If this is your first time in church today…  Or if you thought about not coming but decided to make the effort…  Or if your attendance is fairly sporadic, you're in luck!  You happened to get to church on the one day in a three-year cycle that we hear a reading from the Book of Esther. You could so easily have missed this opportunity but you didn't. Of the 10 chapters that make up this dramatic story, you only got to hear a few snippets but if you paid attention it could get you interested in reading the whole thing for yourself. (You’ll find it in the Old Testament, right before the Book of Job and directly after Nehemiah, both of which are pretty good reads in their own right!)

 

Let me give you the Cliff’s Notes’ version of Esther so that you're all with me. The Jewish people are in exile under the Persians, whose King is Ahasuerus who we'll just refer to as the King (for obvious reasons of pronunciation). He gets drunk and wants to show off the beauty of his Queen, Vashti who refuses him. This is enough cause for him to dismiss and probably kill her. So he begins a campaign to identify the most beautiful and perfect woman in the land. Hadassah is a beautiful Jewish orphan who has been raised by her Uncle Mordecai.

 

She is taken to the King's courts and prepared (kind of like a fatted lamb) for over a year until she's presented to the King who likes her well enough to make her his new wife. Now, he probably wouldn't have done that if he had known she was Jewish so she changed her name to Esther, which means star.

 

The King's Prime Minister, Haman, is the villain in this story. When he struts around town everyone bows down to him except for Esther's Uncle Mordecai. In revenge, Haman tells the King all about these different, lesser than and dangerous people, the Jews, and promises to rid the King of them and the trouble they cause. Mordecai hears of this plot and gets the word out. They are in grave danger. Haman and the King have cast lots and decided on a day in which every Jewish person will be wiped out. It's genocide.

 

Esther becomes their only hope. Except she's terrified and feels powerless. She remembers what the King did to his first wife and she's not allowed to approach him unless he summons her. Plus, he doesn't know she's Jewish and if Haman finds out, she'll be dead too. In the most famous verse of the book her Uncle Mordecai sends her this message.

 

"Do not think that in the king's palace you will escape any more than all the other Jews. For if you keep silence at such a time as this, relief and deliverance will rise for the Jews from another quarter, but you and your father's family will perish. Who knows? Perhaps you have come to royal dignity for just such a time as this."

 

The rest of the story is full of great reversals, changes of fortune, the proud Haman getting his comeuppance and the triumph of Mordecai. The annual reading of Esther's story is one of the rituals of the Jewish holiday of Purim, which also includes giving gifts of food and drink, giving charity to the poor and participating in a celebratory meal.

 

Esther's story is found not only in Scripture but attested to by the Jewish historian Josephus and Arab sources. She is called the mother of Iranian Jews who trace their survival to her courageous act and the most famous Jewish medical facility in Jerusalem is named for her, Hadassah Hospital.

 

Esther was a woman in a man's world. She was a member of an oppressed people under the control of a powerful ruler. She was valued for her beauty not her brains. She was thought to be timid and compliant. And yet, through her courage and cleverness, an entire people was rescued. Because she was brave and acted when given the opportunity, the course of history was changed. Esther finally recognized that she was put in her position for a reason, that indeed she was born "for such a time as this."

 

There are current day stories of average people without much power or influence who change the world by acting courageously at just the right time. The movie, Hotel Rwanda tells about how the manager of a luxury hotel in Rwanda was able to save nearly 1,000 Tutsi refugees during the carnage brought upon them by the Hutu militia. He used every resource he could including the water in the swimming pool to house, feed and protect these men, women and children from the people who were hunting them down.

 

The news recently had a photo of a 100-year-old British man who was reunited with some of the hundreds of Jewish children he had rescued from Nazi-occupied Czechoslovakia during WWII.  At the time he was a single, 29 year-old stockbroker of German/Jewish descent. He saw the fate of the children, got the British government to accept them and raised all the money to bring them into the country. With tears in their eyes they told him that they owed their lives to him, that he was like a father to them. The remarkable thing is that for 50 years he didn't talk about what he had done. His own wife didn't even know the story. The survivors had never had a chance to thank him in person. When he met them he joked, "It's wonderful to see you all after 70 years. Don't leave it quite so long until we meet here again."

 

One of the remarkable things about the Book of Esther is that God is never mentioned in it. None of the characters pray. They seem to have completely adopted the ways of the culture around them and lost the marks that would have identified them as Jewish. And yet the community sees the hand of God in the deliverance of God's people. They recognize how God once again uses someone of little power or influence to change the world. They're familiar with how God humbles the proud and lifts up the lowly.

 

In this story of deliverance, they say again with the psalmist, "Our help is in the name of the Lord, who made heaven and earth." The mighty God is on the side of the weak, the oppressed, orphans and those who fear genocidal destruction. No matter how dark or desperate the situation, God brings hope by turning things upside down through the most unlikely people.

 

It seems that there are two messages for us today who have taken the time to consider the life of Esther. The first is for those who are in a dark and desperate place where hope seems to have dimmed and destruction is around the corner. You may not even be able to pray or to speak God's name because God seems so far out of the picture. You may believe that there are areas in your life that are shut off from God either because of your own unfaithfulness or God's failure. For you God is saying, "Hang on.  I have not forgotten you. Your deliverance may come from a very unexpected source. I will provide a way forward if you can only take one or two steps in the direction I have opened up for you."

 

The other message is for those who may have been placed in a certain situation, "for such a time as this." No matter how much you feel like a cog in the system. No matter how afraid you are to rock the boat or make a fuss. No matter how much trouble it could cause you.

 

You have a unique opportunity to make yourself known as a follower of Christ by standing up for the Christian values of love, forgiveness, patience and gentleness. Even if everyone around you has no idea that you are a Christian, you know and you are called to act upon the commitments you have made at baptism to serve Christ in all persons and to love your neighbor as yourself.  You may be the only one to practice respecting the dignity of every person. You could be the person who speaks up against injustice or tells the truth in the face of lies.

 

In either case we all need the strength offered to us this day in order to face what lies ahead of us this next week. We need the prayers of our brothers and sisters to support us in difficulty and to uphold us. We need the grace of this Holy Communion to fill us with the power and presence of Jesus so that we can be his agents in the world. We need to sing together so that our joy is renewed. We need to receive healing through the laying on of hands and forgiveness through the rite of confession and absolution.

 

It's no mistake that you are here today. It's no fluke that this is the only Sunday in three years where you will hear from the Book of Esther. So many people this week need to receive from you what you have received today. You will be sent from this place to "do the work you are given to do." "For such a time as this." Amen.