Unsummoned

A sermon preached on September 30, 2018 at the Episcopal Church of St. John the Baptist in Aptos, California.

The Book of Esther begins with the story of Queen Vashti -- a woman who is summoned, but will not come. It ends with the story of Queen Esther -- a woman who is not summoned, but shows up anyway.

For too long, Vashti and Esther have been pitted against one another, compared and contrasted, valued each above the other, just as King Ahasueres intended. It’s time to put an end to that kind of commentary. Vashti and Esther are sisters in holy resistance, both deserving our attention and care, both beloved of God.   

The Book of Esther has been described as an “early Jewish novella.”[i] It’s a relatively short, entertaining narrative. It is also a narrative that does not mention God.

But make no mistake, God is all over this story.

The drama begins when King Ahasueres, “merry with wine,” demands his wife Vashti “perform” before him and his guests during a raucous party where “drinking without restraint” is taking place. Vashti refuses. 

In response, the king calls seven powerful officials together for the sole purpose of discussing this refusal. One of these officials conveys the deep fear Vashti has stirred in him. “Not only has Queen Vashti done wrong to the king,” he says. “But also to all the officials and all the peoples who are in all the provinces of King Ahasuerus. For this deed of the queen will be made known to all women, causing them to look with contempt on their husbands, since they will say, ‘King Ahasuerus commanded Queen Vashti to be brought before him, and she did not come.’”

This council is worried the entire tightly-knit system of patriarchy is going to unravel because of Vashti’s quiet pull on one single string. And so they tighten the hold. They send out a decree demanding that “all women will give honor to their husbands, high and low alike” and they declare in all languages, “that every man should be master in his own house.”

Then, the king organizes a kingdom-wide search for “Persia’s next queen.” All the “contestants” are gathered in the citadel, where “cosmetic treatments [are] given to them.”

And Esther, an orphan, is entered into the contest. She is instructed by her cousin Mordecai not to reveal her Jewish identity.

Esther “wins” the contest and becomes queen. Though “win” is probably not the best way to describe a circumstance it does not seem she asked for or aspired to, and one which placed her inside an unfamiliar, unsafe environment, which we are aware from the story thus far requires that she bend to any and all whims of the king, or face great danger.

Some time after Esther becomes queen, Mordecai reveals to her that Haman is enacting a plot “to destroy, to kill, and to annihilate all Jews, young and old, women and children, in one day.” Mordecai asks her to go to the king and petition on behalf of the Jewish people. Esther explains that to go to the king without being summoned[ii] would mean death.

Esther has been criticized for not being bold enough at this first opportunity to take action. For playing too much by the rules. For keeping silent too long. If we take anything from this painful week of hearing stories from women who kept silent “for too long,” I hope it is this: All of God’s children are worthy of self-preservation in the face of oppression. This too is radical resistance.

Esther’s silence is not permanent. Eventually, she decides to risk her life in order to save her people. “If I perish, I perish,” she says. Before going to the king, Esther calls for a fast. A preparation of prayer, reflection on what really matters, and centering on God.

And after the fast, there stands Esther – appearing before the king, unsummoned. I imagine her there, in direct violation of the rules -- weighted down by the opulent fabric. I imagine her breath coming short and quick. I imagine her hands, clammy and cold. I imagine her ordering her brain to stay oxygenated, her pounding heart to remain inside her chest cavity, her feet to stay firmly planted on the ground, her tears to stay trapped in their aching ducts, the expression on her face to remain appropriately pleasant, not revealing terror or defiance or anything else untoward that might be read in the subtle lines of her brow or her lips.

I imagine those moments before the king noticed her -- an eternity. And then, the king holds out his scepter to her, and asks, “What is it, Queen Esther? What is your request? It shall be given you, even to the half of my kingdom.”

Deep breath. Steady voice.

“If it pleases the king, let the king and Haman come today to a banquet that I have prepared for the king,” says Esther.

Esther’s request for a banquet is granted. At that wine-soaked event, the king again says, “What is your petition, Queen Esther? It shall be granted you. And what is your request?”

And here, Esther submits her testimony: “If I have won your favor, O king, and if it pleases the king, let my life be given me—that is my petition—and the lives of my people—that is my request. For we have been sold, I and my people, to be destroyed, to be killed, and to be annihilated.”

“Who is he, and where is he, who has presumed to do this,” asks the king.

And Esther names Haman, present before her at the banquet. She names him loud and clear.

And Esther is heard. But, none of this was without danger. None of this was without exposure. Pain. Discomfort. This was bold resistance. Risk of self. Risk of safety – this simple act of showing up, unsummoned.

It is only those on the oppressed end of systems of earthly power who are required to read the signals of whether they are summoned or unsummoned at any given moment. Privilege is the assumption that yours is a summoned voice at all times. The voices of women, and especially the voices of women of color, are largely unsummoned voices. And so the very act of speaking can be a radical, unfamiliar act met with fear, doubt, disbelief and even hostility. 

But here lies an important piece of the Good News of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. While voices caught in earthly systems of oppression might be perpetually unsummoned, it is those same voices God summons forth. Over and over again. God summons the voices of the unheard. God summons an Ethiopian Eunuch, a widow, a Samaritan woman, a short-in-stature tax collector, a man possessed by demons. God summons them to speak. And God summons us to listen. 

God summoned the voice of a woman -- Mary Magdalene -- to serve as first witness to the Risen Christ. And, as the Rev. Broderick Greer put it last week, “We didn’t believe Mary Magdalene and then went on to smear her name for two thousand years.”[iii] Because Mary Magdalene -- a woman -- showed up at that upper room, and continued to insist on showing up in the Bible’s pages, unsummoned. Unsummoned by humanity. But not by God.

So yes. God is in the book of Esther. God shows up when Esther’s unsummoned voice rings out. Is heard. Is honored.  

There is a challenge in this story of Esther for us here, today: look out for those unsummoned voices – of any gender. Those voices that we’re not hearing or, when we are hearing them, seem out of place or are met with instant resistance.

And there is also a promise in this story of Esther for us here, today: if yours is an unsummoned voice – and that may be anyone among us—and you have a hard story to tell at a place and time that feel right to you, the Holy Spirit can be trusted to carry that story along to places it needs to be to do the work it needs to do in ways that may not be immediately obvious or easy for us to understand.

Your telling may not look like a royal petition, a national television broadcast, or a public Facebook post. It may look like a conversation with a trusted friend, a therapist, a family member or a priest.

 Whatever it looks like, that storytelling, that witness, that testimony -- will be holy. Perhaps not summoned by humanity. But summoned by God.

[i] Carol A. Newsom, Sharon H. Ringe, and Jacqueline E. Lapsley, eds., Women’s Bible Commentary, 3rd ed., twentieth anniversary ed (Louisville, Ky: Westminster John Knox Press, 2012), 202.

[ii] Depending on the translation, the word Esther uses can be translated as “summoned” or “called” (NRSV uses “called”). My limited Hebrew knowledge tells me the word is יִקָּרֵ֗א / קָרָא– which can be translated as “called,” “summoned” or “named” (among several other options).

[iii] https://twitter.com/BroderickGreer/status/1045386685394161664