Godless-1 a Study in the Book of Esther

GODLESS-1 A STUDY IN THE BOOK OF ESTHER

ESTHER 1 & 2

AUGUST 2, 2015

Almost fifty years ago, a place named Auroville was founded in the southeastern tip of India. Let me read to you the founding charter for this experimental city.

“Auroville wants to be a universal town where men and women of all countries are able to live in peace and progressive harmony above all creeds, all politics and all nationalities. The purpose of Auroville is to realize human unity.”

Simply put, Auroville was to be utopia. No need for currency or politics. No need for anything divisive or stressful, just a spiritual place where human unity reigns. Sounds nice doesn’t it? Almost 50 years later how do you think Auroville is doing?

While Auroville is far from hell, it is also far from heaven. Some good things are happening there, sustainable eco-farming, renewable energy, free education, a focus on spirituality. Plenty of bad things are happening there too. Obvious things like safety with recurring problems of sexual harassment and violence are problematic, but below the surface, even more insidious things are happening. An in depth article by Maddy Crowell digs into the financial and real estate dealings of this utopia. In this moneyless paradise, there is a price of admission, and no one knows where that money goes. When questions are asked, no answers are found. All that can be found in this place with no creeds or politics or money is a tangled web of bureaucracies and money trails. It leads to a lot of questions about who is in charge. Who is watching over this whole endeavor?

Auroville is really our world writ large. It is a microcosm of the tangled world we live in. A world that has great aspirations but so rarely lives up them. If you rummaged through the newspaper recently, you might have found yourself thinking this is a godless world. When you see corruption, violence and dashed dreams locally and globally, you might see the problem as a godless world. God gave us Auroville in Eden, and we proceeded to mess it up by living like God didn’t exist.

You can also take it one step further if you really want to consider some hard questions. When you think of this as a godless world, you aren’t saying there are a lot of people who are godless; you might consider for just a moment that God is seemingly absent from this world. That it is quite literally godless. Our world could come off as a broken down Auroville. You might end up asking the same question, “Who is in charge? Who is watching over this endeavor?” With ISIS storming the globe, with Planned Parenthood selling baby corpses, with crazed gunman killing people in schools and churches. Who is in charge? Who is watching over this endeavor? Sometimes God can feel a bit absent from our fallen Auroville, not only that, most people in this world are living like there is no God.

What do you do with a world like this? Especially when Jesus came to reverse the curse in the Garden of Eden? Especially when Jesus promised he was ushering in the Kingdom of God. What do we do with a seemingly godless world? How do we set that right in our souls and what is our call to action?

For the next four weeks, we will be studying the book of Esther, which in a sense is a godless book. I mean that quite literally. God is never mentioned in this book. No one seeks him out in prayer. No one is concerned with keeping his laws. This book is filled with corruption, immorality and brokenness. The city of Susa, in this book, might as well be Auroville. Not only are the people living like there is no God, it seems that God is absent in this story. Unlike the stories of Exodus, where God saves his people through loud and amazing miracles, God never really breaks through in this book. The Jews are saved in this book not by parted waters or manna from heaven but instead seemingly by some good luck.

The culmination of the book of Esther leads the Jews to celebrate a feast called Purim. Purim is connected to the words for “lots” which were the dice of antiquity. At a key moment in this book, these lots are cast to decide the fate of the Jews. Luckily, the lots are favorable to them. In this godless book, it seems like good luck, the roll of the dice and some human wisdom lead to the Jews’ deliverance. This leads to that big question, who is in charge? Is there really anyone watching over this whole endeavor. The answer of course is all in how you see it.

The beauty of this book, like the world we live in, is it is largely descriptive, not prescriptive. When you read through the book of Esther, unlike other books, there is little commentary. Just what is. Just what happened. You are forced to ask, “Do I see God in this book? Do I see God in this world?” It’s all a matter of how you look at it. Esther is almost a spiritual Rorschach test. You can see good luck or you can see God’s providence. You can see a God who is absent or you can see one who is finely tuning even the smallest details in order to affect the big story. I want to encourage you today to look a bit closer.

Esther 1: 1-9

The king here is also known as Xerxes. Historically, he is the current king of the current superpower, and it is huge, spanning from India to Africa. He is the most powerful man on the planetlooking after the world’s largest empire up until this point. If you asked any with a pulse in this world, “Who is in charge? Who is looking after this endeavor?” Xerxes would instantly be on every tongue. If you’ll remember, the Babylonians conquered Israel and assimilated them into exile in 586 BC. That’s where you have books like Daniel occurring. A man named Cyrus led Persia to conquer the Babylonians thus making Persia the new superpower. Not long after Cyrus, a king comes along named Xerxes or Ahasuerus.

This story today begins with a feast, but this is no ordinary party. Xerxes is preparing for war. This is most likely the Great War council of 483 BC. Xerxes’ father tried and failed to expand the empire by conquering the Greeks. Xerxes was hell-bent on avenging his father and surpassing his legacy. He wanted Greece.

He invites all of his officials from all of his provinces. Keep in mind these officials are conquered people. Former kings and leaders who now are servants of Xerxes. There is a delicate balance in holding together 127 provinces spread out from India to Africa, and while they are his officials now, he still has to build collaboration for war. He invites them to Susa and for 180 days he wows them with all of the glory of Susa’s buildings and peoples. To wrap it all up, he throws a feast for seven days for everyone in the kingdom.

He is finally getting to the sales pitch. He again tries to wow them with the best food, the best wine and the best gardens.

A Greek historian named Herodotus passes on the speech that Xerxes gave at this very feast:

“My intent is to throw a bridge over the Hellespont and march an army through Europe against Greece, that thereby I may obtain vengeance from the Athenians for the wrongs committed by them against the Persians and against my father. Your own eyes saw the preparations of Darius against these men; but death came upon him, and balked his hopes of revenge. In his behalf, therefore, and in behalf of all the Persians, I undertake the war, and pledge myself not to rest till I have taken and burnt Athens, which has dared, unprovoked, to injure me and my father…”

“For yourselves, if you wish to please me, do as follows: when I announce the time for the army to meet together, hasten to the muster with a good will, every one of you; and know that to the man who brings with him the most gallant array, I will give the gifts which our people consider the most honourable. This then is what ye have to do.”

The most powerful man, the one in charge of the world, is going to war. He is in control of the world. Now he is building his war party, and to do that he has thrown an opulent party. For 180 days, he has shown off all of his impressive toys. He has shown them the best food, the best wine and the best of everything else. In all of this, like a peacock, he is strutting, showing off. He has it all, he is in control of it all, and he has the best of it all, and then comes the piece de resistance.

Esther 1: 10-12

You have seen the best. I control it all. I’ll control you. I’ll soon control Greece. For further proof of my eminence, check out my smoking hot wife, Vashti. She is the final trophy in his case, but there is only one problem. She says no.

Now men here know it is not uncommon for your wives to say, “no” to you for a variety of reasons for a variety of requests, but it would have been uncommon for anyone to ever say “no” to Xerxes. Sycophants and servants surrounded this man, and they never said “no.” His wife was especially never to say “no.” This isn’t just a flippant,“no” in a private moment. This is the worst possible “no” in Xerxes entire life, his whole life has been leading to this moment, conquer Greece. Thus doing the impossible, surpassing your father, proving the world is at your fingertips and you control it all. After 180 days of show-and-tell and a week of pulling out all the stops with the best feast ever seen, with the biggest tab ever created, you give a speech about conquering the world. Proving that you can conquer Greece thus having complete control and absolute power.

Then Vashti says “no.” No reason is given. This wasn’t even a huge request. He didn’t ask her to come out and wrestle a lion. All she had to do was put on her crown, look beautiful and allow people to ooh and ah. Come out looking pretty and let everyone fawn over her.

And she says “no.”

There are many moments as a parent that are difficult, but for some reason one of the most maddening experiences is that of the grocery story meltdown. I think all of you have been there and seen that. You are half way through a grocery run and then the world falls apart. You are with your small child and you say “no” in a way that sets the little terrorist off, and you watch in horror as they turn the volume up to 10 and throw themselves on the floor. In that moment, you feel the eyes of everyone around you. You look at your half-full grocery cart, you look at your fit-throwing child and you again feel stares burning into you from every angle. You have a decision to make. As we all know, reason works remarkably well in this situation… of course that doesn’t work. You either have flight or fight.

As mundane and daily as that situation is, you feel the slightest sense of Xerxes’ emotion. Ostensibly, you are in control, until a 40 pound being a quarter of your size, says that you are not. As much as you think you are in control and in command of any situation, it only takes a public meltdown over Fruit Loops to prove otherwise.

How much more so for Xerxes. His life was leading up to this moment, and she said “no.”

I told you early on I’d like you to look closer. You could look at the most powerful man on the planet, on the most important day of his life being told “no” by his wife as just bad luck. Who knows their personal dynamic? Maybe she had been waiting years to embarrass this man and tell him “no.” Maybe she didn’t know how important it was and she said “no.” For some reason, she said “no” and that changed everything. That “no” began a horrible run for Xerxes as he did go to war with Greece and lost quite humiliatingly. That “no” began a series of “coincidences” that would make a young Jewish girl into the queen. That “no” allowed that queen to be in a position to help save the Jewish people. That “no” changed everything.

When you look around at our own little Auroville, I encourage you to look closer. The most godless situations are often where God shines brightest. There is an idiom you have heard that the “devil is in the details.” It’s not a theological statement, just one about a complicated world with good aspirations that often get tangled up in the details, the fine print. My hope for the book of Esther is that you realize your God is in the details. He is nuanced. Sometimes he parts the Red Sea and sometimes he prompts a Persian queen to say “no.” Sometimes he walks on water and sometimes he gets water from a woman at a well. Sometimes the small things are the big things and sometimes the most mundane and seemingly godless moments are chock full of him.

The theological concept here is providence. The parsing of this word origins in Latin, providentia, gives us “pro” ahead or before “videntia” to see. If providence is God’s ability to foresee, and we believe God is active, then it means he is often a few moves ahead of us. Preparing soil. Carving roads. Preparing hearts.

You may or may not know this, but our little species called humans can be a bit egocentric, a bit self-aggrandizing. With this, we often overestimate ourselves and underestimate God. This can sometimes translate to the mistaken idea of God only showing up when we summon him as opposed to the God who goes before us, the God who is at work right now. One of the most theologically rich narratives of the early church is in Acts 10 where God brokers a meet-and-greet between a fiery fisherman named Peter and a Roman Centurion named Cornelius. While Peter was a faithful man who preached God’s word with integrity, he didn’t track down this man and lead him to Christ. God was working on both sides of the equation and through that story, both men learn more about Jesus. This reinforces stories I have heard of missionaries traveling to foreign land only to find the natives who say, “We’ve been waiting for you.”

When we look at our own little Auroville, it is good and right to be disturbed by something like ISIS. It is good and right to be disturbed by religious zealots who are prone to violence. It is good and right to be disturbed by religious zealots who are prone to violence and are openly executing Christians. It is also good and right to be reminded that half of the New Testament was written by someone just like that. In God’s providence, he allowed one of the greatest enemies of Christianity to become one of its greatest champions. We always need to look closer.

It is good and right to be disturbed by the recent outrageous footage of Planned Parenthood. But don’t forget there is nothing new under the sun. In 1st and 2nd century Rome, they did plainly what is currently done in secret. They left unwanted babies out on the trash heaps. It was then that God’s people, who were now following the example of a carpenter from Nazareth, began scooping those babies up and giving them life. The cracks in Auroville can often be places where the light of Christ is most able to shine through. The most godless places can quickly become chock full of him. We always need to look closer.

For some of you today, the need for God’s providence could not be any more personal. You are staring down a broken relationship, a wayward child or finances stretched to the breaking point. It might seem like God is absent, but I want you to know God is in the details. The opportunity for you today is to look closer. Some large “no” may have echoed through your life recently, and my prayer is you see that your God is at work. That you will know that your God goes before you, that soil is being prepared, roads are being carved. I won’t promise that it will end like you envision or want at just this moment, but I can promise that whatever lies ahead is best.

I can promise you this because no one could have foreseen what happened two millennia ago. For some 400 years, Israel had been godless. There were no prophets, no miracles, no movements. The wall was rebuilt. The temple was rebuilt, but God was seemingly absent. Then God showed up in Bethlehem. God walked among us, then God was nailed to a tree. That is seemingly the biggest “no” in human history. Even Jesus seems to call it a godless moment when he said in his final breaths, “My God, My God why have you forsaken me?” Maybe it was just bad luck. Or maybe we need to look closer. The most godless moments are often chock-full of him. That was definitely true at the cross. Our little Auroville was cracked back in the Garden of Eden, but God foresaw our broken utopia. We were separated from God because of the tangled web of sin, but God is in the details. He began to weave a story by bringing forth a people who would produce a Messiah for all nations. He prepared soil. Gave prophecies. Carved roads. Made paths straight for a coming Messiah. We have to look closer.