Before the sermon was preached, the congregation had experienced three events from our Fall Festival of Faith. First of all, on Saturday night many from the congregation had dinner and then created their own silk art under the tutelage of Hannah Garrity, the artist who was our Fall Festival of Faith presenter. Secondly, during the Sunday school hour, many members had come into the sanctuary to watch as Hannah worked on an artistic expression of the Esther story. Some even sketched their own images with the materials provided. Thirdly, during the Time with Young Disciples we discussed parallels between the banner Hannah had done Saturday night and the painting she was working on during worship. By the time the sermon arrived, the congregation was primed for a sermon on Esther.
If you can imagine, the sermon was preached with a banner hanging on the lectern side of the sanctuary and Hannah painting in the center of the Chancel. Hannah's artistic contributions created a wonderful environment in which to preach God's word. Between the three sermons on Esther and the artistic interpretations of Esther, I believe the congregation learned from Esther's story and will remember her for some time.
“Saving Grace” Isaiah 65: 17-25; Esther 9: 7 - 10:3 SAPC; Denton; November 13, 2022; Richard B. Culp
Esther 9: 29 - 10:3 Queen Esther daughter of Abihail, along with the Jew Mordecai, gave full written authority, confirming this second letter about Purim. 30Letters were sent wishing peace and security to all the Jews, to the one hundred and twenty-seven provinces of the kingdom of Ahasuerus, 31and giving orders that these days of Purim should be observed at their appointed seasons, as the Jew Mordecai and Queen Esther enjoined on the Jews, just as they had laid down for themselves and for their descendants regulations concerning their fasts and their lamentations. 32The command of Queen Esther fixed these practices of Purim, and it was recorded in writing. King Ahasuerus laid tribute on the land and on the islands of the sea. All the acts of his power and might, and the full account of the high honour of Mordecai, to which the king advanced him, are they not written in the annals of the kings of Media and Persia? For Mordecai the Jew was next in rank to King Ahasuerus, and he was powerful among the Jews and popular with his many kindred, for he sought the good of his people and interceded for the welfare of all his descendants.
Introduction: This is the last week of Esther, except, of course, for next week when Esther joins with Joseph for what will surely be a fascinating conversation.
It is also a special day as Esther meets Hannah, so to speak, and we have the opportunity to see an artistic expression of how the Holy Spirit moves Hannah as she hears God’s word and experiences worship with us.
I hope you will enjoy watching Hannah, but I also hope you will reflect on how all your skills, all your gifts can be engaged by the Spirit as you seek to respond to God’s Word.
Move 1: when something amazing happens, what do you do?
a. You tell someone.
1. You tweet
2. Or post the story on Facebook or some other social media.
3. or create a meme to share about the story.
4. Or maybe make a movie.
4. Or, maybe do a painting or create a banner to memorialize the story forever.
5. lots of ways to tell the story.
b. That is what God’s people do with the story of Esther.
1. they tell people.
2. Tell it again. and again…. and again.
3. Eventually, despite the reservations of some, they make Esther’s story part of the biblical canon.
c. In addition to telling the story, God’s people also make a Feast day called Purim that revolves around Esther’s story.
1. Every year, they will celebrate the Feast of Purim.
2. They will bake of the three-cornered pastries called hamantaschen (from Yiddish homentash, literally “Haman’s pocket”) or bake oznei Haman (Hebrew: literally, “Haman’s ears”
3. In the 17th century, they will add the acting out of Purim plays - costumes and theatrics creating a carnival like atmosphere in which the story is told.
4. And every year, during the celebration of the Feast of Purim, they will read the Book of Esther. (https://www.britannica.com/topic/Purim)
5. Over time, some drama is even added to the reading. When Haman's name is read out loud during the public chanting of the Megillah in the synagogue, which occurs 54 times, the congregation engages in noise-making to blot out his name. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Purim).
they celebrate and tell the story of Esther.
Move 2: Why do they tell the story again and again?
a. Look beyond the 180-day party King Ahasuerus throws?
1. Look beyond the palace intrigue of Queen Vast and King Ahasuerus.
2. look beyond Esther’s beauty.
3. Look beyond Mordecai and his skillful way of working the system?
4. Look beyond Haman’s intent on killing all of God’s people.
5. Look beyond the vengeance that leads to Haman’s own death.
6. Look beyond the way the story is told that never mentions God by name.
7. Look beyond all those details and see the overarching truth in Esther’s story - God’s saving grace comes and saves God’s people.
b. God’s saving grace.
1. God’s saving grace for a people who were on the wrong of the Haman’s political desires and thirst for power;
God’s saving grace for a people who had no legitimate voice in what was happening to them;
God’s saving grace for a people whose very existence was threatened;
God’s saving grace for a people whose hope was found in God’s desire to save them.
c. . do you remember what Mordecai told Esther in last week’s reading as she considered whether she should step up or not.
4: 13 Mordecai told Esther: For if you keep silence at such a time as this, relief and deliverance will rise for the Jews from another quarter, but you and your father’s family will perish.
1. Mordecai understands God’s great desire to save will not be thwarted by the powers of the world;
God’s great desire to save will not be stopped if Esther chooses not to step up;
God’s desire to save will be God’s answer that the world cannot control or stop.
4. The God who is creating a new heaven and new earth will have the final word.
c. I have mentioned that Esther almost did not make it into the biblical canon, primarily because God’s name is never mentioned.
1. you can imagine the debate around the room.
It’s a great story
Maybe, but it does not mention God
It’s a fun story; people will love reading it
Maybe, but it does not mention God. How can it mention the Persian king 190 times and not mention God’s name once?
2. So you know what happened?
3. there is an apocryphal book called the Additions of Esther - not part of our Protestant canon, but used by some other faith traditions.
4. In the Additions of Esther, God is explicitly mentioned 50 times - Esther praying to God, mentioning God’s holy house in Jerusalem, and abiding by dietary laws - which makes the book an explicitly religious story about God. (Women in Scripture: A Dictionary of Named and Unnamed Women in the Hebrew Bible, the Apocryphal/Deuterocanonical Books, and the New Testament, Carol Meyers, General Editor, 75-78)
5. The later storytellers did not want anyone to miss the presence of God in the story.
c. Maybe those explicit mentions of God’s name would be helpful, but on the other hand, we who know the God of grace;
1. we who have experienced God’s grace in our own lives;
we who love for God’s saving grace in our world today;
we who cling to the God of grace;
2. We read Esther’s story and see God’s handiwork.
3. Because we know the God who answers us before we even call.
4. We do need the explicit mention of God because we know the stories of how God has acted again and again to save God’s people.
3. We read Esther’s story and go “Aha” the God of grace we know in our own lives was right there saving Esther and all of God’s people.
4. Esther’s story is not a new story, but part of the ongoing legacy of the God whose saving grace we have experienced;
the God of saving grace who will continue to act as we move into the future where God will do a new thing.
Move 3: One final thought - how do we respond to God’s saving grace?
a. We read in Esther’s story in Chapter 9:22 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.
1. Gifts of food and presents to the poor.
2. God’s saving grace is contagious.
3. We who experience God’s grace respond by being instruments of God’s saving grace for others.
b. The new heavens and the new earth are not for us alone, but for all the world.
1. God’s saving grace is not limited to Esther and Mordecai, the Jews in their time, or us in our time.
2. God’s desire and intention is to save all the world.
3. And we are called to participate in God’s saving work in the world.
conclusion: last night, those of us who gathered with Hannah to do some artwork, made some silk art.
We used colors, resist, and salt. the final step was to hear the Scripture lesson from Esther read and look at the Hebrew words that made up the Scripture lesson.
If we wanted, we could paint the Hebrew word that caught our attention.
Finding the Hebrew word was much easier for me than figuring out how to display it on my silk art.
As I read the text to myself and then heard Hannah read the text, the word that jumped out at me and claimed my attention as “Confirm.”
Confirm - as in, we tell Esther’s story to confirm God’s saving grace;
We look to our own lives and tell our stories of God’s saving grace to confirm that God is still at work.
We engage in God’s work and reach out to others to confirm for the world that God’s saving grace still moves among us.
We move into the future anticipating the God who creates a new and a new earth and thus confirms God’s desire to save all of us and all the world.
Amen.
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