Un-selfed love wins at home and in the nation

The book of Esther speaks to a number of modern-day issues, including the idea of entitlement, which came up in a recent discussion I tuned in to. For instance: Is a husband entitled to make demands on his wife and vice versa? Is a government official entitled to make decisions which disadvantage one section of society? Australian society is grappling with these questions today and the Australian of the Year awards presented us with a slice of some of the fine individuals working to better the lives of their fellow-Australians as they encourage respect for and equality of all.

Esther's story teaches about the strong qualities of humility, courage, kindness, wisdom, and self-lessness, while clearly defining the weakness and self-destruction of pride, boasting, self-promotion, vanity and boiling anger. 

Some eloquent passages from the Living Bible: 

Esther 3: 15 The narrator comments wryly - "Then the king and Haman sat down for a drinking spree as the city fell into confusion and panic."

Esther 4:14 Mordecai suggests his trust in God's unfoldment of events as he says - "Who can say but that God has brought you into the palace for just such a time as this?"  

Esther 4:16 Esther's love for her people and trust in the power of prayer shines through as she says - "Go and gather together all the Jews of Shushan and fast for me; do not eat or drink for three days...then, though it is strictly forbidden, I will go in to see the king; and if I perish, I perish."

Esther 6: 1 Here is a wonderful answer to prayer - "The king had trouble sleeping and decided to read for a while." And what did he read but an account which revealed to him Mordecai's splendid past record. The whole course of the nation was changed that very evening.  

I do enjoy reading this book.

Julie Swannell

Esther - a summary

In Chapter 1, King Artaxerxes exhibits his pride in his material possessions.  This pride includes his Queen, Vashti.  He wishes to show her off along with all the things.  How that pride was wounded when she refuses to be shown off at the great drinking party following the feast for all his friends and servants!

Big mistake by Vashti!

But more trouble: The wives of the Persian and Median governors who the king had consulted on the matter, also refused to obey their husbands.  These governors advised Artaxerxes to strip Vashti of her queenly status and proclaim a law that wives must obey their husbands.  (Is this the beginning of a pattern still seen in some cultures to-day?)

Ever ready to vacillate, Artaxerxes enacts a decree to make this law.

The king’s servants advise him to search for a new queen, a beautiful virgin.  Another great idea, says the king, “This pleased the king and he did so.”

Enter Mordecai. This man was a captive Jew, brought from Jerusalem and serving in the palace.  He had uncovered a plot against the king by two eunuchs. The eunuchs were executed and Mordecai promoted. He had had a dream about what was to happen. 

Mordecai had a niece foster child, Esther: beautiful, and of course a Jew.  He put her before Hegai the keeper of the women, who decided she was special and gave her special treatment amongst the contenders in the beauty contest, so to speak.  It was a secret that Esther was a Jew and Mordecai kept an eye on her and told her not to let it be known.

After the twelve month preparation period for the girls, Esther won the contest and was crowned Queen when she pleased the king.  However, she remained true to her Jewish beliefs.

Enter the villain of the story – Hanan, appointed as Prime Minister by the king.  Reverence was due to him by the king’s servants.  Mordecai refused and Hanan was “full of wrath” about it, and knowing that Mordecai was a Jew, he plotted to destroy all the Jews.  He gets the king's ear on the matter, and Artaxerxes approves the plan, giving Hanan his ring to seal the decree which was carried out throughout the kingdom.  Not only would the Jews be destroyed but their goods would be taken as plunder.

My additional reading material adds a copy of the letter the king writes to all the governors – “from India to Ethiopia.”  It sounds like something the Nazis might have written about the extermination of the Jews in 1939.  Perhaps Hitler was familiar with it.

Esther gets a copy of the letter to Mordecai and he begs her to intervene with the king.  She thinks she is helpless (she is not permitted to approach the king; he must call for her). She hasn’t been called for 30 days.  Mordecai reminds her of her heritage as a Jew and her duty to her people.  The inference is that God will save the people through another avenue, but if she doesn’t do her part, her family will perish.  “Who knows if this is the reason she has attained to this position?”

Esther agrees and asks Mordecai to gather the Jews together for prayer and fasting and does the same with her attendants.  (God is never mentioned in the King James Version of the book of Esther.)  She says, “And if I perish, I perish.”

More additional information from my extra reading: Mordecai’s prayer.  This is quite scientific from a Christian Science perspective. And Esther’s prayer.  What a shame these prayers are not included in the canonical book of Esther!

Interesting notes:

·         Esther is not represented in the Dead Sea Scrolls.

·         The Council of Trent, the summation of the Roman Catholic Reformation, reconfirmed the entire book as canonical.

·         Luther doubted the value of the book.

·         Esther is a small book but there seems to be quite a bit to write about it. 

·         I have never, over lots of years of preparing readings for Christian Science Wednesday Evening Meetings, been able to include any verses from the book.*

 Joyce Voysey

*Ed. I have included the story in Wednesday Testimony Meetings on at least two occasions, with happy results. 

Calculus and Jehovah

Pardon my absence from this blog.  I think of it all the time, but there have been other things to contemplate – A visit from a Jehovah’s Witness had me researching 'Jehovah' and last week's Christian Science Bible Lesson had a phrase that needed my attention and growth in understanding: “the divine, infinite calculus” (Science and Health 520:14).

The best inkling I got as to what calculus is, was that it was all about change.  JSH-Online (jsh-online.com) provided a poem and an article which exactly satisfied me.  

The article is by Margaret Morrison and is titled “The Infinite calculus of Spirit.” It's from the September 1935 copy of The Christian Science Journal. http://journal.christianscience.com/issues/1935/9/53-6/the-infinite-calculus-of-spirit

Here is the poem, from the December 2, 2013 issue of The Christian Science Sentinel. There is an excellent photo accompanying the poem if anyone is interested. 

 - http://sentinel.christianscience.com/issues/2013/12/115-48/higher-mathematics

Higher Mathematics 

by Laura Bantly

Go figure.

If God is ALL,

nothing can be added

nor anything taken away.

Divisions are inadmissible,

quotients have no function.

All equations are obsolete,

“swallowed up in the

infinite calculus of Spirit” *

Stripped of formula and hypothesis,

eternal Oneness

IS.

*Mary Baker Eddy Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures p. 209.  

_____________________________________________________________________________ 

And about Jehovah, I was satisfied with reading about the term in Science and Health, It was very revealing to me.  Of course, there is always more to be learned about that infinite topic, GOD.

I have notes on Esther to type up (my usual computer is at the healer’s and I am using a laptop which I am not all that familiar with), but I will send this off to Julie right now.

Joyce Voysey

Role playing

I was listening to our two-year-old granddaughter acting out the role of "bigger cousin" the other day. Up to that point, she had been so sweet, calm and loving. Now she was complaining and bossy. I didn't interfere. I just knew that wasn't her real self. Pretty soon the tone changed and she was acting normally and interacting sweetly with her baby cousin.

Enter King Ahasuerus and Queen Vashti. The king requests the presence of the queen, who decides she will not cooperate. Horror of horrors say all the other males in the court. If the queen doesn't obey her husband, what hope have all the other husbands of having cooperative wives? And so the king acted out the role of the wronged husband. 

I'm sure there's a lesson here.

Julie Swannell

Drinking parties

I seem to have opened a can or worms for myself by beginning to read the Additions to Esther.  The Harper Collins Study Bible – identified hereafter as HCSB – states that the king “gave a drinking party for the people of various nations who lived in the city” after a marriage feast.  And, what’s more, “Meanwhile, Queen Vashti gave a drinking party for the women in the palace where King Artaxerxes was.”  Drinking parties!!  The King James Version (KJV) says “Banquet.”

It seems to me that alcohol is an evil thing to-day, but I hadn’t considered the possibility that it could have been as much abused in Bible times.

I have just read a book about Captain James Cook (Cook by Rob Mundle).  On his journeys, Cook took copious amounts of alcohol which the men drank regularly.  He also allowed “drinking parties” on special occasions.  Often a man was punished for drunkenness.

In her historical novel The Secret Chord, Geraldine Brooks tells the reader that excessive imbibing of alcohol was prevalent in King David’s day too. The narrator is Nathan, the prophet, and here is an excerpt where he speaks of himself:

    “I drank it down, and signalled for another.  I drank that night till I lost myself, and with the Plishtim (i.e. Philistine) liquor, it did not take much.  Soon, it became a habit.  I would take a crater before we set out, to numb myself, and then on our return I would down as much as it took to secure oblivion.”  (p.107-108)  (Crater seems to be a cup; the word coming from resemblance to a volcano crater.)

The Secret Chord is really a history of David*, and it is pretty difficult to like David after reading what Brooks has come up with.

So, I see there is a need to confront this problem with my prayers rather than my disgust.

The discoverer of Christian Science, Mary Baker Eddy, says of strong drink, “its slightest use is abuse...”  The whole paragraph is very strong and definite:

   "The cause of temperance receives a strong impulse from the cause of Christian Science: temperance and truth are allies, and their cause prospers in proportion to the spirit of Love that nerves the struggle.  People will differ in their opinions as to means to promote the ends of temperance, that is, abstinence from intoxicating beverages.  Whatever intoxicates a man, stultifies and causes him to degenerate physically and morally.  Strong drink is unquestionably an evil, and evil cannot be used temperately: its slightest use is abuse; hence the only temperance is total abstinence.  Drunkenness is sensuality let loose, in whatever form it is made manifest. 

Miscellaneous Writings p. 268:26

Joyce Voysey

*Ed: "The Secret Chord" is fiction, though researched by the author to represent truth as carefully as may be reconstructed from available documents, notably the Bible.

Gladness and joy

I had a Bible concordance out this morning, looking up the word gladness. There is quite a lot of gladness in the book of Esther! For example, this stirring passage:

• Esth 8:16 The Jews had light, and gladness, and joy, and honour.

My dictionary tells me that glad means

1. feeling joy or pleasure; delighted, pleased e.g. glad about the good news

2. accompanied by or causing joy or pleasure e.g. glad tidings

3. characterized by or showing cheerfulness, joy, or pleasure

4. very willing

Have a glad day today.

Julie Swannell

Esther

ESTHER

I had always thought of Esther as being a Jewish name, but I find that it was not originally so.  The Jewish name for this character is Hadassah.

My Harper Collins Bible Dictionary told me that.  It also commented that the Greek texts of the book of Esther have “Additions to Esther” which are found in the Apocrypha.  I have the Harper Collins Study Bible (NRSV) which includes these additions, so I am excited about getting down to the full read. 

Joyce Voysey