6:30pm Service
Sunday 7th August 2016
St Mary's Church, Bury St Edmunds
Preacher: Dorothy Haile

Esther, chapter 1:

Tonight we are starting a new series at our evening services, looking together at the book of Esther. We don’t know who wrote this book, but the internal evidence suggests that it was written by a Jew who knew Persian customs well, and who also knew how the Feast of Purim started. This suggests that the writer was almost certainly someone who lived in a Persian city and wrote soon after the events themselves. It is interesting to note that God’s name, and his role in saving his people, are not specifically mentioned in the book, perhaps because it could have been politically dangerous in the local situation. Apparently though there are acrostics of YHWH in the Hebrew, and it is very clear that God’s providence and sovereignty were behind the situation. As we learn more of the story in the next few weeks we shall see that God used what we might think of as a very unlikely means to save his people from serious danger and even genocide.

In Biblical history the story takes place among the Jews who are living in the Persian Empire. Some had returned to Jerusalem under Zerubbabel a few years before when Cyrus began his reign in the Empire, and it seems that Esther’s story took place before the times of Ezra and Nehemiah. Many Jews were still living in exile, and some of them were in Susa, the winter capital, where this story takes place.

This is the 5^th century BC. In secular history the events are about Xerxes, who has recently come to the throne of the enormous Persian Empire at the age of 36. If like me you grew up with the KJV, you will remember that Esther’s king was called Ahasuerus, which is the Aramaic version of his Persian name; Xerxes is the Greek version, used in the NIV. His father Darius the Great had already acquired a huge empire and had wanted to expand it by defeating the Greeks, who - especially Athens and Sparta - were at their peak at this time. But in 490BC the Persians under King Darius had been defeated at Marathon. Now Xerxes wants to avenge that defeat and try again. The Vashti incident happens while Xerxes is preparing for his campaign, almost certainly in 483BC, and then he goes to war – he defeats the Spartans at Thermopolyae in 480 (but the Spartans are heroic!), and in the same year the Persians are defeated in a naval battle at Salamis. The next year the Greeks defeat the Persians at a much less famous battle called Plataea and the series of wars ends with Persian defeat. Chapter 2, where Esther enters the story, takes place after the war.

This first chapter is about power. Who has it, how does it show, what does it do?

Xerxes has power. He is the ruler over 127 provinces from Egypt to India. He needs his whole empire on side for his attack on the Greeks so he is giving all these nobles, officials and military leaders a great time with six months of entertainment, presumably a sort of rolling banquet. At the same time he is assessing their loyalty and their resources. This is an example of what is often called ‘conspicuous consumption’, and it was very conspicuous. V4 says he ‘displayed the vast wealth of his kingdom and the splendour and glory of his majesty’. At the end of his elaborate entertainments for the out of town people he gives a banquet for his own staff and other locals in Susa. It isn’t a small event either, but a full week of an extravagant banquet in a luxurious environment. If it was anything like what we know about our own country’s history there would normally have been a huge gap between the top and the bottom in society, with most of the people living in squalor and the top few living in luxury. So to give the people at the bottom a taste of luxury living was probably a PR success.

We don’t know all that much about Xerxes’ character, partly because most of the records come from the Greeks, who were his enemies. Herodotus says he was cruel and despotic even towards his own household, and had a violent temper. He was fairly young, had lots of women available in his harem, and was politically ambitious. We do know that in the end he was assassinated by the commander of his own bodyguard, so probably his hold on power was always a bit precarious as it tends to be in large states where the ruler has to be successful in order to retain his position. In that kind of situation threats to his power need to be dealt with decisively, so the challenge from Vashti has to get a strong response.

At the end of the week of feasting, when Xerxes was at least somewhat drunk, he decided to liven up the proceedings by calling for his Queen Vashti to come and entertain them by displaying her remarkable beauty. I had always assumed that she refused because she did not want to have to show herself off in front of a big crowd of drunken men, and that may indeed be the simple reason. However, our reference book for this series suggests several other possibilities: perhaps she was exhausted after entertaining the women at their own banquet; perhaps she was pregnant, or recovering from recently having given birth to the heir to the throne, who was born in that year; perhaps she was aware that to show herself off in front of all these local guests, who would have known her and would see her again in future, would be especially shameful; perhaps she was a bit drunk herself because of her own banquet. Whatever the reason, she refused to come.

Refusing the command of a tyrant like Xerxes was always going to be a red rag to a bull. He wasn’t used to being defied, least of all by a woman – this was certainly a male-dominated culture. Xerxes was very angry and so he consulted his legal advisors and astrologers to make sure he got the right solution. I suppose they could have tried to calm him down and lower the temperature, but perhaps they didn’t dare; others suggest that they wanted to take advantage of this unexpected opportunity to gain more power at home. Whatever the reason, they advised the king to make a new law, to banish Vashti completely from the king’s presence and to remove her from being queen, so that women everywhere would realise that defying your husband has serious consequences. Xerxes agreed, and a new law was passed, to apply everywhere in his empire, that ‘every man should be ruler over his own household’.

How can we apply lessons from this incident to ourselves?

I asked who has power, how does it show, what does it do. If we slightly redefine power to mean getting your own way and influencing or controlling other people, then it looks more familiar to us. Some of us may think we haven’t got any power, but we all have influence on situations and people. Here are a few questions for me and each of us:

• Xerxes got his own way with his subjects by showing off his possessions and impressing everyone; then by ordering his queen to do something inappropriate, and then by sacking her. What do I do to get my own way?
• Xerxes’ advisers, whose careers depended on his favour, decided to please him even if it meant doing something unjust. How often do I carefully respond so that I don’t displease someone who has influence in my life?
• Xerxes’ advisors recommended an option that would give them advantages at home. How often do I manipulate a situation to my own advantage?

I’d like to suggest that for me and also for you, reflection on those questions can be quite salutary.

What other applications can we see?

God’s sovereignty, which is behind the scenes in this whole book. Remember how when non-believing king Cyrus came to power he allowed Jews to return to Jerusalem? As the book of Esther starts God is still at work and we shall clearly see it in coming weeks. What about us? The world situation looks increasingly dangerous and unpredictable. Our own political scene has gone through major changes in a very short time. Do we believe that God is on the throne and that he will, as ever, bring good from evil, even using world powers who do not acknowledge him at all. We do have to remember that God’s definitions of both good and evil may be different from ours.

Finally, Paul tells us to pray for leaders and authorities. In 1 Timothy 2: 1-6 it is very clear. How often do I pray for President Putin or President Assad? Rarely I’m afraid. Much more often for the US and UK political scenes, and we all need to do that.

So as we start this series, let’s remember Lord Acton’s comment about human power: ‘power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely’. Worth remembering as we pray for leaders. Let’s also remember that ultimate power belongs to God, who as Paul says in Acts 17, ‘is the Lord of heaven and earth’. He is also completely just and righteous, which makes it possible for us to trust that he knows what is right and in the end he will bring about justice, and glory to himself.