March 3, 2024
Joanna Harader
(This sermon is kind of about the whole book of Esther, with a focus on 4:10-14)

I listened to an interview a few weeks back with Crystal Hefner–she was the wife of Hugh Hefner when he died. As she talked about her time at the Playboy mansion, it struck me as so similar to the situation Esther is in with King Ahasuerus: a man with money and power gathering all the beautiful women of the kingdom and calling on whichever one struck his fancy from night to night. Like Esther, Crystal landed in the lap of abusive luxury because of her remarkable beauty.

Esther won a nation-wide beauty pageant and got to move into the palace. Crystal was beautiful enough to get invited to a party where she caught Hugh Hefner’s eye and was soon invited to move into the Playboy Mansion. Their beauty gave them access unavailable to most people. Even in my younger, slimmer days, I would never have been selected as the queen or invited to the Playboy mansion.

I tend to look at very attractive people and think that they are just born with this unusual physical beauty. Which is partially true. But there can also be a whole lot of work that goes into looking a certain way. Each young woman who went in to the king–including Esther–had to undergo twelve months of beauty treatments first: “six months with oil of myrrh and six months with perfumes and cosmetics for women.” And Crystal had multiple cosmetic surgeries, including one that led to severe medical complications.

To land in the palace or mansion, you have to be born beautiful and put in the work of beauty. This, of course, true in other areas as well. You don’t get handed a PhD just because you are smart. Being 6’10” doesn’t automatically make you a good basketball player. Not everyone with long, nimble fingers is a concert pianist.

There are qualities we are born with and qualities we work towards, and, of course, there are a lot of personality traits and skills that we are forced to develop because of where we find ourselves in the world and what happens to us. For example, people who are in active recovery from addiction have insight and skills that make them better able to support other people struggling with addiction.

And beyond our natural and developed abilities, there is also just dumb luck. Or I suppose in church we can call it the Holy Spirit or the hand of God. Sometimes you are just in the right place at the right time. Crystal and Esther’s beauty would not have landed them in luxury if rich and powerful men hadn’t seen them in the right context.

Wherever you are in your life–whatever positions you hold, whatever relationships you have–it’s probably all some combination of the way you were born, the work you’ve done, the experiences you’ve had, and dumb luck. Just like Esther, who finds herself the queen to a king who has approved the slaughter of her people.

When I preached on Hagar a couple of weeks ago, I latched onto a question the angel asked Hagar: Where have you come from and where are you going?

Once again, this week I find myself drawn to a question. (I guess that makes sense. The wilderness is full of questions.) This is the question Mordecai asks Esther. When she says she is afraid to approach the king, Mordecai says: Who knows but that you’ve come into your royal position for such a time as this?

For such a time as this.

Who knows but that your natural beauty and your efforts that make you even more beautiful and your experiences that have developed this ability you have to be pleasant and warm and the hand of God bringing you to where the king would see you–who knows but that all of this has happened for just this moment for you to go the king and save your people.

As I have thought about Esther’s story and Mordecai’s question–Who knows but that you’ve come into your royal position for such a time as this?–I have been reflecting on this congregation (Peace Mennonite Church) and our unique position and calling. In particular, I’ve been thinking about our role in moving Mennonite Church USA to a position of being welcoming and affirming of lgbtqia folk and passing the Resolution for Repentance and Transformation.

I realize this is not quite at the level of saving an entire people group from genocide. But in my world, for the people I love, for the church I love, it’s a pretty big deal. And I am incredibly honored and proud for us to have been part of it.

I think about all of the factors that made it possible for me to play the role I played and all of the factors that formed you as a congregation ready to lead in this area. All of the things that are part of our DNA and the things that we’ve worked hard at and the skills we’ve developed through experience and the simple luck of circumstances/hand of God. Everything that came together so that when the request was made that we host a wedding for two women, we said yes. And it just kind of all moved forward from there.

Who knows but that we’d come into our position for such a time as that?

Our first scripture reading this morning was Mary’s Magnificat. I chose that because Mary is someone else who turned out to be exactly the right person in the right place at the right time to help bring God’s justice into the world.

I want to be clear–if Esther had said no, if Mary had said no, if we had said no, God could have found other ways to enact justice and salvation. Mordecai tells Esther: “If you keep silent at this time, relief and deliverance will rise for the Jews from another place.” God can do the work without us. But, wow, what a privilege it is when we recognize where we are and what God is calling us into–what a privilege to get to be the ones who know we are in the world for such a time as this–to do the work that God has uniquely positioned us to do. It is something.

The reality is that it is always such a time as this. There are so many big and small things going on in the world, sometimes it is really hard to know where to put our energy, what, really is ours to do. I think Esther is a good, encouraging model for us. Her story reminds us to pay attention to where God has put us, to what God has given us in terms of what we were born with, what we have worked toward, what we have picked up through experience–whether they were experiences we wanted to have or not.

Esther teaches us to pay attention: Who has God made you to be? Where–in geographical space and also in the space of institutions and relationships–has God put you? How has God formed you? And what does the combination of all of these factors allow you to do in a way that most other people can’t? Have you come into the world for such a time as this?

Sometimes, when we really think about that, the answer is a little scary. Esther was terrified. Maybe the thing we realize we can do isn’t the thing we most want to do. It might not be the easy thing or the comfortable thing, but it may be the good and holy thing.

The story of Esther has a happy ending–at least for everyone but Haman. And if you got to see the little video about the feast of Purim that I linked to in this week’s newsletter, you know that it is a delightful and joyful and kind of crazy feast day that celebrates this particular story. Because there is so much joy, so much joy in living into God’s call and so much life that comes through when we recognize that, by the grace of God, we have come to wherever we are for such a time as whatever this is.

Thanks be to God.