For Such a Time as This
Esther 4:10–17
October 1, 2006
University Christian Church, Seattle, WA
Rev. Sandy Messick

• Oscar Schindler, whose story was memorialized in Steven Spielberg’s movie, “Schindler’s List,” was a drunk, a womanizer, and a man consumed by greed and making a profit. When World War II began in Europe, Schindler was there, working the black market, finding his way in with the Gestapo, and setting up a huge money-making factory to capitalize on the profits to be made during wartime. He wasn’t Jewish, and in the beginning, had no great love for the Jewish people. He employed them in his factories for one reason; they were cheap labor. But as the German war machine began to take hold; as Jewish citizens began to be rounded up and herded into ghettos and then later into death camps, something stirred inside Schindler’s soul. He began to hear and see the plight of the Jewish people in Poland and Germany, and he did something. Using his abilities in manipulating a system, using bribes and deception and whatever means might work, Schindler began creating reasons why Jews needed to work in his factory rather than be sent to death camps. He set them to work making defective bullets for the German war machine, and continued to create reasons why he needed to employ more and more Jews, and as a result, saving their lives. By the end of the war, Schindler had saved well over 1000 Jews. After the war, he fled to Argentina with his wife. He took up farming, and lived off the generosity of the Jewish people he had helped. He returned to his earlier habits of drinking and chasing women, ended up bankrupt, and eventually abandoned his wife and his mistress and returned to Europe. Later, his wife, Emilie, would be quoted as saying, “Oskar had done nothing astounding before the war and had been unexceptional since. He was fortunate, therefore, that in that short fierce era between 1939 and 1945 he had met people who summoned forth his deeper talents.” In other words, for a moment in time, a moment in his life, he was truly at his best.
• Our scripture passage today is another story of a courageous person whose actions saved the lives of countless innocent people. It is the story of Esther. Now the Book of Esther almost didn’t make it into the religious texts we call the Old Testament. It was one of the last to be included. For one thing, it deals with a Jewish festival not mentioned in the Torah. But for another thing, it is the only book that doesn’t directly refer to God. It is instead, an account of an individual who took risks in order to be faithful. By the time we get to chapter 4 where our reading is for this morning, Esther has become Queen. But she didn’t start out that way. In the beginning of the book, Vashti is queen. But when the king wants Vashti to come and dance for his guests at a banquet, Vashti asserts her independence and refuses. And while we might hail her today as proclaiming a woman’s right to choose her actions, the king was not amused, and so Vashti was out, and after a little bit of beauty pageantry and harem building, Esther was in. Now unbeknownst to the king, Esther was Jewish. Her uncle, Mordecai, was a faithful and devout Jew, and had encouraged Esther’s rise to queendom.
• OK, let’s see, we’ve got Esther, Mordecai, the king, who else? Oh yes, Haman, the king’s advisor. Now Haman was rather full of himself and decided it would be a good thing to have people bow to him as he passed by. But Mordecai, being a devout Jew refused to do so, for he only bowed to God. Haman found this insulting and offensive and convinced the king to punish all Jews for Mordecai’s insolence. On a certain day at a certain hour all Jews would be killed. It was the king’s edict, signed, sealed and delivered.
• At this point, our scripture begins. Mordecai sends word to Esther that she needs to do something to save her people (and by extension, save herself) Esther responds that even though she’s queen, she can’t approach the king without an invitation. To go into the king’s presence uninvited, is to risk death. Mordecai is not impressed. Instead, he reminds her, and this is key, if she fails to do something, salvation will come from another quarter, but who knows, perhaps she has been brought to that place for just such a time as this. Perhaps she has been brought into the position of queen just so that she could be in a place to save her people.
• Esther agrees to Mordecai’s request. She will go before the king and if she dies, well, so be it. But before she does that, she asks that all the people enter into a time of fasting, she gathers the community around her and seeks strength from them. And then she faces the king.
• To make a long story short, Esther succeeds. She exposes Haman for the self-serving person he is, she convinces the king to allow the Jews to defend themselves, which they do, and the Jewish community is saved from destruction. Today, Jews remember her story in the festival of Purim, remembering God’s salvation through the courageous acts of a young Jewish woman. For just such a time as that.

• Now fast forward, University Christian Church in Seattle, Washington in 2006. Granted, the task before us is nowhere near on a par with saving God’s people from certain annihilation, but for some of us, the risk is just as scary.
• By holy design, or pure chance, we are the congregation gathered here in this time and place. And whether we like it or not, we are the ones tasked with discerning the direction that this church will move in the next generation.
• We are the ones called upon to make the tough decisions about buildings and resources, program and vision. We are not the first ones to be challenged in new ways. When this congregation was beginning in the early 1900s, Christians were challenged with where and what kind of place University Christian might be. The story is told of this congregation during the depression struggling to build a magnificent sanctuary yet facing a lack of funds. And we hear of how courageous members in those days mortgaged their homes in order to finance the construction and support of the church.
• We are the beneficiaries of the courageous Christians who have gone before, but we are the congregation for such a time as this. We are the ones who are tasked with making decisions about our church properties, should we stay or should we go. We are the ones tasked with the responsibility for setting direction for the future. What kind of congregation will we be? What is God’s purpose for us? Where will we be? So many questions. And there are no guarantees that the decisions we make will be the right ones. Those courageous members who mortgaged their homes could have been making a terrible mistake. They could have lost it all. They were taking a risk. But they were being faithful in that moment, and they trusted that regardless of the outcome, God was present in their decision. For them, it was worth the risk. They were in that place for just such a time as that, and so are we. What are we willing to risk? Are we willing to risk at all?
• One option, I suppose, is that we could choose to do nothing. We could put off the decision. Hang on for a few more years. Wait and see…. Hope that someone else makes the decision for us. In the report we just received from Rick Morse and Church Extension, Rick points out that doing nothing is an option. We have a pretty healthy endowment. He says we could fire the minister, close the doors and just maintain the building using income from the endowment fund. Or, we could just do minimal ministry, limit our outreach, keep up the building for a while, and just leave a note, “the last member out of the building please turn off the lights.” As Mordecai said to Esther, if you do nothing, salvation will come from another quarter. The kingdom of God will not be thwarted if we choose to do nothing. God will still find faithful, risk takers elsewhere, and God’s church will continue on. So, one option is to do nothing.
• But is that who we’re called to be? Is that who we want to be? Another finding in the report from Rick Morse and Church Extension, is that being risk takers is who we’ve always been, at least when we were at our best. When 22 or so of us gathered for a meeting with Rick and his team we responded to the question “When was this church most alive and energetic?” There were lots of responses. Someone remembered back to the 1960s during the civil rights era when Bob Thomas, then minister here at University Christian, invited Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. to preach in our pulpit. It didn’t work out for other reasons, but still the risk was taken and the invitation extended. Another person recalled the adventure of resettling Laotian refugees in the 1970s. A couple of weeks ago, we heard a report on how that family is doing, and we heard again of their gratefulness for the welcome they received from this church. Someone else talked about the process this congregation went through to become Open and Affirming; taking the risk to publicly declare our commitment to welcome all people regardless of sexual orientation or lifestyle. And still another person referred to our current efforts to help bring about an ecumenical parish in the Udistrict, an affirmation of the oneness of Christ’s church in this and all places. The stories we heard that night with Rick Morse and his team were stories of risk taking. And what I heard was that this church is at its best when it’s living on the edge, when it’s taking chances, when it’s forging new ground.
• And that’s where I believe we are today. As Mordecai said to Esther, perhaps we were brought to this place for just such a time as this. Perhaps this is our time to reclaim our heritage, to honor those who have gone before us by daring to take risks in our own time, by daring to imagine new possibilities for our life together. Look at us, we’re even daring to worship in a different space.

• Welcome to new possibilities. Welcome to new ways of imagining our future. Welcome to looking at our world from a new perspective. And how appropriate it is that we begin this venture on this special Sunday, World Communion Sunday. For it is especially on this day, as we celebrate communion with Christians around the world, that we are vividly reminded that the church of Jesus Christ is not limited to a sanctuary in University Christian Church, or even limited to the Ecumenical Parish in the University District, but that the church of Jesus Christ is wherever and whenever the faithful gather in Jesus’ name.
• Just as Esther called the community to fast with her in preparation for her risk-taking, so we rely on our brothers and sisters to rally around us as we seek God’s wisdom and direction for the future.
• For whatever reason, whatever cosmic forces, or just dumb luck, have pulled us together in this place, we have been brought here for just such a time as this.
• As our General Minister and President said at our last Regional Assembly, “We are the ones we’ve been waiting for.”
• This is our time. This is God’s time. This is the season of decision making. May God bless both the journey and the destination. May God bless us in just such a time as this.