A sermon on Esther 7.1-6,9,10; 9.20-22; Psalm 124; James 5.13-20 & Mark 9.38-50
by Harvey Howlett
A video recording of the whole service, including this sermon, will is available here.
From Psalm 124
Our help is in the name of the Lord
Who made Heaven and Earth
Over the last few days there have been a lot of ministers on facebook and twitter moaning about today’s readings and asking if anyone has any idea what to say. The joy of following the lectionary is there are actually days when that is exactly what happens and you can’t avoid being challenged by difficult words and troublesome stories. Scripture isn’t easy.
But I have to say it has been all the more daunting for me knowing that I was joining you today as your guest – because I don’t know you – and although I have known Nathan for many years now, I have only visited South Yarra once in my life and even then I was with the Anglicans in Hawksburn at the other end of the street.
But I feel like I know a little of this community because I have heard Nathan speak about the community. Indeed as we went online in 2020 it is your example of how to do church by ZOOM which I chose to share with my students training for ministry in the Church of England in London and in Canterbury here in the UK.
So it is a real joy for me to be joining you – but that does not make speaking about these readings any easier.
I began by citing the psalm – in our lectionary the psalm is understood as a response to the old testament reading. So I’m going to begin with the reading from Esther.
The Book of Esther is very peculiar. It is famously included in pub and TV quizzes because it is the only book of the bible that does not mention God.
In addition biblical scholars tell us that it was written many years after the events it seemingly described. Actually, the first words of the book are the same as those in the book of Joshua and that of Ruth – ‘Now it came to pass’ a common Hebrew form of words which might be most closely understood as the English storytelling phrase ‘Once upon a time…’. This is a story – it has goodies and baddies. A misguided king, a corrupt villain of an adviser, a beautiful orphan Queen, an honourable Father figure and of course all the twists and turns you would expect to real in a folk tale.
The story ends up celebrating the escape from slaughter of the Jewish people across the whole of the empire of the Medes and the Persians . And this delivery from death is still celebrated today in the Jewish festival of Purim with rejoicing and giving of gifts and a duty (on the men at least) to drink quite a lot of alcohol.
In the extracts we have just heard – Esther pleads to the King and is listened to – the evil villain is found out and put to death.
But it is not actually a very nice story. The good beautiful Queen may have stood up and risked her life to save her people, but then it is not only the villain of the piece who is pursued and killed, but all his family and tribe across the whole empire. We are told 75,000 people are killed.
It does not take very much to see awful parallels in our own where the victor then pursues and kills their opponents – indeed some of the recent events in Afghanistan might be seen in exactly that way.
But the desire to ‘get our own back’ is not just found in the extremes of war, but is found in all of humanity from the children’s play ground to the workplace, the sportsfield and beyond.
But if the story telling of Esther leads us sharply not to rejoicing over release from our enemies but directly to the problems of the world and human response of revenge and retribution which so continues to plague the ways we think and act. The Gospel reading takes us to a different dark place.
Jesus is teaching his disciples. He has just been revealed to Peter and John in the encounter on the mountain top which we call the transfiguration and he is now travelling with his disciples and beginning to explain what is to happen to the son of man.
The disciples are reported to have been arguing amongst themselves as to who was the greatest amongst them and in the household in which they are staying Jesus has lifted up a child into his arms and continues to teach them.
So it is in that context, with children around, that we hear the words of Jesus
If any of you put a stumbling-block before one of these little ones who believe in me, it would be better for you if a great millstone were hung around your neck and you were thrown into the sea.
And then the hard stuff continues
If your hand causes you to stumble cut it off
If you foot causes you to stumble cut it off
If your eye causes you to stumble tear it out
Now I want to make it very clear that Jesus is not actually saying you should do this. It a piece of rhetoric. It’s a deliberate overstatement to make a point. I think I need to state that because the English language makes the text hard to hear.
Worse still a small piece of historical translation means that we hear these words as being about judgement and the life to come – ‘better to enter life maimed then have two hands and go to hell’
Mark, of all the Gospel writers, is concerned with establishing the Kingdom of God – for Mark that Kingdom is a very present reality and it is in the person of Jesus that the reality is made know to us. And indeed through Jesus that we are all being called to take part.
So why when we read this story does it seem to be about something else ‘ if you don’t want to thrown into hell’ do these things.
It’s taken me a very long time to cope with these passages of scripture. Part of the problem comes with the translation – the use of an anglo-saxon word ‘hell’ and a mediaeval understanding of the way the world works. And too often the temptation in the Church to condemn people – to take on ourselves the judgement that is God’s alone and to cast people we find different into ‘hell’.
The text actually refers to the Vale of Hinnom, which is a real place – a valley west and south-west of Jerusalem. It was the place where, if you read the prophet Jeremiah, some of the kings of Judah made sacrificial burnt offerings of their own children. This is a place which became a byword as a cursed place of evil and wickedness. It becomes used in the religious teaching of Jesus’ day as a way of referring to evil and the consequences of evil.
And we are, of course, not then helped in understanding this by the literature which has shaped our view. This year marks the 700th anniversary of Dante and his detailed description in his great allegorical poem of the journey through the circles of hell has shaped generations of writers and painters, film-makers and indeed theologians.
Abandon hope all who enter here, has become the stuff of fiction and Hollywood – but also, and very sadly within the church, the stuff of condemnation and cruelty.
So what is Jesus actually saying
Again this is rhetoric, it’s an exaggerated figure of speech to make a point to the disciples.
And it is being done by Jesus not to make people fearful of a place of wickedness to which you could end up, but rather to encourage you to follow him in proclaiming the good news.
As the Gospel of John puts it ‘to live life in all its fullness’,
Mark describes it at the end of today’s Gospel as ‘to keep salt in ourselves’
so that we can be salt for the world.
The job of bringing in the Kingdom is not about making people fearful of the consequences but about drawing people into relationship with God, as best as they can be and without putting stumbling blocks in the way of them finding their way to God.
It is no little surprise that the final words of these rhetorical passages are
– and be at peace with one another.
Suddenly the whole exchange becomes revealed, not as some gothic nightmare, but as exaggeration to tell off the disciples for the arguing amongst themselves . Don’t you realise that your squabbling is turning people away from the truth you are here to proclaim – be at peace.
Being at peace is, of course, no easy matter.
The call we have to be reconciled with each other. To forgive one another and to seek that forgiveness is not at all easy.
In our worship we do this formally in prayers of confession and in declarations of God’s forgiveness. But it remains truly a struggle with which we all live.
The Philippine Anglican scholar Thomas Madella has written of the prayers of confession in a service as bringing the whole of our lives into focus before God.
We can’t now go shopping without engaging in questions of justice – and certainly the shared heritage of England and Australia asks serious questions for us about the distribution of wealth and the use of resources, the treatment of formerly enslaved peoples or of indigenous communities and our role today in continuing economic in-balance. What T-shirt I buy and where the cotton comes from is as much about water rights and the treatment of working peoples, about climate change and the protection of the planet, and is as much a matter for my confession and for my prayer.
Indeed, as the effect of the pandemic continues in lockdowns and restrictions – we have to ask about the questions of justice in vaccine distribution
And as we look to the effects of climate change – the impact of rising sea levels particularly and immediately on small island nations in the pacific
But that is the call of justice which is also there in Jesus call to live the kingdom – the call which commands us not to put a stumbling block in the way of the little ones.
You are probably now wondering if I can make this any more difficult. Why has Nathan invited this sombre preacher??
So with all of that in mind I want to turn to the reading from James.
Over the past few weeks we have been working our way through the Letter of James in the Lectionary. I have not listened to all the recent sermons you have had, but I know that several of those who have preached have spoken about this. Today the reading brings that journey through the letter of James to an end.
The letter of James has often been seen as problematic itself. Some have argued that it should not really be in Scripture at all. But here it is, describing in its careful way rules and thoughts for how church should be. It is a genuine letter about church organisation and behaviour , about holding the faith in joy and to the bringing in of the kingdom in all that we do.
It has quite a down to earth practical tone and deals with the reality of church life, of deference and squabbling.
As the letter draws to a close it calls its readers to prayer. To laying on of hands and anointing the sick – to praying with and for each other.
Jesus’s rhetoric with his disciples in our Gospel was reminding them of the call to peace with each other. James echoes this in his injunction to the church – to seek out the good and pray with and for each other in faith and in failing, so that all may come into the fullness of life .
I began with the verse from today’s psalm
Our help is in the name of the Lord
Who made Heaven and Earth
The psalm takes us back to Esther and to rejoicing at our deliverance in the face of adversity. But unlike the story of Esther we rejoice in the name of Lord, not at the death of our adversary in some continuing argument of retribution and injustice, but because in our revelation of God in Jesus we see a call to live life for each other, to pray for each other, to hold the good of each other before our own.
In doing so we may just begin to truly glimpse the Kingdom of God as it breaks into our world and to understand
That our help is truly in the name of Lord
Who made heaven and earth.
4 Comments
Harvey Howlett was described in Nathan’s introduction as working for Anglican personnel called “Commissioners”. Harvey described his role in all its complexities such as sorting out the legal, logistical and people issues of sustaining congregations; and in a note of self-deference he apologetically summed up his role as “closing churches”. Later in course of his sermon he said, again deferentially: “..You are probably now wondering if I can make this any more difficult. Why has Nathan invited this sombre preacher?? …So with all of that in mind I want to turn to the reading from James…..Over the past few weeks we have been working our way through the Letter of James in the Lectionary. I have not listened to all the recent sermons you have had, but I know that several of those who have preached have spoken about this. Today the reading brings that journey through the letter of James to an end. The letter of James has often been seen as problematic itself. Some have argued that it should not really be in Scripture at all. But here it is, describing in its careful way rules and thoughts for how church should be. It is a genuine letter about church organisation and behaviour , about holding the faith in joy and to the bringing in of the kingdom in all that we do. It has quite a down to earth practical tone and deals with the reality of church life, of deference and squabbling…….”
So rather than having a “sombre preacher” we have listened to someone who brings a great charism to the church..that charism of practically engaging with church life so that we all can flourish within its boundaries..”. Now this is not just tangential to the three Readings which Harvey told us is a confusing set of Readings for many would be preachers. However there are several key words in Greek and several storylines common to the three texts and the Psalm 124 that lead me to think that the thread that links them all is “Body’ both in the sense of The Body that is the Christian Community (Church) and the physical Body. It is about those who would divide the body and diminish it and those who would unite the body and flourish it. Given Harvey’s charism what better person to be a sign of such texts. Hence it is no accident that Harvey concluded his wonderful sermon with the accent on “…………..Jesus’s rhetoric with his disciples in our Gospel was reminding them of the call to peace with each other. James echoes this in his injunction to the church – to seek out the good and pray with and for each other in faith and in failing, so that all may come into the fullness of life .”. Harvey drew attention to the strange aggregation of three phrases dealing with “salt”. My limited understanding is that “salt” is lnked to the Jewish concept of “covenant, unity, gathering together”. This is most apparent, i am told, in Acts Chapter 1 verse 4 which in English reads as “meeting together” but in Greek uses a word ( derived from sun-halizo = salt together) that means to “eat salt together” – ie to be at peace with each other in covenant. Hence the Gospel’s focus on that which drives a “small one” from the Body gathered in Faith and which divides even the physical body ( eye, hand; foot). The Reading from Esther is about the threat of annihilation of the Jewish Body. The remedy is to kill 75000 relatives. Harvey mentioned the Book of Joshua. James Alison wrote a series called ” Jesus The Forgiving Victim” in which he compared the Road to Emmaus Story of Luke and the story of the annihilation of Achan and all his clan and animals in Joshua Chapter 7 for breaking faith with the other clans of the community. Such broad based annihilation was to preserves the whole community from any revenge vendettas from surviving relatives. All the clan had to die to ensure the continuity of the existing legitimate Body. And finally Psalm 124 features at verse 7 the reference is to the “snare of the fowler”. In the Gospel of Mark the “offense” caused to the ‘small ones in faith” and to the “hands, eye and feet” is described with another Greek word which we translate as “scandal” but which is derived from a word for the “bait on the stick of the snare/trap”. A scandal is something which causes us “to fall” as described of Haman in Esther Chapter 6(13). It is a “stumbling block”. Esther is the stumbling block to Haman just as the stumbling block for Mark’s text is described and just like the image of Psalm 124 of being caught in the “fowler’s snare”. Nathan, with his intensely strong Girardian knowledge, can tell us heaps about the role of a “scandalion” in the rivalry and corruption of the community.
So Harvey, you started out with a signal that these texts often prove a stumbling block for preachers. You said” “……Over the last few days there have been a lot of ministers on Facebook and twitter moaning about today’s readings and asking if anyone has any idea what to say. The joy of following the lectionary is there are actually days when that is exactly what happens and you can’t avoid being challenged by difficult words and troublesome stories. Scripture isn’t easy…..” You need not have worried. Before you had even uttered a word of your sermon it was made clear to us by the Holy Spirit that you have come to us tonight as one charged with building up the Body even when it appears to some that your “tearing it down” by “closing churches” as you put it. Your sermon was profound and enriching and your witness of a life embodying the Words of Scripture into the real bodies of your neighbourhood went even deeper. thank you.
An additional source of my thanks for harvey and the South Yarra Community derives from the different Readings that were listened to in Catholic Masses this last weekend. My Tradition used a Reading from Numbers which focusses on 2 men who prophesised though they had not joined the rest of the community in the Tent of Meeting. Picking up on the Gospel and John’s request to Jesus to marginalise the maverick healer, in Numbers Moses was asked to marginalise the two “mavericks”. Now when i heard these readings at Catholic Mass and before listening to Harvey’s sermon last night, my attention was drawn to the theme of “inclusion” and obviously away from the gory last half of the Gospel and all the bllodshedding of cutting off body parts and drownings with millstones. So Catholics could avoid the violence that we hear about in Esther and Mark. Fortunately I received harvey’s teaching and the benefit of the alternative reading (Esther) that is far more extensive and revealing about division and marginalising behaviours in church communities. Without the insights of the Baptist lectionary we are left with a rather strange juxtaposition of “maverick” healers and “maverick” prophets over against drownings and self mutilitations. The Esther reading is much more aligned with the violence and therefore poses a far greater challenge as harvey pointed out in describing the contortions suffered by his fellow preachers in seeking themes. The extreme messages of the Baptist lectionary compared with the more “dignified” margin message of the catholic lectionary sets us well for next week which is about Jesus uncompromising teaching about Divorce and re-Marriage. Catholics who hold to that teaching in all its extremes are in open revolt with the present Pope Francis over the role of private conscience and accompanying divorced and re-married Catholics to re-engage with the church community without seeking annulments and while presenting themselves for reception of Holy Communion. So Mark’s Gospel hyperbole is not just about this week but the stance occasioned by the strong themes ( calling Peter a ‘satan’) affects a lot of contemporary issues.
Finally may i make a comment to you Baptists about the Esther reading where the King responds in Chapter 7(2) to Esther’s request with the words: “…I will grant whatever you want…even half my kingdom..”. My hearing of that phrasing of the reading immediately rings in my ears as the exact same words that Herod used to Salome in the lead-up to the beheading of John the Baptist. Is Mark’s account of the beheading dependent in anyway on this Jewish story experienced and recounted in the Book of Esther. Given the centrality of John the Baptiser to your community I assume that this literary/historical similarity has been addressed in sermons before within your community. However another fortunate outcome of my presence with you all last night was an encounter with that Esther reading for the first time for me and my encounter with the King Ahasuerus/King Herod overlap alerts me to an interesting phenomena which i hope Nathan will teach me about in some later occasion.
Thanks Harvey for your words. I think it is a challenge to let go of those things that might be valuable to us, or that we even thought were essential, when they start to get in the way of our faithful discipleship, of loving others. One of my favourite stories by the author illustrator Shaun Tan called ‘the nameless holiday’ in his book Tales from Outer Suburbia describes a ritual of giving away cherished items, the dsire to cling, the feelings of loss and the release of letting go.
Thank you for your sermon Harvey. I really appreciated how you connected all the readings together and I especially appreciated your explanation of the gospel passage. They may have been a difficult set of readings but you certainly communicated meaning, hope and peace.