Today's Scripture Reading (September 18, 2020): Esther 3
They are the
familiar words of John Donne.
“No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece
of the continent, a part of the main. If a clod be washed away by the sea,
Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as if a manor of
thy friend's or of thine own were: any man's death diminishes me, because I am
involved in mankind, and therefore never send to know for whom the bells tolls;
it tolls for thee.”
We are interconnected, not just as
a community or a race, but as joint inhabitants of the planet. Racism, in any
of its forms, reduces us all, making all of us less significant. There is no
room for ideas that put down other people, regardless of the reason. We are on
a journey, and the only way that we can make the most of that journey is if we
can link arms and walk together into whatever the future holds. Anything else
will always be “less than.”
Haman is
insecure, and his pride has been wounded because Mordecai refused to pay him
honor. It did not matter what Mordecai’s reasons might be. Haman doesn’t care that
this was a religious restriction of the Jewish faith that they reserved the action
for their God. Haman’s reaction reminds me of ours; Haman would have been
comfortable, and in agreement with our ‘if you are going to live in our society,
you need to bend to our rules and leave your faith in the land of your origin”
argument. But Haman was not getting what he wanted, and he wanted his revenge.
The twist to
the story is that Haman wanted his revenge, not just on the offending Mordecai,
but on all of Mordecai’s people. And here, he begins to plot his revenge. He portrays
Mordecai’s people as a danger to the kingdom. They are a violent and rebellious
people who would eventually cause the end of the empire, and the King needed to
do something to stop them. In our culture, the same argument has been used against
the Muslim people living among us. And the King seems to be oblivious to Haman’s
lie, accepting his claims at face value.
But the people
knew differently. These people were their neighbors and friends, and their
children played with the other children of the neighborhood. They had never
been anything but good, supportive people and good citizens of the empire,
strengthening the Kingdom of Xerxes. They weren’t the enemies that Haman had
described them to be. And the credibility gap that resulted was what was really
dangerous to the empire. The people understood what Haman had missed; the death
of Jews would diminish the nation and weaken it, making the country vulnerable
to real dangers that surrounded them daily.
Tomorrow's Scripture Reading: Esther
4
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