Power is Not a Prerequisite for Change
The Crown
If you, like me, love Netflix’s show The Crown (yay for the new season premiering last Sunday!), you might be a sucker for historical narratives featuring assertive women, a monarchy with a rich heritage, images of wealth and pomp beyond your own experience, and examples of power that changes the course of a nation.
I have always been drawn to stories of queens throughout history — women who rise to the call of power, often in a male-dominated world, to extend the prosperity of their people, and later the course of history.
The Old Testament’s version of The Crown is not that.
The Story of Esther
The book of Esther tells the story of a girl who becomes queen and, ultimately, saves her people from genocide.
Oh, this story certainly has its share of wealth, extravagance, power, and pomp, but Esther is hardly the respected monarch who can exercise her own power for good or evil that we see in most accounts of historical queens.
Esther 2:1-18 is one of today’s lectionary texts —it is the background story of how Esther morphed from an orphaned Jewish girl growing up under the care of her uncle to the queen of the Persian empire—the empire that holds power over the Jewish people.
King Ahaseurus wants a new queen, so he claims beautiful young virgins in the kingdom as his property. These women, Esther included, enter a harem and complete nearly a year of beauty treatments before each one has a night with the king to see if she pleases him.
“Despite the very absence of security, this woman still dares to use her voice. ”
If the young woman does please him, she becomes queen. If not, she is returned to the harem to become one of the king’s many concubines.
Esther’s fate as queen or concubine rests all on the capricious, cruel whims of a king’s pleasure during the span of one evening. It is with this narrative that Esther becomes queen of a powerful nation.
But before we assume that the crown brings with it immense power or authority, we must not forget the previous queen.
In chapter 1, Queen Vashti merely dares to tell her drunken husband, “No,” when he asks her to dance (presumably naked) in front of a room of men after a feast. As punishment for such an exercise of “royal authority,” Queen Vashti is stripped of her crown, title, and place in the narrative.
So our Queen Esther is an orphaned, minority woman; she is forced to serve in a harem before being chosen as Queen, which is a role that can be stripped away at any moment for daring to so much as use her voice.
And yet… despite the very absence of security, this woman still dares to use her voice.
And yet… despite the very absence of power, this voice still thwarts plans to annihilate her entire people.
Speaking truth to power
I can easily find a hundred different worthy lessons from the chapters of Esther’s story.
Inspiring bravery in a high stakes situation, loyalty to people over station, the providential circumstances that put Esther in the position of a queen when the Jewish people would need it most, speaking truth to power –so much truth, and so many challenges, can be found in her story.
But today, the lectionary has us focus on chapter two and the story of how Esther became queen.
“Power has never been a prerequisite for change. Hope and a belief that God’s world should be better are, but not power.”
Before she speaks truth to power, or chooses her people despite the danger, or displays impressive bravery and cunning, the story tells us that Esther was a powerless girl placed into a powerless position that could disappear in a moment should she so much as say, “No.”
She might have the title of queen, but let’s not mistaken her for an authoritative and respected monarch whose voice sets a nation in motion.
Chapter two reminds us all that change does not require power as a catalyst. In a world that increasingly communicates that only people at the top—the people with power—are the ones capable of making this world change, Esther reminds us this is a false conclusion.
When we tell ourselves that we are too insignificant, or that our voice is too weak, or that no one is listening, Esther reminds us that voices do not require volume, bravado, or a platform to make ripples.
When we see the sheer power of those in authority around us and take from it that we are too small to affect change, Esther reminds us a well-timed word has the power to rescue a nation from death.
Humanity was saved by a baby born in a borrowed stable.
The nation of Israel was saved by a powerless orphan queen.
Our nation gets a little closer to real civil rights by a twenty-one-year-old Freedom Rider causing a little “good trouble.”
Girls all over the world gain a spot in a classroom by a Pakistani teenager refusing to stay quiet after men opposed to the education of girls try to assassinate her.
Power has never been a prerequisite for change. Hope and a belief that God’s world should be better are, but not power.
Reverend Shelley Woodruff is the Interim Pastor for Community Engagement at FBC Decatur.