Queen Esther & Human Trafficking

At the church where I serve as Youth and families pastor we have a contemporary service each Sunday at 9am. My wife and I lead worship almost every Sunday and once in a while I get the opportunity to speak. We are using “The Story Series” as our base for that service which is designed to walk us through the entire Bible in 31 weeks. This week was about the book of Esther, a woman of beauty and courage. I wanted to share my notes from yesterday’s message because I think this story needs to be shared over and over again.

Esther one of the few women in the Bible that gets her own book. Esther holds a very important place in Israelis history, a history that could have ended if it were not for this brave girl. But the story isn’t an easy one, there are some pretty messy things that happen in the story of Esther. Like many old testament stories we might be tempted to think simply of the kid version of the story where the king hand picks Esther the most beautiful woman in all the land, she saves her people from an evil man named Hamen and they live happily ever after.

If the story of Esther was not in the bible I’m sure it would be a Disney princess movie. From rags to riches, from being a foreigner to being the queen of all the land. But it might not meet the PG standards.

But lets look at the story, deep into the story and find what God’s plan in all this was.

Our story begins today with another woman on the throne, well not exactly on the throne because the king, king Xerxes was on the throne but his wife Vashti was queen.

King Xerxes loved to be extravagant and to party, who wouldn’t be when you are the ruler of 127 providences. To show off his wealth and extravagance Xerxes had a 180 day fair, like a worlds fair of sorts to display his kingdom to his VIP guests and to top it off he gave a grand banquet to all his guests that lasted 7 days. At this banquet was an open bar and all the wine anyone wished to drink.

So in other words it was a drunken mess, like a tailgate party that has gone on for way to long.

At the climax of drunken party Xerxes has this bright idea of inviting his wife to come parading her beauty before him and his All male guests.

But Vashti would not have any part of it. She would not come to the king’s request and entertain the watching lustful eyes of the drunken men. She would not do it. She would not disgrace herself.

That choice that Vashti made was a courageous one. To refuse the king could equal death. But she would not allow her self to simply be an item, a possession for the king to do with as he pleased.

She stood strong and because of her stand she was banished.

So with Vashti banished the King was in need of a new queen, and this for Xerxes was not something to be taken lightly. He sent men through out his 127 providences to bring to him young girls that might be suitable to be queen.

These girls had no choice in the matter they would be taken from their homes and brought to the palace to be placed under the care of a eunuch. They would be given spa treatments for months.

When I read this in Esther this past week it struck me that these girls in away were trafficked away from their families, their homes and forced and trained in the ways of pleasing the king.

In the past few years I have been made aware and learned a lot about human trafficking. Human trafficking, is modern day slavery. Repackaged and reformed to be as much out of the publics eye as possible, people are entrapped, enslaved, forced to do unspeakable things with little to no freedom or hope.

In third world countries the poor become indebted to the rich and can never repay, families are forced to sell their children as workers in factories or sending them to other countries because they are promised a new life and wealth but when they arrive they are tricked and coerced into sex slavery, prostitution and drug smuggling. They are stripped of their human rights, dignity and told they mean nothing to anyone.

This is a sad truth. Slavery didn’t end in 1865, it might have slowed down when the Civil War ended but it didn’t stop. And it’s not just in other countries across the sea it’s happening here in our own back yard. When I lived in Kansas I learned that Dodge City, which was 45 min away from my school, was a hot bed for Human trafficking, the stock yards were a prime spot for prostitution and drugs. The highway to dodge went right by my college… those people passed right by us and we didn’t even see them.

Even here in North Carolina human trafficking happens, my wife and I attended an event last Saturday to raise awareness for human trafficking and a girl at the event shared a little of her story, she grew up right here in Greensboro, NC, she wound up a victim of trafficking.

Human trafficking is as real and it happens, it even happened here in the story of Esther.

Esther was taken by Xerxes men to the palace to be beautifully prepared to meet the king. Their one job now was to please the king…

When I read this story I find this to be the lowest point in Esther’s life. She had been through a lot, from the lose of both her parents, to be raised by her uncle, to now being take from the only family she has and forced to compete to be queen.

Before Esther was taken her uncle Mordecai advised her to tell no one that she was a jew.

In a fairy tale sorta way Esther is chosen by the king to be his next wife, we don’t know really if Esther really wanted to be queen, but we do know she didn’t have a choice. The king thought she was beautiful so she became is queen.

Fortunately for her, her uncle Mordecai lived in the same city and so she didn’t lose all connection with him. In the story Mordecai find out about a plot to kill the king and saves the king. In response to Mordecai’s saving his life the king has his second in command Haman honor Mordecai. Haman happens however to hate Mordecai and so plots to kill Mordecai but thats not enough Haman wants to kill all the jews so he tricks the king into making a decree to have all the jews killed on a certain day.

But the king nor Haman knows that the new Queen is a jew.

In Esther 4 Mordecai makes Esther aware of whats going to happen to the jews and pleads with her to help them.

Esther 4

When Mordecai learned of all that had been done, he tore his clothes, put on sackcloth and ashes, and went out into the city, wailing loudly and bitterly. But he went only as far as the king’s gate, because no one clothed in sackcloth was allowed to enter it. In every province to which the edict and order of the king came, there was great mourning among the Jews, with fasting, weeping and wailing. Many lay in sackcloth and ashes.
When Esther’s eunuchs and female attendants came and told her about Mordecai, she was in great distress. She sent clothes for him to put on instead of his sackcloth, but he would not accept them. Then Esther summoned Hathak, one of the king’s eunuchs assigned to attend her, and ordered him to find out what was troubling Mordecai and why.
So Hathak went out to Mordecai in the open square of the city in front of the king’s gate. Mordecai told him everything that had happened to him, including the exact amount of money Haman had promised to pay into the royal treasury for the destruction of the Jews. He also gave him a copy of the text of the edict for their annihilation, which had been published in Susa, to show to Esther and explain it to her, and he told him to instruct her to go into the king’s presence to beg for mercy and plead with him for her people.
Hathak went back and reported to Esther what Mordecai had said. Then she instructed him to say to Mordecai, “All the king’s officials and the people of the royal provinces know that for any man or woman who approaches the king in the inner court without being summoned the king has but one law: that they be put to death unless the king extends the gold scepter to them and spares their lives. But thirty days have passed since I was called to go to the king.”
When Esther’s words were reported to Mordecai, he sent back this answer: “Do not think that because you are in the king’s house you alone of all the Jews will escape. For if you remain silent at this time, relief and deliverance for the Jews will arise from another place, but you and your father’s family will perish. And who knows but that you have come to your royal position for such a time as this?”
Then Esther sent this reply to Mordecai: “Go, gather together all the Jews who are in Susa, and fast for me. Do not eat or drink for three days, night or day. I and my attendants will fast as you do. When this is done, I will go to the king, even though it is against the law. And if I perish, I perish.”
So Mordecai went away and carried out all of Esther’s instructions.

I love Mordecai’s reply to Esther, “Do not think that because you are in the king’s house you alone of all the Jews will escape. For if you remain silent at this time, relief and deliverance for the Jews will arise from another place, but you and your father’s family will perish. And who knows but that you have come to your royal position for such a time as this?”

For such a time as this. In the book of Esther God is not mentioned once but the evidence of God’s plan is blatantly present. Here in these first moments of Esther’s queenship she is faced with a great challenge, Haman has doomed all jews, but Mordecai sees something different, he sees hope, he sees the position that Esther is in was meant to help save the jews.

Esther new that there was a chance the king would not want to see her, that he could just as easily banish her as he had Vashti but she was willing to take the risk, she was willing to have courage and stand for her people who couldn’t stand for themselves.
we know from the rest of the story that the king does grant her life and he attends her little banquet twice, we learn that Esther has the courage and guts to tell the king what is troubling her and how Haman has set out to bring an end to her people. She has the courage to speak for those who could not.

Sadly the king couldn’t reverse the decree but he does allow the jews to defend themselves and on the day set out to be the destruction of the jews turns into a victory against their enemies.

What do we take away from this story?

How does this story of Esther effect our lives today?
When I read this story I see a young girl who stands up with courage and turns the worst possible thing into the best possible thing. Who doesn’t lose heart even though she went through one of the worst possibly life experiences ever, I see a girl that stands up and fights for those who cannot fight for themselves, literally.

So us?

What are we going to do?

I told you earlier about Human trafficking. I’ve told you about people that cannot speak for themselves, that are not free, that each day are fighting for their lives. But does that break your heart, because it does mine, it hurts to hear about children how are forced to work, kidnaped, sold and mistreated.

We have a choice, just like Esther had a choice, you are placed her in this time and in this place just for this. To stand up for others, to fight for freedom, it’s going to take courage, it may cost us much, maybe everything but is human life not worth that, is not each human being in need of love, worth giving love to simply because they are created by God.

My Heart breaks for humanity, for the broken and the captive.

If we are going to call ourselves followers of Jesus we have to carry on what he started… at the beginning of Jesus earthly ministry he read from Isaiah and it’s our challenge today.

Luke 4:18-19
“The Spirit of the Lord is on me,
because he has anointed me
to proclaim good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners
and recovery of sight for the blind,
to set the oppressed free,
to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”

If we don’t know what to do find someone who does? If anything we need to speak for those who can’t.

So Thankful…

So, I know it’s not common to start a new paragraph with the word “SO”, however, I thought that it should be done so thats what I did. So, as I went for a walk this morning with my wife I thought that today would be a great day to make a blog post, a post very much overdue. So, here I am writing this post not out of regret for not writing in a long time, but rather, writing out of a thankful heart. That’s what I want to focus on today, the things that I am thankful for. I could just make a list of the things, but that lacks meaning and I can imagine myself getting bored reading someone else’s list of the things they are thankful for… So to infuse more meaning into this post I want to explain why I am thankful for these things.

1. My Wife, Megan. I’m so thankful for her. Her personality is an artful conception, there is such meaning and beauty in her just being herself. The other day she told me she sees and hears things in colors and shapes. It’s as if she sees the world in a painted form that she sometimes gives me a little glimpse into. She is funny and doesn’t hesitate to remind me so. She is crafty and artistic. She is beautiful and thoughtful. We have been married a few months over a year now and it’s been just a small sample of what forever together is going to be like. I’m thankful I get to spend forever with her.

2. Family, I don’t live near my family right now and, well, somedays that sucks. But really I am thankful everyday for them. For the memories we made growing up and our relationships. Having four sisters was interesting to say the least but I wouldn’t trade any of them for a brother. Love was aways in the house and the house was always packed… Not literally, but my family – even though they can drive me nuts – always has shown me love, even when I move far away and I’m not around much. I’m thankful that family is family no matter how far away.

3. Laughter, I really enjoy laughing. I think this probably comes from growing up in a full house and always having something or someone to laugh at, or with. Laughter is an overflow of Joy. If life doesn’t seem to to have any joy just find something that’s funny! Laugh a little. There was one week this year that I laughed harder than I had in a long time, I was laughing so hard I cried. It feels so good to laugh. Also, I will never look at scrambled eggs again without laughing… But that’s a different story for another day… ,Abe.

4. Experiences. So thats kind of a broad thing to be thankful for, but thats what I am thankful for. Experiences. This summer, Megan and I got to go out to Oregon to a friends wedding. It was my first time ever going to Oregon and it was amazing looking out and seeing the mountains rise out of the desert-like land of central Oregon. We stayed in a house with the other members of the wedding party and had a blast getting to know new people. It’s always a blessing getting to celebrate a new chapter in our friends lives. Megan and I also got to travel to Haiti this fall and be a part of a medical missions team there. It was an eye-opening experience and hard to put into words. There was so much we learned and saw on that trip. I am thankful that God has given us opportunities to serve everywhere we go.

5. Challenges, I’m thankful for all the challenges that have come with being a youth pastor, with learning to be a husband, with living in a state that is not my home, and navigating the adventure of life. These challenges haven’t always been fun or easy, but they are shaping me and the more I stop and think about life, the more I am thankful for them.

6. Interruptions. Let me explain. Yesterday, my friend Thomas came and spoke at our contemporary service and one point he made was about how God wants to interrupt our routine, our cycle of how we do our lives. Thomas explained how Jesus was a beautiful interruption. Jesus wasn’t the Messiah that the Jewish leaders were expecting. He wasn’t a normal Rabbi either. He was an interruption, God’s divine interruption. I’m thankful for Jesus interrupting my life. For knocking me out of my routine.

My hope this Thanksgiving is that we can let Jesus be that beautiful interruption in our routine. That in the midst of the turkey, too much food and football we might stop and really be thankful. Not just a passing quick ‘thanks’ either. A real genuine, “SO, let me tell you why I am thankful.”

Mind Renewal and Butterflies

“Do not conform any longer to the patterns of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is, his good, pleasing and perfect will”- 12: 2 

I read this verse a few weeks ago in a devotional that I am going through and have continued to come across it in a few books that I am reading. Also a week ago I saw a short video about the brain that mentioned this verse. Finally it kinda hit me this morning as I was starting my day that maybe God was trying to get through to me to stop and think about it for a minute.

Romans 12:2 is one of those verses I could just easily just pass by without thought. Its a obvious verse that is often over quoted and I have read a million times. STOP for a second if I have read it a million times and heard sermons preach about it why then have I given it so little thought. Maybe because When we stop and really think about our lives, the way we think, the way we act, and the way we do anything for that matter we might just have to rethink thing because our patterns are just like the world.

While reading yesterday in the book “Plan B” by Pete Wilson I came across the verse again but this time the following paragraph from the actually made me stop and think about it.

“So what is the pattern of this world? If we look closely, we can probably discern several distinct patterns. There is the pattern of hurry -now, now, now, faster, faster, faster. There is the pattern of debt- enjoy now, pay later (if at all). But one of the patterns I see every single day in the lives of people I rub elbows with is fear and anxiety. I truly believe there is a pattern of fear in our culture, probably made worse by our constant media presence. We’re constantly alerted to the possible sources of danger, conditioned to see threats all around us. We’re instructed to cover our tails, to trust no one, to avoid failure at any cost”- Pg 56-57

Hurry, hurry, hurry… this seems to often the one we ignore and I believe like Pete it is out of fear of many things that keeps us from slowing down long enough to listen to what God has to say. I can say all the times that I read through this verse in the past few weeks were more than likely out of hurry, hurry because well often times for no other reason than to feel like I accomplished something which in turn is fed by a fear that comes from being told you better not fail and better do everything right. I can say I am in the process of letting my fears go and trusting God but I have to slow down to do it.

It’s interesting to me that the word transformation is in this verse. Transformation is one of those buzz words for me that makes me excited and thoughtful (most of the time when I slow down). Transformation is simple put the Process of Change. The word is closely tied with the greek word for metamorphosis, which as most boys who have ever been fascinated by bugs understand is the process of going through the stages of a caterpillar to a butterfly. I use to be obsessed with bugs, but thats another story, however, understanding that transformation is a process helps when connecting transformation to the renewing of our minds.

We often point to the caterpillar and the butterfly when we think of metamorphosis yet we don’t ever really think about the cocoon stage. We like the beginning and the end. Doesn’t that sound familiar, as humans we love birth and celebrate or morn death but rarely do we focus on how we have changed through those times. We hurry from birth to death so we can be in heaven, sadly we miss out on so much of the life that Christ already offers us here when we hurry through everything. Jesus wants to blow our minds here, make us STOP and really think through life. To be renewed in mind through the slow process of thinking through what patterns we are living and how we can allow God to change us if we let him.

A caterpillar will eat and eat and often die before it get to be a cocoon because it over eats or gets squashed by some little kid, hurry and eat, hurry and eat, but for the caterpillar to reach the cocoon stage it has to stop and allow the shell to form around it.

It has to stop hurrying, it has to change every pattern of life that is has ever known. 

That statement alone can define what a christian life should be like, it changes everything we know. It change us to the core and shapes us into something we never dreamed of, yet, often times when we hear that being a christian, following christ or simply

renewing our minds means we might have to change we simple respond in fear. We continue our patterns of worry, hurry, and fear because flowing jesus might mean changing everything.

If you want examples of what what looks like just look at the disciples, look at paul, or any one in the early church. When we truly

encounter Jesus Everything changes.

The caterpillar has to trust God that he will make it out of the cocoon someday. I’ve seen caterpillars that never made it out but Idon’t think that the fear of not making it ever kept them from not trying. We have to stop fearing failure and start trusting that God knows what he is doing even if we don’t make it out, even if following Christ is an experience that is painful, hard, and often full of times that we fail by the worlds standards.

It’s your choice. Your life and your mind. You can choose to stop and examine life and seek change and allow God to truly transform you through the renewing of your mind. The promise is there that we are better able to discern the life God has for us when we stop and allow him to change us.

As for me. I’m setting out to continue this process, to follow Jesus no matter what even if it does mean I have to change everything about everything that I ever knew. Its a challenge and though in my humanity it comes with fear I hope that through the renewing of my mind daily that fear will become so small that I will walk with confidence through the valley of the shadow of death.

-Caleb Ross Hunter

Watch this: http://vimeo.com/54866496

Mass Society (Broken Prose)

Mindless masses revolt as they reflect human change the canvas of inspired striving on earth for betterment of souls by society.

The great idea of community could exist had everyone felt like it.

The public increase of thought and freedom apparently does go on.

Society now human will be unhappy in life about material betterment.

People deny that they are alone.

The universal western picture leaves that mass in specialized competitive status-hungry privacy.

Friends rather of norms and standards controls a single group.

Put movement to light…

-Caleb Ross Hunter

I Was Chasing a Sunset.

I like to chase sunsets…

There is just something awesome and majestic about a sunset that just makes me want to chase it. Today while study for a final I got a text from my best friend to go and look at the sunset so I got up and walked over to the window and I could see the orange just bursting through over the top of the dorm that sits across the street from my window.

That little burst of orange was not enough for me…

I knew there was more to this sunset so I threw on some shoes and grabbed my keys and Camera to chase the sunset. I drove out of town down a dirt road toward the brilliant bursting light. There orange and yellow beams ran fading into the blue in the sky and into the dirty brown mud of the fields where I stood.

There running across the fields with a camera and eyes wide open I’m as a child chasing after the sun in wonder. While standing there just gazing into the picture being painted before me a train rolls by and the sounds of the semi’s on the high way remind me I’m still on earth, but wow. What a view? What a picture?

The blood in my hands started turning blue from the cold but there and then I don’t really care about how cold I am. I was chasing a sunset. Something I love to do! I love to chase after the beautiful nature that God puts out there for us to explore.

I would have chased that sunset all the way to california if I could but dinner and more studying for finals was calling me back on campus. Someday I will chase sunsets every night…

Why don’t you chase the sunset? Sometimes it just takes a text from my best friend to get me up and running to see God’s creation. While I was taking the pictures of the sunset I was thinking about how the pictures can’t even capture the experience of the sunset. Next time you see the sunset, stop take it in or get up and chase it, take in as much of the beauty that is created before you. Let the sunset always remind you, as it does me of how great of an artist that our God is…

Chase the sunset and let it lead you back to the one who is more awesome and majestic than the sunset in which he created.

-Caleb Ross Hunter