A very interesting and disturbing sermon today on the Book of Esther. He started out by saying that Esther is considered controversial because it never mentions God, faith, prayer, religion. God is absent, working behind the scenes, and in that respect Esther is more like life as we experience it. We don't see where God's plan is headed.
Esther is a complicated and convoluted book about a Jewish woman who rises to become Queen of Persia and foils a plot to kill all the Jews. Pastor said that God was basically presented with a crisis at that point, because the promised Messiah had to come from a specific Jewish lineage and if all the Jews were killed, well, then . . . But now the Messiah has come, you see. So is that why Hitler damn near succeeded with the Holocaust, I wonder? He didn't mention anything about that. Of course not. The Holocaust plays very little role in Christian sensibilities. After all, it wasn't us who were nearly exterminated, just like those who have never experienced bullying think those who have been bullied make too much of it. No, he did not say that God no longer needs to protect the Jews, but I just wonder how well his statements would play in the local synagogue. Heck, I'm not Jewish and I was appalled at the implication of what he was saying.
The interesting thing about the Book of Esther is that it claims to be a record of events that happened during the days of the Persian empire, yet history knows almost nothing about its main characters. The problem is the names given in the Bible do not match the names of who was on the throne back then. Some scholars think that the king might have been Xerxes, but if so, what about the queens Vashti and Esther? There is no record of any Jewish queen of Persia at any time by any name, any more than there has been a Buddhist president of the United States. This is not a matter of obscure trivia; these were state records. The editors of my Jewish Study Bible seem to think that Esther is fiction, much like Jonah, and I tend to agree. Nonetheless it doesn't stop people from speculating, especially about the fate of Vashti, the queen who defied the king. She was a) beheaded, b) banished to the minor harem, c) cast out into the streets or d) came back to power after Esther died. Take your pick. She was either a hero or a villain. A hero because she stood up for herself by refusing to attend her husband's drunken party (there's a tradition she was asked to dance nude before the men) or a villain because she made her serving girls work nude on the Sabbath and this was her husband's way of humiliating her in return (like he would care about the serving girls). You can go online and find all kinds of stories.
On the disobedience of Vashti, all Pastor really had to say was that things are not always as black and white as they seem and that really neither one of them were saints. They were all pagans. His emphasis is on how God can use anyone no matter how unlikely, to accomplish his purpose. Again, I'd like to know how Hitler and his henchmen fit into that scheme. Or maybe I really don't want to know. It's fascinating watching him skid time and time to the edge of the precipice then abruptly change course. Is he really aware of where he is going with this stuff or not?
But if life is just one big puppet show and we are all being used unknowingly by the Great Puppet Master in the sky, then where does free will come in? How could Adam have sinned and rebelled if this was in the script all along? At least in the theater I know from reading the script what the playwright's intent is and can interpret the role accordingly. Or I can rebel and say I won't play that role at all. I can choose. But if you don't know, if you are being manipulated behind the scenes, how can you choose? And it sounds like that is what is going on. As the Qu'ran says in many places, people may scheme but Allah is the biggest schemer of all. A battle of wits and not one of us is free to abstain.
Stay tuned . . .
Esther is a complicated and convoluted book about a Jewish woman who rises to become Queen of Persia and foils a plot to kill all the Jews. Pastor said that God was basically presented with a crisis at that point, because the promised Messiah had to come from a specific Jewish lineage and if all the Jews were killed, well, then . . . But now the Messiah has come, you see. So is that why Hitler damn near succeeded with the Holocaust, I wonder? He didn't mention anything about that. Of course not. The Holocaust plays very little role in Christian sensibilities. After all, it wasn't us who were nearly exterminated, just like those who have never experienced bullying think those who have been bullied make too much of it. No, he did not say that God no longer needs to protect the Jews, but I just wonder how well his statements would play in the local synagogue. Heck, I'm not Jewish and I was appalled at the implication of what he was saying.
The interesting thing about the Book of Esther is that it claims to be a record of events that happened during the days of the Persian empire, yet history knows almost nothing about its main characters. The problem is the names given in the Bible do not match the names of who was on the throne back then. Some scholars think that the king might have been Xerxes, but if so, what about the queens Vashti and Esther? There is no record of any Jewish queen of Persia at any time by any name, any more than there has been a Buddhist president of the United States. This is not a matter of obscure trivia; these were state records. The editors of my Jewish Study Bible seem to think that Esther is fiction, much like Jonah, and I tend to agree. Nonetheless it doesn't stop people from speculating, especially about the fate of Vashti, the queen who defied the king. She was a) beheaded, b) banished to the minor harem, c) cast out into the streets or d) came back to power after Esther died. Take your pick. She was either a hero or a villain. A hero because she stood up for herself by refusing to attend her husband's drunken party (there's a tradition she was asked to dance nude before the men) or a villain because she made her serving girls work nude on the Sabbath and this was her husband's way of humiliating her in return (like he would care about the serving girls). You can go online and find all kinds of stories.
On the disobedience of Vashti, all Pastor really had to say was that things are not always as black and white as they seem and that really neither one of them were saints. They were all pagans. His emphasis is on how God can use anyone no matter how unlikely, to accomplish his purpose. Again, I'd like to know how Hitler and his henchmen fit into that scheme. Or maybe I really don't want to know. It's fascinating watching him skid time and time to the edge of the precipice then abruptly change course. Is he really aware of where he is going with this stuff or not?
But if life is just one big puppet show and we are all being used unknowingly by the Great Puppet Master in the sky, then where does free will come in? How could Adam have sinned and rebelled if this was in the script all along? At least in the theater I know from reading the script what the playwright's intent is and can interpret the role accordingly. Or I can rebel and say I won't play that role at all. I can choose. But if you don't know, if you are being manipulated behind the scenes, how can you choose? And it sounds like that is what is going on. As the Qu'ran says in many places, people may scheme but Allah is the biggest schemer of all. A battle of wits and not one of us is free to abstain.
Stay tuned . . .
