November 8 -- Attitudes of Abundance

This week's lectionary texts: Ruth 3:1-5 and 4:13-17 or 1 Kings 17:8-16, Psalm 127 or Psalm 146, Hebrews 9:24-28, and Mark 12:38-44.



The economic turmoil of the last couple of years has left virtually no person untouched. Women and men have lost their jobs and their homes; families have depleted their savings; poverty has affected an ever-increasing number of lives. Even those not directly harmed by this economic crisis are facing cutbacks and cost-cutting measures. We're all learning that material wealth and prosperity are not things that we can always count on.

This week's passages, therefore, offer an interesting perspective on what it really means to be well-off. We are urged by these texts to cultivate an attitude of abundance, remembering that God's ideas about prosperity may be quite different from our own.

In the reading from First Kings, we hear the story of the widow of Zarephath. The prophet Elijah enters this woman's town, having been told by God that the widow would feed him. But when Elijah approaches her, she is understandably confused:

"As the Lord your God lives, I have nothing baked, only a handful of meal in a jar, and a little oil in a jug; I am now gathering a couple of sticks, so that I may go home and prepare it for myself and my son, that we may eat it, and die." (1 Kings 17:12)

Like many widows of her time, this woman had virtually nothing -- indeed, she seems resigned to a terrible fate for herself and her child, and can't imagine how Elijah could have asked her for something to eat.

But Elijah explains, "Do not be afraid; go and do as you have said; but first make me a little cake of it and bring it to me, and afterwards make something for yourself and your son. For thus says the Lord the God of Israel: The jar of meal will not be emptied and the jug of oil will not fail until the day that the Lord sends rain on the earth." (1 Kings 17:13-14)

And indeed, as the story goes, Elijah was right: "She went and did as Elijah said, so that she as well as he and her household ate for many days. The jar of meal was not emptied, neither did the jug of oil fail, according to the word of the Lord that he spoke by Elijah." (1 Kings 17:15-16)

Many will recognize the similarities between this story and the stories found in the Gospels of the ways in which loaves and fishes were multiplied to provide food for thousands. In both, the aid of God multiplied resources far beyond what anyone had believed possible.

In Mark, we hear the story of another widow: this time, a woman who deposits two small coins into the treasury at the temple. Though her offering couldn't have looked like much to outside observers, Jesus reminds his disciples that "this poor widow has put in more than all those who are contributing to the treasury. For all of them have contributed out of their abundance; but she out of her poverty has put in everything she had, all she had to live on" (Mark 12:43-44).

Most of us are not in a position to give away all we have to the church or our neighbors. And there is no doubt that countless people -- both in our own country and around the world -- are struggling to even get to the next day, as was the widow of Zaraphath.

But what this week's passages remind us is that even in the midst of economic strife, we can rethink our ideas about prosperity and abundance. The old cliche is true: every little bit helps. We may not be able to give our next-door neighbor a new job, but we can invite him over for dinner. We might not be able to donate our income to our church, but we can volunteer to teach Sunday school or greet newcomers.

Even when things are hard -- and it's no denying that this is a challenging time -- God calls us to think about how we can cultivate an attitude of abundance that will be a blessing to our families and neighbors. Psalm 146 tells us that "the Lord watches over the strangers; he upholds the orphan and the widow" (Psalm 146:9). God has not forgotten about us -- and God has called us to share our prosperity, whether our possessions, our time, or our talents, with those in need.


Picture credit here.

November 1 -- The Law of Love

This week’s lectionary texts: Ruth 1:1-18 or Deuteronomy 6:1-9, Psalm 146 or Psalm 119:1-8, Hebrews 9:11-14, and Mark 12:28-34.

In this week’s lectionary texts, we hear – not once, but twice – the greatest commandments in the Christian faith. First in Deuteronomy, and again in Mark, we are instructed in our duty to God as God’s faithful people:

“Hear, O Israel: The Lord is our God, the Lord alone. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your strength, and with all your soul, and with all your might.” (Deuteronomy 6:4-5)

“Hear, O Israel: the Lord our God, the Lord is one; you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength.” (Mark 12:2-30)

No doubt many of us have heard this commandment repeated over and over. And indeed, the first line begins the Shema Yisrael, arguably the most important prayer in Judaism.

But what exactly does it mean to love God all our heart, soul, strength, and mind (or might)? At first, it seems that the injunction to love God so deeply and with virtually every one of our faculties would essentially be a full-time job.

Many of us struggle with even knowing where to begin when it comes to loving God. For some, God is so enormous, so incomprehensibly grand and majestic that trying to love God seems like an impossible task; how could a single person’s love even gain the notice of God?

For others, loving God seems to mean loving a deity who has let terrible things happen. How can I love a God, they might think, who let my husband die, or my neighbor lose her home? The commandment to love God, utterly and completely, seems to them like a cruel joke.

Yet I would argue that the commandment we hear in Deuteronomy and Mark is not just a commandment to blindly love God – rather, it is also a call to awareness and attentiveness, a call to pause and take stock of our lives and the ways in which we have sensed God’s presence.

In Deuteronomy, the commandment continues, “Keep these words that I am commanding you today in your heart. Recite them to your children and talk about them when you are at home and when you are away, when you lie down and when you rise” (Deuteronomy 6:6-7). We are instructed to keep God on our minds and in our heart – to not let our days just fly by, but to be continually reflecting on God’s goodness in our lives.

The passage from Deuteronomy hints at another facet of this commandment to love: the fact that we are to share our love for God with one another. We are to talk about God with our families, and carry God’s spirit with us wherever we go.

Jesus’s teaching in Mark echoes this idea. After explaining to the Sadduces that the commandment to love God is the first commandment, he adds a second: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself” (Mark 12:31).

Here we see that the commandment to love God does not exist in a vacuum. We are not instructed to just sit in our homes all day, meditating on how much we love God (though such a practice can certainly sometimes be beneficial). Rather, we are called to love God by loving God’s people – to go into the world, showing love to all those we meet. We cannot truly love God if we are not actively loving others.

As is written in the first letter of John, “Those who say ‘I love God,’ and hate their brothers or sisters, are liars; for those who do not love a brother or sister whom they have seen, cannot love God whom they have not seen. The commandment we have from his is this: those who love God must love their brothers and sisters also.” (1 John 4:20-21)

The commandment to love God totally, utterly, and completely can seem overwhelming. God is God, and loves us with a perfect love; how could we ever hope to return even a tiny portion of God’s love? But perhaps our concern ought to be remembering that we can show our thanks and love to God by loving our neighbors: our families, friends, classmates, coworkers, those people we like and those who frustrate us, men and women and children in our own country and around the world.

One of the psalms appointed for this week praises God, noting that God “executes justice for the oppressed,” “gives food to the hungry,” “sets the prisoners free,” “opens the eyes of the blind,” and “lifts up those who are bowed down” (Psalm 146:7-8). Let us join with God in these acts of love, being mindful and attentive to the needs of others, and serving one another in love for God and our neighbor.

Photo credit here.

October 25 -- Prayers of Praise

This week's lectionary texts: Job 42:1-6 and 10-17 or Jeremiah 31:7-9, Psalm 34:1-8 and 19-22 or Psalm 126, Hebrews 7:23-28, and Mark 10:46-52.



If you asked one hundred people about their prayer lives -- how they pray, when, where, why -- no doubt you'd receive one hundred different answers. Prayer, indeed, is a simple word for an incredibly complex set of possible practices. Prayer can be carried out collectively, in pairs, in small groups, or in whole churches. Prayer may be deeply personal, held silently within one's own mind. Prayers can be well-known and standardized -- the Lord's Prayer is perhaps the most famous example -- or spontaneous and unrehearsed. Prayer may use countless elaborate words -- or it may use no words at all.

Though it would be impossible to list all the reasons that people might pray, I suspect that for many of us, prayer often consists of asking God for something, whether it's inner peace, success at an interview or on a test, healing for a loved one, or nice weather for our soccer game. There's nothing wrong with this kind of prayer. But in today's lectionary texts we find an emphasis on another kind of prayer: prayers of blessing and thanksgiving to God.

Psalm 34, subtitled "Praise for Deliverance from Trouble," is a beautiful reflection of the Psalmist's gratitude for the mercy and care of God. The author is so grateful that he can't contain himself; he has to enlist other people to join in his joy:

"I will bless the Lord at all times; his praise shall continually be in my mouth. My soul makes its boast in the Lord; let the humble hear and be glad. O magnify the Lord with me, and let us exalt his name together." (Psalm 34:1-3)

Growing up I sometimes thought it seemed strange to talk about "blessing" God -- wasn't God supposed to be the one to bless us? How could humans even bless God, anyway? But as the Merriam-Webster dictionary explains, blessing someone can also mean to glorify them. So blessing God, as does David in Psalm 34, means to glorify God for all the good things that God has done in our lives.

The psalm continues in a similar vein, expressing thankfulness for answered prayer and deliverance from worry:

"I sought the Lord and he answered me, and delivered me from all my fears. Look to him and be radiant; so your faces shall never be ashamed. This poor soul cried, and was heard by the Lord, and was saved from every trouble. The angel of the Lord encamps around those who fear him, and delivers them." (Psalm 34:4-7)

Again, notice how the Psalmist is inviting others into his psalm of praise and thanksgiving. He is so filled with gratitude that he wants to use his own testimony of God's faithfulness to assure others of God's goodness: "Look to him and be radiant," he exclaims. We are often encouraged to share our struggles with one another, in order to help lighten each other's loads, and give each other assistance and aid. Here, David reminds us that we ought to share our happiness and gratitude too, that our joy may be contagious and help others to realize the signs of God's grace in their own lives.

As the psalm continues, listeners are reminded over and over that God is a God of care and protection:

"O taste and see that the Lord is good; happy are those who take refuge in him." (Psalm 34:8)

"Many are the afflictions of the righteous, but the Lord rescues them from them all. He keeps all their bones; not one of them will be broken." (Psalm 34:19-20)

This is evocative language; God's looking out for our "bones" recalls the reminder in Luke that God has numbered every hair on our heads (Luke 12:7). In short, the Psalmist is praising God for God's protection and personal concern with every human being. And in this week's text from Jeremiah, we see an example of God's care and deep love:

"See, I am going to bring [my people] from the land of the north, and gather them from the farthest parts of the earth...I will let them walk by brooks of water, in a straight path in which they shall not stumble." (Jeremiah 31:8-9)

Prayer can take countless forms, and each of them has its advantages. But sometimes, in the hustle and bustle of our busy lives, we forget to take time to simply thank God for God's goodness and grace. This week's texts remind us to remember to express our happiness and thanksgiving -- to bless God, and happily encourage others to do the same.


Photo credit here.

October 18 -- Pondering Paradox

This week's lectionary texts: Job 38:1-7 and 34-41 or Isaiah 53:4-12, Psalm 104:1-9, 24, 35c or Psalm 91:9-16, Hebrews 5:1-10, and Mark 10:35-45.

This week, we hear in Mark an intriguing story of paradox featuring James and John, the sons of Zebedee. Jesus and the twelve disciples are on their way to Jerusalem, and Jesus has just told them -- for the third time -- that he will be betrayed and killed when they reach the city.

Upon hearing this undoubtedly unsettling prediction again, James and John immediately approach Jesus. They don't mince words, asking boldly, "Teacher, we want you to do for us whatever we ask of you" (10:35).

When Jesus asks them what they desire, they reply, "Grant us to sit, one at your right hand and one at your left, in your glory" (10:37). (One wonders if James and John both preferred the right hand, which was viewed as more honorable.) Their request indicates that they have been giving a lot of thought to Jesus's previous foreshadowings of his death and resurrection, and pondering how they might fit in to the events of the days to come. After all, James and John were two of Jesus's closest disciples; along with Peter, they were the only witnesses to Jesus's transfiguration (9:2-13). Jesus even had a special name for them, calling them "the Sons of Thunder" (3:17).

Jesus, for his part, replies somewhat cryptically. "You do not know what you are asking," he tells them (3:38). Jesus then asks James and John if they are "able to drink the cup that I drink [presumably the cup of God's wrath, according to The Harper Collins Study Bible] or be baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with [presumably a reference to death, also according to the Harper Collins Study Bible]" (10:38).

James and John put on a brave face: "We are able," they say (Mark 10:39). But Jesus offers a response that is likely different from the one they are expecting, stating that the brothers will indeed share in Jesus's cup and baptism, but that he himself cannot select the people who will sit at his left and right hands: "It is for those for whom it has been prepared" (10:40).

The author of the gospel does not tell us the reaction of James and John, but does note that the other disciples are not happy with the Sons of Thunder. Bringing the twelve back together, Jesus then offer a fascinating and paradoxical reflection on service:

"You know that among the Gentiles those whom they recognize as their rulers lord it over them, and their great ones are tyrants over them. But it is not so among you; but whoever wishes to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wishes to be first among you must be slave of all. For the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many" (Mark 10:42-45).

Narry Santos, a professor of New Testament, writes that this seemingly paradoxical statement is one of three similar passages in Mark found "within the context of Jesus' three Passion predictions," the others being Mark 8:35 ("whoever wishes to save his life shall lose it" and "whoever loses his life shall save it") and Mark 9:35 ("If anyone wants to be first, he shall be last of all") (15).

So what is Jesus doing? At first glance, paradox can be a frustrating rhetorical device; sometimes readers are tempted to throw up our hand in confusion. But a closer look at Mark 10:42-45 offers an intriguing vision of an upending of traditional notions of power, and a stirring charge to rethink our notions of service.

James and John were impressively bold in asking Jesus for the honor of sitting at his left and right hands, and brave in expressing their willingness to share in his suffering. But Jesus's teaching to the twelve disciples places the emphasis not on what might happen in the future, but on what people ought to be doing in the present.

It's understandable that John and James wanted assurance of future reward: it seems only human. Yet this week's text from Mark drives home the point that future glory means nothing if we don't take time now, this very day, to serve one another. Children are hungry now. Violence is destroying lives now. With a seemingly paradoxical statement, Jesus draws the attention of his disciples to the importance of focusing on what we can do for others, and not what others can do for us.

Similar sentiments are expressed in a prayer commonly attributed to Saint Francis, also characterized by apparent paradoxes that resolve into a vision of loving care for others:

Lord, make me an instrument of your peace.
Where there is hatred, let me sow love.
Where there is injury, pardon.
Where there is doubt, faith.
Where there is despair, hope.
Where there is darkness, light.
Where there is sadness, joy.

Oh divine Master,
Grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console,
To be understood as to understand,
To be loved as to love.

For it is in giving that we receive,
It is in pardoning that we are pardoned,
And it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.


Sources:

Harper Collins Study Bible, Revised Edition (New York: HarperOne, 2006).

Santos, Narry. "Jesus' Paradoxical Teaching in Mark 8:35, 9:35, and 10:43-44." Bibliotheca Sacra 157 (January-March 2000), 15-25.

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October 11: When God Can't Be Found

This week's lectionary texts: Job 23:1-9 and 16-17 or Amos 5:6-7 and 10-15, Psalm 22:1-15 or Psalm 90:12-17, Hebrews 4:12-16, and Mark 10:17-31.





I'd like to begin this week's post by introducing myself! My name is Caitlin, and I began writing the lectionary blog last week. I am a second-year M.Div. student at Harvard Divinity School, and I'm very excited to be doing field education this year at the Massachusetts Bible Society. I am a United Methodist, but not on the ordination track; at this point, I'm hoping to ultimately use my degree in the non-profit sector, working on issues of international relief and development. I look forward to journeying through the lectionary with all of you over the next few months!

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As Christians, we proclaim that God is love. We praise God for God's goodness and justice, God's righteousness and care. We thank God for our abundant blessings, and rejoice that we have been brought into relationship with the Divine.

Yet, at the same time, few of us would say that our relationship with God is 100% wonderful, 100% of the time. Sometimes, when confronted with personal afflictions or when considering the vast suffering in the world -- for example, the grave toll of the recent typhoon in the Philippines and the earthquake in Indonesia -- we find ourselves angry with God. "How could you do this?" we might ask, or, "How could you let this happen?" At other times, we may feel that God has become distant or is no longer answering our prayers. And sometimes we may even find ourselves afraid of God.

In this week's lectionary texts, we hear from people struggling with their relationships with God. Take Job, for example. Job's tragic tale is relatively famous: despite faithfully serving God, his children are killed and his wealth destroyed. He refuses to "charge God with wrongdoing" (Job 1:22) but is still broken-hearted and dismayed.

Part of Job's grief stems from the fact that God seems to have disappeared -- Job cannot even find God to ask him why such terrible things have happened:

"Today also my complaint is bitter; his hand is heavy despite my groaning. Oh, that I knew where I might find him, that I might come even to his dwelling! I would lay my case before him, and fill my mouth with arguments. I would learn what he would answer me, and understand what he would say to me [... But] if I go forward, he is not there; or backward, I cannot perceive him; on the left he hides, and I cannot behold him; I turn to the right, but I cannot see him." (Job 23:2-5, 8-9)

Not only is Job frustrated by his inability to find God, but he acknowledges another strong emotion: fear. "God has made my heart faint," he exclaims, "the Almighty has terrified me; If only I could vanish in darkness, and thick darkness would cover my face!" (Job 16-17)

For Job, recent events seem to be presenting God not as a loving protector, but as a distant, even wrathful deity: someone to be feared. And this theme is continued in Psalm 22, when David cries,

"My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Why are you so far from helping me, from the words of my groaning? O my God, I cry by day, but you do not answer; and by night, but find no rest." (Psalm 22:1-2)

The Psalmist's words -- words spoken by Jesus on the cross in Matthew 27:46 -- are clearly the lament of someone who feels cut off from God. The language is darkly evocative, portraying a person who is "poured out like water," with a heart "like wax," lying in "the dust of death" (Psalm 22:14-15). God, for reasons that are unclear, seems to have left the Psalmist alone in a time of anguish.

I suspect that most of us have experienced seasons of life where we feel cut off from God, or indeed questioned God's very reality. But David's psalm, while reflecting the human experience of feeling that God has left us alone, also offers hope. He calls our attention to the great faithfulness God has shown in the past: "To you [our ancestors] cried, and were saved; in you they trusted, and were not put to shame" (Psalm 22:5). "Since my mother bore me you have been my God," David continues, reminding us that we have always been God's children, even when we cannot feel God's presence (Psalm 22:10).

Human existence is characterized by both great joy and great pain. At times -- perhaps when life is otherwise going well, or perhaps when we have just been thrown a curveball -- we may discover that God seems to have withdrawn. Such experiences can be painful and frightening. But as we see in Job and in Psalm 22, we need not be afraid to call out to God anyway, to express our fear or anger: God can take it.

In the lectionary text from Hebrews, we read, "Let us therefore approach the throne of grace with boldness, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need" (Hebrews 4:16). The author of Hebrews is saying that we needn't be afraid to approach God, to express our deepest worries and fears, or to ask for the mercy and grace that God has promised us. Indeed, I would contend that this week's texts show us that doing our best to keep our relationship with God alive -- whether by praising God, or lamenting to God, or questioning God -- will help sustain us even in those times in our lives when we feel that God is far away.

Photo credit here.

October 4: Our Place in Creation

This week’s lectionary texts: Job 1:1 and 2:1-10 or Genesis 2:18-24, Psalm 26 or Psalm 8, Hebrews 1:1-4 and 2:5-12, and Mark 10:2-16.



When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars that you have established; what are human beings that you are mindful of them, mortals that you care for them? Yet you have made them a little lower than God, and crowned them with glory and honor. -- Psalm 8:3-5

As someone with an amateur interest in astronomy, I have found myself thinking – on more than one occasion – about the idea behind the psalmist’s words in Psalm 8. This universe of ours is huge – indescribably, unimaginably huge. The image here, known as the Hubble Ultra Deep Field, gives us a glimpse of just a few of the billions of galaxies scattered through space. I’m sure most people have had the experience of peering up into a bright night sky, gazing at the stars, and thinking, “It’s beautiful, but it makes me feel so small.”

Yet one of the themes running through this week’s lectionary texts is the notion that while this universe we call home may be a staggeringly enormous place, human beings have been given an honored position by God. After all, we read in Genesis, God grants Adam the honor of naming every other living being: “So out of the ground the Lord God formed every animal of the field and every bird of the air, and brought them to the man to see what he would call them; and whatever the man called each living creature, that was its name” (Genesis 2:19).

Continuing in this vein, the psalmist adds, “You have given [human beings] dominion over the works of your hands; you have put all things under their feet, all sheep and oxen, and also the beasts of the field, the birds of the air, and the fish of the sea, whatever passes along the paths of the seas” (Psalm 8:6-8).

At first glance, passages like these can seem like an exciting license to do whatever we choose. If we are just “a little lower than God,” with dominion over all of God’s works, don’t we have free reign over the earth and its creatures? Indeed, some have interpreted such texts to mean just that.

But I would like to propose that if we believe that human beings have been granted special favor by God – special standing on this planet, or in this universe – we have likewise been tasked with the responsibility to act with great love and care towards our fellow creatures. See, for instance, Jesus’ admonition that “from everyone to whom much has been given, much will be required” (Luke 12:48).

We humans are lucky creatures. We live on a beautiful planet. We can speak, sing, dance, and play. We can compose incredible pieces of music or works of literature; we can engage in wonderful acts of caring and compassion. We can be agents of love and service in our families and our communities, and the world at large.

Sometimes, though, we forget that being human means that, if we're not careful, we can also be agents of cruelty, or of wastefulness and destruction. We need to be constantly aware that our actions, big or small, have consequences for ourselves, our neighbors, and our world. These days there's more talk than ever about being "green" and environmentally conscious -- and that's a terrific thing! But let's not let the ongoing dialogue about care for our fellow creatures and our planet become just background noise.

In Hebrews, we read, "For the one who sanctifies and those who are sanctified all have one Father. For this reason Jesus is not ashamed to call them brothers and sisters" (Hebrews 2:11). That's a pretty powerful image. We may be tiny in relation to the whole universe, but Christ still calls us his sisters and brothers.

Having been given such a gift, perhaps one of the best ways to respond is to think about ways that we can be a gift to our world -- whether by making an effort to eat locally, adopting a rescue animal, composting our kitchen scraps, riding a bike to work, or any of the myriad other ways to take care of creation.


For a sobering look at how much of an impact our lifestyle can have on the earth, check out this footprint quiz.

Photo credit here.

Sept 27: Vashti and Esther

Earlier this year, Jonathan Page of Memorial church in an interview describes pros and cons of following the lectionary during the church calendar year. A benefit of a pre-set path of readings is securing a level of diversity. Rather than returning to readings one is most comfortable with, pastors link in to a pattern which ensures that each week, readings will come from Hebrew Scripture, the New Testament, the Psalms, and the Gospels. This built-in structure creates an element of universality as churches in different geographical areas follow the same readings, and pastors are not faced with the temptation to keep circling around their favorite passages.

However, a drawback of reading the Bible through the lectionary is that so-called minor characters may end up getting short shrift. Instead of reading a book from beginning to end, as readers may well do who follow the daily lectionary, often the passages considered most central, and thus most well-known, form the lectionary text for worship. On this fall schedule, the book of Esther appears once, this upcoming week; later the book of Ruth will be read over the course of two weeks. This has the result that congregations focus on the clearest protagonists, in this case Mordecai and Esther. However, in this case the character Vashti is described as an intriguing counterpart to Esther, and this week I would like to focus on how this character is presented in the text.

The book of Esther stands out in Scripture for having two distinct parts, which a translation into a modern language initially conceals. According to the New Oxford Annotated Bible notes, the Esther manuscript which is written in Hebrew is dated to the Hellenistic period of approximately the fourth-third century BCE, before tension between Jews and Gentiles worsened during the period of the Maccabeans. Because unlike figures such as David and Solomon, the lives of major characters in the text are not confirmed by non-Biblical texts; for example, Persian history does not mention figures such as Vashti and Esther.

For this reason the text is described as a novella, not a text whose original audience would understand it as purporting to record history exactly. Ahasuerus is possibly King Xerxes I, whose wife was Amestris, and no mention of a Vashti or Esther (Hadassah is the Jewish name) is made in Persian royal history. One can conclude that the book of Esther was written to make a point about justice triumphing against all odds, and “. . . paradoxically, the need for the oppressed to act shrewdly and boldly for that justice to prevail” (708 HB). This text reflects the work of a writer familiar with Persian customs and language, yet it does not mention terms central to other Hebrew Scripture: “The Persian king, for instance, is mentioned 190 times, but the God of Israel not once; nor are such basic Jewish themes as the Law, covenant, prayer, dietary regulations, or Jerusalem. Because fate is an acknowledged factor in the story, some readers suggest that God, though hidden, is arranging the events” (708 HB).

Strikingly, when the text was translated into Greek in the Septuagint for Diaspora Jews, 107 verses were added. The added verses are not accepted as canonical by Jews (708 HB). However, a possible motivation for the added verses would be to make the story have a more explicitly religious theme. The Revised Standard Version (RSV) of the Bible lists additions to the Book of Esther here.

Michael Coogan summarizes how these additions change the nature of the original Hebrew text:

“The Greek version of the book of Esther adds repeated references to God guiding events and includes lengthy prayers by Mordecai and Esther, making them both more pious than they are in the Hebrew version. Esther is now an observant Jew, who fears God and keeps his commandments, hates that she sleeps with one who is uncircumsized, and apparently observes the dietary laws” (Coogan, 530, without pg references).

This text plays a major cultural role in modern-day Judaism, serving as the basis for Purim, a holiday that celebrates the deliverance of the Jews from their enemies. Christian communities celebrate Esther as an example of a woman who liberated her people, risking her life by approaching the king without an official invitation. The lectionary passage from this week includes the speech she makes to the king, begging that the lives of her people the Jews be spared:

So the king and Haman went to dine with Queen Esther, and as they were drinking wine on that second day, the king again asked, "Queen Esther, what is your petition? It will be given you. What is your request? Even up to half the kingdom, it will be granted."
Then Queen Esther answered, "If I have found favor with you, O king, and if it pleases your majesty, grant me my life—this is my petition. And spare my people—this is my request. For I and my people have been sold for destruction and slaughter and annihilation. If we had merely been sold as male and female slaves, I would have kept quiet, because no such distress would justify disturbing the king.” (7:1-4).
However the depictions of vengeance against enemies has also been troubling to modern audiences. The letters written as a result of Esther’s speech justify killing of women and children: “By these letters the king allowed the Jews who were in every city to assemble and defend their lives, to destroy, to kill, and to annihilate any armed force of any people or province that might attack them, with their children and women, and to plunder their goods . . .” (8:11). According to NOAB, “the bloodthirsty language, however, derives from the story’s symmetric pattern of reversals, not from any historical reality. Furthermore, the Hebrew version of Esther, in contrast to the Greek version, does not view all Gentiles negatively” (HB 708-709).

Finally, an interesting aspect of modern Esther feminist commentary includes a focus on the character of Vashti. The role Vashti plays in the text is ostensibly small: her refusal to appear before the king and his colleagues while they are drinking during a banquet, possibly naked, causes her to lose her position as queen and sets off the chain of events bringing Esther to power. Writers such as Elizabeth Wurtzel see in her refusal to appear as the “entertainment” at a banquet an example of a woman refusing to submit to patriarchal gender norms. In his essay “Purim: Vashti as a Feminist Hero,” Rabbi Arthur Waskow at the Shalom Center writes,

“My own reading of the Megillah is that it is made up of two intertwined jokes -- very powerful, and in one case bloody, but jokes nevertheless. The second one is the one we all have learned -- what Haman wants to do to the Jews is what happens to him, and he brings it on his own head. That's the bloody joke. The FIRST one (it starts earlier in the story) is that Ahasuerus's decision that no woman is going to tell him what to do puts into motion the train of affairs that ends by his doing EXACTLY what Esther tells him to do. Structurally, this is the same joke as the first one.

There is even one Rabbinic midrash (from a solitary forward-looking man) that the Memucan who advises the king to do Vashti in is --- woddayaknow??!! -- really HAMAN!! And indeed the text hints strongly -- see the similarity between the "people scattered throughout the country who obey their own laws" as the Jews and applying this to Memucan's fear of women in the same way -- that anti-Semitism and anti-feminism are deeply intertwined.”

Complete texts for this week’s lectionary include Esther 7:1-6, 9-10; 9:20-22; Psalm 124; James 5:13-20; and Mark 9:38-50.

Sources include The Old Testament: a Historical and Literary Introduction to the Hebrew Scriptures by Michael Coogan.

Photo credit here.