STRANGE BEDFELLOWS

September 26, 2021
18^th Sunday after Pentecost
Esther 7: 1-6, 9-10: 9: 20-22; Ps.124; James 5:13-20; Mark 9:38-50
Rev. Denise Clark-Jones

In contemporary non-authoritarian nations today, King Ahasuerus would probably be deposed for sexual harassment. But since the story is fictional, a novella set in the time of Jewish exile in Persia, we shouldn’t get too caught up in the gender inequality of an ancient patriarchal society. Instead, the short book of Esther provides a model for courage in the face of systemic injustice. If you haven’t read the story of Esther, this short book is a fun-filled read with humor, adventure, and intrigue. This tale is the basis for the Jewish festival of Purim, which usually falls in either March or April. Purim is one of only two Jewish festivals that is not prescribed by Mosaic Law—the other being Hanukkah. Like Hanukkah, it is not a somber remembrance, but a time of merriment and gift-giving. For children, it is like Halloween in that they wear costumes, play games, use noisemakers and eat treats. The scroll of Esther, known as the Megillah, is read and the virtuous characters are cheered, and the evil Haman is booed every time their names are mentioned. The gifts given are baskets of food, which are also distributed to the poor, just as the character, Mordecai, proclaims the Persian Jews to do in celebration of their rescue.

Mordecai. Esther’s uncle had served as Esther’s guardian since she was orphaned as a young child. Being an orphan, a female, and a Jew, her rise to become Queen of Persia would have been an unlikely plotline. But, as many biblical heroes and heroines, Esther was in the right place, at the right time to serve God’s chosen people in a time of peril. With cunning, she took advantage of her power as the Queen to save her people from the genocide planned by Haman, the evil advisor to the king. Ahasuerus had a weakness for beautiful women, drink, and bad advisors. He was a blind adherent to bureaucracy, which he did not fully understand, making him easy to manipulate. Haman finagled his way into the role of the king’s chief advisor. It is well known that many a political leader, elected or not, has fallen victim to unscrupulous advisors. Haman used the oldest trick in the book to secure his power, using a minority as scapegoats for his own evil agenda. By declaring the Jews were untrustworthy because of their different religion and customs, he laid the foundation of justifying genocide.

The passage chosen for the lectionary is the high point in the story. The king, Haman, and the other men of power and privilege are feasting in the luxurious safety of the royal banquet hall, while the exiled Jews in their kingdom are living with the terror of imminent extermination. Here the story satirizes the corruption of nations who have imposed exploitive imperial and colonial power over peoples deemed inferior.

When Mordecai first beseeches Esther to risk her position and privilege to save her people, he tells her: “Who knows? Perhaps you have come to royal dignity for just such a time as this.” We Presbyterians call this God’s providence. Esther could have remained silent, not revealing she was a Jew, not revealing the evil plot of the very powerful Haman; yet she risked her power, privilege, her wealthy lifestyle – even her life – to save others whose lives were in danger. Haman’s plot would have been perfectly legal. He advised King Ahasuerus to make the laws that would have annihilated the Jewish minority in Persia and would have enhanced Haman’s own power and privilege. The book of Esther is very much a morality tale for our own times – voter suppression laws are a prime example.

Esther exposes Haman to the king. And there is considerable ironic satisfaction in Haman’s exposure and punishment—he is hanged on his own gallows. The lectionary reading omits the graphic retributive violence of chapter 9, in which seventy-five thousand Persians are slaughtered by the Jews (9:5–16). This too is a moral lesson. Sadly, the human inclination toward sin often leads to the oppressed becoming oppressors when they gain power.

When I think of Esther I think of the young Malala Yousafzai, a Pakistani teenager who was shot by the Taliban after publicly speaking out about her fight to protect girls’ education. After surviving the attack, she entered the international stage to share her story around the world and created the Malala Fund in 2013 with her father to raise awareness of the oppression of women in many Arab nations.  I look in amazement at the women who dare to march in the streets of Afghanistan today for the sake of females’ right to education, employment, and basic civil liberties. When I think of Esther, I think of women, and all minorities, who speak up on behalf of others who are treated unjustly in political, economic, and social systems. Jesus modeled for us God’s justice, preferential treatment for those the world excluded and exploited, and God’s love which sees no boundaries.

In our gospel passage from Mark for today, the disciples who, in our reading from last Sunday argued over which one was the greatest, are complaining to Jesus that a man was exorcising demons in Jesus’ name. Even worse, apparently, he was successful! The disciple John tells Jesus, “Teacher, we saw someone casting out demons in your name and we tried to stop him because he was not following us.” Note they said: “he was not following us.” They weren’t concerned about the exorcist following Jesus, they were offended that he was not following the disciples. I cannot help but think of the Christians who use the image of Jesus they have created, antithetical to the Jesus of the Gospels, to promote their political and social ideologies.

Previously, the disciples were chagrined that they could not exorcise an “unclean spirit” from a boy on their own. They pressed Jesus: “Why could we not cast it out?” He said to them, “This kind can come out only through prayer.” (Mark 9: 28-29) Jesus was successful in healing the boy because he understood from whence his own power came. Jesus was a follower, not a leader. He followed the God he called “Father, Abba.” The disciples wanted to lead and be followed, rather than paying attention to the One they should be following.  In doing so, they were drawing a tight circle around those they deemed worthy of doing the work of discipleship. Like the villain, Haman, in the story of Esther, they presumed the power of deciding who was in and who was out.

The kind of power that comes from prayer that Jesus had revealed to his disciples is the subject of the final chapter of the epistle of James. This conclusion of James’ letter to Christian congregations reads like a sermon. After exhorting the congregations to demonstrate their faith in actions that demonstrate our love for God and neighbor, James ends with a call to trust in the power of prayer to transform harmful situations and people seeking help in times of need. The author tells the readers that what they pray for they will receive unless they ask with wrong intentions. James appeals to his audience to pray, not just to appeal to God, but also to transform our own desires outward for the benefit of others.

When we look at our own nation’s sin of racism, beginning with the European colonists and their early encounters with Native Americans, to slavery, to post-Civil War legislation, systemic racism in private business and banking practices, to start the list, we see how systemic evils multiply injustices against the poor and marginalized. James’ teaching on prayer and the call to engage one another through active faith can be applied to our own nation’s need for reconciliation and revealing white supremacist ideologies that inform virtually every sphere of U.S. society. James encourages corporate prayer during which we humbly submit ourselves to a power far greater than our own, which is the first step in reconciliation with God and one another. ‘We, alone, cannot fix it.’ As we see in the gospel reading from Mark, Jesus tells us that humility and the desire to serve others is the first step in discipleship.

By exorcising demons in Jesus’ name, the exorcist has already submitted to a higher power. Jesus tells his disciples not to prevent the exorcist from healing because he is doing God’s work. Jesus attempts to expand the disciples’ narrow understanding of faith. That seems like good advice for Christians today.  Our society has succumbed to the demons of division and self-absorption. We see this in the political realm in the obsession to secure control by tactics of fear and manipulation. Like the foolish disciples, we impose boundaries that limit our love, our compassion, and our concern for justice to those who look, act, and think like us. We strive to quelch any discussion that is different from our own understanding and demonize it.  Jesus encourages us to listen, observe and discern: “Whoever is not against us, is for us. As followers of Christ ourselves, we are called to accept that there are diverse people and ways of following Jesus– even those that do not claim to be Christians but follow the model of discipleship set forth by Christ.

Jesus warns with these words: “If any of you put a stumbling block before one of these little ones who believe in me, it would be better for you if a great millstone were hung around your neck, and you were thrown into the sea.” (9:42) No, he doesn’t advocate literally killing people who cause division in the church – that’s not to say it hasn’t been done, sorry to say. He is using hyperbole that we find frequently in the bible. It is merely a style of oratory to overstate to emphasize an important point. Likewise, Jesus wasn’t advocating cutting off hands and feet or gouging out an eye. Judaism had, and still does have, a strong stance against self-mutilation. People who read the bible literally have created a real problem with that passage, using it to justify unmerciful punishments for wrongdoers. Of course, harsh punishments are only for the sins others commit, not the ones we do.

With these words: “whoever gives you a cup of water to drink because you bear the name of Christ will by no means lose the reward.” Jesus reminds his disciples that when they go out to evangelize, they will be outsiders in the communities in which they visit. They would be blessed to find people who will welcome them and listen to their preaching. He wants more people walking the journey of faith, not fewer. A cup of water seems to be such a small gesture of hospitality, yet without water, there is no life. Water is something that, for most of us, anyone can give. The cup of water symbolizes any practical gift—food, clothing, shelter, financial aid, or help with difficult tasks. Not everyone can do acts of discipleship that make the front headlines.

With church attendance in decline in nearly all denominations, drawing lines in the sand only serves to put stumbling blocks to the spread of the Christian faith and creates more traffic going in another direction – ones that neither add to congregations or the kingdom of God on earth. With God’s abundant grace, with the Holy Spirit unbridled by human borders, our church, and all the churches of Jesus Christ will grow if we focus on extending the borders of the circle of faith rather than putting up walls between ourselves.

Lastly, Jesus compares our faith to salt and fire. “For everyone will be salted with fire. Salt is good; but if salt has lost its saltiness, how can you season it? Have salt in yourselves and be at peace with one another.” (v. 49-50) Both salt and fire were useful in preserving meat, and temple sacrifices required salt as well as fire (Leviticus 2:13). Salt is good because it gives flavor. It highlights the identity of food and its functions as a preservative.  Pure salt does not lose its saltiness, but salt found on the shores of the Dead Sea is often intermixed with impurities to the extent that it is no longer fit to use for seasoning or reservation.  Adulterated salt serves as a metaphor for disciples who become adulterated with the world’s values—thus diminishing their faith and their ability to make a difference in the world.

We want our being in the world to matter. We want to do something that makes the world better before we leave it. We want to be comfortable in our own skin — to be who we say we are. We want our faith to be effective by our making it tangible. The disciples, too, wanted to matter. They believed following Jesus would make a difference in their lives, but their egos and worldly assumptions led them away, rather than closer to the model of discipleship Jesus set before them. Jesus saw the stumbling block the disciples had placed in their own paths. The only way around it was peace among themselves that they might bring peace to a world in conflict.

May we find the peace we seek in prayer and service that we may be the salt of the earth.

Amen. May it be so.

© Rev. Denise Clark-Jones, 2021, All Rights Reserved
Westminster Presbyterian Church | 1420 W. Moss Ave. | Peoria, Illinois 61606
WestminsterPeoria.org  | 309.673.8501

“What goes through your mind as you sit in the sanctuary and look around?

As I sit in my pew and look up at the cross with the wonderful light illuminating it, I am reminded of why I am at Westminster on this particular day. The cross reminds me that Christ died for me and, in a sense, I am to do the same in my daily life. The brightness of the cross illustrates for me the brightness of living my life in the way of Christ.”