Things Aren’t What They Used To Be

Haggai 2:1-9 – In the second year of King Darius, in the seventh month, on the twenty-first day of the month, the word of the LORD came by the prophet Haggai, saying:  ² Speak now to Zerubbabel son of Shealtiel, governor of Judah, and to Joshua son of Jehozadak, the high priest, and to the remnant of the people, and say,  ³ Who is left among you that saw this house in its former glory? How does it look to you now? Is it not in your sight as nothing?

⁴ Yet now take courage, O Zerubbabel, says the LORD; take courage, O Joshua, son of Jehozadak, the high priest; take courage, all you people of the land, says the LORD; work, for I am with you, says the LORD of hosts,  ⁵ according to the promise that I made you when you came out of Egypt. My spirit abides among you; do not fear.

⁶ For thus says the LORD of hosts: Once again, in a little while, I will shake the heavens and the earth and the sea and the dry land;  ⁷ and I will shake all the nations, so that the treasure of all nations shall come, and I will fill this house with splendor, says the LORD of hosts.  ⁸ The silver is mine, and the gold is mine, says the LORD of hosts.  ⁹ The latter splendor of this house shall be greater than the former, says the LORD of hosts; and in this place I will give prosperity, says the LORD of hosts.

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Last time I was with you, we were still in our “Spooky Sermons” series. We were talking about the story of “the Writing on the Wall”, and how King Belshazzar was dethroned by God when Belshazzar abused the items taken from the temple in Jerusalem.

Oddly enough, the lectionary reading for today from the Old Testament picks up pretty much where we left off! I wasn’t expecting that, but I’m glad we have the opportunity to return to Babylon and see what happened next.

You’ll remember when we left off, the Medes and the Persians were invading Babylon, and they had just killed Belshazzar, who was the acting king of Babylon. Shortly after that, the leaders of the Medes and Persians got to know the prophet Daniel, and learned about the situation of the Jewish captives in Babylon.

Today we heard about King Darius of Babylon and his support for the people of Israel who were being returned to Jerusalem from Babylon.  So the Babylonian Captivity is now over.

Just a side note for those of you who are into history: there are conflicting accounts of exactly who was king of Babylon and when. The names are fairly certain but the dates are not. And depending on which books you read, you may get a slightly different history. But the bottom line – the historical outcome – is the same. The Babylonian Empire fell, and the empire of the Medes & Persians replaced it.

The timeline goes something like this:

Events that happened before our reading for this morning:

• 597-587BC – Southern Kingdom of Israel fell, people taken captive (in waves) to Babylon
• 587BC – The First Temple (Solomon’s Temple) was destroyed
• 539BC – (almost 50 years later) The Medes and Persians defeat King Belshazzar and take the city of Babylon
• 538BC – The new King of Babylon releases the Israelites to return to Jerusalem to rebuild the temple. Around 50,000 Jewish people go home.

From our reading this morning, here’s the rest of the story:

1. 521BC – Darius I becomes King of Babylon. He continues the former policies: he supports Israel, and he helps people return to Jerusalem.
2. 520BC – the following year, Haggai’s first prophecy
3. 515BC – The Second Temple is completed (72 years after destruction of Solomon’s Temple)

I wanted you to have these timelines to make it easier to see what’s happening and when, because so much happens so quickly at this point in history, the names and the dates tend to jumble together!

So the big picture idea – the focus – of Haggai’s prophecy is the thought:

“Things aren’t what they used to be!”

How many of us can relate to that feeling?

The people of Israel were feeling this way for a lot of reasons. First off, Babylon had changed – probably for the better, now that Belshazzar is gone. Darius and Cyrus were both better kings than Belshazzar, and the city was doing well under them. In fact staying in Babylon – after having been there for 70 years – was attractive for some of the people of Israel, especially the people who were born there and didn’t know anything else. And even though their parents and grandparents taught them about Israel and the God of Israel, they were also surrounded by people who worshipped idols – and some of them couldn’t help but be influenced by that. So some of the people of Israel stayed because they liked their new home; some of them stayed because they had family there (they had married people who lived there) and some stayed because they had started businesses there.

Staying wasn’t necessarily the wrong decision. We will hear later in the Old Testament about Queen Esther and her uncle, who were two of many Jewish people who chose to stay in Babylon.  But our focus today is on the people who returned to Jerusalem and the area around the city – known as the “Southern Kingdom” of Israel.

The people who went home to Jerusalem were shocked by what they saw. Some of the countryside around Jerusalem had gone wild: it has been un-tended for years. The walls around the city had fallen and were in ruins. And the temple had been torn down and stripped of anything valuable.

With God’s help, and the help of the prophets and the city leaders, the people rebuild. As you can see from the timeline, it took about 5-6 years to rebuild the temple – which is not bad, considering they had no power machinery, or forklifts, or any of that kind of thing.

As our reading for today opens, the people of Israel are looking at the finished temple, and the elders among the people are weeping – not out of joy, but because things aren’t what they used to be.

The older ones can remember the glory of Solomon’s temple. Those of us in the Wednesday night Bible Study group have been reading about Solomon’s temple, and about how Solomon had so much wealth, he used his money to decorate the temple. Here’s how II Chronicles describes Solomon’s temple:

“[Solomon] overlaid [the temple] on the inside with pure gold.  The nave he lined with cypress, covered it with fine gold, and made palms and chains on it. He adorned the house with settings of precious stones. […] So he lined the house with gold — its beams, its thresholds, its walls, and its doors; and he carved cherubim on the walls.” (II Chron 3:4-7)

That’s how the temple used to look. But all that gold had been carried off in various wars – some to Egypt and other African countries, some to Babylon. Some of the items in Babylon, like the cups and plates, were returned when the Israelites came back; but the new temple still wasn’t like it was. Things weren’t what they used to be.

This is hard for us old folks (speaking as one). For young people life is an adventure. Young folks tend to have fewer expectations and therefore are more open to possibilities. But for older folks, even though we’ve seen improvements in the world during our lifetimes – for example, none of us wants to go back to watching black & white TV – we old folks also remember a world where children could be sent out to play in the afternoon with the words “be home by dark” and nobody worried about safety. Things aren’t what they used to be.

The people who feel this way are the people the prophet Haggai is speaking to in our reading for today.  God has a word for God’s people – and through Haggai, God says: “Speak to the governor and the high priest and the remnant of the people.” And God says: “Who is left among you that saw this house in its former glory? How does it look to you now? Is it not in your sight as nothing?”

God is seeing through the eyes of God’s people; and God speaks what’s on their hearts. God does not deny that things aren’t what they used to be. In fact God agrees with what the older people are observing – but maybe for different reasons. God doesn’t care about gold, at least not the way people do. God created gold. God designed gold to be beautiful.  And God likes it when people are generous. But it’s people who make gold expensive… it’s people who make gold worth stealing (or hoarding).

God has something more important in mind; and God’s message is a message for us today. God says: “yet now take courage! Work, for I am with you,” says the Lord of hosts. “My spirit lives among you; do not fear.”

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The task of rebuilding is never easy. Some of us here are old enough to remember what it took (for example) to rebuild Europe after World War II. Some of us are old enough to remember what it took to rebuild and recover after Vietnam. Some of us here today look at Palestine and Israel, and the very unstable ceasefire they have right now, and we grieve at how how many lives have been lost, and how much work lies ahead to rebuild and restore, and that’s if the ceasefire holds.

Rebuilding is hard.

And here at home – some of us can remember the prosperity of the 1950s and 1960s, when the GI Bill made college education possible for millions who never dreamed of college (although women and minorities were too often left out). And back then also, buying food and owning a house and car was affordable. Today, adjusted for inflation, food is far more expensive than it was then – and so is college, and so is housing. Things aren’t what they used to be.

God’s message is still: “yet now take courage!” “Take courage, all you people in the land, for I am with you; my Spirit abides among you, do not fear.”

So how can we be people of courage?

Each one of us has different ways of keeping our spirits up and facing into difficulties. But I think all of us can benefit from Haggai’s words: stay open to God and stay open to God’s Holy Spirit. There is no lasting hope apart from God. And it’s God who says: “Do Not Fear”.

So how do we stay close to God? Here are three things to try:

1. Practice being aware of God’s presence. God is everywhere, all the time, so there’s nowhere we can go on this earth to be out of God’s sight. Practice being aware of this.
2. Talk to God throughout the day. This is a little bit different than sitting down and praying during prayer-time. This is going about one’s business during the day and chatting with God while we do our everyday work. For example, I like talk to God when I’m gardening – “Lord, thank you the lettuce is still growing even after the frost!” or “Lord, look at that stray cat walking through the tomato patch – some of her fur is missing, please help her.”
3. Listen to God every day by reading scripture, even if it’s just a paragraph or two; read it and think about it.

The more time we spend with God, the easier it becomes to sense God’s guidance, to be less afraid, and to live with confidence. God says: “Work, for I am with you. My spirit abides in you; do not fear.”

And then the scene changes, and Haggai takes us into the future, both his future and ours.  The last paragraph – verses 6-9 – talks about the Messiah. In fact, this is SO much about the Messiah, that when Handel wrote The Messiah, this passage was part of it. These words describe the coming of Jesus – the second coming. I wish I could sing it for you – because where God says “I will shake the heavens and the earth, the sea and the dry land…” the voice of the singer actually sounds like it’s shaking.

But you get the idea.

God is powerful. God is in control. God’s word will be fulfilled. So don’t give up.

• No matter how rough things get in life, God is still with us.
• No matter how desperate things look, God is still strong to save.
• No matter how dark the present day may look, God has glory waiting ahead for all who are faithful.

So work God’s work. Follow where God leads. Remember that God is strong to save. And yes, things aren’t like they used to be. But praise God, they are also not as full of glory as they’re going to be.

AMEN.

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The Writing Is On the Wall

Daniel 5:1-31  King Belshazzar made a great festival for a thousand of his lords, and he was drinking wine in the presence of the thousand.

² Under the influence of the wine, Belshazzar commanded that they bring in the vessels of gold and silver that his father Nebuchadnezzar had taken out of the temple in Jerusalem, so that the king and his lords, his wives, and his concubines might drink from them.  ³ So they brought in the vessels of gold and silver that had been taken out of the temple, the house of God in Jerusalem, and the king and his lords, his wives, and his concubines drank from them.  ⁴ They drank the wine and praised the gods of gold and silver, bronze, iron, wood, and stone.

⁵ Immediately the fingers of a human hand appeared and began writing on the plaster of the wall of the royal palace, next to the lampstand. The king was watching the hand as it wrote.  ⁶ Then the king’s face turned pale, and his thoughts terrified him. His limbs gave way, and his knees knocked together.  ⁷ The king cried aloud to bring in the enchanters, the Chaldeans, and the diviners; and the king said to the wise men of Babylon, “Whoever can read this writing and tell me its interpretation shall be clothed in purple, have a chain of gold around his neck, and rank third in the kingdom.”  ⁸ Then all the king’s wise men came in, but they could not read the writing or tell the king the interpretation.  ⁹ Then King Belshazzar became greatly terrified and his face turned pale, and his lords were perplexed.

¹⁰ The queen, when she heard the discussion of the king and his lords, came into the banqueting hall. The queen said, “O king, live forever! Do not let your thoughts terrify you or your face grow pale.  ¹¹ There is a man in your kingdom who is endowed with a spirit of the holy gods. In the days of your father he was found to have enlightenment, understanding, and wisdom like the wisdom of the gods. Your father, King Nebuchadnezzar, made him chief of the magicians, enchanters, Chaldeans, and diviners,  ¹² because an excellent spirit, knowledge, and understanding to interpret dreams, explain riddles, and solve problems were found in this Daniel, whom the king named Belteshazzar. Now let Daniel be called, and he will give the interpretation.”

¹³ Then Daniel was brought in before the king. The king said to Daniel, “So you are Daniel, one of the exiles of Judah, whom my father the king brought from Judah?  ¹⁴ I have heard of you that a spirit of the gods is in you, and that enlightenment, understanding, and excellent wisdom are found in you.  ¹⁵ Now the wise men, the enchanters, have been brought in before me to read this writing and tell me its interpretation, but they were not able to give the interpretation of the matter.  ¹⁶ But I have heard that you can give interpretations and solve problems. Now if you are able to read the writing and tell me its interpretation, you shall be clothed in purple, have a chain of gold around your neck, and rank third in the kingdom.”

¹⁷ Then Daniel answered in the presence of the king, “Let your gifts be for yourself, or give your rewards to someone else! Nevertheless I will read the writing to the king and let him know the interpretation.  ¹⁸ O king, the Most High God gave your father Nebuchadnezzar kingship, greatness, glory, and majesty.  ¹⁹ And because of the greatness that he gave him, all peoples, nations, and languages trembled and feared before him. He killed those he wanted to kill, kept alive those he wanted to keep alive, honored those he wanted to honor, and degraded those he wanted to degrade.  ²⁰ But when his heart was lifted up and his spirit was hardened so that he acted proudly, he was deposed from his kingly throne, and his glory was stripped from him.  ²¹ He was driven from human society, and his mind was made like that of an animal. His dwelling was with the wild asses, he was fed grass like oxen, and his body was bathed with the dew of heaven, until he learned that the Most High God has sovereignty over the kingdom of mortals, and sets over it whomever he will.  ²² And you, Belshazzar his son, have not humbled your heart, even though you knew all this!  ²³ You have exalted yourself against the Lord of heaven! The vessels of his temple have been brought in before you, and you and your lords, your wives and your concubines have been drinking wine from them. You have praised the gods of silver and gold, of bronze, iron, wood, and stone, which do not see or hear or know; but the God in whose power is your very breath, and to whom belong all your ways, you have not honored.

²⁴ “So from his presence the hand was sent and this writing was inscribed.  ²⁵ And this is the writing that was inscribed: MENE, MENE, TEKEL, and PARSIN.  ²⁶ This is the interpretation of the matter: MENE, God has numbered the days of your kingdom and brought it to an end;  ²⁷ TEKEL, you have been weighed on the scales and found wanting;  ²⁸ PERES, your kingdom is divided and given to the Medes and Persians.”

²⁹ Then Belshazzar gave the command, and Daniel was clothed in purple, a chain of gold was put around his neck, and a proclamation was made concerning him that he should rank third in the kingdom.

³⁰ That very night Belshazzar, the Chaldean king, was killed.  ³¹ And Darius the Mede received the kingdom, being about sixty-two years old.

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Today will be the final installment in our Spooky Sermons series, and our final Spooky Sermon is The Writing Is On the Wall.

We’ve all heard that saying before. It usually means something is about to happen, and whatever it is, we’re probably not going to like it. “Writing on the wall” is never a good thing.

The original story – where the saying comes from – is found in the book of Daniel, chapter five, which we heard just a few moments ago. The events in this chapter take place during the time when the people of the Southern Kingdom of Judah have been living as captives in Babylon.

At this point in the history of God’s people, the Northern Kingdom of Israel is gone – they were invaded by the Assyrians around 150 years before. The Southern Kingdom, which included Jerusalem, hung on for a bit longer, but eventually they also were invaded, and taken into exile in Babylon – leaving behind only the very poorest of the people to keep the land from going completely wild.

For this story in Daniel to make any sense to us, I need to share a little about the city of Babylon itself. Babylon and the area surrounding it contains some of the oldest human settlements in the world. Civilization there dates back at least to 6,000BC. It’s probably even older than that. (Compare that to America’s 250 years, we have some catching up to do!)

The city of Babylon is located on the river Euphrates. We’ll remember from history class that the area between the Tigris and the Euphrates was called Mesopotamia (which literally means ‘between the rivers’) — the ‘cradle of civilization’. That’s where Babylon was. This gives us an idea of how old the place was!

Today, this part of the world is called Iran; the old-fashioned name for it is Persia. There are so many things that we have today that came from this ancient civilization – things like Persian rugs, Persian cats; the Persians invented algebra, backgammon, guitars, the very first postal system… and the very first Charter of Human Rights that was ever written, was written by Cyrus the Great – who will become the king of Babylon at the very end of our story today.

So the history of this part of the world is amazing… and what a place it would be to visit!  But back in the days of Daniel, the people of God were not so crazy about being there.  They wanted to go home to Jerusalem.

The prophet Daniel arrived in Babylon with the first wave of captives. He was a young leader, bright, capable, and he and his friends (Shadrack, Meschach, and Abednego – you may remember them from Sunday School) were noticed by King Nebuchadnezzar because they were so good at what they did. They were smart and they served well; but when they refused to worship Nebuchadnezzar’s gods, the king threw Daniel’s friends into a fiery furnace – and God protected them, and they lived. As a result, King Nebuchadnezzar became a believer in the God of Israel. (I don’t know that he actually gave up his other gods, but he started to worship Israel’s God too.)

King Nebuchadnezzar reigned for 43 years, then he passed away, and for the next few years, the government of Babylon was a mess. They had a string of three rulers in three years – relatives of the king – who either died or were killed. So the government was constantly changing hands and it became very unstable. Finally a king named Nabonidus came to the throne, and the country stabilized; but there was just one problem: King Nabonidus didn’t particularly like living in Babylon. He chose to live in Arabia instead.

So Nabonidus made his son Belshazzar the regent: he was in charge of Babylon while the King was away (and the King was away most of the time). So you might say Belshazzar was sort of the acting king. Belshazzar didn’t really care much about the people he ruled – he just enjoyed the perks of being king — and he would invite his rich friends to the palace to eat and drink and have parties, and he gave no thought to the people he was ruling.

Turning now to the book of Daniel and our reading for today: many decades have passed since Israel was taken captive. And – unknown to most of the people in the story – there was a prophecy, given by Jeremiah, that God’s people would be in exile for 70 years — and that 70 years was just about up. The time had come for the people of Israel to be liberated, and to be sent home to Jerusalem – but only Daniel and a few other of God’s people knew that.

Belshazzar did not know it – not that he would have been particularly interested anyway.

Right around the same time, two groups of people – the Medes and the Persians – captured a number of cities around Babylon, and they also captured Belshazzar’s father the King, who was still in Arabia.

Did Belshazzar try to rescue his dad? No. Belshazzar wasn’t afraid because he figured the city of Babylon was unconquerable. So why stick his neck out?

Here’s why Belshazzar thought that he was safe in Babylon. Check this out.

The ancient city of Babylon was fourteen square miles, surrounded by stone walls – so it was a walled city. And the city didn’t just have one wall. It had many walls – walls inside walls inside walls. Some of these walls were over 300 feet high – the size of a football field in height.  And some of the walls were 80 feet thick – you could put chariots up on the walls, in some places as many as four chariots wide.  And the river Euphrates ran through the city, which had the effect of creating moats in between the walls: you’d have wall-water-wall-water-wall-water. They also had massive storehouses on the walls with food and drink stored up, for all the people in the city, enough for years.

So Belshazzar figured he was safe. And to prove to his people that everyone was safe and everything was going to be fine – while the enemy was approaching the city, Belshazzar held a feast at the palace. He invited one thousand of his best friends – and their wives, and a few hangers-on – so 2000+ people – to a feast at the palace. Can you imagine how many animals they killed and roasted for a crowd this size? And how many servants were cooking and serving? And how many skins of wine they drank?

John Calvin, the founder of the Presbyterian church, once said that Belshazzar’s “carelessness was a sign of his stupidity, and also of God’s wrath.”

And if all this wasn’t bad enough – as a bad joke, Belshazzar ordered the servants to bring him the gold and silver vessels that had been taken from the temple in Jerusalem, so that he and his guests could drink out of them. (Those of you in our Wednesday night Bible study – we just read this past week about those gold and silver vessels. They were created by King Solomon, David’s son – created and dedicated to the service of God, for the glory of God.) These were the same vessels that Nebuchadnezzar took when he captured God’s people. And these are the same vessels that Belshazzar called for so he could party with them.

This was blasphemy – and the people knew it. Nebuchadnezzar had always treated these items with respect.  He took good care of them. But Belshazzar handed them out to his friends like they were nothing. And then they praised the gods of silver and the gods of gold – with all the sarcasm they could muster, while drinking from things that were dedicated to the one true and living God.

This act of blasphemy set in motion the deliverance of God’s people.  All of a sudden, Belshazzar and all his guests saw a hand – no body attached to it, no arm, just a hand – writing on the wall behind the king, where everyone could see it; and the hand was writing some kind of a message, but nobody could read it.

All of a sudden Belshazzar was not feeling so cocky.  He turned pale, and his knees literally started knocking – so that he couldn’t stand up but he couldn’t sit down either!

Immediately Belshazzar sent for the astrologers and the soothsayers and the magi (this is the country the Magi came from). And he said to them – “I will make you third in the kingdom (after my father and myself) if you can tell me what this writing says.”

But none of them could read it – probably because it was written in Aramaic. And Belshazzar was terrified.

All these events created a ruckus in the palace, and apparently the noise of it came to the ears of the Queen, because suddenly the Queen walks into the banquet hall unannounced. The Queen was the widow of Nebuchadnezzar, not the wife of Belshazzar – and she is one of the few people who had the right to walk into Belshazzar’s presence without being invited, and to speak to him without his permission. That’s exactly what she does. She greets him respectfully, and then she tells him – reminds him – that there’s a man in the kingdom named Daniel who is both a prophet and a man of learning, who will be able to figure out what this writing says. She tells him, “send for Daniel”.

At this point Daniel is probably in his 80s… he’s either retired or semi-retired… but he comes at the Queen’s request. And Belshazzar points to the handwriting on the wall and he says, “if you can tell me what this means I will give you…” all the things he promised to the other men.

Daniel answers that he doesn’t want any gifts, and he doesn’t want a reward; but he can and will read the words on the wall. But before he does, he reminds Belshazzar of the greatness of Nebuchadnezzar and his kingdom, and how Nebuchadnezzar once went insane when he refused to honor the real God, the God of Israel… that he was actually eating the grass of the fields like an animal… and that Nebuchadnezzar’s kingdom was restored to him when he said that Israel’s God was the real God. Nebuchadnezzar became sane again when he put his trust in God, and he ended his reign as king with great honor.

This is not the first time Belshazzar had heard this story, but Daniel reminds him of it. Then Daniel says: “but you, Belshazzar – you have not humbled yourself, even though you knew all this! You and your lords and their wives and your concubines have been drinking wine from sacred vessels, and praising the gods of silver, gold, brass, iron, wood, and stone – which do not see and cannot hear. And the God in whose hand your breath is held – you have not glorified him.”

Then Daniel reads the writing on the wall. The words were:

“MENE, MENE, TEKEL, UPHARSIN”

– which literally translated means “numbered, numbered, weighed, divided”. Daniel explains that this means Belshazzar’s days are numbered and they are now at an end; that he has been weighed in the scales and found wanting; and that the kingdom will be divided this very night between the Medes and the Persians. In fact, even as Daniel is speaking, the invading armies have found a way under the city walls and they are approaching the palace at that very moment.

Belshazzar knows Daniel is speaking the truth, and he gives him all the rewards, and within a matter of hours Belshazzar is dead. Darius, the leader of the Medes, became king temporarily until Cyrus the Great arrived, and Cyrus began the restoration of Jerusalem. Cyrus would order and finance the return of the people of Judah to Jerusalem to rebuild the temple.

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All these events focus on the rich and the powerful in Babylon – but what about the everyday people – the people who were not rich, the people who were not at the feast? The people who lived in the city? The actions of the great effected them. How did life change for them?

For the people of Judah, of course, it meant they were going home, if they chose to.  Following God is always a choice. Some of the people of Judah chose to stay in Babylon, and we don’t hear about them again. But most chose to return to Jerusalem, and the rest of the Old Testament tells us their story. Because of the decree of Cyrus the Great, around 50,000 people of Judah returned home to rebuild the temple and rebuild the city of Jerusalem.

For the average Babylonian, life would improve, because Cyrus was a good leader. For years, the people of Babylon had suffered under a king who wanted to be somewhere else; and the son of a king – Belshazzar – who was not very bright. Cyrus was a man who wanted to see the country and its people prosper, and they did.

So the writing on the wall – which was spooky when it happened – turned out to be the beginning of God setting things right: God bringing God’s people home, and ending the reign of a king who wasn’t worthy of the title.

For us today, two things we can take home with us: (1) we always want to treat God, and the things of God, with respect – not taking them for granted or misusing them the way Belshazzar did. The things in a church – the plates, the cups, the crosses, and the bread and the wine, and things like this – these things don’t contain God, they’re just things, but they are dedicated to the service of the one true and living God. They are here to remind us that God cares about us and wants us to be with God. So we treat these things with respect because they are things that belong to God and are given to us by God.

And (2) whenever we take a look at the world and we see trouble – either trouble happening, or trouble coming – like that big banquet Belshazzar held with an invading army on the way – we can be confident that whatever is going wrong in the world, there is a limit to how long the times of trouble will last. God is in control; and one day, those who bring trouble on God’s people will be weighed in the scales and found wanting.

We can read this story of the writing on the wall either as a warning, or as a promise. Either way, we praise God for God’s faithfulness, from then till now, and into our future. AMEN.

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Esther’s Story

Esther 7:1-10, 9:20-22 – So the king and Haman went in to feast with Queen Esther.  ² On the second day, as they were drinking wine, the king again said to Esther, “What is your petition, Queen Esther? It shall be granted you. And what is your request? Even to the half of my kingdom, it shall be fulfilled.”  ³ Then Queen Esther answered, “If I have won your favor, O king, and if it pleases the king, let my life be given me — that is my petition — and the lives of my people — that is my request.  ⁴ For we have been sold, I and my people, to be destroyed, to be killed, and to be annihilated. If we had been sold merely as slaves, men and women, I would have held my peace; but no enemy can compensate for this damage to the king.”  ⁵ Then King Ahasuerus said to Queen Esther, “Who is he, and where is he, who has presumed to do this?”  ⁶ Esther said, “A foe and enemy, this wicked Haman!” Then Haman was terrified before the king and the queen.

⁷ The king rose from the feast in wrath and went into the palace garden, but Haman stayed to beg his life from Queen Esther, for he saw that the king had determined to destroy him.  ⁸ When the king returned from the palace garden to the banquet hall, Haman had thrown himself on the couch where Esther was reclining; and the king said, “Will he even assault the queen in my presence, in my own house?” As the words left the mouth of the king, they covered Haman’s face.

⁹ Then Harbona, one of the eunuchs in attendance on the king, said, “Look, the very gallows that Haman has prepared for Mordecai, whose word saved the king, stands at Haman’s house, fifty cubits high.” And the king said, “Hang him on that.”  ¹⁰ So they hanged Haman on the gallows that he had prepared for Mordecai. Then the anger of the king abated.

Esther 9:20-22   ²⁰ Mordecai recorded these things, and sent letters to all the Jews who were in all the provinces of King Ahasuerus, both near and far,  ²¹ enjoining them that they should keep the fourteenth day of the month Adar and also the fifteenth day of the same month, year by year,  ²² as the days on which the Jews gained relief from their enemies, and as the month that had been turned for them from sorrow into gladness and from mourning into a holiday; that they should make them days of feasting and gladness, days for sending gifts of food to one another and presents to the poor.

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The last time I was here with you I preached on the subject of Wisdom. And I mentioned I’d never heard a sermon on wisdom before. (Which BTW another pastor friend commented the same thing, so it’s not just me.)

This week, again, I’m preaching on something I’ve never heard anyone preach on before: the story of Esther. The reading you heard a few moments ago is from the end of Esther’s story, which is what the lectionary gives us to work with – and I was wondering where the rest of the story was. And I discovered there are no other readings from the book of Esther in the lectionary.

I thought: that’s just not right! Esther’s story is central to the Jewish faith, which of course is the foundation for our Christian faith. Our Jewish brothers and sisters have an important holiday called Purim that is a celebration of Esther’s life. So why has this story not been read and preached on?

As I thought about that question, I noticed two things. First, the book of Esther doesn’t mention God. God’s presence is assumed throughout the whole story, and so is prayer, but God is not mentioned by name.

But I think more important, for preaching, is that it’s an awkward story to talk about in church – because it centers around (what I think of) as the Big Three Things In Society: Money, Gender, and Power  – all of which can be awkward to talk about at any time, but more so when you have all three subjects together at the same time and you’re in church.

Therefore the story of Esther is both practical and timely; and so are the lessons we can draw from it.

The setup – the back story – for Esther’s story is the Babylonian invasion of Jerusalem. You recall that the Babylonians destroyed the city of Jerusalem and the Temple in 587BC. They took the Jewish people captive to Babylon, and left behind only the poorest of the poor to work the land so it wouldn’t go completely wild.

The Jewish people lived in Babylon under the reign of King Nebuchadnezzar and then briefly Belshazzar, and their prophet at the time was the prophet Daniel. We know all these things from book of Daniel.

But what the Babylonians didn’t see coming was a huge massing of power in Persia – the part of the world we call Iran today. The king of Persia conquered Babylon less than 50 years after the Babylonians conquered Israel. The Persians basically moved in: they claimed everything in Babylon, including the Jewish people. So without physically moving very far (if at all), God’s people were now living under Persian rule.

The Persian Empire was huge and massively powerful. To give an idea: at its largest, the Empire stretched from India (halfway between Africa & Australia) all the way to Ethiopia in Africa. This was power and wealth like the world had never seen. And the Persian empire lasted over 200 years.

As for Babylon’s foreign captives – the Israelites and other nations that Babylon had conquered – unlike in our world today, the Persians did not see foreigners as a problem. The Persians saw foreigners as free labor – in other words, slaves. This is why our closing hymn for today is Lift Every Voice and Sing – it’s a song of the end of slavery and the birth of freedom.

So if there is a big picture idea for the book of Esther, it’s that the empires of human beings, and the oppression they bring, don’t last forever – but God does. The Babylonians were unbeatable for 50 years. And then the Persians beat them. The Persians were unbeatable for 200 years. And then the Greeks beat them. And then the Romans beat them. Closer to our own time, the Holy Roman Empire of the Habsburgs was unbeatable for almost 400 years. On the other hand, the Soviet Union lasted only 69 years. The empires of human beings do not last – but the reign of God does. And God works within all these human frameworks, in ways that surprise us… and through people we would never expect……… like a young teenage orphan girl named Esther.

How Esther lost her parents we don’t know. What we do know is she was adopted by her uncle Mordecai, who was related to King Saul, and therefore was from the royal family and was treated as such by the Babylonians. But under the Persian Empire, Mordecai was just another servant in the court of the Emperor.

The name of the Persian Emperor was Ahasuerus (in Hebrew) and Artaxerxes (in Greek). I’m going to call him Artaxerxes because it’s easier to say!

So one day when Mordecai, Esther’s uncle, was resting in the courtyard of the palace, he overheard two eunuchs plotting to kill King Artaxerxes. I should mention the book of Esther talks a lot about eunuchs because there were quite a few of them in the palace. Artaxerxes had the bad habit of taking men from the peoples he conquered and forcing them to serve in the palace, particularly taking care of the royal harem, and he made them eunuchs so they wouldn’t bother the harem. And I’m sure this did not go over well!

At any rate, when Mordecai overheard this conversation between these two men, he reported it to the emperor. The guilty parties were executed, and these events were written down in the permanent court records of Persia… and then promptly forgotten.

Some time later, King Artaxerxes gave a massive banquet for his officials and all his buddies. He was showing off the wealth and the power of his empire. This banquet lasted 180 days: almost half a year of eating and drinking and being merry!  As this festival was drawing to a close, Artaxerxes added one more huge seven-day feast, and Queen Vashti was also permitted to give a seven-day feast for herself and her women.

On the seventh day, King Artaxerxes commanded Queen Vashti, who was very beautiful, to come to the men’s banquet wearing her crown, so all the men could see her beauty. The Bible doesn’t say this, but many Bible scholars and commentators say that the Queen was commanded to attend the banquet wearing only her crown.

Queen Vashti said “no”.

And the men took great offense, and they consulted together, and decided that Vashti was out, and her place and her crown would be given to someone “better than she”.

So the search for a new queen began. And the court officials were sent throughout the Empire looking for beautiful young virgins who just might please the Emperor. And this went on for years. For years, they looked.

Esther stayed hidden as long as she could, but eventually she was caught up in one of these sweeps, and she discovered what the process was for these young women. They were to live in the palace for a whole year, being served and trained by their personal eunuch. They were given beauty treatments and skin treatments and perfume treatments… you get the idea. They were being prepped for the king.

After a year’s worth of treatments and training, each woman would be sent to the King for one night, and if he wasn’t 100% sure he had found his new queen, that woman would then be moved into another wing of the palace where she would live… until and unless he called her by name: which hardly ever happened. (I can’t imagine a more boring existence!)

When Esther’s turn finally came, she took the advice of her eunuch, whose name was Hegai – and he was really pulling for Esther BTW, he did a really good job with her – and she put all of his advice to good use. And at the end of the night, Esther was chosen! The Emperor set Vashti’s crown on Esther’s head, and she became the queen.

After some time passed, there came an imperial official named Haman who King Artaxerxes really liked, and he promoted him quickly. And at Haman’s request, Artaxerxes passed a law that everyone in the empire must bow down to Haman whenever they saw him.

After the law was passed, Mordecai refused to bow down to Haman. Mordecai was a true believer in God, and he only bowed down before God.

Haman was so enraged by this that he plotted to destroy Mordecai; and not only Mordecai but all the Jews – all of Mordecai’s people. And Haman cast lots to decide on what day this would happen. (The word for lots in Hebrew is purim – that’s where the name of the holiday comes from.) So Haman cast lots to choose the day of the destruction of the Jews. (below: Haman picks a date)

Haman then went to the Emperor and got permission to wipe out these “strange people”, as he says, who “have different laws and do not obey the king’s laws”. The Emperor says, “here’s my signet ring, go do whatever you want to do.”

When Mordecai hears this, he sends a message to Queen Esther, telling her to talk to the king on behalf of her people. But Esther answers: there’s a law that says nobody can enter the king’s presence without being invited. The penalty is death – unless he holds out his golden scepter. I could be killed, she says.

Mordecai answers:

“You won’t escape what’s coming. And who knows? Perhaps you have come to the throne for just such a time as this.”

I want to highlight that thought for a moment – because this could be true of any of us, at any time, when we least expect it. God puts us where we are, just as we are, according to God’s wisdom – which none of us can see right now. But who knows? Maybe you are here for just such a time as this.

So Esther prayed to God, and then took her life in her hands and went to see the king. And Artaxerxes held out the golden scepter, and she lived.

Esther then invited the king, and Haman (his #1 man) to a banquet she has prepared. And while they are eating, the king asks her: “what is it that you wanted? What is your request? Even to the half of my kingdom it shall be yours.”  And Esther answers: “Please come again, both of you, to another banquet tomorrow.”

These dinners, of course – and the fact that there are two of them, are an indication that Esther is about to make a BIG ask. And she’s counting on these two men to be her champions, to be her heroes – at least that’s what the men are thinking.

So Haman, feeling very sure of himself, went home that night and built a gallows in his backyard to hang Mordecai on.

But that night the king couldn’t sleep. So he ordered a servant to go and find the Palace’s Book of Records – the history of the kingdom – and read it out loud to him.

And when he hears the story of Mordecai, who exposed the conspiracy against the king’s life – and he hears that Mordecai was never thanked for what he did, the king was troubled. At just that moment, Haman was seen peeking around the corner, and the king asked him: “Haman – what should be done for someone the king wishes to honor?”

Haman figured he’s the one who’s about to be honored, so he told the king:

“Such a man should be given a royal robe that the king has worn, and a horse the king has ridden, and a royal crown on his head, and he should be led through the city by noble officials calling out “give honor!”

The king answered: “Go quickly, and do everything you’ve said – for Mordecai.”  Of course Haman was humiliated – but he did it.

Later that day, the king and Haman are at the second banquet with Queen Esther. And the king asks again: “What is your petition? What is your request? Even to the half of my kingdom it shall be yours.”

And Queen Esther answers:

“If I have won your favor, let my life be given to me… and the lives of my people… for we have been sold… to be destroyed and annihilated.”

The king is enraged and he answers: “who is he and where is he that has presumed to do this?” And she says: “This Haman right here – he is a foe and an enemy.” And at the king’s command, Haman is hanged on the gallows he built for Mordecai.

And because an edict that’s been sealed with the king’s seal cannot be undone – all the Jewish people are still in jeopardy; so at Artaxerxes’ command, Mordecai writes another edict giving the Jewish people the right to defend themselves and to take plunder as they are able – and the king seals this edict.

Now in the royal city, most people understood that this was a political standoff and they just pretty much ignored both edicts. But in the rest of the empire, people didn’t know this; and close to 75,000 people were killed in the skirmishes. This was a very costly thing for the emperor – that self-serving Haman cost him a great deal.

After all this there was peace for the people of Israel and honor for Queen Esther and Mordecai. And that’s what’s celebrated at the holiday of Purim.

~~~~~~~~~~~

As we step back now and look at this story through 21^st century eyes, many books have been written about Esther in the years since then. And people have commented that books written in our time make Esther sound almost like a Disney princess: a beautiful woman, in a rags-to-riches story, and she and her prince live happily ever after.  But that’s not really how it went.

This “Miss Persia” contest that Esther found herself in – along with thousands of other women – was not something any of the women ever wanted for themselves. And the eunuchs who prepared them for this competition were not nuts about having their life’s work involve nothing more than making women look beautiful, for a king who most of the time couldn’t care less. Nobody ever asked any of these people:

“how do you feel about this?”

Their voices were silenced – the voices of both the men and the women.

And yes, the palace might have been pretty, and there was at least decent food there… but there was no leaving the palace once you were inside. It was kind of like Hotel California – you can check out anytime you want but you can never leave.

Esther gave her very best effort, every day of the time she spent in the palace. She made friends among the eunuchs, and she cared about them, and listened closely to the eunuch who was assigned to her. She took her one shot with the king and gave it her very best effort – in spite of the fact the king was much older than she was, and a foreigner, and was a different religion than she was. And she was courageous in the presence of a man who thought nothing of ordering the slaughter of her entire nation.

Bible teacher Rachel Held Evans, of blessed memory, once wrote this about the story of Esther:

What does it mean to be… the people of [God]—when… you’re being ruled by violent and godless pagan kings? Is God still on the throne when the fate of his chosen people is left to the whims of kings like [Artaxerxes]? How are the powerless [supposed] to respond to power?[1] 

The first message of the Book of Esther is that God is in charge.

This is always true, no matter what we see around us, no matter what socio-political machinations are going on, no matter what the people who think they’re in charge are doing. And BTW some interesting observations: Not once in this story does Artaxerxes make a decision on his own – did you notice that? He’s always asking his friends, his buddies, even his wife. But in the entire Book of Esther he makes no decisions on his own. This Emperor has no clothes; and his power is, in a sense, an illusion; because God is behind the scenes, using the small and the weak and the unimportant people to bring humility to the powerful.

God put Esther in a place where she could save her people. God put Mordecai in a place where Artaxerxes owed him his life – and this set in motion a series of events that, in a matter of 48 hours, changed the direction of an empire.

In the book of Ephesians, the apostle Paul writes that in spite of all appearances to the contrary:

“…we do not wrestle against flesh and blood but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.” (Ephesians 6:12)

In the end, Esther goes down in history as what the Jewish people call an “eshet chayil”—a woman of valor. This orphan girl with no power or place in society, rises to become the queen.

Jewish scholars point out that the name Esther in Hebrew is similar to the word “hidden”  — and she was indeed hidden in plain sight, and revealed at just the right time.

Rachel Held Evans concludes that the story of Esther is a story about how we can live as God’s people in a society where God is not a priority.

Specifically: we pray, and we do our very best, and then leave the rest in God’s hands. Because no matter how you look at it, ultimately God IS in control… and so long as we are seeking God’s will, we will always be – like Esther and Mordecai – safe in God’s hands. AMEN

[1] Rachel Held Evans, on her blog – https://rachelheldevans.com/blog/esther-actually-rabbi-rachel

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