11/11/18 “For Such a Time as This” by Nancy Hastings Sehested

NOVEMBER 11, 2018 BY GUEST (EDIT)

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Text: Esther 4:13-17

What a joy it is to be with you today. I bring you greetings and the peace of Christ from the Circle of Mercy Congregation in Asheville. We are connected as Alliance churches, linked by our deep commitments to bearing witness to the radical ways of Jesus.

I also bring you a special greeting from Mahan and Janice Siler. Their lives still shimmer with goodness and mercy, encouraging and emboldening all of us.

I’m grateful to be here on Alliance of Baptist Sunday. It’s a good time to remember our identity as renegades and troublemakers, with a bold ancestry of dissenters who stayed faithful to the wideness and wildness of God’s love and liberation.

In these days when disasters crash in upon us, and we wonder what will become of us and our children and our children’s children…we gather to catch courage from one another, and to be upheld within the Mercy of the Holy One.

In August I was part of a small gathering of people who had some history as a Baptist. We reflected on what we have retained and what still resonates with us from a Baptist heritage.

The biblical scholar Dr. Phyllis Trible, a graduate of Meredith College and retired professor from Union Theological Seminary, offered a lecture. She spoke about three current issues: the environment, women and immigration. Within each topic she offered biblical stories that illuminated the issues.

Then Dr. James Forbes rose to respond to her lecture. He was my preaching professor, and is the retired pastor of the Riverside Church in NYC. Dr. Forbes looked straight at Dr. Trible and said, Dr. Trible, you have been preaching and teaching the same biblical stories for decades. Decade after decade. The same stories, over and over again. We’ve heard you again and again. Keep telling the story! Keep on telling the story! Don’t stop. We need the story!

We have gathered once again because we need the story, the grand story of God’s life among us. You’ve been living this grand story for 134 years.

Flannery O’Connor wrote: You have to cherish the world at the same time you struggle to endure it. You are practiced in the ways of struggling and cherishing…faithfully mending and caring for your part of the struggling world that has been given to you.

During the early years of the Alliance of Baptists we liked telling biblical stories of defiance. We were struggling against the abusive and restrictive powers within the Southern Baptist Convention. We were cherishing our historic Baptist freedoms. We drew strength from the Exodus story as we left our religious homeland and crossed the sea. We drew from the story of exile, wondering how to sing God’s song in a strange land.

And we also liked this story from Esther. Not unlike that story, it was not an easy time. Many of us were called a few names along the way, like “heretics.” Some of us, like me, were called biblical names like “Jezebel” and “whore of Babylon.” But much worse than hurled names were the people who lost their jobs or who never could find jobs…or the people who were so wounded by the church that they left any church. It was a severe time.

So perhaps you can see why this story of resistance was so meaningful to the early pioneers of the Alliance. Like Esther we felt that we were called for just such a time as that. We’ve never left that early mission. We’re still speaking against powers of cruelty and injustice. It’s changed shape over the years. But we keep on, don’t we? So I offer this same old story as a reminder.

When my dad died, there were two books that I wanted from his library, his Greek New Testament and his German Bible…the one he was given while stationed in Germany in WWII…the one with the book of Esther ripped out. My dad said that the Nazis had ripped out the book because it was a dangerous story of the uprising of the Jewish people. Dangerous stories…we know all about that.

There once was ruler of an empire, the most powerful monarch in the whole wide world. He boasted of his power and flaunted his wealth. His throne room was the echo chamber of his own words. His walls were all mirrors of his own image. His ego was held together by a thin veneer of flattery and absolute loyalty. He held beauty pageants and boasted of his conquests. His name was King Xerxes of Persia.

After one whopping party that lasted six months, the king decided to extend the festivities for one more week…for all the people both great and small. (Esther 1:5) On the last night the king asked the queen to come before him, and before all the peoples and all the officials to show her beauty.

Queen Vashti refused the king’s demands. She didn’t want to be paraded in front of a drunken party. She said no. The king’s pride and his entitlement were at stake.
He ranted and raged. What? Refuse the king? The king asked his cabinet, “Can she do that? Isn’t there a law against disobeying the king?”

But there was no law. No one ever imagined anyone disobeying the king. So a law was created that all the women of his kingdom had to give honor to their husbands, high and low alike. Then the king sent out a decree that every man should be master of his own house. (Esther 1:20-22)

Vashti was not to be seen again. Or has she been seen again? The Vashtis of the world have been seen and heard again and again. There have always been “Vashtis” of the world who stand up and speak up.

And when people stand up and speak up with truth, we can expect resistance. New laws, or new controls are likely to emerge. Before the courage of Vashti, it was called “normal” and “just the way things are.” But Vashti knew that it was not normal. Her exploitation was wrong. She could not be silenced.

Did you know that there’d never been a decree or statement against women being pastors in the Southern Baptist Convention until there were women being pastors in the Southern Baptist Convention? It was thought normal not to have women in the pulpit. In 1984 a resolution was passed by the SBC stating that women were first to sin in the garden of Eden, so women should be submissive. The resolution went on to discourage women from pastoral leadership. It was unnecessary really. We were already discouraged.

There were quite a few religious leaders who were taking their cues from the bible…from King Xerxes. If women refuse to obey, then create a law or a resolution against them.

King Xerxes’ techniques can still be seen today. Some of our government leaders seem intent on denying the lawful rights of people at our borders. So what do they want to do? Make a law against it. Send troops. Build a wall.

Vashti showed power in her actions, and it was met with a fury of powerful reaction.

King Xerxes was reckless, impulsive and incompetent.
His administrative system was broken and corrupt, with few checks and balances. The king had a tough time sorting out who was friend and who was foe. He decided to show out. He ordered his officials to round up some young women in the land and be brought to him so he could choose a new queen.

Esther was his choice. She was among the Jews who had been captured from Jerusalem in the Babylonian sweep. She was a war orphan, a foreigner, an outsider. Her cousin, Mordecai, became her guardian. He told her not to tell anyone about her heritage. Imagine…people knowing your identity, your heritage…a danger?

Mordecai walked the perimeter of the palace to keep an eye on Esther. Then King Xerxes promoted Haman to his chief of staff. He loved to brag about his close connection to the king. Haman demanded that people bow down to him when he walked around the city.
Mordecai refused. He bowed to no one but God.

Haman had gallows built for Mordecai and blustered around with the promise that the administration would bring deportation and death to the Jews. But Mordecai was able to sneak around the palace in order to see Queen Esther. She was isolated and had no idea what was happening. She was oblivious to the real truth until her cousin told her what was happening.

Her name is a play on the Hebrew word for “hidden”.
She was hidden in the privileged world of unknowing.
Once her eyes were opened to the horrors, she could not un-see the suffering and the unfolding disaster.

Cousin Mordecai saw her as a hidden power for the good. “You’re the one, Esther. You can do this. You must tell the king to stop the violence against the Jewish people. You must save your people. Your silence will not save you. You have come to this moment, to this community, to this crisis, for just this time.”

Esther had little power. We know about that. She felt isolated from the real actions and changes. We know about that. She felt small and vulnerable. We know about that. What’d she do? She recognized that it was not a solo job. She called on her spiritual practices. She called on her community. She asked that they pray and fast together.
She faced the moment, but not alone. It was thoughts and prayers embodied in action. She chose to respond with all that was within her. “If I perish, I perish.” She was like the Christ figure…”not my will, but yours be done, O God.”

Esther’s name in Hebrew is “Hadassah” which means “Myrtle” like the tree. It was her given name, her Jewish name. Myrtle the Jew went to protest before the king.
She tapped into her true name, her true identity, her true roots. She could not be silenced.

She went to the king armed with her courage and the prayers of the community. And with her truth and her daring, she prevailed on the king to save her people.

Lo and behold, he did. He changed his mind. The people were spared.

It’s a Myrtle moment…again. We have come to this crisis for such a time as this. We were created for such a time as this. It’s in our DNA. It’s in our Baptist ancestry. It’s time again to claim our true identity, our true roots as followers of the daring ways of Jesus.

It’s such a time of danger and such a time for possibility. It’s a Myrtle time of giving ourselves to the Hidden Force that creates new possibility for deliverance, and a halt to hurt and harm.

Who would have imagined that Myrtle, a privileged person hidden in the palace of power, could have been the one used for God’s force for good?

This story has it all…abuse of power, violence, wealth, sexism, racism, militarism, gluttony, propaganda, scapegoating, systemic injustices, silliness, crassness, pettiness, bullying…excesses in every direction. It also has courage, compassion, and the hidden forces for the good that can emerge out of the horror.

What a story! It’s a great high note to end here in this biblical story. Amen and Amen. Hallelujah!

But there is one little problem. The story doesn’t end there. There’s an addition. There was a reversal of the reign of terror. The gallows meant for Mordecai were used for Haman. Revenge had its day. The killings continued. All who were thought to be enemies of the Jews throughout the empire were slaughtered.

The story suddenly becomes a cautionary tale. The victims can become the victimizers. The oppressed can become the oppressors. The abused can become the abusers. The triumphant can become the terrorizers. Out of our own wounds we can become the ones who wound.

It takes regular practice so that we do not allow our souls to be seized by the enemy, and become just like them. God intervenes in the cycle of violence and gives us another way. God doesn’t want a revolving power of oppression, but a transformed power of liberation.

In this journey of faith, we still walk with Jesus, the one who hasn’t stopped showing us another way….a hidden force not easily seen at first glance. A force that refused to bow to the vengeful ways of power, but chose God’s way of love, even for his enemies, even when it meant persecution and death.
For thirteen years I served as a state prison chaplain in a maximum-security prison for men. I’m very grateful to know about your recent discussions on the prison system.
On my first day as a chaplain, while I was wondering how I got there, the Lt. in charge of security on the floor stopped by my office. There was no hello, no welcome aboard. He stood at my door and said, “I don’t like it that women work in a men’s prison. You make it harder for me and my officers. I don’t think you should be here.”
It wasn’t the first time I’d heard those words. I kept it to myself and said, “Thanks for stopping by, Lt. Come back any time.”
Several months later a fight broke out in the prison chapel during choir rehearsal. Imagine! I yelled for them to stop. I was ignored. I jumped up on a chapel chair to make myself big and yelled, “Stop!” just like teachers and parents know how to do. I was still ignored.
I ran to the phone and called for help. Moments later the Lt. and officers came rushing in and busted up the fight. Several inmates were handcuffed and led away to solitary confinement. After all was restored to calm the Lt. stopped by my office. Once again he stood at the doorway. He pointed his finger at me and said, “You don’t like it but you need me. And I don’t like it but I need you.”
“You’re right,” I said, “I do need you and your officers, but what do you need me for?”
“I need you to keep me from using undo physical force. I need you to teach me another kind of force.”
Another kind of force? Isn’t that what we’re all about? Don’t we know something about the force of God’s love and healing? Don’t we know something about the holy force for justice and mercy? Don’t we know about the force of God’s surprising, transforming and resurrecting power? Hasn’t such a force upended our lives and set us on this journey of God’s hope?
Keep telling this story. Keep living this story. God’s force for love and liberation is still among us…for just such a time as this.

Nancy Hastings Sehested
Co-Pastor, Circle of Mercy Congregation, Asheville
Delivered at Pullen Memorial Baptist Church, Raleigh
November 11, 2018