Act of Remembrance Hymn of Faith *Rejoice in God's Saints* Witness of Scripture: Esther 4: 9-17 Anthem *The Souls of the Righteous* Stanley Marchant. Chancel Choir Sermon *Essentials: Unlikely Heroes* David Spain
Recorded on November 3, 2024
Minister Carlyle Marney once said, “God will use any handle to get hold of somebody,” which is to say God is not easily deterred, or as Thomas Chisholm wrote in his 1923 hymn, “Great is thy faithfulness…” Bessie Parker, perhaps known only to a few, embodied God’s tenacity. She was an itinerant minister from the 1950’s—the first woman to serve South Carolina churches in her denomination.Her influence was dramatic—although there were some churches not pleased initially by her appointment as their senior minister, those same churches were more displeased several years later when their beloved Preacher Parker was moved to another church. Will Willimon describes her this way – “With snow-white hair and a soothing Southern drawl, she epitomized everyone’s stereotype of a grandmother, which she used to its persuasive best. Churches lined up to ask her to preach their annual mission fund appeals, and when one church repeatedly refused to repair its leaking roof, the members were aghast that on a Monday morning Bessie was on the roof in her blue jeans hammering in new shingles, after which the roof was quickly repaired with ample help. ‘It just doesn’t look right to have your grandmother fixing your roof,’ one church official was heard to say. Toward the end of Rev. Parker’s ministry, she was appointed to a particularly contentious congregation known for its feuding, racism, and animosity toward the denomination.The previous two preachers had been run off in six months, and it seemed a cruel last appointment. Willimon saw her at a convention and with trepidation asked how things were going at the church. “The sweetest people I have ever known,” she replied. ‘Our first work team leaves for Brazil next month, and this weekend we are joining with our neighboring black congregation for a music festival.” Stunned by that report, Willimon asked about any problems. “Not really, replied Bessie…one little misunderstanding when we voted on this year’s budget.” “Misunderstanding?” “When we voted on our gift to fund the African American college, one board member said we don’t send money for [colleges like that]…so I told him ‘That’s not nice—you sit down and act like a Christian.’ Everything else passed without a single problem.” Willimon concluded, “who is going to misbehave in front of his grandmother…Bessie routinely mothered her people toward the kingdom, using any handle she could to get across the gospel…thank God.” (Christian Ministry, July – August, 1983)
Who knows the source of Bessie’s wisdom, care, and courage. Perhaps it came from Esther’s story. Contained in the last of the 5 scrolls of the Hebrew Bible, Esther is read at the festival of Purim which commemorates Jewish deliverance from a planned holocaust at the hands of a Persian king. While historic details are difficult to confirm, it no doubt stems from a precarious moment in Jewish history, and more importantly speaks to a tragic truth throughout human history. Like Jonah’s story, the book of Esther is also a singular story, and not without controversy. It brings into full relief a couple of terrible traits about those who rule with impunity, and perhaps most controversial of all, Esther is the only book in the Bible that does not mention God’s name. Does that mean God is absent? Does that mean God is present through people who help over-come what is destructive and hateful in the world—God embodied with courage and compassion. Years later Jesus preached, “Not everyone who says ‘Lord, Lord’ will enter the kingdom of heaven.” Jesus saw God’s name invoked for all kinds of ungodly acts. Informed by the third commandment prohibiting God’s name being used in vain, Jesus criticizes those who used God for personal advantage. For Jesus, living God’s love and justice is what brings heaven to earth.
Esther’s story begins in a banquet hall. This king of Persia, who loves the lavish party, is a royal buffoon—self-serving, vulnerable to flattery, and fiercely disparaging when anyone dares to disagree with him. He is 180 days into a party at his winter home with his advisors, after which he throws open the doors for everyone to come to another party lasting 7 more days.On day 7 of that party and well-imbibed, he orders his queen Vashti to come to the hall so that she can parade her beauty in front of all the other men. She refused to be exploited, so the furious king consulted his advisors, who recommended he find a more compliant queen. So begins the hunt for the new queen, bringing in the loveliest from all of Persia, giving them a year’s worth of beauty treatment, after which the king would choose the new queen. It is an ugly story in so many ways, but unfortunately not an uncommon story about unholy power and values.
Meanwhile, rabbi Mordecai—deported from Jerusalem and living in the Persian capital—kept watch over the king’s doings. Esther’s uncle who raised her, Mordecai saw that she was gathered among the most beautiful. He kept watch on her well-being also; she, who would become the new queen because of her exceeding beauty. With his ear to the palace, Mordecai also heard of a plot to overthrow the king and told Esther about it, who told the king, who ridded himself of his plotting underlings, and made a footnote in his diary that Mordecai had been the one who had reported the potential rebellion.
With some of his administration now gone, the king filled the open positions, one of whom was his chief advisor named Haman who might have been even more despicable than the king, which is hard to imagine. If misery loves company, apparently evil does also. Now on the king’s cabinet, Haman is told Mordecai will not bow down to him—something required when all the king’s horses and all the king’s men pass by. Mordecai is faithful—he bends his knee only to God. Haman is furious and decides rather than take it out on Mordecai only, he will manipulate the king to issue an extermination order against all the Jews in Persia. Using the toxic trifecta of fear, racism, and flattery, Haman gets what he wants, and the king’s order stirs great upheaval in Susa, because the people are wiser than the king, and realize something is seriously wrong.
At the news of the edict, Mordecai rips his clothes and wears sackcloth and ashes.He then
sends word to Esther about the plot and encourages her to implore the king to change his mind, which could have cost Esther her own life. This is the moment we read from Esther 4, containing the story’s most enduring line—“Perhaps you have come to royal dignity for just such a time as this.”As it turns out, Esther had, and she found something even deeper than her beauty.
Haman continues to be infuriated by Mordecai’s refusal to bow to him, so he plans to have Mordecai annihilated on a gallows 50 cubits high—Noah’s ark was only 30 cubits high. Evil al ways has a self-serving overreach. Meanwhile, Esther continues to win approval with the king by serving several meals to him and Haman. After one of those meals, the king can’t sleep, so he rereads his diary and discovers Mordecai had been the one who had saved the king’s neck years before. He asked Haman what should be done to honor a fine man.Haman naturally assumes he is the one to be honored so recommends a grand parade. When the king tells him to put Mordecai at the front of the parade, Haman is distraught. After the parade and another good meal, Esther informs the king of the plot to kill all Jews, starting with Mordecai. Forgetting that it was Haman who had manipulated the king to sign the decree for the holocaust—this king is a rather dim bulb—and seeing that Haman had fallen at Esther’s couch to plead for his life, the king assumes Haman is making a move on Esther. Interesting isn’t it, this king finally moves against evil only when it directly impacts his life—but still he moves. Haman is sent to the gallows meant for Mordecai, and the king allows a way for the holocaust to be averted.
Wow, what a fine, feel good story for All Saints Sunday! And yet, despite its tendency toward ‘gallows humor’ (celebrated at Purim as a melodrama with booing and hissing when Haman’s name gets mentioned), there are still essentials that add to the banquet that is faith. We remember that our faith is informed by those who have gone before us. Contrary to the modern tendency to celebrate what is new as worthy and to relegate what is old to mothballs, our faith says we listen to the past to learn courage for the present and to help shape the future. None of us is here without the saints. Born in the image of God, we still must be told and shown the stories of God and those who enacted them, whether or not they ever spoke God’s name.Born bearing compassion, mercy, and grace, we cannot cultivate and grow these gifts on our own. Everyone has an Esther or a Bessie in our background, and we have named some of those people this morning as we humbly, gratefully remember the saints.
Esther’s story—tawdry as parts of it are—is helpful to remember today, because it is a story about essentials. Beauty had taken Esther far in life; but she discovered the beauty that is more virtuous than skin deep—courage, strength, compassion, justice, a life lived not just for the self but for something more than the self—which is to say character that endures and gives life, character that years later Brazilian archbishop Dom Helder Camara would describe as the might of right over the right of might.Esther’s story reminds us that as the old saying goes it is always the right time to do what is right, to do what is redemptive and just, speaking for those who have little and are in danger, speaking against those who belittle and destroy.
But perhaps the brilliance of the story is its reminder that God’s good work is present even if God’s good name is not mentioned. Stephen Shoemaker writes, “Esther teaches us God needs our hands, our hearts, our minds and bodies to do the work of deliverance…redemption is urgent business, and God uses human hands to do the work…God is at work, but if we do not join God, insanity and violence will have a longer day.” (GodStories, p. 156)
This is why this story is essential, for it reminds us on All Saints Sunday that God works with generations of unlikely heroes, because well, are there any other kind?