God’s Discipline
Ours is a different kind of narrative.
You might think that with all the setup for our sermon series on Esther (3 weeks now) we would 1) at least have made it out of chapter 1; and 2) that we would have actually talked about Esther.
We’ve done neither.
There is good reason, so let me explain. Esther’s narrative is different, which we have been very clear about. There are all the elements of a good story: tension, heroes, villains, fear, doubt, and ultimately a victory for the protagonist. In other words, it has all the elements of the story we would want for ourselves. The difference lies in the fact that Esther’s story is a part of our Bible, the story of God’s redemptive purpose for mankind. This takes her story outside the realm of television drama or the popular fiction shelf at the library and places it in the middle of how we build our theology. We are intended to read Esther and gain a vision of God from it. It is my conjecture that we do, clearly.
Esther starts off as the Girl-Next-Door. Noteworthy because of her looks, but aware enough during the captivity to keep her head down and stick to a low-profile. Her life was business as usual until business became anything but usual. We have to assume she and her family kept to their Jewish roots and identity as strictly and religiously as they could in Persia under Xerxes. We also assume that if she had not been chosen, if still alive, she would have joined those returning to Jerusalem and Judea after their time in Babylon was over.
I’m sure, 100% sure that most of us can relate to the lifestyle Esther was living, and the hopefulness she had in regaining her freedom from the mess of Persia and Babylon. We are in a secular world, mostly keeping our head down and going about business as usual waiting for relief and freedom and the words “Well done good and faithful…” For the majority, the practices of Christianity, faith, and religion are on par with Western standards. We run the routes we’ve been prescribed to satisfy our need to be connected with family, culture, work, church, and God. Just like Esther, we plug away hoping things do not go completely sideways and we wind up in the king’s harem. (sidenote: I don’t think I’ve ever had that specific worry… but lets just pretend shall we)?
For the most part that works for us. Hear me: This is not a bad thing. Life is hard. Life is busy. Life is complicated and lots of preachers (me included) are quick to demean and diminish, then interject how we think the life of Christians looks (in our opinion) and how wethink it should look.
What we can learn from Esther’s story is valuable for both parties: God is. For those in the trenches, God is. For those of us looking down and guiding those in the trenches: God is.
God is working in every circumstance, even when it may look like He has closed His hand. God is at work around us, even in goobers like Xerxes and Haman (or their modern-day equivalents). God is. And that makes our story a different kind of story. Even in the business of life that distracts us, God is. In the mess of the storms, God is. On the mountaintops and in the valleys, God is.
God is. And that makes all the difference in our story.