The Eighteenth Sunday after Pentecost-the Rev Melanie Lemburg
18th Sunday after Pentecost-Proper 21B
September 26, 2021
The book of Esther is an interesting
book. It tells the story of Esther who
becomes Queen in Persia after she wins a beauty pageant that the king puts on
(after having set aside his previous wife who refused to show off her beauty at
his request). Esther, who is a Hebrew,
follows the counsel of her uncle and guardian Mordechi, and keeps her faith a
secret from her new husband. Meanwhile, political
machinations unfold between Haman, the king’s right-hand man and Esther’s
uncle. When Mordechi refuses to pay
homage to Haman because of his faith, Haman hatches a plot to kill all the Jews
in Persia. In an epic plot twist, which
we see today, Esther orchestrates the salvation of her uncle and her people and
ensures the assassination of the dastardly Haman.
The book is interesting, not just for
its soap-opera-like drama and plot twists.
Scholars say that “no other book of the Bible has received such mixed
reviews from….both Jews and Christians.
Some have criticized the book for what it contains; others, for what it
lacks.” “The Persian king, for instance,
is mentioned 190 times, but the God of Israel, not once-nor are such basic
Jewish practices and institutions as the Law, covenant, prayer, dietary
regulations, or Jerusalem…The book has [also] frequently been faulted for its
moral tone. Not only are such basic
Judaic values as kindness, mercy, and forgiveness lacking; but as many Jews and
Christians have lamented, the story evidences a vengeful, bloodthirsty, and
chauvinistic spirit. Intrigue, deceit,
and hatred abound regardless of whether the spotlight is on Haman, Esther,
Mordecai, or on their enemies.”[i]
I had a picture book that told the story
of Esther that I often would request for reading time at bed time from my
parents, and I loved it: the way that
good Queen Esther was able to turn the tables on the evil Haman ending in his execution! It fit perfectly in my child’s understanding
of justice.
It’s even more interesting to find this
story from the Old Testament paired with our gospel reading for today. These past few weeks, Mark has been showing
us Jesus and his disciples on the road to Jerusalem, and Jesus has been trying
to teach them all he can about discipleship and what it means. In our gospel for last week, Jesus overhears
the disciples arguing on the road over who is the greatest. When they get to the house, Jesus takes a
little child into his arms and teaches his disciples, “Whoever wants to be
first must be last of all and servant of all… Whoever welcomes one such child
in my name welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes not me but the one who
sent me.”
Our reading today picks up immediately
from that point, with Jesus (ostensibly) still holding the little child in his
arms. The disciples launch into
complaints about how they saw someone casting out demons in Jesus’ name and how
they tried to stop him because “he was not following us.” Jesus tells them not to stop him, saying, “Whoever
is not against us is for us.” He then
refers back to the child and cautions the disciples to not put stumbling blocks
before “these little ones.”
We’ve heard these teachings of Jesus so
often that it’s easy to disregard just how revolutionary they are to how we
normally live our lives. We live our
lives to be the greatest; but Jesus calls us to be the servants. We believe that lines between friends and
enemies are clearly drawn, that whoever is not for us is against us; Jesus
reminds us that there are no lines, that those who do not actively work against
him are technically for him. We want to
be Queen Esther or wiley Mordechi who outsmart the clearly evil Haman, but life
is not that simple, and all of us are a strange mix of darkness and light, of kindness
and selfishness, or hope and scarcity.
This past week I listened to Brene’
Browns podcast Unlocking Us where she interviewed Jason Sudeikis and
Brendan Hunt, two of the stars, co-creators, and writers of the hit show Ted
Lasso. They’re talking about what
the appeal is to the character of Ted Lasso, how they have created him to be
just a normal, really nice guy and that these days, a normal nice guy seems
“more interesting than Batman.”
Brene’ says, “There is a scene where
someone who is dealing with a ton of shame and pain has done what we all do
with shame and pain, for the most part, has discharged it on someone else and
then you’ve got Ted Lasso who’s like a freight train who just stops the shame
and blame thing and leans into forgiveness and have we forgotten, do you think,
that that’s not superhuman? That that possibility exists in all of us?”
And Jason Sudeikis responds: “I think we
have forgotten that. I think that’s a big part of why it was thrilling for us
to conceive and then execute, because it did feel like a modern-day aberration
and yet, it’s rooted in DNA, sociologically. It can seem so trite, but [we
often see people in power acting in both] ignorance and arrogance and Ted is
ignorant and curious and I think curiosity comes from a power of being able to
ask questions and truly empathize, see what someone else is dealing with and
there’s people much more clever than myself that came up with all those great
kinds of quotes “You never know what battle someone else is dealing with,
everybody’s life is a comedy and a tragedy and a drama.” I think it was Mark
Twain, and I just think Ted and our intention was for him to embody those
things but to do it in a sincere and genuine way but yeah, I think we have
forgotten it a little bit and it breaks down a discourse and an opportunity for
dialogue and loving someone for who they are versus hating them for what
they’re not.”[ii]
And that’s when I almost fell off my
treadmill. Because Jason Sudeikis just
encapsulated much of Jesus’s life, ministry, and teachings in that one
line: that we are called to love someone
for who they are versus hating them for what they’re not.
How might this change they way that we
think about our enemies or our rivals, those we need to forgive? What might that teach us about how we serve
and how we not become impediments in the path to Jesus of the little ones?
Your invitation this week is to join me
and find one person in your life, and spend the week prayerfully working to
love them for who they are as opposed to hating them for who they are not.
[i]
Intro to Esther from the New Oxford Annotated Bible. Oxford: NYC, 1991, p 612
OT.
[ii] https://brenebrown.com/transcript/brene-with-jason-sudeikis-and-brendan-hunt/
Unlocking Us. October 7, 2020
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