Unsolved Problems
Last year at about this time, several things starting going wrong with me:
- ? First, my ears started ringing. All day long there was a constant rumble in my ears.
- ? Second, bright lights started to bother me. Whether it was the headlights of an oncoming car or the lights that brighten the stage from which I preach, bright lights started to really bother me.
- ? Third, three to five times every week, my head would hurt so badly I simply could not function. I couldn’t write sermons. I couldn’t hold meetings. I was pretty useless.
I went to my primary care physician. I went to an ear, nose and throat specialist. And I went to a neurologist. Numerous times. And finally they pieced it all together. All of these symptoms were the result of just one thing: migraine headaches. Migraine headaches were causing the ringing in the ears, the sensitivity to light and the intense headaches. And once we found a treatment that worked, all three symptoms began to subside.
The book of Esther presents us with three very significant problems. And at first glance they may seem disconnected from each other. But after some investigation, it turns out that one thing is causing all three. It’s the same thing causing many problems in our headlines today.
Let’s look briefly at all three problems.
Professional Miscalculation
First, let’s explore the problem of professional miscalculation. A government employee named Mordecai had earlier intervened to stop a plot to end the king’s life. This was recorded in the royal records and tragically forgotten by the king. Then, one night, when the king couldn’t sleep and he was reading through the records, he was reminded of Mordecai’s deed.
The king decided that something should be done to honor Mordecai. But he wanted some advice on the best way to honor Mordecai. It just so happened that his second in command, Haman, was on his way in. What the king didn’t know is that Haman was coming to ask the king for permission to execute Mordecai (there was a lot of bad blood between the two of them!). But before Haman could make his request, the king made his request:
When Haman entered, the king asked him, “What should be done for the man the king delights to honor?” (Est. 6:6 ESV)
It’s a simple question. But Haman trips at it. He makes a professional miscalculation. He makes a major blunder in his career:
Now Haman thought to himself, “Who is there that the king would rather honor than me?” 7 So he answered the king, “For the man the king delights to honor, 8 have them bring a royal robe the king has worn and a horse the king has ridden, one with a royal crest placed on its head. 9 Then let the robe and horse be entrusted to one of the king’s most noble princes. Let them robe the man the king delights to honor, and lead him on the horse through the city streets, proclaiming before him, ‘This is what is done for the man the king delights to honor!’” 10 “Go at once,” the king commanded Haman. “Get the robe and the horse and do just as you have suggested for Mordecai the Jew, who sits at the king’s gate. Do not neglect anything you have recommended.” (Est. 6:6-10 ESV)
Haman makes a huge misstep in his job. The greatest damage is to his own pride. But it is nonetheless a major mistake. One that is publically humiliating.
Sexual Exploitation
Second, let’s explore the problem of sexual exploitation:
2 At that time King Xerxes reigned from his royal throne in the citadel of Susa, 3 and in the third year of his reign he gave a banquet for all his nobles and officials. The military leaders of Persia and Media, the princes, and the nobles of the provinces were present. 4 For a full 180 days he displayed the vast wealth of his kingdom and the splendor and glory of his majesty…10 On the seventh day, when King Xerxes was in high spirits from wine, he commanded the seven eunuchs who served him..11 to bring before him Queen Vashti, wearing her royal crown, in order to display her beauty to the people and nobles, for she was lovely to look at. 12 But when the attendants delivered the king’s command, Queen Vashti refused to come.
Queen Vashti is objectified and exploited. She’s only brought out because she will enhance the king’s standing in the eyes of his guests. She is just one more of his treasures. She’s a thing to be paraded and displayed as proof of how potent and powerful the king is. And when she refuses, he fires her and searches for another:
2 Then the king’s personal attendants proposed, “Let a search be made for beautiful young virgins for the king. 3 Let the king appoint commissioners in every province of his realm to bring all these beautiful young women into the harem at the citadel of Susa. Let them be placed under the care of Hegai, the king’s eunuch, who is in charge of the women; and let beauty treatments be given to them. 4 Then let the young woman who pleases the king be queen instead of Vashti.” This advice appealed to the king, and he followed it…8 When the king’s order and edict had been proclaimed, many young women were brought to the citadel of Susa and put under the care of Hegai…12 Before a young woman’s turn came to go in to King Xerxes, she had to complete twelve months of beauty treatments prescribed for the women, six months with oil of myrrh and six with perfumes and cosmetics. 13 And this is how she would go to the king: Anything she wanted was given her to take with her from the harem to the king’s palace. 14 In the evening she would go there and in the morning return to another part of the harem to the care of Shaashgaz, the king’s eunuch who was in charge of the concubines. She would not return to the king unless he was pleased with her and summoned her by name. (Est. 2:2-14 ESV)
These young women, Esther included, are swept up in a kingdom-wide kidnapping. They are forced from their homes, taken to the capital city, made to endure twelve months of beauty treatments, and then made to spend one night in bed with the king. It is sexual exploitation. They are mere objects meant for his gratification. Tried on like new clothes. Judged like food at a buffet.
Racial Extermination
Third, let’s glance at the problem of racial extermination.
1 After these events, King Xerxes honored Haman son of Hammedatha, the Agagite, elevating him and giving him a seat of honor higher than that of all the other nobles. 2 All the royal officials at the king’s gate knelt down and paid honor to Haman, for the king had commanded this concerning him. But Mordecai would not kneel down or pay him honor. …5 When Haman saw that Mordecai would not kneel down or pay him honor, he was enraged. 6 Yet having learned who Mordecai’s people were, he scorned the idea of killing only Mordecai. Instead Haman looked for a way to destroy all Mordecai’s people, the Jews, throughout the whole kingdom of Xerxes. (Est. 3:1-6 ESV)
A genocide is planned because one member from this race will not bow before Haman. The extermination of all Jews is proposed because one Jew will not bow.
Ego Then
Three significant problems. They may appear to be disconnected. Yet, in each case the culprit causing the problem is the same: ego. All three problems are caused by the same disease: ego. The belief that the world revolves around you. The conviction that you matter the most. The position that says your plans, your priorities, or your perspectives are more valuable than others. Ego leads to professional miscalculation, sexual exploitation and racial extermination.
First, ego leads to racial extermination. Haman’s sense of self-importance was so elevated that when Mordecai wouldn’t bow before him, he not only wanted to kill him, he wanted to kill anyone who shared his race. The plan for racial extermination was hatched out of Haman’s unhealthy belief in his own importance. It grew out of ego.
Second, ego leads to sexual exploitation. The king’s sense of self-importance and the importance of his kingdom was so elevated that when Queen Vashti refused to take her place in the parade of possessions, he fired her. And, he refused to treat the young women of his kingdom as humans. Instead, he skimmed the cream of the crop and raped them, leaving them unfit for marriage of their own. This grew out of ego.
Third, ego leads to professional miscalculation. Haman’s career downfall begins with this loaded question:
Now Haman thought to himself, “Who is there that the king would rather honor than me?” (Est. 6:6 ESV)
This is all about me. If there’s honor to be handed out by the king, it must be for me. Because I’m the only person worthy of honor in this kingdom. Ego leads to professional miscalculation, sexual exploitation and racial extermination.
Ego Today
Ego was the cause of at least three major problems in the book of Esther. And it is the cause of many similar problems today. Ryan Holiday is the author of the book Ego is the Enemy. He defines ego in this way:
Ego: an unhealthy belief in our own importance. Arrogance. Self-centered ambition. (pg. 2)
In the book he walks briefly through the lives of people like Steve Jobs, Malcolm X, Bill Belichick, John Delorean, Vince Lombardi, John Wooden, Howard Hughes, Lance Armstrong, Jackie Robinson, Benjamin Franklin, and Angela Merkel. He shows how, again and again, those who were motivated by ego experienced fallout and were driven to the very worst goals. Those driven by the opposite experienced the opposite. Their lives led to something beautiful.
Ego, Holiday proposes, is the underlying problem in the human race. It is the cause of virtually every major problem we see in the headlines. Holiday came to believe this so much he had it tattooed on himself. On his right forearm are inked the words “Ego is the Enemy.”
Ego certainly still leads to professional miscalculation doesn’t it? Think about a misstep of yours at work. Chances are ego played a role. You downplayed another department’s contribution in order to make your department’s contribution look better. But you paid a high price for it in the end. You fast-tracked a proposal to the boss or the board without considering how the proposal might affect the rest of the organization. And you made a lot of enemies in the office. You fought tooth and nail to get the best hours and the best days off without even considering what the needs and wishes were of others.
Ego leads to sexual exploitation today. On both sides of the political aisle, recent events in the media have brought sexual exploitation to the forefront in the news. We’ve been reminded that there are times when women are treated as objects, as possessions, as less than human for the pleasure of others. Why? Because some feel it’s their right, their due. Ego is what leads to this tragic devaluing and exploitation of women.
And ego is what lies behind every attempt at racial extermination in our human history. My daughter Jordan, who has been studying abroad in Vienna, Austria, recently traveled with 43 students to Poland. There, they spent time at Auschwitz. These pictures were taken by Jordan. It was a heavy moment for these students. As they walked through the gate with its empty promise “Work will make you free.” As they toured the gas chambers. As they saw the place where the trains delivered millions of Jews. As they inhabited the spaces where one and a half million Jews and others were murdered. It became a very real thing to Jordan and to these students.
Especially when they met Lydia. Lydia was just a young girl when she and her family were taken to Auschwitz. Thankfully, she survived and she lived to tell the story of all those who didn’t. Lydia still has her camp number etched into her skin. It is as if someone had tattooed on her skin “ego is the enemy.”
How does something like Auschwitz happen? Ego. The belief that one person or one group or one nation is better than another. The belief that the world revolves around one nation or race.
Ego lies behind many of the worst problems that plague our headlines today.
Humility
The book of Esther, however, reveals a quality that can lead to something very different. It reveals the power of the humility:
12 When Esther’s words were reported to Mordecai, 13 he sent back this answer: “Do not think that because you are in the king’s house you alone of all the Jews will escape. 14 For if you remain silent at this time, relief and deliverance for the Jews will arise from another place, but you and your father’s family will perish. And who knows but that you have come to your royal position for such a time as this?” (Esther 4:12-14 ESV)
Mordecai is trying to make a case for Esther to get involved. She wants to remain uninvolved. Thus Mordecai has to make the best possible case in order to motivate Esther.
Negatively, he reveals that if she stays on the sidelines, she and her family will get swept up by the very evil she’s trying to avoid.
Positively, he reveals that God’s been at work this whole time in the background to get her to this point so that she could engage.
But just as he’s making this case for why she should get involved, notice what else he says: “if you remain silent at this time, relief and deliverance for the Jews will arise from another place.” While Mordecai wants Esther to realize that she is desired by God, she isn’t demanded. While she is God’s option, she is not God’s obligation. God has the power and the freedom to use someone else to rescue the Jewish people from the grip of Haman. Mordecai understands that while we are valuable to God, we are not vital. God wants to use us. God prefers to use us. God has worked diligently in history to arrange things so that he can use us in a particular moment in time. But he has the freedom and the power to use anyone else he chooses.
And this is intended to cultivate within Esther the one quality so unseen in others: humility. Mordecai has it. And he seeks to sow it within Esther. And it doesn’t take long. She quickly realizes just how low she is. That’s why she spends the next three days in prayer and fasting. This is not the posture of someone who believes the world revolves around her. This is not the stance of someone who believes she is more important than all. This is a posture of humility. And it’s Esther’s humility in contrast to ego that allows God to use her to save an entire race.
While ego leads to professional miscalculation, sexual exploitation and racial extermination, Esther shows that humility leads to salvation.
I recently visited the second largest faith-based primary care provider in the nation. I was shocked to learn they are based right here in Memphis. Christ Community Health Services has eight clinics situated in “health deserts,” low-income neighborhoods of metro-Memphis where healthcare is nearly non-existent. In these eight clinics they serve 66,000 patients a year. From primary care, to dentistry, to HIV treatment, to cancer screening, to behavior health, to women’s health, to spiritual health and beyond, Christ Community Health Services seeks to mend body and soul in the name of Christ. It’s a massive operation. They are literally saving lives. Tens of thousands every year.
How? One word. Humility. My friend and his wife turned down a tenure-track position in a world-class Christian university and a senior pastorate in a Chicago neighborhood whose average income was $120,000 so they could both work for CCHS in neighborhoods where the average income is often far less than $20,000. Humility.
He told me about one of the lead doctors in one of the clinics. A patient came in one morning. The patient suffered from incontinence. As he made his way down the hallway to the patient room to see the doctor, he urinated, wetting his clothes and the floor. The doctor cleaned the embarrassed patient, took his clothes, and gave him a dry gown. Then the doctor went the extra mile. Or two. Or three. The doctor went home, grabbed an extra set of his own clothes, returned to the clinic and dressed the patient in his own clothes. Humility.
Ego may destroy the world. Humility may save it. Because it’s what we see in Jesus Christ:
3 Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. 4 Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others. 5 Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, 6 who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, 7 but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. 8 And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of deat
