Chapter Four
Monologues
Telling It Like It Was
Preaching In The First Person
Certainly there are many stories in Scripture which should be presented from the perspective of the female involved. A case in point is the story of Esther. But how to present her story in the first person if the presenter is male? It is difficult for a male to stand before a congregation and say: "My name is Esther." Fortunately, Esther's story is closely tied to that of her kinsman, Mordecai. It works out well to have him tell her story from his point of view.
I wanted to do more than simply acquaint people with the story of Esther. While one could claim that simply familiarizing people with the contents of the Bible is an adequate goal for preaching, I feel that preaching ought to apply the lessons learned from Scripture. In this story Esther becomes an example of a person who seizes her opportunity. That is a lesson for all of us to learn. My objective was to show how God can operate in human life when a person cooperates with him. My one-sentence proposition is: "God is at work in the world for justice, but God requires the cooperation of individuals."
Mordecai
Esther 4:10-16
About 400 years after David had been made king of Israel, Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, laid siege to the city of Jerusalem. A year later he captured the city, and in reprisal took many of Judah's chief citizens into captivity in Babylon. In 586 and again in 581, the residents of Judah revolted and both times, when the revolts were put down, more people were deported to Babylon where they stayed for seventy years or more.
Later in the same century Cyrus, king of the Medes and Persians, conquered Babylon and permitted those Jews who wished to do so to return to Judah. By that time, however, many Jews had become comfortable in their new surroundings -- and some even moved farther into Persia. My ancestors were among the latter group. As a result of that migration, I happened to live in Susa, one of the five capital cities of Persia, in the days when Ahasuerus, the king of Persia, came to power. My name is Mordecai, a simple Jew, who, by the grace of God, became prime minister of all Persia and second only to the king himself.
I would like to share my story with you as an illustration of God's providential care, in hopes that you will be able to see God at work in your life as he was in mine. I must concede that my story is largely tied up with that of Esther, who was one day to save her people.
I suppose the first thing I should talk about is God's preparation for the deliverance he was later to accomplish. It started near the beginning of Ahasuerus' reign. It took him several years after he assumed the title "king" to become ruler-in-fact, putting down rebellious elements and consolidating the empire. When that was accomplished, in the third year of his reign, the king called for a coronation celebration in Susa which was to last six months. Governors, princes, and generals from 127 provinces stretching all the way from Ethiopia to India were invited.
As the celebration was drawing to a close, the king authorized one final banquet which was to last seven days. The king and his male guests had been drinking for several days and they were in a pretty sorry state. The queen, Vashti, had been entertaining the wives of the nobility in a different part of the palace and they were in a more sober state. In his drunkenness, the king sent word demanding that Vashti appear before his guests so that he might show off her beauty. The queen refused to come into such a drunken situation, and the king became enraged. We did not know it then, but at that moment the stage was being set for the deliverance of the people of Israel from a danger which had not yet come to the surface.
The king called in his wisemen and asked what should be done to Queen Vashti, who had not performed the command of the king. The wisemen counseled that if the queen's insubordination went unpunished, wives all over the empire would look with contempt on the authority of their husbands and there would be domestic chaos. Therefore, their advice was that Vashti be deposed and a new queen be put in her place, so that women would recognize that every man is lord of his own house. The king agreed, and Vashti was deposed.
In time the king began to wonder whether he had done the right thing. But it was too late to reinstate Vashti because the king had issued a proclamation against her, and the proclamation of a Persian king may not be altered. Therefore, the king's wisemen quickly counseled that young women be brought from all over the empire so that the king might choose from among them one to be his queen. This pleased the king, and he issued such a decree.
It was at this point that Esther and I entered the picture. Esther was my younger cousin, orphaned child of my uncle. I had raised her as my own daughter and she had developed into a beautiful young woman. When I encouraged Esther to take her chances in the competition, she consented. I told her not to mention her nationality or her relationship to me lest being a member of a minority group should work against her. That little secret was eventually to be an asset, for Esther won the heart of the king and he made her his queen.
I held a minor government position in those days, which required that I sit at the gate of the palace each day to do business. One day while I was there I chanced to hear two palace guards plotting to assassinate the king. I got word to Esther as quickly as I could, and she in turn informed the king in my name, though not mentioning our relationship. The matter was investigated and found to be true, and when the two guards were judged, my name was written in the book of the king's Chronicles as a benefactor of the king. The stage was set for a great drama.
If the first thing that needed to be mentioned was God's preparations, I suppose the next thing that needs to be mentioned is human prejudice. In those days, the king needed a prime minister, and the man chosen for the job was Haman the Amalekite. He was an evil man, consumed with ambition and pride. He exulted in the fawning obeisance, the bowing and scraping before him, which went with his position, and everybody did it. Everybody except me. I refused to bow before his new-found power and authority because I could not respect him as a man.
When my refusal to bow as he passed by became known to him, he was consumed with anger and determined to destroy me. But he was not content to lay hands on me only. Someone told him that I was a Jew, and he began to make plans for the destruction of all the Jews in the Persian Empire. That is how prejudice develops, isn't it? Someone takes the characteristics of one person he doesn't like, whether rightly or wrongly, and he transfers those characteristics to a whole race, so that he can justify his hatred.
Bit by bit, Haman put his plan together. He consulted oracles who threw lots to determine an auspicious month and day on which to carry out his nefarious plot. The dice, called pur, hit upon the fourteenth of March, which was then some eleven months away. He then went to the king with his evil counsel. "There is a certain people scattered abroad throughout the kingdom," he said, "whose laws are different from every other people, and they do not keep the king's laws, so that it is not profitable to the king to tolerate them." He urged the king to issue a decree authorizing the destruction of the Jews. More than that, he offered to put 10,000 talents of silver in the king's treasury to cover expenses.
The king had no reason to question Haman's judgment, and the money helped to make it seem right, so without even asking who the people were who were to be treated so, the king gave Haman authority to write letters to all the provinces, authorizing the inhabitants to rise up on the fourteenth of March and slay, destroy, and annihilate all Jews, young and old, women and children, and to take the possessions of the Jews as plunder. There was not a strong feeling of anti-Semitism in the kingdom, but this decree pointed out that we Jews were different, and the promise of plunder quickly fanned the flames of hatred. Understandably, Jewish people everywhere were filled with fear and deeply distressed, as was I.
Because of human prejudice, the next thing that happened could be called the plan of Mordecai. It was quite simple, really. We needed a friend at court. I told Esther what had happened and charged her to go to the king and entreat him for her people. Esther protested that if anyone went to the king in the inner court without being called, there was but one law: all were put to death, except those to whom the king held out his scepter. She went on further to say that she had not been called in to see the king for thirty days. Knowing how capricious he was, to barge in on him could certainly mean death.
I nevertheless urged Esther that she must take advantage of the unique opportunity which was hers. God was capable of bringing deliverance in many ways, but woe to her to have the opportunity and not use it. I said, "Who knows but that you have been made queen for such a time as this."
I am convinced that things work that way in the lives of many of us. We are given opportunities to do the things God wants done. We just happen to be there at the right time, and woe to us if we do not take advantage of it. Esther was convinced. She said, "I will go to the king though it is against the law, and if I perish, I perish."
Esther handled things beautifully. She dressed herself in her finest gown and went before the king. When he saw her, he looked favorably on her and held out the golden scepter, saying, "What is it, Queen Esther? What is your request? It shall be given you, even to the half of my kingdom." Esther knew better than to press her luck. Instead she invited both the king and Haman to come to dinner that very day, which they both consented to do. At the dinner, the king asked again what her petition was, and again she deferred, requesting that the king and Haman come to dinner again the next day. They both agreed, and Haman went off joyfully and glad of heart.
So you begin to see the plan of Mordecai. What we see next is the pride of Haman. As I indicated, Haman was very satisfied with himself. He had property, wealth, family, power, the ear of the king, and now even inclusion in the activities of the queen. However, as he left the palace his eyes fell on me, and as I refused to bow, his countenance fell. I have been told that he went home that day and called together his friends and told them of his honored position and of the fact that he was to be honored again by being invited by the queen the next day also. Then he went on to tell his friends that, in spite of all these benefits, he could not enjoy them because whenever he saw me it took all his pleasure away.
His friends suggested that he have a gallows built right in his own courtyard, and that he go to the king early the next day and request permission to hang me from it so that he could go to the queen's dinner with a happy heart. The idea pleased Haman, and so sure was he of the king's permission that he had the gallows built at once. Someone should have told him that "pride goes before a fall."
It just so happened that during the course of the night the king could not sleep. Something was bothering him, but he couldn't bring it into focus, so he asked that the book of the king's Chronicles be read to him, so that he might see if there were something in it that he needed to do. In the course of reading, it was mentioned that one Mordecai had saved the king's life by reporting a plot. The king asked what honor had been bestowed on Mordecai for this, and it was reported that nothing had been done.
About this time, Haman came back to the palace, hoping to find the king still awake so that he could get the permission to hang me in the morning. But before Haman could make his request, the king asked him, "What shall be done to the man whom the king delights to honor?" Haman thought to himself, "Whom would the king delight to honor more than Haman?" So he advised the king to dress such a man in a royal robe, place him on the king's horse, and have the noblest prince lead the horse through the streets, saying, "Thus shall it be done to the man whom the king delights to honor." The idea pleased the king, and he ordered Haman to do just as he had said for Mordecai, who sat at the king's gate. Ah, what a crushing blow! Haman did it, but you should have seen him. A more unhappy person could not be imagined. He led me all through the streets on the king's horse. But I am informed that he went straight home in great mourning and told his friends what had happened. They were of no comfort to him, but instead told him that this was an omen of bad things to come.
If what I just related speaks of the pride of Haman, I suppose the final phase could be called the working out of the providence of God. The king and Haman came the second time to Esther's feast. This time, when the king asked for Esther's request, she answered, "My petition is that my life and the life of my people be given me, for we have been sold to destruction." The king was surprised and asked who had done this, to which Esther responded, "This wicked Haman!" The king rose in anger and went into the palace garden. When he returned he saw the terror-stricken Haman falling on the couch where Esther sat, begging for his life. It appeared that he was assaulting the queen, and the king was incensed. Seeing that things were going against Haman anyway, one of the guards, who did not like Haman, informed the king that Haman had also built a gallows from which to hang the man whom the king had just honored. That was all the king needed! He gave the command that Haman should be hung from it instead, for his evil intention and presumption.
Still, the important thing was not vengeance or the destruction of Haman, but to save the Jewish people. Esther revealed to the king that she and I were related, that we were Jews, and that it was the Jews whose destruction he had decreed. The king was filled with sorrow and sincerely wanted to revoke the order, but a royal decree could not be revoked. He called me in and told me to come up with an alternative statement and he would sign it. I, therefore, drew up a proclamation which said, in effect, that if any Jews were attacked on March fourteenth, the king urged them to defend themselves, and he put the weight of his favor on their side. Few people would be foolish enough to go against the favor of the king, even if the first decree permitted it. The princes, nobles, and generals were especially cautious. There was now gladness and joy among the Jews. In time, the king gave me his signet ring and elevated me to the position which had formerly been held by Haman.
When the fourteenth of March came, there were those who did attack the Jews; the prospect of plunder and the fanning of the flames of racial prejudice had found their willing instruments. But the Jews defended themselves well and were saved from wholesale slaughter. To this day, on March 14, we Jews celebrate the Festival of Purim, named after the dice which Haman threw, in commemoration of our great deliverance through the courage of Esther.
What I am trying to get across by the telling of my story is that there is such a thing as the providence of God. Why that providence is not always evident I do not know. We Jews have more reason to be realistic about the seeming inactivity of God than any other people I know, yet we believe. I do not suggest that we be Pollyanna and tell ourselves that what happens is always for the best, or that what happens is always the will of God. The truth is that people have something to say about what happens in the world, evil people and good people. Someone has said that all that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good people do nothing. God has a will for the world, but he works through people, people who are in tune with his will and who have the courage to act on what they believe. That is what happened with Esther, who used her opportunity. Who knows what providential thing you might be responsible for, if you, too, will trust in God and remain alive to the opportunities God gives you.
I wanted to do more than simply acquaint people with the story of Esther. While one could claim that simply familiarizing people with the contents of the Bible is an adequate goal for preaching, I feel that preaching ought to apply the lessons learned from Scripture. In this story Esther becomes an example of a person who seizes her opportunity. That is a lesson for all of us to learn. My objective was to show how God can operate in human life when a person cooperates with him. My one-sentence proposition is: "God is at work in the world for justice, but God requires the cooperation of individuals."
Mordecai
Esther 4:10-16
About 400 years after David had been made king of Israel, Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, laid siege to the city of Jerusalem. A year later he captured the city, and in reprisal took many of Judah's chief citizens into captivity in Babylon. In 586 and again in 581, the residents of Judah revolted and both times, when the revolts were put down, more people were deported to Babylon where they stayed for seventy years or more.
Later in the same century Cyrus, king of the Medes and Persians, conquered Babylon and permitted those Jews who wished to do so to return to Judah. By that time, however, many Jews had become comfortable in their new surroundings -- and some even moved farther into Persia. My ancestors were among the latter group. As a result of that migration, I happened to live in Susa, one of the five capital cities of Persia, in the days when Ahasuerus, the king of Persia, came to power. My name is Mordecai, a simple Jew, who, by the grace of God, became prime minister of all Persia and second only to the king himself.
I would like to share my story with you as an illustration of God's providential care, in hopes that you will be able to see God at work in your life as he was in mine. I must concede that my story is largely tied up with that of Esther, who was one day to save her people.
I suppose the first thing I should talk about is God's preparation for the deliverance he was later to accomplish. It started near the beginning of Ahasuerus' reign. It took him several years after he assumed the title "king" to become ruler-in-fact, putting down rebellious elements and consolidating the empire. When that was accomplished, in the third year of his reign, the king called for a coronation celebration in Susa which was to last six months. Governors, princes, and generals from 127 provinces stretching all the way from Ethiopia to India were invited.
As the celebration was drawing to a close, the king authorized one final banquet which was to last seven days. The king and his male guests had been drinking for several days and they were in a pretty sorry state. The queen, Vashti, had been entertaining the wives of the nobility in a different part of the palace and they were in a more sober state. In his drunkenness, the king sent word demanding that Vashti appear before his guests so that he might show off her beauty. The queen refused to come into such a drunken situation, and the king became enraged. We did not know it then, but at that moment the stage was being set for the deliverance of the people of Israel from a danger which had not yet come to the surface.
The king called in his wisemen and asked what should be done to Queen Vashti, who had not performed the command of the king. The wisemen counseled that if the queen's insubordination went unpunished, wives all over the empire would look with contempt on the authority of their husbands and there would be domestic chaos. Therefore, their advice was that Vashti be deposed and a new queen be put in her place, so that women would recognize that every man is lord of his own house. The king agreed, and Vashti was deposed.
In time the king began to wonder whether he had done the right thing. But it was too late to reinstate Vashti because the king had issued a proclamation against her, and the proclamation of a Persian king may not be altered. Therefore, the king's wisemen quickly counseled that young women be brought from all over the empire so that the king might choose from among them one to be his queen. This pleased the king, and he issued such a decree.
It was at this point that Esther and I entered the picture. Esther was my younger cousin, orphaned child of my uncle. I had raised her as my own daughter and she had developed into a beautiful young woman. When I encouraged Esther to take her chances in the competition, she consented. I told her not to mention her nationality or her relationship to me lest being a member of a minority group should work against her. That little secret was eventually to be an asset, for Esther won the heart of the king and he made her his queen.
I held a minor government position in those days, which required that I sit at the gate of the palace each day to do business. One day while I was there I chanced to hear two palace guards plotting to assassinate the king. I got word to Esther as quickly as I could, and she in turn informed the king in my name, though not mentioning our relationship. The matter was investigated and found to be true, and when the two guards were judged, my name was written in the book of the king's Chronicles as a benefactor of the king. The stage was set for a great drama.
If the first thing that needed to be mentioned was God's preparations, I suppose the next thing that needs to be mentioned is human prejudice. In those days, the king needed a prime minister, and the man chosen for the job was Haman the Amalekite. He was an evil man, consumed with ambition and pride. He exulted in the fawning obeisance, the bowing and scraping before him, which went with his position, and everybody did it. Everybody except me. I refused to bow before his new-found power and authority because I could not respect him as a man.
When my refusal to bow as he passed by became known to him, he was consumed with anger and determined to destroy me. But he was not content to lay hands on me only. Someone told him that I was a Jew, and he began to make plans for the destruction of all the Jews in the Persian Empire. That is how prejudice develops, isn't it? Someone takes the characteristics of one person he doesn't like, whether rightly or wrongly, and he transfers those characteristics to a whole race, so that he can justify his hatred.
Bit by bit, Haman put his plan together. He consulted oracles who threw lots to determine an auspicious month and day on which to carry out his nefarious plot. The dice, called pur, hit upon the fourteenth of March, which was then some eleven months away. He then went to the king with his evil counsel. "There is a certain people scattered abroad throughout the kingdom," he said, "whose laws are different from every other people, and they do not keep the king's laws, so that it is not profitable to the king to tolerate them." He urged the king to issue a decree authorizing the destruction of the Jews. More than that, he offered to put 10,000 talents of silver in the king's treasury to cover expenses.
The king had no reason to question Haman's judgment, and the money helped to make it seem right, so without even asking who the people were who were to be treated so, the king gave Haman authority to write letters to all the provinces, authorizing the inhabitants to rise up on the fourteenth of March and slay, destroy, and annihilate all Jews, young and old, women and children, and to take the possessions of the Jews as plunder. There was not a strong feeling of anti-Semitism in the kingdom, but this decree pointed out that we Jews were different, and the promise of plunder quickly fanned the flames of hatred. Understandably, Jewish people everywhere were filled with fear and deeply distressed, as was I.
Because of human prejudice, the next thing that happened could be called the plan of Mordecai. It was quite simple, really. We needed a friend at court. I told Esther what had happened and charged her to go to the king and entreat him for her people. Esther protested that if anyone went to the king in the inner court without being called, there was but one law: all were put to death, except those to whom the king held out his scepter. She went on further to say that she had not been called in to see the king for thirty days. Knowing how capricious he was, to barge in on him could certainly mean death.
I nevertheless urged Esther that she must take advantage of the unique opportunity which was hers. God was capable of bringing deliverance in many ways, but woe to her to have the opportunity and not use it. I said, "Who knows but that you have been made queen for such a time as this."
I am convinced that things work that way in the lives of many of us. We are given opportunities to do the things God wants done. We just happen to be there at the right time, and woe to us if we do not take advantage of it. Esther was convinced. She said, "I will go to the king though it is against the law, and if I perish, I perish."
Esther handled things beautifully. She dressed herself in her finest gown and went before the king. When he saw her, he looked favorably on her and held out the golden scepter, saying, "What is it, Queen Esther? What is your request? It shall be given you, even to the half of my kingdom." Esther knew better than to press her luck. Instead she invited both the king and Haman to come to dinner that very day, which they both consented to do. At the dinner, the king asked again what her petition was, and again she deferred, requesting that the king and Haman come to dinner again the next day. They both agreed, and Haman went off joyfully and glad of heart.
So you begin to see the plan of Mordecai. What we see next is the pride of Haman. As I indicated, Haman was very satisfied with himself. He had property, wealth, family, power, the ear of the king, and now even inclusion in the activities of the queen. However, as he left the palace his eyes fell on me, and as I refused to bow, his countenance fell. I have been told that he went home that day and called together his friends and told them of his honored position and of the fact that he was to be honored again by being invited by the queen the next day also. Then he went on to tell his friends that, in spite of all these benefits, he could not enjoy them because whenever he saw me it took all his pleasure away.
His friends suggested that he have a gallows built right in his own courtyard, and that he go to the king early the next day and request permission to hang me from it so that he could go to the queen's dinner with a happy heart. The idea pleased Haman, and so sure was he of the king's permission that he had the gallows built at once. Someone should have told him that "pride goes before a fall."
It just so happened that during the course of the night the king could not sleep. Something was bothering him, but he couldn't bring it into focus, so he asked that the book of the king's Chronicles be read to him, so that he might see if there were something in it that he needed to do. In the course of reading, it was mentioned that one Mordecai had saved the king's life by reporting a plot. The king asked what honor had been bestowed on Mordecai for this, and it was reported that nothing had been done.
About this time, Haman came back to the palace, hoping to find the king still awake so that he could get the permission to hang me in the morning. But before Haman could make his request, the king asked him, "What shall be done to the man whom the king delights to honor?" Haman thought to himself, "Whom would the king delight to honor more than Haman?" So he advised the king to dress such a man in a royal robe, place him on the king's horse, and have the noblest prince lead the horse through the streets, saying, "Thus shall it be done to the man whom the king delights to honor." The idea pleased the king, and he ordered Haman to do just as he had said for Mordecai, who sat at the king's gate. Ah, what a crushing blow! Haman did it, but you should have seen him. A more unhappy person could not be imagined. He led me all through the streets on the king's horse. But I am informed that he went straight home in great mourning and told his friends what had happened. They were of no comfort to him, but instead told him that this was an omen of bad things to come.
If what I just related speaks of the pride of Haman, I suppose the final phase could be called the working out of the providence of God. The king and Haman came the second time to Esther's feast. This time, when the king asked for Esther's request, she answered, "My petition is that my life and the life of my people be given me, for we have been sold to destruction." The king was surprised and asked who had done this, to which Esther responded, "This wicked Haman!" The king rose in anger and went into the palace garden. When he returned he saw the terror-stricken Haman falling on the couch where Esther sat, begging for his life. It appeared that he was assaulting the queen, and the king was incensed. Seeing that things were going against Haman anyway, one of the guards, who did not like Haman, informed the king that Haman had also built a gallows from which to hang the man whom the king had just honored. That was all the king needed! He gave the command that Haman should be hung from it instead, for his evil intention and presumption.
Still, the important thing was not vengeance or the destruction of Haman, but to save the Jewish people. Esther revealed to the king that she and I were related, that we were Jews, and that it was the Jews whose destruction he had decreed. The king was filled with sorrow and sincerely wanted to revoke the order, but a royal decree could not be revoked. He called me in and told me to come up with an alternative statement and he would sign it. I, therefore, drew up a proclamation which said, in effect, that if any Jews were attacked on March fourteenth, the king urged them to defend themselves, and he put the weight of his favor on their side. Few people would be foolish enough to go against the favor of the king, even if the first decree permitted it. The princes, nobles, and generals were especially cautious. There was now gladness and joy among the Jews. In time, the king gave me his signet ring and elevated me to the position which had formerly been held by Haman.
When the fourteenth of March came, there were those who did attack the Jews; the prospect of plunder and the fanning of the flames of racial prejudice had found their willing instruments. But the Jews defended themselves well and were saved from wholesale slaughter. To this day, on March 14, we Jews celebrate the Festival of Purim, named after the dice which Haman threw, in commemoration of our great deliverance through the courage of Esther.
What I am trying to get across by the telling of my story is that there is such a thing as the providence of God. Why that providence is not always evident I do not know. We Jews have more reason to be realistic about the seeming inactivity of God than any other people I know, yet we believe. I do not suggest that we be Pollyanna and tell ourselves that what happens is always for the best, or that what happens is always the will of God. The truth is that people have something to say about what happens in the world, evil people and good people. Someone has said that all that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good people do nothing. God has a will for the world, but he works through people, people who are in tune with his will and who have the courage to act on what they believe. That is what happened with Esther, who used her opportunity. Who knows what providential thing you might be responsible for, if you, too, will trust in God and remain alive to the opportunities God gives you.
