Those of you who know me, know that I’m a celebration and confetti type of person.
My husband says my life is made up of exclamation marks. Joy is my default and I tend to run from pain and sadness like roadrunner from Wile E. Coyote.
Hello 2020.
I can’t possibly understand what people of color have, and are experiencing, but I, like all of us, need to listen, lament and respond. I have tried to do this over the years and need to keep learning and getting better at being anti-racist.
Recently, with more injustice and racial discrimination coming to light, I have been re-reading the book of Esther – a book about the abuse of power and injustice.
I remember when our girls were in grade school, Tomie DiPaola was the author of the month and our daughter took this book to share, but was told she couldn’t because it was “religious”.
Ironically, it is the one book of the Bible where God isn’t mentioned, but like a picture window in the home of a toddler, His fingerprints are everywhere.
In case you need a (very) quick refresher...Vashti is queen, married to Xerxes. She refuses to come be put on display during one of Xerxes drunken orgies.
Xerxes banishes her and announces a beauty contest to look for new queen.
Esther lives with her uncle, Mordecai (both Jews), hides her Jewish identity, wins the contest and becomes queen.
Mordecai uncovers a plot to assassinate Xerxes and tells Esther who tells X, ingratiating herself, and Mordecai
Mordecai refuses to bow to Haman, Xerxes right-hand guy.
Haman, furious, gets X to let him make a decree that all Jews will be killed.
Mordecai laments, prays, and persuades Esther to intervene
Esther supported and challenged by Mordecai, advocates on behalf of her people and they are saved. Haman is impaled.
I’ve been looking at the different roles people were called to play (or didn’t).
- Like Queen Vashti are we refusing to take part in systems that dehumanize? (Esther 1:10-12)
- Are we King Xerxes, abdicating responsibility and turning a blind eye when Haman wants to kill the Jews? ( 3:10, 15)
- Are we like Haman, concerned with protecting our power and dehumanizing others? (3:5,6)
- Or Mordecai, telling truth, leading his people in appropriate response, and encouraging the voice of Esther? (4:7,8,12-14)
- Are we, like the Jews, lamenting and praying? (4:1-3)
- Or Esther, challenged to speak truth to power with wisdom and strategic timing? (7:3-4)
Again, I am just a learner, but here are some things I’ve been thinking about…
I do not, do NOT want to abdicate my responsibility to use my voice to speak out against racism and pursue new systems of justice, but I want to humbly listen, listen, listen to my brothers and sisters of color and learn from them, not plow forward as if I know anything.
I also think I need to look for places to be a Mordecai – lifting people of color who have credibility I don’t, to places of leadership and elevating their voices while I support them.
Another idea I’m thinking about is how God may want to use our unique gifts in unique ways as we respond. For example:
- One of my gifts is the ability to connect people. How might I leverage that on behalf of the oppressed?
- Another gift is hospitality. What does it look like to use that gift to champion God’s kingdom where His image is celebrated in all its diversity?
A couple of questions for you:
Is there someone in the story of Esther who you identify with or who convicts you?
What are your gifts and how might you be called to use them?
Post this at all the intersections, dear friends: Lead with your ears, follow up with your tongue, and let anger straggle along in the rear. God’s righteousness doesn’t grow from human anger. So throw all spoiled virtue and cancerous evil in the garbage.
In simple humility, let our gardener, God, landscape you with the Word, making a salvation-garden of your life.
Don’t fool yourself into thinking that you are a listener when you are anything but, letting the Word go in one ear and out the other. Act on what you hear! Those who hear and don’t act are like those who glance in the mirror, walk away, and two minutes later have no idea who they are, what they look like.
James 1:19-24 MSG
