Today we returned to the Book of Esther. We are now on chapter 4. All the Jews have learned that that an order has been issued from the palace calling for their extermination on a certain day and now they are all boo-hooing about it. Mordecai especially. He goes up to the palace all dressed in sackcloth and ashes and tells the chief eunuch he has a message for Esther. So the chief eunuch goes to Esther's room and tells her Mordecai has a message for her and she tells him to go back and ask him what it is, because they can't meet face to face and the telephone hasn't been invented yet, neither has e-mail or anything else. So back and forth this guy goes.
What Mordecai wants is for Esther to go to the king and tell him to call off the proposed massacre. Esther replies (though the eunuch) that he of all people ought to know you don't just walk into the king's chamber any time you feel like it, there is beaucoup security especially since there's been several assassination attempts, and anyone who does go there uninvited is likely to be killed unless the king holds out his scepter. And, she adds, she hasn't heard from him in at least a month. But Mordecai prevails upon her and she says ok, I'll do it, if I get killed, I get killed. (To be continued).
So I'm sitting here listening to Pastor read this and I am thinking, if I heard on the news that on a certain day that a bunch of people were coming to kill me and my family the very last thing I'd be doing is sitting around crying about it. I'd be going out and getting whatever weapons I could get my hands on, at the very least a baseball bat or a lead pipe. I'd be making homemade nun chucks. I'd be getting all my hot sauces and making pepper spray. And they may very well kill me but they're going to suffer some damage too.
What a contrast to the modern State of Israel! Whatever else you can say about them, the Israelis know how to kick ass. When they say "Never again" they mean exactly that. They don't weep and wail and lament every time the Palestinians do something. The Israelis are proactive, not passive. They have to be, surrounded by people whose stated goal is to drive them into the sea. And if someone said that to me that they intended to drive me out of where I live, I'd take that very seriously. That doesn't excuse everything the Israelis have done or say that the Palestinians don't have legitimate grievances either.
I am willing to bet that you will seldom if ever hear the word "proactive" used in a religious context. I never heard it until a few years ago it became a big buzzword at work. And I thought, "Wow! What a concept! This is 180 degrees opposite of what I am hearing at church!" There, passivity is the buzzword of the day. How many times are we told to "Wait upon the Lord"? To not use one's own initiative? To behave exactly like the Jews in the Book of Esther are behaving? Oh, help, help, woe is us, who is going to save us?
Pastor made a big deal out of the fact that neither Mordecai nor Esther knew what the outcome would be. "You are our only hope," Mordecai tells her. But there was no guarantee that she wouldn't be killed--and if she was, how would that help things? To get back to the Israelis, so far they have won every major battle they have fought since 1948, often against seemingly overwhelming odds. What a contrast to Biblical Israel! In fact, it is precisely because Biblical Israel was defeated and exiled that the Jews in Persia now find themselves threatened. For all their God-talk, Biblical Israel had a pretty inept military. Modern Israel doesn't engage in much God-talk, but so far they have been more than capable of holding their own. Is there a lesson here?
What Mordecai wants is for Esther to go to the king and tell him to call off the proposed massacre. Esther replies (though the eunuch) that he of all people ought to know you don't just walk into the king's chamber any time you feel like it, there is beaucoup security especially since there's been several assassination attempts, and anyone who does go there uninvited is likely to be killed unless the king holds out his scepter. And, she adds, she hasn't heard from him in at least a month. But Mordecai prevails upon her and she says ok, I'll do it, if I get killed, I get killed. (To be continued).
So I'm sitting here listening to Pastor read this and I am thinking, if I heard on the news that on a certain day that a bunch of people were coming to kill me and my family the very last thing I'd be doing is sitting around crying about it. I'd be going out and getting whatever weapons I could get my hands on, at the very least a baseball bat or a lead pipe. I'd be making homemade nun chucks. I'd be getting all my hot sauces and making pepper spray. And they may very well kill me but they're going to suffer some damage too.
What a contrast to the modern State of Israel! Whatever else you can say about them, the Israelis know how to kick ass. When they say "Never again" they mean exactly that. They don't weep and wail and lament every time the Palestinians do something. The Israelis are proactive, not passive. They have to be, surrounded by people whose stated goal is to drive them into the sea. And if someone said that to me that they intended to drive me out of where I live, I'd take that very seriously. That doesn't excuse everything the Israelis have done or say that the Palestinians don't have legitimate grievances either.
I am willing to bet that you will seldom if ever hear the word "proactive" used in a religious context. I never heard it until a few years ago it became a big buzzword at work. And I thought, "Wow! What a concept! This is 180 degrees opposite of what I am hearing at church!" There, passivity is the buzzword of the day. How many times are we told to "Wait upon the Lord"? To not use one's own initiative? To behave exactly like the Jews in the Book of Esther are behaving? Oh, help, help, woe is us, who is going to save us?
Pastor made a big deal out of the fact that neither Mordecai nor Esther knew what the outcome would be. "You are our only hope," Mordecai tells her. But there was no guarantee that she wouldn't be killed--and if she was, how would that help things? To get back to the Israelis, so far they have won every major battle they have fought since 1948, often against seemingly overwhelming odds. What a contrast to Biblical Israel! In fact, it is precisely because Biblical Israel was defeated and exiled that the Jews in Persia now find themselves threatened. For all their God-talk, Biblical Israel had a pretty inept military. Modern Israel doesn't engage in much God-talk, but so far they have been more than capable of holding their own. Is there a lesson here?
