We continue our series on Esther titled “For Such A Time As This.” Favoring, not shaming, is this week’s emphasis. Giving favor to others in kindness and generosity is significant in making a positive, hopeful, joyful, and non-anxious impact in society and the lives of others. As you recall, Esther is the story of the Jews protecting themselves from persecution during the Babylonian Captivity. It is a story filled with suspense, conspiracy, and bad decisions, all being used for God’s purpose. It’s a story of a people delivered. It was a complicated time.
Thinking about dispensing favor to others is important. Dispensing shame on others is not helpful. The Concise Oxford Dictionary defines favor as “approval or liking…an act of kindness beyond what is due or usual.” The Concise Oxford Dictionary defines shame as “a feeling of humiliation or distress caused by the consciousness of wrong or foolish behavior. A person or thing bringing dishonor.” Max Lucado writes this about favor and its benefit over shame:
There are many reasons God saves you: to bring glory to himself, to appease his justice, to demonstrate his sovereignty. But one of the sweetest reasons God saved you is because he is fond of you. He likes having you around. He thinks you are the best thing to come down the pike in quite a while. If God had a refrigerator, your picture would be on it. If he had a wallet, your photo would be in it. He sends you flowers every spring and a sunrise every morning. Whenever you want to talk, he’ll listen. He can live anywhere in the universe, and he chose your heart. And the Christmas gift he sent you in Bethlehem? Face it, friend. He’s crazy about you![1]
Bringing favor to another is a proper use of power. Bringing shame to another is an abuse of power. King Xerxes shamed Queen Vashti. King Xerxes favored Esther and made her Queen. Unfortunately, the book of Esther is a consistent use of favor and shame in manipulative ways. Ahh, but God is in it. Remember, the purpose of the Book of Esther is to help us understand that God is active in all aspects of life. The Book of Esther helps us see that God positions each one of us to accomplish God’s will.
Injustice Dealt to Mordecai (Esther 3:1-6)
The feud between Haman and Mordecai is palpable. In fact, the feud between the people of Agag (Haman) and the people of Benjamin (Mordecai) is historical. King Xerxes had promoted Hamen to be a prince above all princes. All bowed and paid reverence to Haman—all but Mordecai. Mordecai was a Jew one who bowed and paid reverence to God and God alone. Mordecai’s lack of reverence moved Haman to develop a plan to kill all the Jews. You see, Mordecai’s lack of bringing favor but shame to Haman was considered treasonable.
Haman Plots a Mass Murder (3:7-11)
Esther 3:7-11 describes Haman’s priests casting a lot before Haman. This lot casting was to demonstrate the day when Haman was to carry out his proposed pogrom in killing the Jews in his land. On the thirteenth day in the first month, Nisan, in King Xerxes’ twelfth year of ruling, the lot fell on the thirteenth day of the twelfth month, which is the month of Adar. That was the permission giving casting of the lot for Haman to ask King Xerxes to issue the edict to kill all the Jews throughout the provinces and that Haman would pay ten thousand talents to those who had charge of the king’s business and carried out the mass murder of the Jews. The killers would put the ten thousand talents in the king’s treasuries. If the ten thousand talents were in gold, by today’s standards, they would convert to $11.9 billion and if in silver, by today’s standards, they would convert into $161 million.[2] Hamen implemented King Xerxes’ edict, as discussed.
The Edict for Death Is Issued (3:12-14)
It is clear that King Xerxes goes whichever way the wind is blowing, whichever advisor’s opinion carries the day. He is not a strong leader. Xerxes hands are always clean. King Xerxes ordered the Jews to be destroyed, slayed, and annihilated. All Jews, both young and old, little children, and women, were to perish. And once the edict was issued, Haman and King Xerxes sat down to drink.
The intense nationalism in the Book of Esther cannot be brushed aside or even explained away. Although we do not have evidence of the slaughter occurring in such high numbers, Haman’s plan has been carried out in history, from the persecutions of Antiochus to the Nazi ovens at Buchenwald.
King Xerxes’ edict threw the whole country, particularly the province of Susa, into chaos. Was it appropriate for King Xerxes not to tolerate the Jews? King Xerxes did not understand dispensing favor. The Jews were contributors to the economy. The Jews were not causing problems. Haman, the insider, was causing the problem. Queen Esther made an appropriate response in 7:4, “If we had been sold merely as slaves, men, and women, I would have held my peace, but no enemy can compensate for this damage to the king.”
In her book Roadmap to Reconciliation, Brenda Salter McNeill writes,
The system of apartheid in South Africa, a sophisticated but oppressive structure of racism…, was based…on theological doctrines that were formed at Stellenbosch University in the 1930s and 1940s. The Afrikaner nationalism and distorted Christian theology…fueled many Afrikaner’s belief that they were God’s chosen people. They saw themselves as biologically superior to other races. Therefore, they felt called to create a new segregated society…These doctrines gave the white South Africans religious justification for horrific crimes against their countrymen and women. More than 3.5 million black, Indian, and biracial people were removed from their homes…Nonwhite political representation was obliterated. Black South Africans were denied citizenship and relegated to the slums called “bantustans.” The government segregated education, medical care, beaches, and other public services, providing black, Indian, and other “colored” people with significantly inferior services. The result was a segregated society where people were dehumanized based on beliefs that were supported by bad theology.[3]
Christians can learn much from the Jewish plight and experience in the Book of Esther. Haman’s nationalistic plan for extermination of the Jews is no different than we saw in Hitler and other autocratic leaders who launched genocide against particular people groups. And then there is Apartheid in South Africa.
Is our country headed to a time of leadership rooted in Christian Nationalism, which would persecute certain people groups for who they are and what they believe? What would Jesus do? Would he lead with favor or shame? Amen!
This sermon was preached the Fifteenth Sunday after Pentecost on Sunday,1 September 2024
by the Rev. Dr. Steven M. Marsh in the Great Room and Sanctuary
at Grace Presbyterian Church in Wichita, Kansas
Copyright Ó 2024
Steven M. Marsh
All rights reserved.
[1]Max Lucado, A Gentle Thunder (Word, 1995).
[2]According to Wolfram and Alpha.
[3]Brenda Salter McNeil, Roadmap to Reconciliation (InterVarsity Press, 2015), 22-23.
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