Today we mark the 52nd anniversary of the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. in Memphis, TN. The somber moment compels us to consider the injustice still infecting our country and our world. It calls us to hear three important words from the book of Esther.
Like our world, Esther’s world was filled with injustice: nationalism, political idolatry, sexism, abuse, and racism. Her story focuses on how she is awakened to the injustices and, once awake, joins God’s revolution in resisting and repairing these injustices.
This awakening happens through three phrases spoken to Esther by Mordecai. They are three phrases spoken to us by God. In them we find the prophetic challenge and the daring call to collaborate with God in his cause to end injustice. They are phrases oriented around solidarity, sovereignty and sublimity.
Then Mordecai told them to reply to Esther, “Do not think to yourself that in the king’s palace you will escape any more than all the other Jews … you and your father’s house will perish.” (Est. 4:13-14 ESV)
This is a word about solidarity.
Esther had come to disassociate herself from even her own people who were suffering. She had some to “partition reality” in the way described by Mark Labberton in his book The Dangerous Act of Loving Your Neighbor (66):
“If ‘the only thing necessary for evil to prevail is for good [people] to do nothing’ (Edmund Burke), what better way of doing nothing than to live in our invisibly socialized deception that injustice is their problem, not ours. It’s about those people, not my people; it’s about what’s there, not what’s here. It’s what it is. It’s how we casually and daily partition reality.”
Haman’s genocidal plot was “their” problem, not hers. The injustice was about “those” people, not “my people.”
And this, Daniel Migliore writes in Faith Seeking Understanding is a particularly common perspective for those of us who live with power and privilege, those of us in the U.S. who are white. We tend to “privatize” sin so that it’s primarily only what’s between “me and God.” We pay little attention to “public” sin like injustice. And, as a result, we fail to take responsibility for the suffering of others.
But Mordecai tells Esther, and us, that the trauma tormenting those we close our eyes toward will eventually torment us as well. Because they suffer, we will suffer. No border or barricade can protect us from the pain plaguing the people we turn our backs on. We share a commonality with those whose wounds we refuse to cure. What infects their world will inevitably impact our world–no matter how sanitized, sanctified or sterilized we try to make it. Every attempt we make to escape the suffering of others–through relocation, inaction or distraction–merely delays the inevitable. Any cancer diminishing life for our fellow humans will, in the end, diminish life for us as well. We stand in solidarity with every man, woman and child traumatized. And thus, we must fight for a cure to the injustice common to us all.
“Then Mordecai told them to reply to Esther…’For if you keep silent at this time, relief and deliverance will rise for the Jews from another place.’” (Est. 4:14 ESV).
This is a word about sovereignty.
God’s passion to pursue justice on earth is greater than our daily debate about whether to stand in the gap or sit on our butts. His plans to obstruct oppression will proceed whether we take the field or stroll the sidelines. The question is never “Will God eradicate racism?” or “Will God pummel poverty?” or “Will God cease sex-trafficking?” or “Will God arise against abuse?” The question is only “Will we?” God hopes to heal the land through us, but he will also do so without us.
Justice surges like a river (Amos 5:24). It would be easier to stop the mighty Mississippi that flows past Memphis than it would be to stop God’s rushing righteous cause. We can choose to remain safe on the shore or daringly dive into its stream. Either way, God’s river surges forward.
This is not an excuse to step aside, believing God’s got others to take up the fight. But it is a sober reminder. God’s sovereignty is greater than our ardency. And I, for one, want to wade into the waters.
“Then Mordecai told them to reply to Esther … ‘And who knows whether you have not come to the kingdom for such a time as this?’” (Est. 4:12-14 ESV)
This is a word about sublimity.
How did Esther “come to the kingdom”? If we survey her journey, it is filled with milestones that she and we might consider painful or pointless: Her family was snatched from their ancestral home in Israel and transplanted as exiles to Persia. Her parents died. She was seized by officials of the Persian king because the king was seeking a new queen. And now she and her people faced slaughter by the Persian second-in-command, Haman. Who would blame Esther for tossing each of these, and more, away as worthless markers in a worthless life? Yet Mordecai hints to Esther that God is using all her pain for his purpose, transforming her mess into greater meaning.
Just when Esther was tempted to disengage from the world, Mordecai wanted her to know God was fully engaged in the world and was inviting Esther to join him.
And just look at the person to whom the invitation is extended. God is calling a heroine, not a hero. In this man’s world, God is summoning a woman. In this life where Hamans oftentimes pulverize people and where we perceive ourselves powerless to face it all, Esther’s story challenges us to believe that God is calling us—yes, even us—equipped and accompanied by him in hidden ways, to engage the daunting needs of the disenchanted world around us. God has chosen us, though others have rejected us, written us off, rebuffed us. God has been weaving each of our happy and hard circumstances into a divine design so that even we can be part of what he’s doing in our world.
In God’s revolution, we each have such sublimity, dignity, greatness, grandeur, excellence, and elegance. No matter what we may not see, God is at work in the world, fighting injustice. And no matter what we may think of ourselves, or what others may think of ourselves, God’s hand has been moving history so that we might participate prominently in the healing of all those who are hurting.
Once you believe God is at work in the world and capable of compelling kings, navigating nations, and making meaning from messes, you’ll walk out from behind your watchful walls and get to work in the world—even at the risk of losing your life. Esther responds to Mordecai’s three phrases with one of her own: “Then I will go to the king, though it is against the law, and if I perish, I perish” (Esther 4:16 ESV). Once Esther realized that God had selected her while most in her world had spurned her, she accepted God’s assignment, even if it meant death. Esther would rather die trying to make a difference with a God to whom she and her world mattered than live making no difference at all.
So must we.
