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Today is World Communion Sunday. It’s a day that many Protestant denominations, worldwide, lift up our common union – our gathering ‘round one table in Christ’s name. Our tables are as diverse as the people who stand behind, in front or around them. Some tables might be called altars, harkening to our Jewish roots including Abraham’s almost sacrifice of Isaac; and our dominant Christian understanding of Jesus being sacrificed for the sins of humanity. We bring our offerings to the altar. No bleating sheep or goats, not around here anyway. Nowadays we bring baskets and platters filled with pledge envelopes and loose change.

We celebrate Communion at a table because Jesus likely sat at a table with his friends and disciples. We remember a particular meal at a particular time; a Passover Meal that led ultimately to Christ’s betrayal and murder. Later in the service we will hear, see and taste what tradition has passed down through the centuries and across the continents. We call it the sacrament of Holy Communion. The Last Supper. We celebrate Jesus not sitting at the table but rather, Jesus setting the table. He says to the world, “Ya’ll come.”

Before there was communion. Before Jesus was identified through the New Testament as the promised Messiah. Before there was Christianity. Jesus was a Jew.

Jesus grew up with the stories of his faith, stories that we also claim. He was more familiar than we are, to be sure, with today’s Hebrew Scripture. He was undoubtedly equally familiar with the holiday born of this story. Purim. Today’s text set me on a scavenger hunt. What is Purim? And, who was Esther?

The shorthand answer to the first question is that Purim is a great party celebrating the Jews once victims becoming victors. Jewish writers make clear that the holiday’s popularity will outlast the exile. As Elie Wiesel says, “Everybody likes a happy ending. …Yes, Purim will be celebrated even after the coming of the Messiah – even after the redemption of the Jewish people and, through it, of all nations and all people. Purim is something so rare, so special, so unique, that we shall never part with it. We need Purim as much as we need Yom Kippur, the day of atonement.”

I came across a gay Jewish rabbi (I think) writing about Purim on the Jewish Mosaic website. The website is part of the National Center for Sexual and Gender Diversity. In stereotypical drag queen style, Rebbetzin Hadassah Gross shares her wit.

“Purim night is upon us, the perfect opportunity to lose the labels, let loose, and put the fun back into fundamentalism – in strict accordance with Jewish law! This holiday is, in my opinion, the holiest one of the year. Although often neglected, Purim is dedicated to the courageous peeling away of labels, unmasking the safety of the familiar and entering the delicious territory of the unknown. Oh how I love Purim!

I want to encourage each and every one of you, saint or sinner, to piously observe the important laws of Purim – especially the ones that ask us to go beyond the law, peel the label, turn the table, and drink the night away. Yes, drink, kinderlach, or whatever it takes to blur the differences until you don’t know the difference between Blue or Red (referring not to a state’s political leanings but to the Kosher McDonalds in Israel sporting blue colors rather than the traditional red. Blue like the sky, blue like the prayer shawl, blue like the flag of Israel), blur the difference between Mordecai or Haman, Jew or Gentile, Man or Woman, straight or gay. From this upside-down folly, taken seriously, much redemption is born in the soul!”

“Purim is also my birthday. Named after Queen Esther, I was taught early in life to honor my inner queen, glamorous and proud, bold and loud. This Purim, I want to encourage you too to come out of your skin, your closet, and your familiar face, and to walk in someone else’s shoes for the night. This is the lesson of Purim. Imagine wearing a cross (if you are Jewish). Or cross-dressing. So many opportunities for creative role-play! Discover your inner queen, or policeman, or geisha, or even your inner gay cowboy or Conservative rabbi! The Purim law is, Everything in moderation, including moderation.”

I’m sure that essay would be even more humorous if we were Jewish. Purim is somebody else’s tradition. Somebody like our friend, Jesus. Jesus who welcomes and embraces each of us as we are holy made, queens and cowboys, straight, gay and transgendered. Today is not Purim, we missed it. It was March 14 this past year. But it is World Communion Sunday. We can celebrate our being part of God’s family, God’s giant inclusive family.

What about the second question. Who is Esther? Esther is legend. The Book of Esther is an engaging story that can be simplified into a fairytale. Esther was chosen for such a time as this. A time that required someone of influence to change the king’s mind about allowing a terrible deed to transpire. A time that called upon a simple Jewish girl to risk her new status as queen, to risk even her life. A time that made the low mighty and the mighty low.

The Book of Esther is also an engaging story with numerous layers and more numerous issues. Profound and disturbing issues. This morning we heard only snippets from just 2 chapters. Esther really needs her ten chapters to tell the full story. And that is not the full story. As with the entire Bible, we don’t know what happens to most of the characters. We are left to our imaginations, historical and allegorical minded. This is an invitation to be in conversation, with God. With Jesus. With one another. Jews call it Midrash, filling in the holes of scripture.

Purim begins with everyone listening to the story of Esther as recorded in the Book of Esther. A good story speaks for itself. I’m tempted to read the story in its relatively brief entirety. But, we don’t have time enough this morning and truth be told, we want to get on with our day. Allow me to underscore what Hadassah Gross poignantly highlighted in her experience of the text and then close.

Queen Esther was closeted and came out. Her courage, boldness, and skill resulted in averting genocide. We are encouraged to practice her undoing labels. We are encouraged to walk a day in another’s shoes. Take some risks. Change the world.

There is no mention of God in this story. The Book of Esther and the Song of Solomon or Song of Songs are the two books in our scripture that not once mention God. It’s hard not to hear God at work in the story. But, sometimes God feels absent in our stories. What does it mean when God is absent? Are we powerless?

Esther’s story does not end happily ever after for everyone. The irony, (or is it the way life is?), when the Jews come into power, when the victims now victors were able to call the shots, revenge was sought. Mordecai, with the support of the king, made it lawful “for the Jews in every city to defend their lives, to destroy, to kill, and to annihilate any armed force of any people or province that might attack them…” (Ch. 8:13) And that they did.

Elie Wiesel in his book, Sages and Dreamers, concludes that Purim is celebrated with joy and fervor because Queen Esther represents a time when God was moved to compassion. Twenty two thousand Jewish children were spared – unlike centuries later. Wiesel also addresses the question of why God’s name is absent in the tale.

He points to the story’s end. The genocide of the Jews is averted. Yet, there is a call for bloodshed. 500 men were slain in Shushan in one day, and three hundred the next. 75,000 people lost their lives elsewhere. Is this fact or fiction?
The question remains: How could the Jews then and now celebrate Purim in the midst of such killing? Why is revenge so sweet? Even after all these years?

Wiesel writes, “God refused to be associated with the denouncement, with the bloodshed. It was his way of saying, Don’t ascribe this to me; I had nothing to do with it; you wanted revenge, all right, but don’t make me responsible for it.”

Elie Wiesel speaks to each one of us when he says, “For to be Jewish means to have earned the right to punish our enemies, (who inevitably turn out to be the enemies of humankind), and to choose not to.”

Amen

BLESSING THE BREAD: A Litany for Four Voices by Carter Heyward
Adapted by Sandy Dodson

Voice 1:  In the beginning was God
Voice 2:  In the beginning, the source of all that is
Voice 3:  In the beginning, God yearning
Voice 4:  God, moaning
Voice 1:  God, laboring
Voice 2:  God, giving birth
Voice 3:  God, rejoicing
Voice 4:  And God loved what she had made
Voice 1:  And God said, “It is good.”

Voice 2:  Then God, knowing that all that is good is shared
Voice 3:  Held the earth tenderly in her arms
Voice 4:  God yearned for relationship
Voice 1:  God longed to share the good earth
Voice 2:  And humanity was born in the yearning of God
Voice 3:  We were born to share the earth
Voice 4:  In the earth was the seed
Voice 1:  In the seed were the grain and fruit
Voice 2:  In the grain and fruit was the harvest

Voice 3: In the harvest was the bread and wine
Voice 4: In the wine and bread was the power

Voice 1: And God said, All shall eat of the earth
Voice 2: All shall eat of the seed
Voice 3: All shall eat of the grain and fruit
Voice 4: All shall eat of the harvest
Voice 1: All shall eat and drink of the bread and wine
Voice 2: All shall eat and drink of the power
Voice 3: God said, You are my people
Voice 4: My friends
Voice 1: My lovers
Voice 2: My sisters
Voice 3: My brothers
Voice 4: All of you shall eat and drink

Voice 1: Of the bread, of the fruit
Voice 2: And the power
Voice 3: All shall eat and drink
Voice 4: Then God, gathering up her courage in love, said
Voice 1: Let there be bread and wine!

Voice 2: And God’s sisters, her friends and lovers knelt on the earth
Voice 3: Planted the seeds
Voice 4: Prayed for the rain
Voice 1: Sang for the grapes and grain
Voice 2: Made the harvest
Voice 3: Cracked the wheat and plucked the grapes
Voice 4: Pounded the corn and pressed the fruit
Voice 1: Kneaded the dough and strained the juice
Voice 2: Kindled the fire and filled the jars
Voice 3: Filled the air with the smell of fresh bread and fermenting fruit
Voice 4: And there was bread!
Voice 1: And there was wine!
Voice 2: And it was good!

Voice 3: We, the sisters of God say today
Voice 4: All shall eat of the bread, drink of the wine
Voice 1: And the power
Voice 2: We say today,
Voice 3: All shall have power
Voice 4: And bread, And drink
Voice 1: Today we say
Voice 2: Let there be bread. Let there be wine.

Voice 3: By the power of God
Voice 4: By the bread and juice of God
Voice 1: The power is blessed
Voice 2: By the power of bread and juice
Voice 3: The people are blessed
Voices 1,2,3,4:  Amen

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