King Xerxes imposed tribute throughout the empire, to its distant shores. – Esther 10:1

Today's Scripture Reading (November 5, 2023): Esther 9 & 10

I know it is the wrong season, but maybe we can try to add a little November Income Tax humor. When commenting on the task of doing his taxes, Albert Einstein remarked, "This is too difficult for a mathematician. It takes a philosopher." Humorist and favorite American Cowboy Will Rogers said, "The difference between death and taxes is death doesn't get worse every time Congress meets." Of course, Rogers also said that "Income tax has made liars out of more Americans than golf." Roger Jones, another mathematician, argued that we should "think of lotteries as a tax on the mathematically challenged." I must admit that if we could get more people playing the lottery, maybe we could eliminate the idea of paying taxes. But perhaps the Scottish whiskey distiller, Thomas Dewar, sums up the truth about paying taxes. He argued, "The only thing that hurts more than paying an income tax is not having to pay an income tax."

The reality is that taxes are an unpleasant condition of life. Over the past few months, I have been working hard on settling my grandmother's estate. And part of the process has been working on her final tax returns. In past years, I have simply completed her taxes at the same time as I worked on mine. But this year, it was strongly suggested that I leave it to the professionals. According to my lawyer, nothing is worse than completing the work on the estate and distributing the funds, only to have Revenue Canada, the Canadian version of the Internal Revenue Service, decide that something is wrong.

As the book of Esther draws to a close, the comment that King Xerxes imposed tribute on his Empire seems a little strange. Tribute is often a term that is used to describe excessive taxation, but demanding tribute from the nations over which an Emperor like Xerxes ruled was typical and, to a certain extent, expected. Maybe it is just a reminder that Xerxes was an ordinary King, and stories like the one found in Esther are part of the functioning of a typical Empire.

The Western image of Xerxes has been primarily influenced by Greek and Roman sources, the Empires that followed the fall of the Achaemenid Empire in 330 B.C.E., so maybe these reports should be treated with some skepticism. In these cultures, often Xerxes has been seen as an effeminate, weak ruler. But that is not how he is portrayed in the Book of Esther. Here, he is a competent king who made mistakes but also recovered well from those errors. Xerxes was someone who reacted with strength whenever he felt he had been humiliated. And one who demanded tribute from the vast nation over which he ruled.

Tomorrow's Scripture Reading: Ezra 7