Esther 7:1-6, 9-10, 9:20-22
A note to readers: Our Looking into the Lectionary reflections are based on one or all of the designated Revised Common Lectionary. The Esther selection is a semi-continuous option for the nineteenth Sunday after Pentecost.
Esther: the book without a single mention of God. At the risk of complete oversimplification, I believe Scripture is often teaching us one of two things (or both at the same time): the nature and character of God, and the nature and character of people. Esther is a lesson in the latter. It is a story worthy of Game of Thrones, rife with abuse, genocide and power grabs. To render the story of Esther as a cozy tale of Hero Esther is not to read the story in its entirety.
Here is a rough sketch of the pertinent details: in this game of thrones, Jewish persons were enslaved, nearly beyond hope, crushed under the weight of the Persians, led by the mighty King Ahasuerus. The scales of fortune were tipped in the favor of those downtrodden Jewish people all because of one woman: Esther.
The powerful King Ahasuerus was drunk with wine and wanted his wife Vashti to be paraded in front of his friends so they could ogle at her and “appreciate her beauty.” But Vashti was tired of having her body be a spectacle for men. So she said no. I wonder why we never make Vashti the hero of this story. The King chucked her out of the palace and issued a decree that “every man should be master in his own home.” Midrashic sources claim Vashti was not just banished, but summarily executed by her husband.
But a king does not long wait for a queen. It was made known that King Ahasuerus required a new (read: younger) queen. A man named Mordecai heard this, and knowing that his cousin Esther, whom he had raised since her parents died, was beautiful, he seized an opportunity. Esther was a poor Jewish woman, but once she was given a makeover by palace professionals and thrown into a beauty pageant worthy of Miss America, it didn’t make one bit of difference. What was raw beauty became perfectly polished, and the king was smitten. They were married. As far as we know, Esther had little say in the whole matter.
But no amount of makeup or perfume could erase Esther’s memory of her heritage and faith. And when her cousin Mordecai told her of a plot by Haman, the King’s right-hand man, to kill all of the Jews, she knew she had to act.
And now we come to our lectionary portion of the story. The scene was another lavish palace party where King Ahasuerus was enjoying a cup of his favorite wine with his favorite girl. Even though she could have been killed for directly addressing the king without being summoned, she went anyway. “What’s it gonna be, darlin’?” he asked Esther, eager to please her. “Even half of my kingdom (but not all of it) is yours, just name it.” Esther carefully batted those immaculately mascaraed eyelashes at him and said, “Please just spare the lives of my people. For we have been sold, to be destroyed, killed and annihilated.”
King Ahasuerus then asked an interesting question: “Who has done this?” What a wild statement of passing blame. He is the king after all. Of course, he had a hand in all of the goings on in the kingdom, even (and especially) the terrible ones. But Esther does not mention his complicity (perhaps another reason he loved her). Instead, she shouted with anger, “It is a foe and enemy, this wicked Haman!” Esther was at her core cunning.
The king made a big show about being angry that someone would do such a thing to his wife’s people. And then a eunuch gave him something to do with that anger.
The eunuch says one sentence, “Look, Haman was making gallows to hang Mordecai and they’re still in his house.” He knew full well where such an observation would lead.
The king jumped at the chance for revenge, and Haman was hanged on his own gallows. Our text then skips ahead to the celebration of the Jewish people in being saved from great evil, in being the victors over the powerful, the surviving people, and these celebrations took the form of gifts for one another and special care for the poor. The Jewish festival of Purim finds its roots here. When the powerless are given a voice, when the corrupt powers that be are put in their place, there is cause for rejoicing.
But remember that key aspect of the book of Esther: God is not mentioned. There is not even a whisper of God’s name. Perhaps God wants no part of the game of thrones, where people rise and fall but calculated power remains the same. Perhaps when an orphaned girl is shoved around from man to man, manipulated her entire life from her cousin Mordecai to a king, and then becomes the very thing she despises, there is no room for God.
Because however joyful that victory, Esther did turn into something quite like Haman. Just as he called for the destruction of her people, she called for the annihilation of his people: 75,000 of them. And because that’s just not enough revenge, she had each of his ten sons hanged. Where is God in such a hopelessly endless cycle of hatred and retaliation? Nowhere to be found, it seems.
And that cycle of revenge keeps on encircling peoples and nations, even into our time. On the festival day of Purim in 1942, Nazis hung ten Jews to “avenge” the hanging of Haman’s sons, some 23 centuries later. It seems hate has no expiration date. When the game of thrones is played, no one wins. Certainly not God.
The preacher attending to the complications of Esther’s story will need to ask some hard questions about cycles of violence, and the ways women in particular become pawns in such cycles. She will need to explore what this text asks us to learn about humanity – for good or ill – and how God is calling us to be co-conspirators of liberation for all who bear the heavy burdens of institutional oppression.
Questions for reflection
- Though God is not named in name in this text, is God really absent? Is God present in the breaking of the cycles of violence and retribution that have plagued human beings for millennia? How can we partner with God in breaking these cycles? How might God’s silence speak volumes?
- How might we imagine God’s presence if Esther had ended with her saving her people, and not her exacting a hellish revenge upon her enemies?
- How could Vashti be an essential but forgotten voice in this story? What might Vashti have to teach us today?
Want to receive lectionary content in your inbox on Mondays? Sign up here.
