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Change from within

I Cor 9: 19 – 23

Rev. Peter R Green, Sunday morning, 12 Nov, 2006

THE NEW bride and groom were off on honeymoon in a horse–drawn sulky. Half–way there, the horse stumbled. The sulky jolted, and then went on. “That’s one!” said the groom, loudly.

Soon, the horse stumbled again, jolting the sulky a little before he recovered and went on.

The groom prodded the horse with his whip. “That’s two,” he said.

Just near their honeymoon home, the horse stumbled once more. The groom pulled on the reins and made the horse stop.

He got down and eyeballed the horse. Prodding it with his whip, he said, “That’s three!” He drew a pistol and shot the horse dead.

The bride was horrified. “How cruel you are! I can’t believe that you can be so merciless, so heartless to a dumb animal! I am not sure I even want to remain married to you!”

The bridegroom looked her in the eye. “That’s one...”

How many times had Queen Vashti upset King Xerxes of Persia? At least once too many.

We read,

^{ESTHER 1:1} This is what happened during the time of Xerxes, the Xerxes who ruled over 127 provinces stretching from India to Cush: ² At that time King Xerxes reigned from his royal throne in the citadel of Susa, ³ and in the third year of his reign he gave a banquet for all his nobles and officials. The military leaders of Persia and Media, the princes, and the nobles of the provinces were present.

⁴ For a full 180 days he displayed the vast wealth of his kingdom and the splendor and glory of his majesty. ⁵ When these days were over, the king gave a banquet, lasting seven days, in the enclosed garden of the king’s palace, for all the people from the least to the greatest, who were in the citadel of Susa.

The story continues to tell of the sumptuous luxury of that celebration.

King Xerxes called his chief eunuchs to bring Queen Vashti to him, so that everyone could see her beauty. But she was throwing her own party and refused to come.

That was stroke three for Xerxes. He asked his advisors what to do. The Queen was defying the supreme ruler of the biggest empire in the world, bringing his power into disrepute.

The advisors said,

“...if it pleases the king, let him issue a royal decree and let it be written in the laws of Persia and Media, which cannot be repealed, that Vashti is never again to enter the presence of King Xerxes. Also let the king give her royal position to someone else who is better than she. ²⁰ Then when the king’s edict is proclaimed throughout all his vast realm, all the women will respect their husbands, from the least to the greatest.”

So they held a Persian Idol competition to replace Vashti, and a Jewish girl, named Hadassah, was chosen.

Vashti was excluded from the King’s presence forever, and Hadassah took her place.

Hadassah’s Persian name was Esther, which means, Star. The Persians were a people related to today’s Afghans and Russians and Germans and English. They spoke a language related to ours. Esther’s Persian name blended her in pretty well.

Esther was an orphan. She had been raised by her cousin, Mordecai, who was one of Nebuchadnezzar’s Israelite captives from Babylon.

Esther became an undercover Jew in the Persian palace. She didn’t reveal her true nationality or family background.

In Chapter 2, we read how Esther became not just a concubine, but Queen of Persia, the favourite among all the King’s women.

^2:17 Now the king was attracted to Esther more than to any of the other women, and she won his favour and approval more than any of the other virgins. So he set a royal crown on her head and made her queen instead of Vashti. ¹⁸ And the king gave a great banquet, Esther’s banquet, for all his nobles and officials. He proclaimed a holiday throughout the provinces and distributed gifts with royal liberality.

But still, she hid her origins, obeying what Mordecai had taught her.

Mordecai could not go into the harem. Esther was now the Queen, with limited contact with her family. But Mordecai stayed close by to see that she was OK.

When all the young women were brought to King Xerxes for a second time, Mordecai sat in the king’s gate to see how Esther was going.

While he was there, he heard something important. We read,

^2:21 During the time Mordecai was sitting at the king’s gate, Bigthana and Teresh, two of the king’s officers who guarded the doorway, became angry and conspired to assassinate King Xerxes. ²² But Mordecai found out about the plot and told Queen Esther, who in turn reported it to the king, giving credit to Mordecai. ²³ And when the report was investigated and found to be true, the two officials were hanged on a gallows. All this was recorded in the book of the annals in the presence of the king.

But things began to go badly. Just because the world’s situation favours you one day, it doesn’t mean it will favour you the next. Even in the history of our own nation, there were times when the rulers favoured God’s people, but things are not as secure today.

So there was an anti–Jewish plot.

Xerxes favoured a man named Haman. Haman became so powerful that, with the king’s backing, he got to where people had to kneel to him and honour him.

This was hard for Mordecai, because this good man still spent a lot of his time where he could check on Queen Esther. People saw him. He was very visible. And he refused to kneel to Haman or to do him honour. He was a Jew, and he would kneel only to God and only honour the Lord of all creation.

Haman was outraged. He now believed he was almost a god himself, and he would not allow anyone to disobey his commands.

^3:5 When Haman saw that Mordecai would not kneel down or pay him honor, he was enraged. ⁶ Yet having learned who Mordecai’s people were, he scorned the idea of killing only Mordecai. Instead Haman looked for a way to destroy all Mordecai’s people, the Jews, throughout the whole kingdom of Xerxes.

As Lord Acton said many years ago, “All power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.”

Haman had almost absolute power, and was almost absolutely corrupt. And corrupt people care nothing for others. Corruption is the power to indulge our own radical self–interest.

But Mordecai refused to acknowledge that power, because all power belongs to God.

That is the trouble with politics today. Politicians assume that the power of God is subservient to the power of the State. Poor, weak little God! They will throw his people some money, make them happy, and they will toe the State line.

And they will as gladly destroy any who oppose them in God’s name as Haman would.

Haman got Royal Assent to a Bill to destroy all the Jews and to confiscate their wealth. The orders were written in the name of Xerxes himself and sealed with his royal signet ring. He had given that right to Haman.

The Bible says,

³ In every province to which the edict and order of the king came, there was great mourning among the Jews, with fasting, weeping and wailing...

The news reached Esther, and she had to make a fateful decision. She had already seen Xerxes do his, “That’s three!” thing. Now Mordecai was saying, “Esther, you must declare yourself!” We read,

^4:6 So Hathach went out to Mordecai in the open square of the city in front of the king’s gate. ⁷ Mordecai told him everything that had happened to him, including the exact amount of money Haman had promised to pay into the royal treasury for the destruction of the Jews. ⁸ He also gave him a copy of the text of the edict for their annihilation, which had been published in Susa, to show to Esther and explain it to her, and he told him to urge her to go into the king’s presence to beg for mercy and plead with him for her people.

But Esther was thinking, as the Bible says,

“...for any man or woman who approaches the king in the inner court without being summoned, the king has but one law: that he be put to death. The only exception to this is for the king to extend the gold sceptre to him and spare his life. But thirty days have passed since I was called to go to the king.”

In other words, Esther saw two options. She could take the extremely risky path of entering the King’s presence without invitation, or she could wait until she was invited — but who knows how long that might be?

But Mordecai had an answer:

“Do not think that because you are in the king’s house you alone of all the Jews will escape. ¹⁴ For if you remain silent at this time, relief and deliverance for the Jews will arise from another place, but you and your father’s family will perish. And who knows but that you have come to royal position for such a time as this?”

Who knows, but that you — you personally — have come to your position for such a time as this? How long can God’s people keep silent in perilous times? Evil flourishes when the good do nothing.

So Esther decided. She told Mordecai to call all the local Jews together to fast and pray for her. She went boldly into the King’s presence, and, to her enormous relief, he held out his sceptre, and let her speak.

Esther was clever. She didn’t just tell the King the whole story. She invited the King and Haman to lunch. Then she did it again the next day. She waited. She got Haman relaxed and off guard. She looked for her chance.

She had to draw Xerxes away from Haman, and had to get him exposed for what he was.

God never gets mentioned in this book, but God was at work.

One night, Xerxes couldn’t sleep. He went over some old papers, and saw that no one had ever done anything for Mordecai, when he rescued the king from the assassination plot.

So he called Haman to him and asked him what should be done for someone the King wanted to specially honour.

Haman thought the king was talking about him, and thought of the most extravagant honours he could imagine. The king said, “Go and find Mordecai and do that for him, because he saved my life.”

Things just crumbled from then on. Esther revealed her Jewishness, she told of the plot against the Jews, and she identified Haman as the plotter.

Silly Haman threw himself at Esther to plead for mercy; when Xerxes came back in, it looked like he was trying to rape the queen. It was the end for Haman. He was hanged, his property was confiscated, the Jews were released from the threat of death, and Mordecai was promoted to Haman's former position.

I want to draw some simple conclusions.

First, if we want to change our world, we have to be incarnate in it.

That’s not an easy word. At Christmas we sing

Yea, Lord, we greet Thee,

Born this happy morning;

Jesus, to Thee be glory given;

Word of the Father, now in flesh appearing.

That last line, about the Word of the Father appearing in human flesh, the theological word is “incarnate.” God became human, God took human flesh on himself.

God has called us to give Jesus flesh in our own world.

That’s what Paul means. He says,

²⁰ To the Jews I became like a Jew, to win the Jews. To those under the law I became like one under the law (though I myself am not under the law), so as to win those under the law. ²¹ To those not having the law I became like one not having the law (though I am not free from God’s law but am under Christ’s law), so as to win those not having the law. ²² To the weak I became weak, to win the weak. I have become all things to all men so that by all possible means I might save some.

He came and lived with them. He was like them, so that he could bring them salvation.

If we come saying, “I am a Christian, I don’t do the sinful things you do,” we alienate people.We judge them, when Jesus warned,

Judge not, lest you be judged.

Esther was a Jew, yet she went in among the Persians and lived like a Persian. But it was God’s plan for her to be there to bring about good. She was God’s plant in the midst of the greatest empire in the world in that time.

And you and I are God’s plant in our world.

I knew a Christian once who worked in the Lotteries Office. I asked how he felt about being in a place like that as a Christian. He said, “I didn’t choose to be there — I was assigned there. But places like that need Christians, otherwise the people who work there may never hear about Christ.” It was a wise answer.

Second, I want us to see that we can only change the world when we come from outside.

That is hard to follow, too. But Esther was not Persian: she was a Jew. A Persian would not have cared for the Jews in those days. But Esther did.

It is true that the Bible says

Come out from among them and be separate

But this is a call to holiness, not to isolation.

When we come out, then we can see the world from the perspective of the addict and the prostitute, the poor and the oppressed.

We earn the right to hold up a better way when we come with understanding. We earn the right to speak among the powerful when we speak the truth about the weak.

Finally, I want us to see Esther as an illustration of how to be like Jesus himself.

^{PHILP 2:5} Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus:

⁶ Who, being in very nature God,

did not consider equality with God something to be grasped,

⁷ but made himself nothing,

taking the very nature of a servant,

being made in human likeness.

⁸ And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself

and became obedient to death —

even death on a cross!

^2:9 Therefore God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name,

¹⁰ that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth,

¹¹ and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

Jesus became one of us, submitting entirely to his Father, taking all the risks on himself to save you and me. How far do we follow him?

© Peter R. Green 2006. Permission is granted for quotation in full for non-commercial purposes provided that authorship is acknowledged and this copyright notice is displayed with the text. Portions also copyright The Bible, NIV (Zondervan Ltd.)