Thomas J. Parlette
“The Patron Saint of Whistleblowers”
Esther 7: 1-6, 9-10; 9: 20-22
9/26/21
This morning we hear the story of the Patron Saint of Whistleblowers. Today we hear from the Book of Esther. It’s good to think about Esther and her story today – because this is the only time any passage from Esther comes up in our three-year cycle of lectionary texts.
Our cut and paste passage for today acts sort of like a summary of the story as Queen Esther blows the whistle on the wicked Haman.
Esther is actually a Jewish novel written for Jews living in Exile in Persia. It isn’t meant to be an historical record or a book of prophecy. It’s meant as a satirical novel poking fun at the Persian culture, where the Jewish people lived as outsiders. The King referred to, King Ahasuerus, never actually existed and there is no historical record of Queen Vashti either. King Ahasuerus is likely loosely based on King Xerxes, an actual King in Persia.
Queen Vashti gets the story rolling when she disobeys the King’s order to join him at a lavish banquet. The King is unhappy about this and decides to hold basically a beauty pageant to find himself a new Queen. Esther wins this pageant and becomes the new Queen. Her older cousin Mordecai, who has basically raised her, sees the benefit to having a Jew in such a position of power and influence, and tells her to keep her Jewish heritage a secret – which she does.
Sometime after Esther is made Queen, her cousin Mordecai overhears a plot to kill the King. He sends a warning to Esther, who, in the name of Mordecai, warned her husband. The plotters were executed and the King was saved.
Now highly placed in the King’s court was a devious man named Haman, a sycophant with substantial wealth and power. Haman hated Mordecai, largely because Mordecai refused to bow before him, but really it was because Mordecai could see right through his pompousness. In a calculated response, Haman persuaded the King to issue a death edict against “certain people” living in the empire. Haman did not tell the King the targets were the Jews, and the King didn’t bother to ask.
When Mordecai learned of this edict, he asked Esther to intervene with the King, producing the best known verse in the Book of Esther, “for such a time as this.” What followed was an intricate and carefully planned approach to the monarch, which was nonetheless quite risky for Esther. She was in effect functioning as a whistle blower and having to do so in the face of the King’s own edict.
She was successful, however, and in the end, Haman was hanged on the very gallows on which he had planned to execute Mordecai. And though the original edict could not be withdrawn, the King issued a second edict that permitted the Jews to defend themselves – which they do.
As a result, the Jews in Persia were saved. This whole story and the good outcome that came out of it are celebrated to this day in Judaism in an annual festival called Purim.
Esther is unique in our Scripture because there is no mention of God. God moves behind the scenes and in people’s dreams, but is never expressly named, acknowledged or called upon. There are plenty of feasts and banquets and royal proclamations and edicts in Esther – but very little religious ceremony. The closest we get is when Esther asks other Jews to join her in a three-day fast before she goes to the King. Otherwise, God doesn’t seem to have a direct role in the Book of Esther. We may even wonder – why is Esther in the Bible then. It’s good story – sure, but plenty of good stories didn’t make it into the Bible. We don’t consider them scripture. Why Esther? What can we take from this story to inform our spiritual lives?
I’m glad you asked …
First, Esther shows us that goodness is courageous, but not in a superhuman type of way. Once Mordecai informed Esther of Haman’s plot against the Jews, the immediate problem was how to get an audience with the King. The Persian Empire operated on protocols, and by those protocols, the Queen was not supposed to ever approach the King unless he summoned her – and he had not done that for the last month or so. The King held Esther’s life in his hands. If she violated the protocols, and the King was so inclined, he could have her executed. By the way, Esther pointed all this out to Mordecai, but he urged her to proceed anyway; there was just too much at stake for Esther not to make the attempt. And so she finally agreed, saying, “I will go to the King, though it is against the law; and if I perish, I perish.” I will do the right thing to save my people, what will be, will be.
That is how a whistleblower thinks. It is not a chest-thumping, “Only I can save the day” exclamation, but a quiet, perhaps even fear-filled resolve to do the right thing despite the potential cost.
Second, Esther shows us that goodness is rooted in God, even though God is never directly named. God is still there, moving behind the curtain, just off stage. We see it when characters dream and have trouble sleeping, and especially when Esther resolves to act, and asks her fellow Jews to join her in a three-day fast – a spiritual discipline, a means of seeking God’s help and blessing.
Third, Esther shows us that goodness is “wise as serpents and innocent as doves,” to use Jesus’ phrase from Matthew. Goodness, far from being a weak, doormat attribute is a characteristic of the Divine. Thus it is both innocent and wise. After Esther took the huge risk of approaching the King on her own, he welcomed her. But then, instead of blurting out her request, she invited both her husband and Haman to a banquet. At that occasion, the King promised her anything she wanted, but all she asked was that the two men come back to a second banquet. Only at that one, when the time was right, did she make her request – that she and her people be spared. Even then, however, she was very careful how she worded the request, so that the King could act without accepting any blame himself for the situation. Esther never lost sight of her goal, and she wisely crafted a careful plan to get there.
Esther also shows us that goodness is oriented toward others. Esther herself was in no immediate danger. If her goal had merely been to save herself, all she had to do was keep her mouth shut, as nobody in the court knew she was Jewish. Mordecai had told her that once the purge began, even she would not be safe, but when she chose to act, it wasn’t her own hide she was thinking of saving. Mordecai had painted the larger picture: “Who knows?” He had said, “Perhaps you have come to royal dignity for just such a time as this.” Mordecai was suggesting that God had strategically enabled Esther to become queen for the good of others, and that was her main goal.
And finally, the story of Esther shows us that goodness does not seek martyrdom – it does not needlessly provoke the ungodly to violence. It does not throw life away when there is no other possibility. Wisely, when Esther told the King her request, she first mentioned the sparing of her own life, and then added the sparing of her people. She named herself first, not out of self-interest, but because she astutely knew that saving her would be more important to the King, and the rest of her people could ride to safety on the tails of her royal gown.
Even Jesus himself didn’t set out to be martyred. He knew it was going to happen, but that wasn’t his intent. His intent was to be about God’s business. But goodness also does not conclude that keeping one’s own life safe above all else is the highest value.
Goodness is a powerful force, but it often operates through those who seem to have little power, through ordinary people who seemingly are not in positions of great influence, people who see something they know will harm others, and they act or blow the whistle for the good of all. It can be a way of loving our neighbor.
Writer Doug Bender shares a moving tribute he discovered while visiting Medellin, Colombia. In the middle of town, there was a park that contained numerous statues celebrating Medellin’s greatest leaders in art, politics, business, the military, and other fields. But the first statue in the park is of a relatively unknown judge. On the base of the statue is a plaque that says: “In a city full of corruption, this man did what was right.”
As you probably know, Medellin is known for harboring dangerous drug cartels. The wealth and the violence of the international drug trade have also fostered corruption among the police and public officials. But this particular judge was so respected for his incorruptible character that the city of Medellin commissioned a statue to honor him. “In a city full of corruption, this man did what was right.”(1) That’s what Esther did in her time. That’s what all true whistleblowers try to do.
We may never be in the position in which Esther, the Patron Saint of Whistleblowers, found herself. But God calls us to holiness, and doing good, doing what is best for everyone, in whatever circumstances we face, is a crucial part of both good and holy.
Living in this time of division, where it’s difficult to agree on much, dealing with a pandemic which has probably changed us for good in ways we can’t even see yet – perhaps we have more in common with Esther and the Jewish people living in exile than we might have thought.
If so, the Patron Saint of Whistleblowers can serve to remind us that perhaps faithful people doing what is right were made for such a time as this. May God be praised. Amen.
1. Dynamic Preaching, Vol. XXXVII, No. 3, pg 5.
