Feasting on the Word: Year B, Volume 4

Season after Pentecost 2 (Propers 17-Reign of Christ)

David L. Bartlett, Barbara Brown Taylor

• Publisher: Westminster John Knox Press
• Year: 2009
• ISBN:
  9781611641127
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Christian Ministry

With this new lectionary commentary series, Westminster John Knox offers the most extensive resource for preaching on the market today. When complete, the twelve volumes of the series will cover all the Sundays in the three-year lectionary cycle, along with movable occasions, such as Christmas Day, Epiphany, Holy Week, and All Saints' Day.

For each lectionary text, preachers will find four brief essays--one each on the theological, pastoral, exegetical, and homiletical challenges of the text. This gives preachers sixteen different approaches to the proclaimation of the Word on any given occasion.

The editors and contributors to this series are world-class scholars, pastors, and writers representing a variety of denominations and traditions. And while the twelve volumes of the series will follow the pattern of the Revised Common Lectionary, each volume will contain an index of biblical passages so that nonlectionary preachers, as well as teachers and students, may make use of its contents.

PROPER 21 (SUNDAY BETWEEN SEPTEMBER 25 AND OCTOBER 1 INCLUSIVE)

Esther 7:1–6, 9–10; 9:20–22

^7:1So the king and Haman went in to feast with Queen Esther. ²On the second day, as they were drinking wine, the king again said to Esther, “What is your petition, Queen Esther? It shall be granted you. And what is your request? Even to the half of my kingdom, it shall be fulfilled.” ³Then Queen Esther answered, “If I have won your favor, O king, and if it pleases the king, let my life be given me—that is my petition—and the lives of my people—that is my request. ⁴For we have been sold, I and my people, to be destroyed, to be killed, and to be annihilated. 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.” ⁵Then King Ahasuerus said to Queen Esther, “Who is he, and where is he, who has presumed to do this?” ⁶Esther said, “A foe and enemy, this wicked Haman!” Then Haman was terrified before the king and the queen.… ⁹Then Harbona, one of the eunuchs in attendance on the king, said, “Look, the very gallows that Haman has prepared for Mordecai, whose word saved the king, stands at Haman’s house, fifty cubits high.” And the king said, “Hang him on that.” ¹⁰So they hanged Haman on the gallows that he had prepared for Mordecai. Then the anger of the king abated.…

^9:20Mordecai recorded these things, and sent letters to all the Jews who were in all the provinces of King Ahasuerus, both near and far, ²¹enjoining them that they should keep the fourteenth day of the month Adar and also the fifteenth day of the same month, year by year, ²²as the days on which the Jews gained relief from their enemies, and as the month that had been turned for them from sorrow into gladness and from mourning into a holiday; that they should make them days of feasting and gladness, days for sending gifts of food to one another and presents to the poor.

Theological Perspective

The house of Xerxes (Ahasuerus) is not the righteous family of last week’s reading (Prov. 31:10–31). The concupiscent king prizes only Queen Vashti’s fleeting beauty and charm (Esth. 1:10–11, cf. Prov. 31:30), and her rebellion sets back not only her own cause but women’s freedoms throughout Persia (Esth. 1:12–21, cf. Prov. 31:31). Royal intrigue and ethnic pride lead to murderous plots (2:21–23) and counterplots (3:2–6), with Israel’s life finally hanging in the balance.

Can a good woman find a fruitful place in this depraved, conniving, and confining world?

Indeed she can. We first meet Esther as an orphaned cousin of an exiled people in a far-flung province of a shaken empire, when she is snatched away from her former life to be a pagan emperor’s sexual plaything. A beautiful woman in a man’s world, she rises in royal favor, becomes queen, and saves the king’s life (Esth. 2:15–23). This week’s passage relates the turning point in her reign. She maneuvers through treacherous court rules and fortuitous circumstances to eliminate a mortal threat to her own people (7:3–6). She shows extraordinary courage in identifying with her doomed people and fingering the king’s edict and his viceroy Haman (7:3–6). By story’s end she is “Queen Esther, daughter of Abihail” (9:29–32), as proudly Jewish as she is proudly regal, feared by all under the king, immortalized in the canon of Scripture, and celebrated by Jews for millennia.

Yet Esther’s harsh world seems to find a place in her too. A sheep among wolves (see Matt. 10:16a), she accommodatingly enters a royal life that almost certainly breaks the rules of Torah. If she saves her people through wisdom, it is the shrewd wisdom of a serpent (Matt 10:16b). And when (in passages the lectionary reading conveniently omits) she uses her favor to exact a second day of retribution upon the Jews’ enemies (Esth. 9:11–17), she seems to have lost whatever dovelike innocence she might have had. We seem to be in a time like that of the judges, in which God raises up deliverers whose lives are puzzlingly and distressingly unfaithful to and even ignorant of the covenant.

Mordecai’s suggestion that Esther’s rise may be providential (4:14) is the only hint of divine action. Yet divine action is the indispensable theme of the plot (Ps. 124:1–5). It takes shape subtly and anonymously, in the “butterfly effects” of a predatory beauty contest (Esth. 2:1–4) and a sleepless royal night (6:1–3). These cascade into deliverance and holy war on Israel’s “Agagite” (3:1, cf. 1 Sam 15:4–9) enemies. This is not the forceful interventionism of a suddenly existing universe, angelic plagues, fire from heaven, and other deeds of power (Mark 9:38–39). It is what the science-and-theology dialogue calls “noninterventionist objective special divine action.” God heals his groaning creation through both styles. So disciples can pray for and celebrate both ordinary and extraordinary signs of God’s redeeming and perfecting providence (cf. Jas. 5:13–18).

The queen’s actions do save the day. Yet they lead to Persia fearing not the Lord (cf. Prov. 1:29; 31:30) but the Jews (Esth. 8:17). Esther’s request that her people be spared (7:7) yields no lasting peace; countering an irrevocable royal death warrant (3:13) with another irrevocable royal right of Jewish self-defense (8:11) only kindles a civil war in which Israel survives by killing its enemies (9:1–10). Even in victory its life remains precarious, tied to its access to conventional power.

Purim (like Hanukkah) is a sign of God’s kingdom that is worth celebrating. However, Israel is right to keep it a minor feast alongside its five covenantal ones. Queen Esther and viceroy Mordecai (Esth. 9:29–10:3) are as fleeting as King Solomon and Emperor Constantine. As long as a people’s fate rests upon worldly power, it is insecure. Xerxes answers the queen’s request with temporary relief; but the Father answers her implicit prayer with a Son whose name stands forever above heaven and earth, who grants not just a reprieve from the latest generation of Agagites, but a Passover that delivers from sin and death.

So while this saga helps set the stage for the Messiah’s coming, Israel’s ultimate enemies must be defeated in a different way. It is not the way of vengeance that turns Haman’s own weapons back on them (Esth. 7:9–10) but a salting with fire that spares no one (Mark 9:49–50). Jesus is targeted and does not escape; he is delivered and does not avenge. The wine at Purim flows until celebrants can no longer tell the difference between “cursed be Haman” and “blessed be Mordecai,” but the wine at the Eucharist flows to cover victims and perpetrators together (Mark 14:24).

Where does this leave us readers? Esther’s story can inspire us to pray confidently for wisdom (Jas. 1:5–7) so that we will face our own trials with joy and endurance (Jas. 1:2–4). It can encourage us to support agents of providence the way Mordecai does (Esth. 4:1–14), for Esther could not have won the Jews’ freedom alone. It can remind us to distinguish carefully between the Lord, who alone is our help (Ps. 124:8), and the lesser powers through which our help may sometimes arrive. Above all, it can spur us to gratitude to the Father of lights who sometimes works wonders and sometimes works behind the scenes, and whose every perfect gift fulfills his ultimate purpose (Jas. 1:17–18), not of overwhelming personal adversaries but being “at peace with one another” (Mark 9:50).

TELFORD WORK

Pastoral Perspective

The book of Esther is an enigma. For Christians it is little known among the biblical books, and yet Esther serves as the narrative source for Purim, the most joyous festival of the Jewish year. Its religious meaning is sometimes questioned: the name of God is not mentioned, and there are moral ambiguities even among the heroic characters. Yet Esther conveys a message that is consistent with the entire biblical witness: the survival and salvation of God’s people, remembered and reenacted through celebrative ritual.

Esther is set in the most secular and least holy of locales, Susa, in the far eastern sector of the Persian Empire. In this context we discover the people of God, fully immersed in the surrounding culture and its values and assumptions. The book of Esther contains no mention of worship, torah, food laws, or distinctive dress, and this is indicative of how God’s people had adapted to a new world. However, before we become too judgmental, North American Christians might consider our own bewildering ways of making sense of who and where we are: patriotic observances, sporting championships, musical festivals, celebrity obsessions, and economic forecasts. These events shape the rhythms of our lives, and the liturgical year is at best an alternative to the dominant ethos that surrounds us. Contemporary Christians thus have the same capacity for adaptation in our present cultural climate. Some see this as a missiological strategy, while others lament our failure of nerve and lack of historical memory.

In the text we meet Esther, by heritage a Jew but now fully assimilated into a nonreligious culture, at the mercy of a male-dominated political system and yet, in the end, possessed by a cunning that allows her to overcome. We are a great distance from tent, temple, and synagogue; in fact, we find ourselves at a feast, a banquet prepared by Esther for the king. As pastors we are often present at these gatherings, not knowing quite what to do, sensing an ambiguity about the appropriateness of our presence; one thinks, for example, of wedding receptions, or sporting events, or civic club meetings! And yet we have been there. The king possesses human power, in the form of unilateral political decision, and so he grants a wish to Esther. She had been prepared for this moment in the warning of her uncle Mordecai: “Who knows? Perhaps you have come to royal dignity for just such a time as this” (4:14). And here she is, in the presence of the king, with the power to change the course of events.

Pastors understand the dilemma before Esther, the power that is given to us, but also the implications of a faithful response. A bishop of the church once urged a group of candidates for ordination to understand the human capital they would acquire through ordinary acts of ministry—visitation of the sick, burial of the dead, baptisms, weddings—and then she added, “You will come to the time when you will be called to spend that capital for some important purpose.” While the economic metaphor of capital is imperfect, the truth of the admonition is clear. The pastor finds himself or herself in the presence of power, with an invitation to use that power for the common good.

Esther responds to the king: “If it pleases the king, let my life be given me—that is my petition—and the lives of my people—that is my request” (7:3). An opening has come to Esther; she has come into the kingdom for such a time as this. The wise pastor will reflect on his or her own place in the kingdom, his or her own use of power. At times, the congregation has access to political and economic resources, and the pastor is a participant in outcomes that affect persons and communities beyond those who gather for worship. At other times, the congregation is marginalized and must speak a word of truth against principalities and powers. Esther is bold: she asks for the survival and salvation of her people. The prophetic voices of the recent past have displayed this same boldness: Martin Luther King Jr., Nelson Mandela, Alexander Solzhenitsyn.

The courage of Esther shapes the destiny of the two other main characters in this text, Haman and Mordecai. Haman is motivated by evil and plans to have Mordecai hanged (5:9–14). Esther’s word brings about a great reversal: Mordecai is saved, and Haman is killed (7:10). Thus the proud are humbled, and the humble are exalted. In the relationship between Haman and Mordecai we sense the providence of God, who works through historical events, and the faithfulness of God, who preserves the righteous.

The text concludes with a description of the feast of Purim and its historical origins. The occasion of the survival and salvation of God’s people was one of feasting and celebration; God’s people had gained “relief from their enemies,” transforming “sorrow into gladness” and “mourning into a holiday.” They were commanded to send food to one another and to gather presents for the poor (9:22).

The Christian community can learn something from this ancient Jewish practice. How do we celebrate the survival of a person in the military who returns home safely? How do we rejoice when a lost individual discovers grace? How do we give thanks when a community remembers the forgotten and marginalized and intervenes on their behalf? The distinction between the royal feasts in the story of Esther and the inauguration of Purim is clear. Eugene Peterson distinguishes between the “pursuit of happiness,” which is commercialized in our culture, and the “irrepressible feast of the community” that is Purim. “Joy, separated from its roots in God and pursued apart from the community of faith, becomes mere sensation.”¹ The pastor remembers the story of survival and salvation, even in the midst of a secular culture, and courageously calls the people of God to celebration.

KENNETH H. CARTER JR.

Exegetical Perspective

The book of Esther celebrates the escape of the Jewish community from genocide under the Persian Empire. The lectionary reading presents a chopped-up version of the story of Esther, including its climax in chapter 7 and its concluding account of the institution of the feast of Purim in chapter 9. One of the book’s larger purposes is to provide a story of origins for this feast. In the process, the book offers a hilarious but biting critique of the oppressive Persian Empire. The book appears in the canon among the Megilloth, the five scrolls recited on various Jewish feasts. Contemporary celebrations of the feast of Purim include dramatic readings from Esther wherein the audience, often dressed in costumes, participates by boos, hisses, and cheering as the drama unfolds.

By chapter 7, Esther has stopped ignoring her Jewish identity in order to meet cultural expectations of the Persian court and to become the queen. She has taken a bold stand at the urging of her uncle Mordecai, going against the rulers to appear before her husband, the Persian King Ahasuerus. The book delights in making subtle fun of the Persian Empire, of the king—a monarchical buffoon—and of the empire’s ridiculous, rigid, and unalterable law. The king is a weak ruler, blind to the moral character of others and ignorant of his people, and he has come under the sway of the “wicked Haman,” one of his courtiers. Because Uncle Mordecai has refused to bow to him, Haman decides to murder all the Jews and to do it legally by persuading the king of an imagined threat to him personally.

When Esther learns of Haman’s plan, she decides to appeal to the king, but she does it craftily, with artifice and charm, rather than blunt attack. In today’s reading, she is about to expose Haman to the king. She chooses to do it at a festive meal, one of several in the book, and one of the most revelatory. Her brave visit to the king in the court wins his favor, so she invites him and the wicked Haman to dine with her. Haman is so happy to be included with the royals that he brags about it to his family. But at this feast, the king presses Esther to reveal her request and promises to give her anything, even half of his kingdom (7:2). Then Esther reveals Haman’s plot to the king. With language depicting the excess of Haman’s evil plan, she says to the king, “We have been sold, I and my people, to be destroyed, to be killed, and to be annihilated” (7:4). But clever Esther does not leave the matter as a threat to the Jews alone; she tells the self-centered king that she would not speak if it were only about her and her people, but this plot will cause “damage to the king.” She teaches him that the safety and well-being of his subjects also concerns his own well-being.

Astonished by this revelation, the king demands to know who is behind the plot. Esther answers, “A foe and enemy, this wicked Haman!” (7:6). Today’s reading omits the king’s outrage and the funny scene that follows, where the king misconstrues Haman’s appeal to Esther as an assault upon her. The reading resumes with a satisfying ironic reversal in the plot. The seventy-five-foot high (fifty cubits) gallows that Haman has prepared to execute Mordecai will become the gallows for Haman’s own execution.

When the lectionary reading moves to chapter 9, it reenters the story at the equally ironic reversal of the legal orders to slaughter the Jews. Mordecai has replaced Haman as the king’s chief courtier, prevents the genocide, and sends out urgent letters enjoining the Jews to keep the feast of Purim. The purposes of the feast, actually two feasts, are to celebrate the rescue of the Jews from their wicked enemies, their escape from death that turned their “sorrow into gladness and… mourning into a holiday” (9:22). This liturgical feast was to be made unique by its exuberant gladness, the sharing of gifts of food with one another, and the giving of presents to the poor.

The celebration of Purim is iconic, emblematic of the Jews’ life as God’s people, though God is nowhere mentioned in this book. They feast at table, they give gifts of food to one another, and they bring in the poor among them. This celebration is a remembrance of attem...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Editorial Board
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• Publisher’s Note
• Series Introduction
• Proper 17 (Sunday between August 28 and September 3 inclusive)
• Proper 18 (Sunday between September 4 and September 10 inclusive)
• Proper 19 (Sunday between September 11 and September 17 inclusive)
• Proper 20 (Sunday between September 18 and September 24 inclusive)
• Proper 21 (Sunday between September 25 and October 1 inclusive)
• Proper 22 (Sunday between October 2 and October 8 inclusive)
• Proper 23 (Sunday between October 9 and October 15 inclusive)
• Proper 24 (Sunday between October 16 and October 22 inclusive)
• Proper 25 (Sunday between October 23 and October 29 inclusive)
• All Saints
• Proper 26 (Sunday Between October 30 and November 5 Inclusive)
• Proper 27 (Sunday Between November 6 and November 12 Inclusive)
• Proper 28 (Sunday Between November 13 and November 19 Inclusive)
• Proper 29 (Christ the King)
• Contributors
• Scripture Index
• Author Index