Esther 4:14<\/p>\n\n\n\n
April 5, 2002<\/p>\n\n\n\n
On Easter Sunday when I was inviting the congregation if they had any prayer requests, a young adult named, Rodney sitting on the right of me said, \u201cPray for the Hoosiers!\u201d It didn\u2019t matter that Rodney was born in SF. He completed his MA in Human Resources at IU. Once Rodney caught the spirit of being an Indiana Hoosier, he was rooting for them all the way! Rodney was not keeping silent when the NCAA title was on the line.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I want to thank Jeremy Fackenthal and Jessica Dyke in inviting me back to one of my favorite places in our American Baptist Churches\u2014Indiana! I was here for the Indianapolis Biennial. I remember leading workshops at Franklin College and the Indiana Baptist Assembly. And the last National Gathering of American Baptist Youth that I directed was \u201cRaise the Roof\u201d in Bloomington. It\u2019s great to be home with you and to be with old friends like Ced Cox and Larry Sayre! For such a time as this on this convention weekend, Terra Haute is the place to be!<\/p>\n\n\n\n
When we came to this year\u2019s convention, we knew we are Hoosiers. We left our various communities and local churches in Kentucky, Indianapolis, and across the entire state of Indiana to come to this one place in Terra Haute to be American Baptist Youth. No one needed to tell us who we are. We know.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But in the Scripture lesson for tonight, we read about Queen Esther in the court of King Ahasuerus around the 5th<\/sup> or 4th<\/sup> BC. She wasn\u2019t sure who she really was. After the first queen was banished for not coming to the king\u2019s banquet, Esther cleverly used her beauty and charm to have the king\u2019s favor. Although she was Jewish, Esther hid her identity so that she can become queen. Esther was keeping silent at this time. When the king saw her, he was completely taken by her beauty. He loved Esther more than the other women so he made her his queen.<\/p>\n\n\n\n While Esther was scheming to become queen, her cousin Mordecai charged her not to tell anyone that she was Jewish. He walked around the court everyday making sure Esther was doing okay.<\/p>\n\n\n\n And when there was a plot to assassinate the king, Mordecai was eavesdropping at the time. He discovered the plot, told Esther about it, and got the bad guys. For his good works, Mordecai was like by the king too.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Everything was going well until Haman came. Haman wanted Mordecai to bow down to the king and when he didn\u2019t, Haman painted a picture of the Jews, as \u201ca certain people\u201d scattered in the kingdom who kept to themselves. He told the king that these people were potentially dangerous because they followed their own laws and disobeyed the king\u2019s laws. Jews were different in their dress, speech, diet, and so on.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Telling the king that he should not tolerate this potentially challenging situation to his kingdom, a decree was sent out to destroy the Jews. Orders were given out to destroy, kill, and to annihilate all Jews, young and old, women and children, in one day, the thirteenth day of the twelfth month. No one would be spared. Permission was also given to take the Jews\u2019 possessions as loot.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In Chapter 4, we see why Mordecai said to Esther, \u201cWho knows? Perhaps you have come to royal dignity for just such a time as this.\u201d Mordecai was challenging Esther as a queen to stand up for her people by showing some dignity and respect for who she herself really was\u2014a Jew!<\/p>\n\n\n\n But by this time, Esther had already fallen from the king\u2019s favorite queen status. Esther\u2019s world was more of a fixture in the king\u2019s court and more immediately with the other women than at the king\u2019s side. Her life was control by the rules and customs of the palace. Here, the king rules in his house, and without his invitation, his summons, no one is to approach him. Those who do without an invitation are put to death. And what is even more disturbing to Esther is that she hasn\u2019t been called to go to the king in a month.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In such a time, Mordecai wants Esther to help save the destruction of the Jews. He said to her, \u201cDo you think that in the king\u2019s palace you will escape any more than all the other Jews? For if you keep silence at such a time as this, relief and deliverance will rise for the Jews from another quarter, but you and your father\u2019s family will perish. Who knows?\u201d Mordecai was saying to Esther, \u201cYou are a Jew. If there\u2019s anytime in your life that you need to know your identity, it\u2019s now. Right now, for such a time as this!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n I wonder what Mordecai meant when he said to Esther, \u201cWho knows?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Maybe he was saying to her, \u201cDo you know who you are and whose you are? At this particular time of urgency, \u201cDoes it matter that you are the queen when your real people are about to be killed?\u201d Who knows what was going through Esther\u2019s head at this time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Esther has been passive in the story so far, following the advice of the men in power around her, getting by on her beauty and charm. She was prudent, perhaps too much so. When her cousin, Mordecai created so much disturbance protesting the king\u2019s order to destroyed the Jews, Esther was afraid, and her first instincts were to stop him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Do we know who we are today? We know we are Hoosiers but how well do we know that we are Christians?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Over three years ago, I accepted the position to be pastor of the First Chinese Baptist Church in San Francisco. Our church is located right in the heart of Chinatown. There\u2019re all kinds of people around our church\u2014out of town tourists visiting the shops, homeless people sleeping outside our doorway, and Chinese parents and kids playing in the playground behind our church.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Across the street, there is a Buddhist temple. Down the street is the famous Tien Tin Temple. Up and down many of the streets are family associations that have Chinese lion clubs dancing and setting off loud firecrackers to fight off spirits and to hope for a more prosperous new year. When you are a Baptist Christian in San Francisco Chinatown, you know that you\u2019re a Christian because so many other people are not. When a person comes to know Jesus Christ, we help these new Christians understand the differences between Buddhism from Christianity; the differences between Confucianism and Christianity; the differences between spirits worship from Christianity. We can\u2019t keep silence at such a time as this.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Last year when our Sunday school Primary children class went out with their teachers for recess in the Chinese Playground behind our church, they discovered that when they came back in, they had more kids than when they went out. We found out that when the parents of these neighborhood kids saw how much fun our SS kids were having, they wanted some of that fun, love and attention for their own children too. Now this class of first and second graders has over 50 kids! With the children came the parents. So we started teaching them English with Bible stories. When unexpected surprises happened in such a time, we can\u2019t be silent about the Gospel. We have to speak up loudly to share about Jesus Christ!<\/p>\n\n\n\n Against the possibility of being killed by the king, Esther spoke up. Against the king\u2019s decree to destroy all of the Jews, Esther spoke up. Against her years of living in security and hiding her identity, Esther revealed who she is and finally spoke up.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Out of our silence, we too must speak up in such a time as this. We can\u2019t live our lives in the security of our church\u2019s courtyards and not speak up when we see injustices and needs in our community. We can\u2019t depend on the reputation of being Hoosiers and forget that our identity is with Jesus Christ. We need to root and cheer and jump out of our seats for Jesus Christ as we do for our sports teams!<\/p>\n\n\n\n When I completed my seminary in 1975 at Andover Newton in Boston, I was really proud of myself. I had my homiletics professor, Dr. Eddie O\u2019Neal to preach at my ordination service. I had on this beautiful black robe. I was fit to be in a palace. You can say, I was like Esther\u2014secured and favored. Until Dr. O\u2019Neal started to preach.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The title of his sermon was \u201cCoolie for Christ!\u201d He told me and in front of all of my friends, family, and home church members who came to witness my accomplishments that for me to follow Jesus as a Christian pastor, I needed to be a \u201ccoolie.\u201d A coolie is a derogatory word for a subservient Chinese laborer usually with no rights and privileges. I was shocked at what I heard. I wanted Dr. O\u2019Neal to stop preaching and be silent. At that moment, I also realized I had a lot of personal ego to empty out of my life. But now after many years, I thank Dr. O\u2019Neal for speaking the word of God to me that I needed to hear before I started my first ministry. It\u2019s not where I graduated from. It wasn\u2019t that black robe that I was wearing. It has never been what I have thought to be important. It has always been to identify with Jesus and for me to be a coolie for Christ.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Esther realized this for herself too. She couldn\u2019t stay anonymous anymore. She couldn\u2019t hide underneath those queen clothes she was wearing anymore. If she was going to save her people, she will need to speak up. She needs to claim her identity and to do the work of the Lord.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Your challenge for this weekend and for your life is to discover what God is calling you to be. God called Esther out of her obscurity in the court of the king to save her people. God is calling you too to a great task. And when we identify ourselves as Christians, we begin to claim for ourselves our true identity as sisters and brothers in Christ and God\u2019s children. Nothing will keep us from speaking out for God.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In January 1206, a conflict arose between Pietro Bernardone and his rebellious son, Francesco in a little Italian hill town named Assisi. After young Francesco came home from war and recovered from a long illness, he was acting strangely. In a little chapel named San Damiano, just outside the walls of Assisi, Francesco had a conversion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n When he started to give away the family\u2019s cloth fabrics and money to the poor, his father was enraged. The father has built up the business and his son seems bent on tearing it down by giving everything away.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The conflict came to a head when the father appealed to the bishop. Pietro charged his son with being disobedient and ungrateful. Francesco\u2019s response was to tell his father that he would now cheerfully give him back his money and his clothes. At that moment, Francesco took off all his clothes and stood naked before everyone.<\/p>\n\n\n\n According to one account, the embarrassed bishop placed his own coat over the young man. Another says that Francesco walked away with a shepherd\u2019s rude cloak on him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In one brief act the son denied himself of his inheritance\u2014his wealth and fine clothes, his status and security in the community\u2014in order to claim a greater inheritance, that of the Kingdom of God. To this day, the world continues to admire St. Francis of Assisi\u2019s daring commitment to the poor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Esther out of her compassion to save her people took action and identified with her people. St. Francis out of his commitment to feed the hungry and the poor took off his nice clothes to identify with God\u2019s kingdom over our worldly kingdoms. And today is such a time, for you and me to identify with Jesus Christ as he calls us to be his people.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Let us pray.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Gracious Lord God, we seek the courage to identify with your will and plan for our lives. Free us from the security of life where we may hide our faithfulness to you. Transform our silence into testifying the Good News of Jesus Christ in your world. We pray in the name of our Risen Lord. Amen.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Esther 4:14 April 5, 2002 On Easter Sunday when I was inviting the congregation if they had any prayer requests, a young adult named, Rodney sitting on the right ofWho Knows?<\/h6>\n\n\n\n
St. Francis<\/h6>\n\n\n\n
For Such a Time as Now<\/h6>\n\n\n\n