Our text today

is part of a larger story

of Esther detailing the reversal of fortunes

of two men,

Haman and Mordecai.

It is a story of court intrigue

and the triumph of the Jew

in a foreign court.

Our text is

the climax of the ongoing rivalry

between Haman,

a high official

in the Persian court,

and Mordecai,

a Jew living in exile

in the Persian citadel city of Susa (Esther 2:5).

The story has no direct mention

of God or divine intervention,

and is left

to the ingenuity

and strength of character

of the story's protagonists

to reveal God's will

in the midst of historical events.

The problem...

the rivalry

between Haman and Mordecai

began with Mordecai's refusal

to bow down and do obeisance to Haman (Esther 3:2b),

who had been elevated,

with no apparent reason,

to a position of considerable power and wealth

under King Ahasuerus.

Showing proper respect

for those in authority

or honor

by bowing or performing obeisance

(an overly dramatized bow)

was not prohibited to Jews...

so we can't say Mordecai

refused to bow down to Haman

based a religious obedience...

but more probably on a personal grudge.

Mordecai simply refuses to acknowledge

an undeserving cad.

In an enraged response

Haman persuades the king (Esther 3:6-11)

to kill all the Jews

living in the Persian Empire

(which dominated the Middle East

from cc. 550 to cc. 330 BC).

Meanwhile,

Mordecai's young cousin,

the beautiful Esther,

had become Ahasuerus's queen,

and Mordecai appealed to her for aid

in the face of the impending destruction

of their people (Esther 4:1-14).

King Ahasuerus is indebted to Mordecai

because some years earlier

he was helpful in uncovering

a plot to assassinate the king,

and ordered that

he be elevated to prominence

as a reward (Esther 6:1-11).

Mordecai is in royal favor.

Esther requests

an extended audience

with the king

in the form of

a series of royal banquets (Esther 5:1-7:10),

to which Haman and the king

are exclusively invited.

We begin our text

with a notation of the drinking

on the banquet's second day (vv. 1-2).

Read: Esther 7:1-6, 9-10, 9:20-22

The FBI has them,

as well as the U.S. military and NATO.

Janet Reno and the INS had them

when they grabbed Elian Gonzalez

in a pre-dawn raid on April 22, 2000.

(ROE).

Rules of engagement

Fathers have them

for their teenage daughters.

Here's a few of the highlights of one father's

"Application for Permission to Date My Daughter":

After asking for standard information

like name, date of birth, IQ,

GPA and Boy Scout rank,

the application then asks,

• Do you own a van? YES/NO
• Do you own a truck with oversized tires? YES/NO
• Do you own a waterbed? YES/NO
• Do you have an earring, nose ring or belly-button ring? YES/NO
• Do you own a pickup with a mattress in the back? YES/NO
• Do you have a tattoo? YES/NO

If YES to any of the above,

discontinue application

and leave the premises immediately.

Other items on the application include:

• In 50 words or less,

  what does LATE mean to you?

• In 50 words or less,

  what does DON'T TOUCH MY DAUGHTER mean to you?

• In 25 words or less,

  what does ABSTINENCE mean to you?

After completing the application,

the applicant affirms that

the information provided is true

under penalty of death, dismemberment and torture.

The fine print

at the bottom of the application

notes that the applicant should allow

four to six years for processing.

Rejected applicants

will be notified by two gentlemen

wearing white ties and carrying violin cases.

Rules of engagement.

They're a part of the cultural consciousness

since the Waco fiasco

(see the Academy Award nominated documentary,

WACO: The Rules of Engagement.)

Samuel L. Jackson starred in

Rules of Engagement last spring,

a movie that explored the problems

of calming a crowd in Yemen.

Rules of engagement

are ground rules

for responding to

threats and intimidation.

They're specific procedures

that provide guidance

on when and how

to deal with extreme situations.

Esther

certainly had no clear vision

of the outcome

when she ventured

into the court of the king.

She and her cousin Mordecai

were aliens in a strange land -

Jews living in the Persian empire

in the fifth century BC -

but they did not let their outsider status

prevent them from engaging

the great powers of the empire.

But not without developing

a set of ROE.

By doing so,

they ensured that the architect

of the anti-Semitic plot -

a Persian official named Haman -

ended up swinging from the same gallows

that had been erected for Mordecai (7:1-6, 9-10).

And what are these rules of engagement?

There is no mention here

of Judeo-Christian values

such as kindness, mercy and forgiveness.

No reference to the God of Israel,

although the Persian king is mentioned 190 times.

Missing entirely from Esther

is mention of such basic

religious practices and institutions

as the Law, covenant, dietary regulations

or the city of Jerusalem.

Yet the rules of engagement emerge quickly.

Esther is decisive.

First,

she calls for a fast (4:16).

They do nothing

until they have sought divine guidance.

Second,

she and Mordecai agree that

the time must be right.

There is no indication that

before this emergency,

they sought to challenge

an essentially godless culture

as an ethnic and religious minority in Persia.

When conditions changed, however,

Mordecai argues that

Esther had arrived

at the court of the king

"for just such a time as this" (4:14).

If she does not act now,

all will be lost.

Third,

a plan must be devised.

They invoke the rules of collaboration.

There will be no loose cannons

in this covert operation.

Everyone must be on the same page

and acting in concert one with the other.

Fourth,

they must consider -

and take -

the risk.

What Esther proposed was against the law.

Yet, she said,

"If I perish, I perish" (4:16).

All of which brings us

to the question of how Christians should function

as "resident aliens"

in multicultural, pluralistic secular ethos

which is uninformed

and often hostile

to Christian values.

We are challenged

to take a global view

and consider how the church

should initiate engagement

with secular powers around the world.

Should the church be making political pronouncements

during this season of high political activity?

Should candidates be endorsed?
Should propositions be favored?
Should the church get behind ballot measures?
Should we be supporting liberation movements abroad

and environmental movements at home?

Some say we should engage ...

but others say we should develop

rules of withdrawal (ROW).

It's a question of ROE v. ROW.

Should we ROW

or WADE right in

with both oars in the water?

"It is hard to see

why anyone would think that religion

is a cure for the world's problems,"

asserts Steven Weinburg in the Atlantic Monthly.

"People have been at each other's throats

over differences in religion

throughout history,

a sad story

that continues today

in Northern Ireland, the Balkans,

the Middle East, Sudan and India."

The man's got a point.

Ed Dobson,

a pastor in Grand Rapids, Michigan,

and one of the founders of the Moral Majority,

understands the problem.

In a departure

from the now defunct

Moral Majority's original rules of engagement,

he now will say nothing

from the pulpit

about politics,

arguing that

political involvement

hinders his role as a pastor.

Dobson lays out new rules:

1. We are to pray for political leaders.
2. We are to preach the moral absolutes of the Bible.
3. We are to exercise our rights as citizens.

We can probably do more good

in this world

by focusing on these three

than by pouring time, money and energy

into a potpourri of political activities.

Not all Christians agree.

Clashes of conscience abound in the church;

one person's vendetta is another person's values.

"If the church doesn't stand up for something,

it will fall for anything."

"Jesus, we are reminded,

was frequently an in-your-face activist."

The movie Insider

told the story of how one man

stood up to the tobacco industry.

The movie Erin Brockovich

recounted the tale of one woman

who took on powerful Pacific Gas & Electric.

Clearly, the church must likewise

be willing to critique the culture.

But Christians are going to disagree on many issues

for which there appears to be

no clear scriptural guidance.

We have become so comfortable

testing each other's theological DNA,

that we've now taken to

staining each other's political DNA

to weed out the

bad gene Christians

from the

good gene Christians

in a new game

of genetic gee-wizardry.

On such grounds,

we hesitate even to dialogue

with one another

unless equipped with a theological vaccine

to protect us from some virus

which might pock our faces with --

gasp! -

liberalism or evangelicalism.

We are less inclined today than yesterday

to separate from each other

on theological grounds

as we are

on political grounds.

Unfortunately, too many Christians

seem completely willing

to listen

and to follow

the ravings of some

pointy-headed spiritual apparatchik

without giving it a whole lot of thought.

It would be significantly easier

for the church

to fire off a few rounds

in the culture wars

if the enemy were writ large

on the cultural/political tableau.

Show us a Haman

threatening our very lives,

and Haman will face

a unified church

ready to take up arms.

The devil in red

we can recognize,

although even in some cases

(Hitler, racism, apartheid come to mind)

the record is spotty.

But when the issues are

Al Gore or George W. Bush,

or handgun control,

or welfare reform,

or prayer in public schools,

it is harder for the church

to decide whether to engage or withdraw.

Trying to equate spirituality

with certain political positions

is like trying to

pin the tail on a donkey -

that isn't there.

We come back to Esther and Mordecai.

They sought divine guidance through prayer.
They addressed the issue of timing.
They conceived a plan.
They considered the risk and took it.

Should the church engage or withdraw?

Yes and yes.

Sources:

Thomas, Cal, and Ed Dobson. Blinded by Might. Grand Rapids, Mich.: Zondevan, 1999.

Weinberg, Steven. "Five and a Half Utopias," Atlantic Monthly, January 2000, 110.