When Exile Hits Home

Good morning. We continue this morning in the book of Esther. Now, I hadn't planned on doing

this, but it just occurred to me, and this is a spoiler, that in the sermon and from the passage

we heard in Esther, that God is often working unseen, unnoticed, unheard. And it occurred to me

that our sound guys kind of demonstrate that. They kind of embody God for us. They embody Christ,

you know? They work, but when everything is going wrong, and you don't know it,

they are like delivering us, working behind the scenes, like making sure the sound

runs great. So I really just want to thank Luke and Luke and Adam, Worthy, Roy, Kyle, for all they

do for us and helping us worship. Can we thank them together? Yeah. Thank you. You have no idea

how stressful it is, well, to be in exile as a church and to work with a sound system that's not

ours. And they do a fantastic job. I'm really grateful, guys. So like I said, we're in the book

of Esther. And this book has an important place in the lives of very many Jews. Every year and for the

past 2,300 years, the Jewish people celebrate and have celebrated the Feast of Purim. The central

activity of the feast is the reading of the scroll of Esther. And the celebration surrounding this

reading is crazy. It's nuts. There's costumes, there's gift giving, music making, partying.

There's noise making. There's noise making when Esther is read, and we'll be introduced to Haman in

just a minute. But if you are following the reading, you can tell he's the antagonist in the story.

When the name Haman is read, everyone has noisemakers and are like spinning them around. It's trying to

blot out the name of Haman. It's really, you can watch it on YouTube if you like. It's in Hebrew,

but you'll know when they hit the name of Haman, because that thing goes nuts. And there's a lot

of drinking during the Feast of Purim. As a matter of fact, the Talmud, which is like the body of

writings which make up the Jewish civil and ceremonial law, the Talmud goes so far as to state

that a person is obligated to drink on Purim until he does not know the difference between

cursed be Haman and blessed be Mordecai. It's, the whole thing is a burlesque. It's,

I would love to experience it sometime. This kind of revelry seems dissonant, however,

when we read about the mortal threat posed by the new figure in this story, Haman the Agagite.

I mean, things are really bad. The Jewish people are exposed to the dangers of living in exile.

So we're going to look this morning at the realities of exile and the response. So the

realities of exile and our response to those realities. Let me pray.

I continue the prayer we prayed earlier, Lord. Good Lord, deliver us.

And in this reading and studying of your word, give us hope.

Open our eyes to your word.

Open your word to our eyes and ears.

For your good, for our good, and for your glory. Amen.

Well, let's first review the cast of characters from the first two chapters of Esther. Now there's

King Ahasuerus. He's ruler of the Persian Empire. And he commands extraordinary wealth and countless

people, except for one person. At the end of a lavish six-month party, when the king wants to

display to the people and the nobles the beauty of his queen, Queen Vashti, she refuses.

The king loses it and wants a new queen. And so we meet Esther. She's chosen to belong to a

harem of virgins who are given a year of training, a year of training and beauty treatment that each

virgin is given one night with the king. And whoever pleases him the most gets to become queen.

Esther does so. Queen Vashti is deposed and the crown is given to Esther. Now Esther, we learn,

is an orphan and was raised by her uncle Mordecai. So there's four main characters so far.

Raised by her uncle Mordecai, an official in the capital of Susa. Both Esther and Mordecai were Jewish,

yet they hid their identities. At the end of chapter two, Mordecai uncovers a plot to assassinate King

Ahasuerus. Though Mordecai's actions are recorded in the king's book of Annals, Mordecai's deeds go

unnoticed, unheralded. And so we arrive at chapter three and are introduced to the antagonist of our

story, Haman the Agagite. Now you probably don't know what an Agagite is. I didn't. So we need to go

back in the story of Israel to when the Israelites escaped captivity from Egypt. We read an exodus of a

tribe called the Amalekites, who were the first to attack them, having fled Egypt. The Israelites

prevailed and God told Moses, write this on a scroll as something to be remembered and make sure that

Joshua hears it, because I will completely blot out the memory of Amalek from under heaven.

Centuries later, that job was given to Israel's first king. But instead of fully obeying God and

executing his judgment, Israel's first king destroys only what was weak and despised. And he kept the

great looking stuff for his people. And that would have been the king, King Agag, and all the lovely

people and all the lovely livestock and such. And though the prophet Samuel executes Agag, we can

assume that Agag's descendants survive. And now several centuries later, one of them is elevated

to a seat of honor higher than of all the other nobles of the Persian empire.

So do you see Amalekites? From them is descended Agag the king, and from Agag is descended Haman.

And if you were a Jew in the third century BC reading this book, you might suddenly hear ominous

music in the background when you hear that Haman is an Agagite. Not unlike the music heard when in

Star Wars episode one, the Jedi Council figured out that there is still a Sith. There's a Sith. And

then when there's a Sith, there's two, right? So remember the ominous music? Like this is what

a Jew in this time is like feeling and thinking. Probably. Kind of like that. If they're sci-fi fans.

Well, it's that kind of moment, and there's a lesson in here for us, right?

God gives us commands for our protection and our provision. And we might not understand his commands,

but we trust and obey God. We trust him that they are for our good, not just for now, but for years

in the future, or perhaps generations. Because Israel's first king didn't obey. Centuries later,

the Jewish people will be threatened with total annihilation. And who was Israel's first king, by the way?

His name was Saul. And Saul was a Benjaminite. And so was Mordecai. Mordecai is a distant relative of King Saul.

And in the beginning of chapter three, about four years after Mordecai uncovered the plot to assassinate

King Ahasuerus, when all the other officials bowed down to Haman, Mordecai refuses. And we're not sure why.

I mean, it would not be a commission of idolatry to bow down to Haman. Elsewhere in the Bible,

we find people paying honor, showing honor to other people by bowing to them. It's not breaking a

commandment. So does Mordecai refuse to bow to Haman because of the bad blood between their ancestors?

Perhaps. Or perhaps Mordecai is resentful that having saved Ahasuerus' life, he wasn't given this

prominent position, but it was Haman instead. Or perhaps Mordecai was just being a pompous jerk.

Well, that sounds like me. I would relate to that. The book of Esther, though, is remarkably silent

on its character's motives. So we don't know. But we do know that this gets Mordecai in trouble,

whether it's his foolishness or his bravery. By this time, Mordecai has revealed that he is a Jew.

So when Haman gets furious in typical book of Esther fashion, he goes way over the top and makes plans

not just to destroy Mordecai, but all Jews in the Persian Empire. He uses his wealth to influence the

king to make an edict, which is sent by couriers to all the king's provinces with the order to destroy,

kill, and annihilate the Jews, young and old, women and little children, on a single day.

Now, if you are paying attention, you may have noticed the language Haman used to describe the Jews.

He said to the king,

Did you hear that? It's like they've infiltrated.

They already sound scary.

Their laws are different from those of every other people, which is true.

And they do not keep the king's laws, which is false.

But that's believable because it's mixed with the truth.

So that it's not to the king's profit to tolerate them.

You know, it's the same language used of the Israelites by Pharaoh in Exodus chapter 1.

Exodus 1 · chapter mention

Pharaoh said,

The people of Israel are too many.

Come, let us deal shrewdly with them, lest they multiply.

And if war breaks out, they join our enemies.

Did you hear the commonality?

There's a certain people scattered and dispersed.

They're different.

Let's deal with them.

Lest they multiply.

Frankly, it's the same language that has been used by countless cultures, including our own,

when there is a fear of minority cultures.

Language that too often leads to oppression, dehumanization, and hatred.

Lord, lead us to love and cherish and defend those around us who are different than us.

Those who do not have a voice.

Because they are made in your image.

And you love them.

When we read scripture, a common mistake people make is to read ourselves into every hero that scripture presents.

Or to make moral examples of its heroes.

David was brave, so we should be brave too.

Joseph was obedient, so we should be obedient too.

Right?

Moses was a pretty good leader, so I should be a pretty good leader too.

Well, there's two major problems with this approach.

First, the Bible's heroes aren't terribly heroic.

They're quite the opposite.

And they're usually not very good moral examples.

They are very flawed and sinful.

I mean, do you want to be like David who used his power to sexually coerce his friend's wife,

get her pregnant, and try to cover it up by having her husband killed and marrying her right away?

This is not what we want to emulate.

This is not how the Bible presents its characters.

Not as figures to emulate.

Okay?

The other problem with reading ourselves into the Bible's heroes is the assumption that the Bible is about us.

But it's not.

The Bible's not about us.

The Bible's about God and his glory.

It's about his plan to rescue a people for himself and to renew and restore a broken world.

A world broken by our sin.

So I can still read myself into the book of Esther.

Not the best choice to read myself into Mordecai nor Esther.

Who am I in the book of Esther?

I'm probably just one of the unnamed Jews in exile.

The disobedience of my people have put me here in exile,

and I am powerless to rescue myself from mortal danger caused by miles away by wealthy, powerful people.

The disobedience of the human race has exiled us all from paradise, from the Garden of Eden.

And now we are subject to the mortal dangers of sin, of brokenness, of injustice,

and we are powerless to lift ourselves out of our condition.

Now for many of you, that's where it feels like you are.

You are in Esther chapter 3.

Esther 3 · chapter mention

Right?

In Eden, we were meant to work and have a calling, but your job sucks.

You have a boss that has treated you unfairly.

Co-workers have betrayed you.

Your responsibilities are tedious and frustrating.

Every day at work, a piece of your soul dies.

This is Esther chapter 3.

Esther 3 · chapter mention

In Eden, we were meant to be whole persons.

But you feel like you're held hostage to addiction, to mental illness, to physical illness, to loneliness.

From Eden, we were meant to multiply and fill the earth,

and yet you can't join in that mandate due to infertility and every day you feel the loss.

Or you have adult children who have walked away from the faith.

You worked so hard to instill in them because you wanted them to be image bearers.

But they have walked away.

Now you feel like a failure.

Eden was supposed to be a place of safety.

Where no harm could reach us.

But harm reached you.

You've been abused.

And every night is a struggle to go to sleep because you can't forget the sound of those footsteps coming down the hall when you're a child.

Eden was to be a place of shalom.

Where the fabric of our relationships and communities and society was to be characterized by peace and mutual self-giving and justice.

Yet you look around and you are overwhelmed by the injustice that pervades society.

And you're desperate, wondering if it will ever end.

I mean, less than two weeks ago, after the conclusion of the trial for the murder of Botham Jean,

in Dallas, another African-American, 28-year-old, a Tatiana Jefferson.

This was last night.

Two nights ago.

Was shot and killed by a police officer standing in her own house in neighboring Fort Worth.

Just moments after playing video games with her nephew.

We are in exile.

This is not Eden.

You feel it.

You know it.

We are in Esther chapter 3.

Esther 3 · chapter mention

And right now, for many of us, that's where it seems the story ends.

One more point.

We belong to a worldwide family.

That's in exile.

Who face the literal dangers of Esther chapter 3.

Esther 3 · chapter mention

Because they belong to Jesus, they face opposition, violence, and other threats.

These are our brothers and sisters.

In June, authorities in a Laotian village threatened a local pastor in Gunpoint,

insisting that he and his congregation renounce their faith,

and that he sign a document agreeing to seize worship in his home.

On July 12, 2019, a demolition crew hired by local authorities

surrounded a house church in Zhengzhou, Hinan province in China,

in order to demolish it.

During a scuffle with the work crew,

a Christian man who was at the house church with his wife

was severely beaten, suffering three severed tendons in his wrist.

On Easter Sunday, do you remember this?

On Easter Sunday, attacks on churches in Sri Lanka

left 250 dead and 500 wounded.

On the same Easter day, this year, in a different country,

a Christian congregation held a fire trail.

Elderly members in their beautiful Easter Sunday clothes

had to cross busy streets,

but it was worth the practice and precaution

due to their country's history of attacks on churches.

That would have been Canaan Baptist Church in Columbia Heights.

We were going to worship there that very evening.

And I only know this because I stopped by there

to grab a piece of equipment

for us to use Easter morning at Luke Seymour High School.

And I saw people filing out of the church

wondering what is going on.

And I learned it's a fire drill.

And I thought, oh, that's a funny thing to do on Easter Sunday.

You know, that's not very seeker sensitive.

You know, what a pompous ass I was in that moment.

On top of the long, ugly history of attacks

on black churches in our country,

there had just been three arson attacks

in the three weeks leading up to Easter.

This year, 2019, of course they're going to have a fire drill.

We're in exile.

So what should be our response?

When the realities of exile hit home, what do we do?

Well, the first is to acknowledge it.

Acknowledge the realities of exile.

Acknowledge how bad it is and listen to your emotions.

Listen to the sadness, the frustration, and the grief.

Pause and listen.

Because the temptation is to think

we need to immediately change those bad emotions

from negative to positive.

We look for the right technique

or the right steps to do so, right?

But as Dan Allender writes,

rather than focusing on trying to change our emotions,

we are wiser first to listen to them.

They are a voice that can tell us

how we are dealing with a fallen world,

hurtful people,

and a quizzical God

who seldom seems to be or do what we expect of him.

Our emotions reveal something

about how we are dealing with God.

How we're dealing with God.

In other words, this emotion,

it's either taking me toward God

or away from him, right?

Is it leading me away from God

into independence and idolatry?

Or is it leading me toward God,

into God, into awe,

into dependence,

and ultimately gratitude?

Hear what the Jews do

in chapter 4 of Esther, verse 3.

In every province,

wherever the king's command

and his decree reached,

there was great mourning among the Jews

with fasting and weeping and lamenting.

We have songs and prayers in the Bible

that teach us how to do this.

We can call them the psalms of lament.

Walter Brueggemann calls them

the psalms of disorientation.

They help us make this journey

from listening to our emotions

into the very heart of God.

In her book, Broken Halleluias,

Beth Allen Slevkov recounts her experiences

with her own illness

and with that of her husband's

and then with infertility

and then with the death of her brother.

And she writes,

As I read the psalms,

I discovered my journey

of childlike belief

and the loss of some of that belief

is not a journey of moving away from God,

but part of the journey all of us are on

who seek to honestly engage with God

throughout a lifetime.

The lament are the prayers offered

after the chair's been pulled out

from under the people of God.

They are the where are you God psalms.

They are the why aren't you protecting

and providing for us psalms.

Aren't we God's chosen people?

Didn't God say he would protect us?

The psalms of lament teach us

how to pray in the dark.

They help me see that God is bigger

than both my current felt experience of God

and my past assumptions.

Reading the psalms might even lead me

to believe that if I don't come up

against some serious loss of faith

from time to time,

I might be carrying around a very small God.

Did you hear how lament moves us into worship,

into new theological insights and conclusions?

And that in turn leads us into mission.

Sung Chan Ra writes,

Lament recognizes the struggles of life

and cries out for justice

against existing injustices.

The status quo is not to be celebrated,

but instead must be challenged.

So if you've never prayed a psalm of lament

or knew you were praying a psalm of lament

or know what one was,

how do you do that?

Well, there's psalms of lament in the Bible.

There are psalms 10, 13, 22, 35, 43, 44.

You can Google psalms of lament and find those.

And you can use them as a template

to compose your own prayer of lament.

So listen to a loss that is inside of you,

wanting some acknowledgement,

and then pour out your honest, raw emotions to God.

Try not to edit them or judge them.

Just pour them out.

Whatever comes to mind.

You know, I'm reminded of a song by Bruce Coburn

when he saw injustice in Central America.

The refrain is,

if I had a rocket launcher.

God, if I had a rocket launcher.

It's a cry.

You're letting God know how you feel.

Then ask God to act decisively,

to do something decisively.

Act, God.

Wake up.

Come.

Hear me.

Help me.

And then remember how God has been with you in the past.

Remember how God has been with you in the past.

This leads us to our second response.

All right?

Our first response to the realities of exile,

to acknowledge the brokenness in the world

and to lament that.

The second response,

it's to remember God being with us in the past.

Chapter 3 would teach us to remember

that when all seems hopeless,

God is there.

You may remember Tommy telling us two weeks ago

that God is nowhere mentioned in the book of Esther.

And because of this,

the book of Esther is most,

it most closely approximates

our own lived experiences in this world,

with our faith,

with God.

But in this book,

the longer he remains unmentioned,

the larger he looms.

Now,

earlier I mentioned that the scroll of Esther

is read during the Feast of Purim.

Purim comes from the word,

the Persian word,

poor,

P-U-R.

And it appears in chapter 3,

verse 7.

Haman determines the day of the Jews' destruction

by casting poor,

by casting lots,

rolling the dice.

And through the rolling of the dice,

the day of the Jews' annihilation

was delayed for 12 months.

You see,

when God appears to be absent,

he is working through what appears to be luck,

coincidence,

fate,

chance,

or the misuse of the free will of human beings.

But he is always present,

suffering alongside of us,

working things to our good.

Now,

ultimately,

our exile from Eden

is a bondage

to sin

and death.

But God proves

he is active

in providing for us

a means of rescue

from exile

before we are even aware

of our need,

before we're even aware

God's there,

acting.

In Romans chapter 5,

Romans 5 · chapter mention

we read that God shows his love

for us in this,

that while we were still sinners,

Christ died for us.

That's ultimately how we know.

Look at the cross.

Jesus triumphed over sin

on the cross.

In Christ,

we are no longer

slaves to sin.

Our sins are blotted out

and with salvation

comes healing,

you know,

there is more healing

in your relationships.

There is more healing

for you,

your nation.

There's more healing

for you.

and there's more freedom available to you now

freedom from shame

freedom from fear

now it's because you belong to a kingdom

you're in exile

but you have been rescued and delivered into a kingdom

ruled by the one who rules and made the universe

in his resurrection from the dead

Jesus destroys death

because of Christ's resurrection

we look forward to our own resurrection

when we'll have an eternal feast

a wedding celebration

celebrating our deliverance in a world made new

in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit

Amen

let's pray

Almighty God we long to see you

Almighty God we long to hear from you

it is indeed

most of our experience that you seem silent to us or absent

thank you Lord for being here in this meal that we're about to share

you are truly here

so in this bread and in this wine

speak to us

assure us

comfort us

show us the hope that we have

in this bread and this wine

heal us

thank you for always being with us

we pray in Jesus name

Amen

now I'd like us to rise

thank you

thank you

thank you

we pray in Jesus

our family

our friends

thank you

thank you

our family

our son was

we're still here in this

our family

our father and if our father know who

our police

key

our parents

believe me

our parents

know our families

and everybody

thank you

thank you

thank you

john