the reader, the listener, as one character’s strategy involves the elimination of another.
 
Haman, the King’s most important soldier and diplomat, wears the King’s ring.  Protocol in the land of Persia demands that anyone, including foreigners and exiles, bow in respect to Haman. One exiled Jew, a servant by the name of Mordecai, chooses not to bow in the presence of the King.  Out of vindication, Haman plans to kill and annihilate all Jews on a day chosen by lots.
 
The book of Esther has characters familiar to all great novels and mysteries.  Protagonists and antagonists sort through plans, plots, and move toward an unknown conclusion.  These characters, their emotions, fears and cunning are mirrors to our own real-life dramas.  
 
By the end of the long, involved saga of Moby Dick, the whale, the antagonist from the first in opposition to Captain Ahab, may be seen as a victim in the end, more of a protagonist.  The conclusion of the story suggests negative forces more in Captain Ahab’s mind and heart than in the body of a great sea mammal.  As readers, our own souls feel the challenge.
 
That very first narrative in Genesis takes us to the primal struggle between good and evil.  The Creator gives to Adam and Eve a most fine home, the Garden of Eden.
 
This is good, God says.  God admonishes Adam and Eve not to eat one specific fruit in the Garden. And so the fruit becomes the focus of the Garden’s new residents.  “Good” Adam and Eve meet the Evil of Temptation, a force opposing the will of the Creator.
 
And Adam and Eve indulge.
 
The plot thickens as the Creator kicks out Adam and Eve from the Garden and establishes new rules for living freely in God’s Creation.  Again, the mirror.  We know the tensions in our own daily lives as we seek the grace of God’s Covenant.  
 
Geographically, the Persia of Biblical times is known today as Iran. Esther is Jewish.  Her king, the King of Persia, does not know of Esther’s Jewish heritage, but, mindful of her intelligence and beauty, has chosen her as his Queen.
 
With Haman’s decree of death to all Jews, Queen Esther of Persia, too, lives with a death sentence. The three characters arrive at the dinner table: Esther, the King, and Haman, shadowed by tensions of good and bad, light and dark, God and Devil.
 
The current leader of Iran, today’s Persia, decrees his own death sentence to Jews in proclaiming that our world would be better off if Israel does not exist. This present-day Persian leader also denies that the Nazis ever attempted extermination of the Jews.
 
Where is the Queen of Persia when we need her?
 
One of the great drama stories of the ages tells of another young Jew in the face of evil.  As the drama unfolds, the followers of this Jewish Rabbi expect that Jesus as Savior will overcome evil as they know it
 
Instead, Jesus dies.  As he is hung from a cross, witnesses suffer with Jesus. In that moment of history, the hope of the world dies with him.  That is the way the story is told.  Followers of Jesus, now living in darkness, ask much the same question, “Where is the Queen of Persia when we need her?”  They know well the hope Esther brings to their story.   
 
The story of the Jews continues, and we learn the death sentence does not hold.  The young Jew known as Jesus is seen again, wounds outstretched and more alive than ever, proof that the forces of evil have been foiled. As the disciples, we are reminded how darkness of heart and soul may be expunged in God’s name. “Whoever is not against us is for us,” says Jesus.
 
Devoted to his Queen, the King of Persia speaks. “Anything, Queen Esther, and it will be granted you.” 
 
Esther sees her opening.  She knows her own life is now on the line. In asking the King to save her life and the lives of the entire exiled Jewish nation, Esther will be informing her powerful husband that she is Jewish, not Persian. His response will determine Esther’s own future, as well as the future of all Jewish people.
 
She speaks with courage and, we imagine, with a racing heart:
 
“If I have won your favor, O King, and if it pleases the King, let my life be given me – that is my petition – and the lives of my people – that is my request,” Esther asks.
 
The mirror goes up.  Call it “The Esther Moment.” We, too, know times of truth and perhaps confession, moments of feeling naked, exposed to that which cannot be denied.
 
Esther asks her King to have mercy on herself and on the lives of her people.  The King then asks who in his Kingdom has presumed to do such a thing, to exterminate all Jews.  “A foe and an enemy, this wicked Haman!” Esther answers.
 
Furious with Haman, the King orders the evil man’s execution. “To the gallows with him.” 
 
Esther’s cousin Mordecai then declares a feast day in celebration, recognized still today as Purim, the 14th and 15th of March.  Condemned to die, the Jews were saved by the grace of God and by the courage, intelligence and faith of Queen Esther. Jews celebrate with gladness and gifts of food to one another—and to the poor.
 
The story of Esther is a wonderful foretelling of the story we know well as the story of Jesus. In such tales of hope and salvation is the reminder of God  as Creator of light from darkness, nourishment in the middle of famine, hope in the face of deep despair.
 
In the spirit of the Jewish feast of Purim, we gather for worship each Sunday and have every reason to celebrate the resurrection of Jesus Christ with joy and feasting, expressions of goodwill and affection, and with outreach to the poor. Sorrow has been turned to joy, mourning to celebration.  As the Jews of Persia were delivered against all odds from death to the destiny of life, our lives have been reversed from death to life--against all expectation.
 
Where is the Queen of Persia when we need her – today? She is here. In the midst of our own unfolding drama, she lives.
 
Amen.