Three sermons in four days. Two of the new, one of them recycled from Anna's "Preacher and the Poet" class last spring.
This one was for the That All May Freely Serve -- Michigan Breaking the Silence service in Detroit.
"To Keep Silence"
Before I start, I feel like I should give a short summary of the plot of the book of Esther, for those of you who might need it.
Esther takes place during the time of the Jewish exile to Babylon.
The main characters of the story are the Persian king, Ahasuerus, who is sometimes also identified as Xerxes; Vashti, the queen of Persia; Esther the beautiful young, orphaned Jewish woman; Mordecai, Esther’s cousin who has been caring for her and who works in the palace; and finally, the bad guy, Haman, the prime minister.
The book opens with the end of a 120 day long feast. The king, very drunk, orders his queen Vashti to come down and show all of his drunk friends how beautiful his wife was.
Vashti, being a sensible woman, refused. Unfortunately for her this meant that she had to be banished from the kingdom.
The king then begins a search for a new queen, and after a twelve month process, he chooses Esther.
Somewhere during that time, Mordecai uncovers a plot against the king, which makes him very popular with the king.
Every thing seems to be turning out just fine until Haman enters the picture. Haman is a very proud man and very much enjoys the power that comes with his office as prime minister.
Haman even gives orders that when he goes riding through the town on his horse, everyone he passes has to bow down before him.
Well, Mordecai won’t bow to him, Mordecai won’t bow to anyone but God. This annoys Haman so much that he decides not only to kill Mordecai, but to order the death of all the Jews in Persia.
Our text this evening begins after Mordecai has sent word to Esther asking her to use her influence as queen to save the Jews.
Hear the Word of the Lord from the Book of Esther, chapter 4, verses 10-14:
Then Esther spoke to Hathach and gave him a message for Mordecai, saying, “all the king’s servants and all the people of the king’s provinces know that if any man or woman goes to the king inside the inner court without being called, there is but one law – all alike are to be put to death. Only if the king holds out the golden scepter to someone, may that person live. I myself have not been called to come in to the king for thirty days.”
When they told Mordecai what Esther had said, Mordecai told them to reply to Esther, “Do not think that in the king’s palace you will escape any more than all the other Jews. For if you keep silence at such a time as this, relief and deliverance will rise for the Jews from another quarter, but you and your father’s family will perish. Who knows? Perhaps you have come to royal dignity for just such a time as this.”
In the late 1980s, during the early days of the growing AIDS crisis, a new organization was formed: the AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power, ACT UP. ACT UP was “a diverse, non-partisan group of individuals ... committed to direct action to end the AIDS crisis.”
This last Sunday marked the 20th anniversary of ACT UP’s second public action, a protest staged at the New York General Post office on the evening of April 15, 1987. They chose that day and that place because they knew there would be television news crews there covering last minute tax payers, guaranteeing them media coverage.
At that protest a poster, with a new slogan made its debut. An upright pink triangle against a black background, with the words “Silence = Death”
The protesters knew that people needed to hear their stories, their friends and loved ones had died and more of them were facing a death sentence. And no one seemed to care. AIDS was a “gay disease.” If they did not speak up and act out, more and more were going to die.
Mordecai and Esther understood how silence could equal death.
Mordecai knew that Esther’s silence could mean the death of many Jews at Haman’s hand.
But Esther knew that speaking out, that acting up, would definitely mean her death.
She was caught in the middle, faced with a horrible choice: speak out and die, or remain silent and know that others would die.
I wonder . . .
How many of the youth and young adults across the country who participated in today’s day of Silence feel that they are faced with the same kind of choice? They know that someone needs to speak up on their behalf and on behalf of the LGBT people in their community; someone needs to stand up and say “We are human beings, we are people you know, we are your friends and family and we deserve the same rights as anyone else.”
But they also know the fear that if they are the ones to speak up, they will face ostracism, bullying, taunting and beatings or murder.
And I wonder how many people there are out there in our seminaries, in the ordination process, in our pulpits and in our pews who believe that they are called by God to stand up and speak to God’s people in truth and in love about who they are and about the Gospel of love and redemption; but who know that if they were to speak those words of truth, that there are individuals, churches, CPMs, and presbyteries poised and ready to drive them out of the church, to silence them and to diminish them?
Because of where my journey has taken me, I know what that choice is like, and I know from first hand experience what some of the consequences can be when making that choice
When I started seminary and the ordination process, I had been an ally of LGBT causes for years but I had no idea that I had been fighting for my own rights.
It wasn’t until the fall of my second year in seminary that the combination of the reflective thought that’s encouraged there, therapy and anti-depressants lead me to the understanding that I am a transgendered woman.
For the next year I shared this truth with carefully chosen friends, but I tried hard to keep it quiet, to keep it a secret from the world at large.
I also continued to work on therapy and reflection and I did lots of research into trans issues and ideas. I leaned more and more about my self. I found a new me and a new name. I leaned to like myself for the first time in my life.
Then, as the next school year began, I faced a crisis. As the new class of students arrived it became a struggle to meet them. Not because there was anything wrong with them but because the simple act of introducing myself had become a stumbling block.
I’m sure that for most of you, since the time you were three of four, the simplest question any one could ask you has been, “what’s your name?” But, it’s not that simple for trans-people
Can you imagine not being able to answer that question?
The problem was not that I didn’t have an answer, but that I had too many.
I had two names, but one was a lie and the other was a secret.
I didn’t want to start relationships with new students by telling them something that I knew wasn’t true. The last thing that I wanted to say to anyone was “Hi, I’m Jim.”
But at the same time, if I didn’t want to say “Hi, I’m Jim”, I didn’t know if I could say, “Hi, I’m Meghan.” If I started doing that, how long would it be until word of it got to the “wrong” people?
The PC(USA) is a small world and it’s hard to keep anything a secret for long.
So, with the support of my friends and some of the faculty at Columbia Seminary, I started coming out; first to my family, then to my CPM, then to the entire Columbia campus.
My family and the Columbia community were both supportive and at the beginning, the CPM was as well. The CPM said that they didn’t think that my being transgendered had any bearing at all on my ordination and at their next monthly meeting they voted to present me to the presbytery for candidacy.
In February of 2006 I stood before the Presbytery to be examined for candidacy. The first person to come to the microphone said “I have no questions for this person, I just want to make sure that I will have a chance to speak against ordaining someone like this.”
If that wasn’t bad enough, during the course of my examination he returned to the microphone two more times, not to ask me questions but to make doubly sure that he was going to have a chance to speak against me.
I never got to hear what it was that he had to say about people like me, I wasn’t allowed to stay in the room while they debated letting me become a candidate.
When I did return to the room, I learned that my examination had not been sustained by a vote of 52 – 61. After the meeting, both the chair of the CPM and the Presbytery Executive came to me and assured me that this was not the end and that I shouldn’t give up on the presbytery.
Unfortunately, by the time of my next meeting with the CPM in October, they had given up on me. Apparently there were a number of churches in the presbytery who were claiming that the CPM had violated the Book of Order simply by presenting me for candidacy. (No one ever explained to me what part of the Book of Order was being violated, and apparently no one on the CPM ever bothered to say to those churches “no, it’s not.” But that’s another story) The complaining churches were threatening to leave the denomination if the CPM continued to support me, and I learned at that meeting in October that the CPM planned to give in to them.
In November, at their next stated meeting, the presbytery voted by a four to one margin to accept the CPM’s recommendation that I be removed from the roll of inquirers and that our covenant relationship be terminated.
In the fall of 2005 I had a choice, I could have continued to remain in the closet and not speak out about who I truly am, or I could speak out and risk having other people in the church try to silence me. I chose the latter and those people have indeed tried to silence me.
Now, my choice is whether I will let them succeed, give them what they want, give up on ordination and stop speaking out, or if I will keep going and speak out not only on my behalf but on the behalf of others.
Because it’s important to me that what has happened to me doesn’t silence others who are considering speaking out for themselves, I have to keep speaking and working toward my goal of ordination.
There’s a classic sermon illustration about a man who gets stuck on his roof during a flood.
His neighbor comes by in a small rowboat and offers him a ride, but the man replies, “No, thanks, the Lord will provide.”
The waters continue to rise and after a while the Fire Department comes by in a bigger boat and offer to take the man away but, again he replies, “no, thanks, the Lord will provide.”
The water continues to force the man farther and farther up his roof until the State Patrol shows up to take him away, but once more he refuses their help saying, “No, thanks, the Lord will provide.”
Finally, the waters have gotten so high that he is forced to cling to the top of his chimney and a National Guard helicopter comes to fly him to safety, but he waves them off saying, “no, thanks, the Lord will provide.”
Well, the man drowns and wakes up outside the pearly gates. When his time comes he walks up to St. Peter and demands, “what happened? I put my trust in the Lord and still I drowned.”
St. Peter replies, “What more do you want? We sent you three boats and a helicopter!”
I’m sure that story has been used in hundreds and hundreds of sermons through the years, and the moral is almost always the same: Look for God’s work not in the miraculous but in the everyday.
I think there’s another moral there that we usually overlook: You might be the help that God sends.
There’s no doubt that the Lord will provide, but how do you know that you are not what the Lord has provided?
Could you be one of the boats? Could you be the Helicopter?
This is what Mordecai means when he says to Esther, “Who knows? Perhaps you have come to royal dignity for just such a time as this.”
I want to be the boat; I want to be the helicopter. I want to help even one person reach the point where they can speak out for themselves.
As I started writing this, I posted what I was working on to my blog and invited input from my friends who read it.
One of my friends asked a question that I don’t know I would ever have thought of: “What’s the golden scepter today?”
You’ll remember from the text that the one thing that would make it safe for Esther to speak was if the king were to point his golden scepter at her and grant her pardon.
Even though I never would have thought of it myself, I now think my friend’s question, “what is the golden scepter today?” is vitally important.
The reason it’s so important is that its answer also answers the question that I many of you may be asking yourselves right now:
“What does any of this have to do with me? I’m not lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgendered. I’m not faced with Esther’s choice; no one is trying to silence me.”
The answer to both questions is the same: You are the golden scepter; you are the ones who can make it safe for others to speak.
There’s a certain power that strait people hold in the church today.
It’s a kind of power that’s been around for the whole history of the church.
It’s the same power that men held before women could be ordained.
It’s the power that those who are “in” hold over those who are “out.”
And, it’s a power that comes with a choice:
Will you use that power to keep those who are out, out?
Or will you hold out the golden scepter and speak for the oppressed, for the outcast, for the other?
Will you put your power where it is safe, where you know you will win? Or will you stand with the other knowing that you will lose again and again.
Jim Rigby speaking at the TAMFS luncheon at last year’s General Assembly spoke of the plight of those who will stand with the other.
Noting all the times that issue of LGBT ordination had been brought up for a vote and been defeated, some one asked him, “Don’t you get tired of losing?”
He responded that he never did, because he knew, “When we win. When we win, we will immediately leave the place of power and go and stand with the powerless, and we will lose for the rest of our lives.”
All of us are faced with a choice, each of us needs to decide: will I break that silence and stand up and speak for those who others would silence, will I speak for myself? Or will I wrap myself in the safety of silence and ignore what that silence may mean to others?
Mordecai knew that help would come. Mordecai’s statement of faith is the closest thing to a reference to God in the entire book of Esther. What Mordecai didn’t know was when or how that help would come.
Right now, especially this close after Easter, we’re in a different place than Esther and Mordecai. Our choice is the choice of the women at the tomb in Mark’s Gospel. They had just heard the greatest Good News of all time, but they were afraid to speak it.
Unlike Mordecai, we know God has acted, we know help has come. Will we be like the women at the tomb? Will we allow our fears of what others may do silence us, or will we have the courage to stand and say what we know to be true, to trust in the Good News and to believe that maybe the reason we’re here is to speak out “at just such a time as this.”
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