CPCBA Sermon - To Tell the Truth

In “To Tell the Truth,” Rev. Heather Schoenewolf continues CPCBA’s journey through the book of Esther, reaching the dramatic turning point of the story. Esther steps forward to reveal the truth about herself and her people, while the plans of Haman begin to unravel in a remarkable series of reversals.

The sermon reflects on Esther 5, Esther 6, and Esther 7, exploring the literary structure of chiasm and what the reversals in Esther reveal about power, courage, truth-telling, and God’s work on behalf of those who are vulnerable and silenced.

As you read, consider:

• Where do you see power being used “over” others in our world, and where do you see power being used “to and for” others?

• When have you seen someone take a personal risk to protect or advocate for another person?

• What truths are difficult or uncomfortable for us to acknowledge or speak?

• Whose voices are too easily dismissed or silenced in our communities?

• What might change if we allowed God to work through us?

The Sermon

Thanks. Thanks be to God. Let us pray.

Loving and gracious God, we approach your word with humility and hope, longing to find direction for our lives.

We know that you are love. And so, when we approach a text like this, we wonder where we see you at work through it all—through the messy reality of human living, through the violence we do one to the other, through our own lust for power and prestige.

And so we pray, as we approach this story, that you will fix our hearts on you and that you will form us according to your will for us and for your world. And may the words of my mouth and the meditation on all of our hearts be acceptable to you, O God, for you are our rock and our redeemer. Amen.

So, as we have crested the turning point of our text today, I've had the song from the Tony Award-winning musical Hamilton in my mind. And I will say I'm not alone. I've gotten at least one text from a congregant who has said, “I'm thinking a lot about Hamilton as we are working our way through Esther.”

And those of you familiar with the musical know that it ends with a song that explores the question, “Who lives, who dies, and who tells the story?”

The voices of those who knew Alexander Hamilton—his adversaries, his allies, his scorned but resilient wife—sing about him and his memory, his impact, his enduring legacy, as his own character reflects on the fact that there are so many forces outside of his control.

Who lives, who dies, who tells our story?

Now, the story following the three days of prayer and fasting where we ended our story last week, after Mordecai's appeal to Esther, leads us to explore these very questions that are sung about in Hamilton: who lives, who dies, and who tells the story?

And so today we're going to explore that first part of the larger arc: who lives and who dies. For that seems to be the central question to the chapters we've heard today.

Now, it is complex, as most matters of life or death are. And so we must see these chapters not just about the who lives and who dies, but within the larger arc of our story of faith and how that story is told.

So I'm going to interrupt the intrigue with a vocabulary lesson. Sorry, my mom is an English teacher, but the vocab lesson helps us understand the words before us.

All right. So here's the word. I know it's not as interesting as the intrigue we have just read that has left us spinning. But I want you to consider this word as we talk about our verses for today and as you do your homework and read through the whole book of Esther before we discuss it again.

So here's the word: chiasm. C-H-I-A-S-M. Chiasm.

Who here has heard that word before?

All right, we've got some pastors who have raised their hand, some PKs who have raised their hand, some people who have been to GA who have raised their hand.

Now, you actually know what a chiasm is. So here's an example of one: “When the going gets tough, the tough get going.”

Okay, here's another one: “Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country.”

Okay, hold that in your head while I explain a chiasm.

So, a chiasm is actually named for the Greek letter chi, which looks like an X, and it guides us from one point to a center fulcrum and back out. Okay, so this is your visual, even though it looks ridiculous and I can't reach the microphone.

So what we get with a chiasm in literature is we get a reversal.

We have in this structure a device that reverses. It gives us one order. We get to a center point, and then it reverses that order on the way out.

Okay. So this is a literary device that is used to mark reversals, and it happens not only in the common terms of phrase that we use in our everyday life or in popular speeches, but this is something that is used in the Bible over and over again.

It's one of those things that once you see it, you can't unsee it. And then you realize, whoa, these biblical authors really knew their stuff.

All right? So bear with me.

So let me give you a quick Bible example: “The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath.”

Does anyone remember hearing those words that Jesus said? Okay.

So with these words, Jesus challenges the assumptions that have shaped religious and civic culture around the Sabbath and invited people to reconsider how they might live their faith, particularly when it comes to our call to care for the needs of the vulnerable.

Now, this structure is the design of the whole book of Esther, and our passage today, where Haman is parading Mordecai around the town of Susa in the kingdom and singing his praises, is that reversal point for our story.

All right, let's look at the intrigue. Let's take a look at it, shall we?

Now, we heard in our chapters for today that Esther did what she promised to do. After three days of prayer and fasting by herself and her attendants, and Mordecai and all the Jews that he could inform, she appears before the king in the hopes of being granted the golden scepter and the opportunity to speak on behalf of her people.

Now, in spite of her station as a woman, as a Jew, as one beholden entirely to the whim of a whimsical king, she is granted the opportunity to speak.

Now, she strategically wins the king's favor, as she has done before, preparing a feast for him and his closest advisor before making her request known. And we know from what we've read already that the king loves a banquet.

During the second banquet in our verses for today, Esther unmasks the truth.

That which has been hidden has been revealed. And the life of her people, the life of her identity, the truth of who she is and what has been conspired is revealed to a king who acts or surrenders his power with very little consideration for the consequences over and over again.

Haman reaps what he sows in this text, bestowing first the honor on Mordecai that he designed for himself and realizing that the fate he thought was his is not going to come to pass.

Rather, he will meet the end that he intended for Mordecai's demise.

Did you catch all of that in the story we just read? Whoosh.

Now, as I said, the book of Esther was written using this literary device, this chiasm, and it guides us into this turning point of the story and guides us out of that turning point so that we can see, through how the story is written, more than just the arc of who lives and who dies.

We see that the structures and the plans created by those who are intent on acquiring power and prestige at the expense of others—they find themselves expendable, while those who seek salvation of others at great personal risk are secure and rich in reward.

Today's verses of the “who lives, who dies” portion of Esther reveal that God is a God of great reversals, who continually upends the systems of authority and power that we think drive the narrative.

This story, in spite of Haman's end, is not a story of a vindictive God who thinks that murder is an acceptable form of retribution.

It is rather a story that shows the surprising trajectory of God's deliverance at work in the world.

We see again what we see all throughout the Hebrew and Greek scriptures: that God's favor lies again and again with those who have been oppressed, with those who are seen and perceived as voiceless, and by those who are made vulnerable by the dominant systems in the world.

God's favor is on the side of those who risk everything to save another, who find a way forward in spite of the odds, and who remain faithful to their call in spite of fear.

And so we see in this text how the forces of power that we talked about week one, and social location and influence, which we talked about last week—all of these forces in our world have been turned on a dime when directed by a saving God who answers prayer.

The voiceless are heard.

The condemned are redeemed. The marginalized are given a seat of honor.

Such is the way of God.

And so we are called to consider this truth in the context of the world in which we live. As we take a look at our society and see who it is that lives and dies and tells the story, we are invited to discern where it is that we see the hand of God.

Esther's story reveals the power of God that aligns with those prophetic truth-tellers in the world, those who call out the selfish use of power and who call us to work for a common good.

We see God at work through the voices and acts of those who work for the well-being of those who are continually dismissed and disempowered by the power structures of the world.

And Esther's story invites us to approach God much like Miss Cassie approaches the kids, to engage the Wonder Wall and to consider God's great what-ifs of our time, as Esther did for her time.

What if we noticed others planning to harm those who are vulnerable?

What if we were willing to take a risk of our own welfare to secure the well-being of another?

What if we worked together to ensure not only the basic survival but the thriving of all?

What if we dared to tell the truth about what is happening in our world, even when that truth is uncomfortable and unpopular and confusing?

And what if we became part of the change we know is needed in the world?

What if we let God work through us?

May we consider these questions with a willingness to bravely be a part of God's great reversals in the world, where power over is molded into power to and for, where those who are silenced have a voice, in a world where love even conquers hate.

May it be so. Let us pray.