rich’s blog

“It’s All About Purim!”

Well!  Let’s pray!

 

Prayer:

 

Last Week:

Last week we read in Esther as God’s people enacted Holy War on the their enemies, and we talked about how Jesus ended Holy War by taking it upon himself.  We were challenged to ask ourselves, and one another, and God: Can Christians kill their enemies?  We that people are not our enemies, and we spent a lot of time looking at Jesus with the assumption that he is the model of how we are to be, are to live. 

 

I hope you’ve thought about the question a bit.  Because it is a relevant question in a world that pits humans against humans, and polarizes people, a world where sin happens and anyone has the potential to seem like an enemy. 

 

This Week: 

This week we’re finishing up this walk through of Esther that we started two months ago.  And to be honest, most of what we see in Esther today is summary sort of stuff.  We’ll really briefly review it: but today’s passage will be a starting place for a discussion about the connections we have or pretend to have with people–especially famous people–and how we use those connections to make ourselves feel good in all sorts of ways. 

 

Next Week:

And next week, we’ll take 10 or 15 big steps back–like sixth grade gym class, you know–from these individual passages of Esther and just look at the book as a whole, one large narrative.  We’ll incorporate a lot of the things we’ve seen thus far, and we’ll talk about God.  Where does God show up in this book?  Why is Esther, as a whole, so important for us?  

 

This Evening: 

But I do want to say, while its early and I’ve got everyone’s attention.  We are celebrating communion tonight, with one another, and with the Lord.  And a lot of us will be physically preparing for communion; setting up tables or tubs, or making some sort of finger food to share.  I hope that we can all of us be people who prepare spiritually for our communion, too: That we can take some time this afternoon to meet with God, and ask if there is a person in church we need to be reconciled with, maybe, or something in our lives that needs attended to.  Doing this can really position us for a communion this evening that can have even more impact than I’m sure it will. That said, let’s summarize today’s passage, okay? 

 

Brief Review: 

The beginning of the end of the book of Esther is basically this: Mordecai turned the original celebration that the Jews in the Persian Empire held into an annual celebration, called Purim, after the lots that Haman threw to discern when he would plan his genocide.  And we should all celebrate Purim.  Be sure to celebrate Purim.  Everyone celebrates Purim.  Esther and Mordecai are awesome; and they say to celebrate Purim, so let’s not forget what Purim’s about, and be sure to celebrate it. 

 

The whole narrative of the book is sort of summarized in 9:24-28, reminding us that…you know…we should never ever forget purim. 

 

And the final verses of Esther are about how great Mordecai the Jew–not just Mordecai–but Mordecai the Jew, known by everyone in the Persian Empire–how great and powerful Mordecai is.   

 

Imagine: 

Imagine, for me.  Close your eyes if you have too.  You are a Jew in the Persian empire; you’ve been hiding it for ages, or have been really really quiet about it at least.  In Susa, you’ve been hiding it, or not hiding it necessarily, but not you know, being all that open & bible-tracty about the thing, right?  

 

Imagine the past few months: you’re going to die, you’ve fasted for Esther–who happens to be the queen; then you’re not going to die, and people are converting, and your enemies–your enemies–have been killed, and now Mordecai holds the power of the Persian empire in his hand, Esther’s Queen: you’ve heard that he’s got Xerxes signet ring: One of our own is in power, right?  One of us:  One of us is in charge.  

 

Of course, you’ll celebrate Purim, because why wouldn’t you?  Esther is a heroine; Mordecai is a great guy, he’s looked out for you–never mind the royal decree that’s been passed, or any other thing: we’ll celebrate Purim because Mordecaiasked us to, and he’s a man of God, right?  A Jew.  You are connected to the most powerful person in the Empire!

 

Imagine Again:

Imagine again something for me.  This will be more difficult, probably. 

 

The kid down the street is going to play for Ohio State this year.  The person from your hometown just became vice president, or senator, or governor.  A restaurant you always eat at just happens to be the restaurant that the hippest media sensation also loves.  You find out your favorite authors are shared by your most favorite author.  The person you went to high school with is on the cover of a magazine or a newspaper. The weather guy is in front of you in line at the grocery store.  You’re in the same club, the same political party, the same fraternity, sorority, society, church, chapter, as the person that happens to be on the cover of thousands of newspapers. 

 

How do you feel?  What do you do?  

 

What do you tell people? 

 

Because I would bet that we do tell people, when we have an opportunity, about this connection we have with whoever it is. 

 

We watch some football and casually mention that so-and-so lives down the street, we’re discussing the merits of string cheese and casually mention that so-and-so, in line with us at Target, bought our favorite string cheese.  We almost compulsively, sometimes, share with others that so-and-so–who everyone knows, or at least you should know–went to, or was a part of, or loves to do whatever it is that we go to, or are a part of, or love to do. 

 

We bring up to people the ways we are connected to whomever it is we think is impressive, we share with people around us the ways we have a relationship–even if it’s mostly made up–with whoever might be just a little bit famous.

 

I wonder why? As Marvin Gaye sings: “What’s going on?”  

 

Thank you Marvin Gaye: 

 

What’s going on when we do this?  What do we do?  What’s the process of this thing?

 

Strengthen Connections: 

We strengthen a weak connection we have with people, or a shared similarity–something as important as having trusted Jesus, believed the things he said, and chosen to follow him–or something as negligible and really irrelevant as driving the same sort of car, appreciating the same season, shopping at the same store. 

 

We play up the similarities we have with people who are actually strangers to us, highlight the experiences we have in common with those we think are impressive. We drop names.

 

Doing things like this is one of the advertising industries great strengths, right?  If you buy x, you’ll be like so-and-so–who everyone knows and loves.  If you eat or drink such-and-such you can be like so-and-so.  And this isn’t deplorable–advertising is taking its cues from us!  We’re the ones who tell our friends how someone cool wears what we wear or thinks what we think or lives near where we live. 

 

Why play up these connections?  Point them out to our friends? 

 

“Really? No Way! Did you know that I went to camp with…”

It seems like part of why we do this, at least, this playing up our connections and similarities with famous people, because we believe that people are impressed by them. 

 

And they are, you know?  Our lists of impressive people may differ, but we generally respect and honor other people’s “impressive person” list, don’t we?  I don’t want to meet jean luke picard, but if you do meet him, that’s cool.  That’s really neat.  You don’t care if I got a letter from Frederick Buechner, but if I told you he was a famous author and famous blah blah blah and famous, famous, famous. 

 

–we care a lot about fame, too much, maybe.  We’ll talk about this soon. 

 

But there are some subtler things that go along with this “I see so-and-so at Kroger all the time.  We talked about fish sticks once.” 

 

I’m A Real Boy!

At least part of the reason we highlight these similarities, these weak connections, these shared experiences, is because we believe–I think–that it legitimizes us, on some level.  

 

We sense that so-and-so is important, and valued by people–and who doesn’t want to be important and valued by people–so we casually share with those around us our connection to this valuable, important, impressive, celebrity.   

 

And we hope that we come across as a little more valuable, a little more important, a little more impressive, a little closer to a celebrity.  We hope that we come across as an insider. “You know him?  You know her?”  

 

It seems like we play up the connection we have with someone because we believe that whoever we’re talking to will feel for us the same esteem and respect and awe that we feel for the famous or slightly important person we’re name dropping.  If we’ve got a relationship with this great person, then we must be great, too! Right! 

 

I doubt many of us do this on purpose after, say, high school.  But we do it.

 

I doubt we remember the original rush we got when we knew someone important, were legitimized by our friendship with the popular kid, or some other local celebrity.  But at some point, all of us learned that it does matter who you know; and if you know someone important, other people think you’re important, too.  And we just kept rolling with it.  And we all know that it’s nice  to feel impressive because we have some connection–even a barely substantial one–to someone other people think is interesting, impressive, or popular. 

 

Not All bad:

Now, feeling important because of who were connected to isn’t all bad, when it comes from the right relationships, and is in the right measure. 

 

The theology of the book of Hebrews is built up around this idea that our closeness to someone does in fact legitimize us in some way, right?  We know Jesus, and he’ll make it cool with God for us.  Our connection to Jesus does give us legitimacy, and importance, and all sorts of things; we talked about that a couple of weeks ago.

 

Jesus says that he calls us friends–which doesn’t mean we can borrow his car if we need to.  In the honor-shame culture of ancient Palestine, it means that Jesus considers us his social equals, and gives to us without keeping a list of the ways we need to give back to him, he treats us as peers, and assumes we’ll treat him the same way.  Of course–he starts it–we don’t offer him friendship, he offers it to us.  But because of our connection to him, we are known by him, and special to God, and can be a blessing to the world, right?

 

Mordecai: 

And this connection we have to Jesus, that legitimizes us before God. This friendship we have been invited into that should give us a sense of importance–really should, unlike these weak connections we share with people in the hopes that they find us impressive–

 

unless, of course, you’ve never done that.  In which case pray that this message is relevant for your brother or sister down the row, right?–

 

But–this importance we should rightly feel because Jesus calls us his friends, has our backs, stands before God on our behalf–it must be a lot like what every Jew felt because of Mordecai, right? 

 

Remember what we imagined it must have been like to be a Jew when Mordecai was at the height of his power?  Remember the last few verses of Esther? 

 

“King Xerxes imposed tribute throughout the empire, to its distant shores. And all his acts of power and might, together with a full account of the greatness of Mordecai to which the king had raised him, are they not written in the book of the annals of the kings of Media and Persia? Mordecai the Jew was second in rank to King Xerxes, preeminent among the Jews, and held in high esteem by his many fellow Jews, because he worked for the good of his people and spoke up for the welfare of all the Jews.”

 

Mordecai has legitimized being Jewish, right?  Esther saved them; Mordecai made them famous.  I mean: look, one of our own is in power! And everyone fears him, and respects him!  And Mordecai is powerful, and Mordecai is famous, and Mordecai is a Jew, just like us.  And he’ll look look out for our welfare.  

 

The entire Persian Empire knows this.  The power of the Empire rests in the hands of a Jew.  It must have been a great time to share with anyone you could that you were a Jew like Mordecai.  That you and Mordecai shared a great great great grandfather.  You bought your sackcloth & ashes at the same store.  

 

Mordecai is famous, and powerful, and if we are Jews in the Persian Empire, we can feel famous and powerful, too.  We can walk with a swagger, we are legitimized, made important because of him.

 

What About Us?

But we are not Jews in the Persian Empire, and Mordecai died a long, long time ago.  And the whole idea that we are somehow important because of some person other than Jesus that we know–it’s really a fool’s errand, something we Christians should totally avoid.  

 

Because that little spark of importance we feel when we share our connections with someone important, some celebrity–it depends on a value system that we followers of Jesus, legitimized through his pursuit of us and our humble response to him, should question and be just a little bit suspicious of accepting. 

 

“Why, Mr. Alarmist?”

The Bible is handy, right?  There’s a letter in it, written to a small group of believers in a church in the Roman province of Galatia, not long at all after Jesus’ resurrection.  He writes: 

 

As for those who were held in high esteem—whatever they were makes no difference to me; God does not show favoritism—they added nothing to my message. On the contrary, they saw that I had been entrusted with the task of preaching the gospel to the Gentiles, just as Peter had been to the Jews. (Gal 2:6-7, tniv)

We could talk about these two lines and the passage this verse is found in for weeks: Galatians is an amazing book; Paul does some complicated things in it. He’s defending his ministry, which God has given him and which other Christians have affirmed.  He’s making an incredibly complex argument about the unity of the church, and building an amazing thesis about the nature of what it means to be a faithful covenant partner with God now that Jesus has showed up.  Beautiful stuff.  

 

But he also shares a simple truth: those who seem so important, are esteemed so highly–he just doesn’t care about how great they seem to be, because honestly: God does not show favoritism.  God does not esteem more highly one person over another person.  God is just not impressed who we went to high school with, who we work with, or who lives around the corner.  

 

(By the way: this idea that God doesn’t have a preference for one person over another based on some human estimation of value is honestly a pervasive theme in Galatians; read through the book for it sometime.) 

 

This is the same sentiment Paul declares in another context, another letter, First Corinthians.  In 4:3 he says “It matters very little to me what you think of me, even less where I rank in popular opinion. I don’t even rank myself. Comparisons in these matters are pointless.” 

 

Pointless, he says. Because the Lord makes the judgments. 

 

The basic problem of the whole name-dropping, I met so and so at a restaurant, don’t you think I’m special thing that we do way too often is that it is based on a value-system that has nothing to do with God.  Does this make sense?  It’s based on a sin-covered system, where notoriety–being known at all–is valued for its own sake.  And it’s packaged and sold to us by society as something worth having.  It’s worth being known; it’s good to be famous, a celebrity: and in fact, it makes you important in the world.  It gives you value and legitimizes you. 

 

At some point: maybe nearly 2,000 years ago, maybe 20 years ago: I don’t know.  But at some point, we Christians forgot that we were never promised to be liked by everyone–but were instead promised physical persecution, judgment against us, the disregard of the majority–and not because we’re asking for it by being mean and harsh and uncaring, but on account of Jesus.  We forgot that we were never invited to be powerful, but were invited to be weak, and through our weakness allow the power of Jesus to be made perfect in us.  

 

We have bought into the idea that being a celebrity, being important, being legitimate in the eyes of the world is a worthwhile pursuit.  And because the world offers us great means by which we can get important, and powerful, and legitimate, while Jesus provides us far more often great means by which we can be humble, and quiet, and unknown, means by which we can do good in secret, so that God sees it, instead of doing good under spotlights, because of this we have accidentally and negligently traded away God’s pathway to God’s ends, for the world’s pathway to the world’s ends: 

 

We do what we can to take bits of other people’s importance–an importance that comes from a system that disregards what God thinks about things or us–and we try to dress ourselves in those bits of connection, bits of importance, for a moment. 

 

Maybe none of us have done this, though; maybe it’s only other Christians.  But an awful lot of the time it’s me. 

 

Almost Finished:

We’re almost finished.  But I want to leave you with a line from a novel that has haunted me since I first read it some years ago.  It’s from Franny & Zooey, by J.D. Salinger.  Franny, Zooey’s sister, is having a sort of crisis.  And she says: 

 

“I’m not afraid to compete. It’s just the opposite. Don’t you see that? I’m afraid I will compete- that’s what scares me. That’s why I quit the theater department. Just because I’m so horribly conditioned to accept everybody else’s values, and just because I like applause and people to rave about me, doesn’t make it right. I’m ashamed of it. I’m sick of it. I’m sick of not having the courage to be an absolute nobody.  I’m sick of myself and everybody else that wants to make some kind of splash.” (J.D. Salinger, Franny & Zooey, p.30)

 

The language is fairly strong here; but that happens with emotion.  She says, “I’m sick of not having the courage to be an absolute nobody.  I’m sick of myself and everybody else that wants to make some kind of splash.”  

 

She may as well have said, “like Rich wants to.”

 

I have been haunted by this passage, because I want to make a splash, far too often: even a small one.  Even a “I have a weak connection to someone important” sort of splash. 

 

Who wants to be a Nobody, right?  Someone without connections?   Someone unimportant?  Someone despised and rejected by others?  despised, and unaccounted for?  Illegitimate, and powerless?  Who wants to be meek, or poor.  I want people to speak well of me.  I forget that it was the false prophets who were always spoken well of; as Jesus reminds us. 

 

Conclusion:

God does not play favorites. God does not care where we shop, or who we know, or the thousand little connections we emphasize to make ourselves seem special, and important, and valuable to those around us.  Or to make ourselves feel better about ourselves. 

 

God cares that we draw close to the friendship offered us by his son whom he loves.  He cares that we take the legitimacy our relationship with Jesus offers us, and run with it.  He cares that we no longer try to impress one another by sharing our connection to impressive people of esteem and importance. He cares that we gather together as quiet saints, doing good in secret–a crowd of us, a mess of us, bound together in love, disregarding the world’s value system, rejecting it entirely, for that of the Kingdom of God’s. 

 

Let’s not enable one another to feel important because of who we know, or the names we drop.  Let’s not pursue some sense of legitimacy, or importance, or value, by pointing out to others the connections we have with celebrities.  Let’s entertain in our hearts what it might mean to be a nobody–a nobody in the value system of the world–but a loved, important, special child of God because of the friendship Jesus offers us.  

 

Prayer: