Introduction

The Book of Esther dramatically tells the story of how individual sin can become systemic and structural through corrupt legislation. Yet, in a sense, the fact that God never explicitly appears in the narrative challenges listeners and readers to ask themselves: How can I leverage my privilege to stand in solidarity with the vulnerable?

Queen Esther

2:3 LET THE KING…GATHER ALL THE BEAUTIFUL YOUNG VIRGINS TO THE HAREM. Is this the proper exercise of royal power? What would you call this action in today’s terms?

2:7 MORDECAI HAD BROUGHT UP HADASSAH, THAT IS ESTHER. Why would she have needed two different names? If you have experience of hiding, suppressing, or denying parts of your identity, would you be willing to share what that is like?

2:12 TWELVE MONTHS…OF THEIR COSMETIC TREATMENT. … SHE WAS GIVEN WHATEVER SHE ASKED FOR. The American Protestant Old Testament scholar Walter Brueggemann explains that this is an age-old imperial ploy: gratify to pacify.

Imperial economics is designed to keep people satiated so they do not notice. Its politics is intended to block out the cries of the denied ones. Its religion is to be an opiate so that no one discerns misery alive in the heart of God (Brueggemann 35).

Do you think this tactic works? How would beauty treatments and material possessions distract people from their experience of being exploited?

3:2 ALL THE KING’S SERVANTS…BOWED DOWN AND DID OBEISANCE TO HAMAN…. BUT MORDECAI DID NOT BOW DOWN OR DO OBEISANCE. In what ways are people enticed or coerced to bow down to the powers that be?

3:5-6 HAMAN WAS INFURIATED. BUT HE THOUGHT IT BENEATH HIM TO LAY HANDS ON MORDECAI ALONE. SO…HAMAN PLOTTED TO DESTROY ALL THE JEWS, THE PEOPLE OF MORDECAI. Trace how Haman’s personal and individual sin extends to becoming a systemic and structural sin. Why do you think it was “beneath” Haman to hurt only Mordecai? Why is there this tendency to not only hate a person but the people that person belongs to?

3:8-9 THEN HAMAN SAID TO KING AHASUERUS, “THERE IS A CERTAIN PEOPLE … LET A DECREE BE ISSUED FOR THEIR DESTRUCTION.” Even though Haman himself is a foreigner, he misinformed the king in hopes of bringing about the genocide of the Jewish people. Haman described the Jews as criminals, and separatists too different to fit in. They needed to be eliminated or else they will undermine the empire (Gilliard 47). Have you seen marginalized people pitted against one another? In your own upbringing, were you ever taught that a certain group of people were just too bad and too different to be tolerated?

4:1-2 MORDECAI TORE HIS CLOTHES AND PUT ON SACKCLOTH AND ASHES,…WAILING WITH A LOUD AND BITTER CRY; 2 HE WENT UP TO THE ENTRANCE OF THE KING’S GATE, FOR NO ONE MIGHT ENTER THE KING’S GATE CLOTHED WITH SACKCLOTH. Why would it be prohibited to grieve and lament in the king’s court?

Our public lament makes it clear that things are not as they should be, not as they were promised, and not as they must be. Bringing hurt to public expression is an important first step in the dismantling criticism that permits a new reality, theological and social, to emerge (Brueggemann 12).

By wailing loudly in sackcloth, Mordecai was publicly expressing the injustice of exterminating the Jewish people. How have you seen the oppressed publicly lament in today’s world? What do those in power do to suppress those public expressions of lament?

Kings would do everything but grieve, for that is the ultimate criticism and the decisive announcement of dismantling. ... Weeping is something kings rarely do without losing their thrones (Brueggemann 57).

In what ways have you seen the dominant seeks to silence the outcry and critique of those on the bottom of society? How would grief and lament open up a new reality?

4:4 THE QUEEN WAS DEEPLY DISTRESSED; SHE SENT GARMENTS TO CLOTHE MORDECAI, SO THAT HE MIGHT TAKE OFF HIS SACKCLOTH. Sackcloth was a coarse garment made of goat hair, making it suitable attire for times of danger, grief, personal and national crisis, and distress (Elwell and Beitzel 1880). Why does Esther want to cover up her cousin’s pain? When we cover up our pain, does that solve the reason why we are hurt in the first place? Has the church done this: ask people crying out for help to clean themselves up and dress more palatably first before inquiring about the reason for their outcry?

4:5 THEN ESTHER CALLED FOR HATHACH,… AND ORDERED HIM TO GO TO MORDECAI TO LEARN WHAT WAS HAPPENING AND WHY. Why did Esther not know what going on with her people? What motivated her to learn? On a scale of 1 to 10, 10 being “very knowledgeable,” how knowledgeable are you about your people’s history of suffering?

4:13 DO NOT THINK THAT IN THE KING’S PALACE YOU WILL ESCAPE ANY MORE THAN ALL THE OTHER JEWS. 14 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’S FAMILY WILL PERISH. WHO KNOWS? PERHAPS YOU HAVE COME TO ROYAL DIGNITY FOR JUST SUCH A TIME AS THIS. What exactly was Esther’s privilege? What does Mordecai’s speech teach you about the nature of privilege? Do the privileged always get their privileges pleasantly? Is it something to trust in? Is it something to feel guilty about? How should it be used, and whom should it be used for? What happens if we choose not to leverage our privilege for justice?