Esther 7:1-10, 9:1-2, 20-22, 29-32
1So the king and Haman went to Queen Esther’s banquet. 2 On this second occasion, while they were drinking wine, the king again said to Esther, “Tell me what you want, Queen Esther. What is your request? I will give it to you, even if it is half the kingdom!”
3 Queen Esther replied, “If I have found favor with the king, and if it pleases the king to grant my request, I ask that my life and the lives of my people will be spared. 4 For my people and I have been sold to those who would kill, slaughter, and annihilate us. If we had merely been sold as slaves, I could remain quiet, for that would be too trivial a matter to warrant disturbing the king.”
5 “Who would do such a thing?” King Xerxes demanded. “Who would be so presumptuous as to touch you?”
6 Esther replied, “This wicked Haman is our adversary and our enemy.” Haman grew pale with fright before the king and queen. 7 Then the king jumped to his feet in a rage and went out into the palace garden.
Haman, however, stayed behind to plead for his life with Queen Esther, for he knew that the king intended to kill him. 8 In despair he fell on the couch where Queen Esther was reclining, just as the king was returning from the palace garden.
The king exclaimed, “Will he even assault the queen right here in the palace, before my very eyes?” And as soon as the king spoke, his attendants covered Haman’s face, signaling his doom.
9 Then Harbona, one of the king’s eunuchs, said, “Haman has set up a sharpened pole that stands seventy-five feet tall in his own courtyard. He intended to use it to impale Mordecai, the man who saved the king from assassination.”
“Then impale Haman on it!” the king ordered. 10 So they impaled Haman on the pole he had set up for Mordecai, and the king’s anger subsided.
9:1So on March 7 the two decrees of the king were put into effect. On that day, the enemies of the Jews had hoped to overpower them, but quite the opposite happened. It was the Jews who overpowered their enemies. 2 The Jews gathered in their cities throughout all the king’s provinces to attack anyone who tried to harm them. But no one could make a stand against them, for everyone was afraid of them.
20 Mordecai recorded these events and sent letters to the Jews near and far, throughout all the provinces of King Xerxes, 21 calling on them to celebrate an annual festival on these two days. 22 He told them to celebrate these days with feasting and gladness and by giving gifts of food to each other and presents to the poor. This would commemorate a time when the Jews gained relief from their enemies, when their sorrow was turned into gladness and their mourning into joy.
29 Then Queen Esther, the daughter of Abihail, along with Mordecai the Jew, wrote another letter putting the queen’s full authority behind Mordecai’s letter to establish the Festival of Purim. 30 Letters wishing peace and security were sent to the Jews throughout the 127 provinces of the empire of Xerxes. 31 These letters established the Festival of Purim—an annual celebration of these days at the appointed time, decreed by both Mordecai the Jew and Queen Esther. (The people decided to observe this festival, just as they had decided for themselves and their descendants to establish the times of fasting and mourning.) 32 So the command of Esther confirmed the practices of Purim, and it was all written down in the records.
This morning’s reading reminds me of the one about a guy who was being investigated by the IRS. After dodging the IRS agent for weeks, the guy’s family convinced him to get a lawyer and go talk to the IRS agent. So the guy went to see the lawyer and they rode together to the IRS office to see what the problem was. The IRS agent met the guy and told him he had dozens of huge lumps of income with no taxes paid and no explanation. There were deposits of $1,000, $5,000, even $75,000. The guy listened and offered an explanation. “Well, you see, I make bets with people, and I tend to win.” The IRS agent found this very hard to believe. “You expect me to believe that?! Someone made a $75,000 bet and actually paid it?!” The guy offered an example. “Don’t believe me? Ok, well, I’ll bet you a thousand bucks right now that I can bite my own eye.” The IRS agent thought to himself and accepted the bet, thinking it was impossible. So the guy took out his glass eye, bit it, and put it back in his head. The IRS agent was shocked. The guy offered another bet. “Ok, ok, you don’t know me and that was unfair. I’ll bet you $5 grand I can bite my other eye.” The IRS agent thought that would surely be impossible. After all, he had seen the guy drive to his office with the lawyer, and he was the one driving. So he accepted the bet. The guy then took out his false teeth, bit his other eye and put them back in his mouth. Again, the IRS agent was shocked. The guy offered him a way to break even. “I’ll tell you what, I bet you $6,000 I can pee into that coffee cup on your desk from across the room without getting a drop on the floor.” Thinking it was impossible and wanting his money back, the agent again accepted the bet. The guy stood against the far wall, got ready to pee, and just peed all over the agent’s carpet and chairs and walls. And only a drop landed in the cup on his desk. Somewhat surprisingly, the IRS agent was ecstatic! He was jumping up and down and cheering, excited he didn’t owe this guy $6 grand anymore. Then he spotted the lawyer in the corner. “Why do you look so upset? Your client’s free to go. No more investigation.” The lawyer got up and said, “He bet me $200,000 on the way here that he’d pee all over your office and you’d love it.”
Now that’s what I call poetic justice at its finest! Both the IRS agent and the lawyer are typically the ones outsmarting others and seemingly taking advantage of them. Most people who visit either end up leaving with a bad taste in their mouth. It’s fun to hear when they get a little taste of their medicine, so to speak. And no, I’m not personally happy at the outcome of that joke because I owe the IRS a little money this year and well, my own interactions with lawyers these last few months! Let’s just say it’s a particularly timely joke…
And it has the same poetic justice as our reading for this morning. We left off last week with Queen Esther committed to approaching the king and pleading for the lives of the Jewish people. Haman had craftily gotten him to create an edict that would have annihilated the Jews all because Mordecai, a faithful Jew, wouldn’t bow down to Haman. But again, our lectionary creators have us jump to the end of the narrative when Haman receives a little poetic justice for his craftiness. So again, I think it’s necessary to briefly catch us up in the reading. Rather than plead for the lives of the Jews, Esther went to the king and suggested he held a banquet to celebrate Haman. The banquet was held at which Esther asked for another banquet to be held the following day. After the first banquet, Haman ran into Mordecai who still refused to show deference to so, in a rage, Haman built a huge, sharpened pole to impale Mordecai on. Later that evening the king found out that it was Mordecai who uncovered the plot to assassinate him, not Haman, so the following day Mordecai is celebrated instead. The king has Haman enrobe Mordecai and lavish praise on him. As if that weren’t shameful enough…as if that wasn’t enough poetic justice, Esther pled for her life and the lives of the Jewish people at the second banquet later that day. The king came to realize that it was Haman’s idea to kill the Jewish people, including his very wife, so he has Haman killed on the very sharpened pole meant for Mordecai. Aaaah, the poetic justice of it all!
The day is commemorated for Esther freeing the Jewish people from annihilation, a festival known as Purim and celebrated to this day. There are a lot of twists and turns in the story, a lot of egos and silly decision-making. But many people are quick to point out that nowhere in the story is there mention of God which begs the question, where is God in this story? Of course, God has a long history of being with the Jewish people. They are comprised of the freed Israelites from Egyptian captivity. God walked with the Jewish people through the forty years of wilderness wanderings. So of course, God would be with them as they were threatened with annihilation. God no doubt made it possible for Esther, a faithful Jew, to rise to a position of power that would enable her to save them. God is always working behind the scenes to save his beloved people! So God’s presence is found in the salvation of the Jews. But it’s also found in the justice. Our God is a just God! As Psalm 33 tells us, “He loves whatever is just and good; the unfailing love of the Lord fills the earth.” (vs. 5) Our God sees the wickedness in men like Haman…the pridefulness, the bitterness, the evilness. Our God is a good God, a faithful God. Our God protects his people and ensures justice prevails. As the prophet Isaiah tells us, “For the Lord is a faithful God. Blessed are those who wait for his help.” (30:18) Our God wants to help those who come to him for help. Our God is a loving God! Esther and Mordecai no doubt came to God for help and He delivered them from Haman’s wicked ways.
Proverbs tell us, “Justice is a joy to the godly, but it terrifies evildoers.” (21:15) Esther was a godly woman, and justice was a joy to her and the Jewish people. Let us seek to be godly people in our own time and place. Let us be encouraged to stand up to the injustices around us. Let us be strengthened by God to confront wickedness in all its forms. And let us give thanks for such courage and strength. Thanks be to God!
In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
