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.

Tell a Story, Live the Story

Every time that I read a story or watch a movie I can’t help but feel that I am a part of the story. As if in someway I have a connection to the imagination of the author. I know that is an insane thought however, isn’t that how we should live our lives. If our life is a story or a small chapter in the larger picture of the novel shouldn’t we have some connection to the author.

God is not only our creator but the author of life, We have the opportunity to turn the page each day on new lines he is writing in his story. Lived out in and through us.

Somedays I honestly struggle with the motivation to live and to write and tell “MY STORY”, however, when I step back and realize the story is already being written and I am a character with curtain experiences and adventures that still and always will point back to my author, then i find motivation to pen words that tell of Him rather than ME.

If I am to write, create, paint,speak or live, for that matter, for me than I will never be motivated, never fulfill my potential or ever really matter, however luckily life is not about ME. When life is about me I get lonely, unmotivated to do anything and nothing really makes any sense. But GOD has set out to transform my mind and heart and has placed his story upon my soul.

Humanity is God’s story being lived out full of individual characters and sub plots yet the over arching theme remains. The theme

of humanities struggle for meaning and purpose. A struggle that leaves us lost if we rely on ourselves, confused by the pain we

cause each other in our attempts to edit the story, yet hope though sadly found by the few, those who choose simply to walk out the story and plot God laid before them.

So what is my story that God is asking me to live?

What is that one thing you know that you were meant for?

Doesn’t have to be complex of world changing but it does have to be what God has made for you to live.

I believe beyond a shadow of a doubt God has asked me to tell stories, to live a story, and to share his story with the world. I was created with my potential in the mind of God, my potential has always lay in him and he is my motivation.

As long as God is still writing my story I will keep living.

Think about this…

Perhaps we were all born to do the same thing, to tell God’s story, to live what he has written, yet the way we tell it is in our own unique way.

-Caleb Ross Hunter

Day 41 “A Year of Thoughts”: Speak From The Heart

 

There are times when I fail to speak love from my heart. God has created us as human beings to love from the core of who we are. Yet we collectively fail at love each day.

 

I’m dying of heart failure for all the times I’ve failed to speak love from the core of who I am.

 

I’ve been selfish, withholding love. I fail at patience, I fail often at kindness, my words lack meaning and become that of a clanging cymbal. If my heart were a symphony I am the one instrument out of tune. My pride withholds love from those I might know to need it. If I am to live love, love always trusts, can I trust myself when my past is full of lies that lack trust, the failure to hold honestly to the truth.

 

                  But there is hope. 

 

Love still speaks because love keeps no record of wrongs, love forgives, it rejoices with the truth despite the evil of the past. It speaks through silence and pain, through joy and
laughter, love speaks when our hearts bleed. When we open them so that God’s love might begin to heal our wounds, so that we might find confidence to love despite our failure to love.

Love helps, it heals, it hopes, it’s kind and patient even when we aren’t. When I say I Love you I hope my heart speaks out of the core that I am.

 

1 Corinthians 13

 

Love speaks from the heart.

 

-Caleb Ross Hunter

Day 37 “A Year of Thoughts”: From the Womb to Learning about Light

 

Early this morning (I’m not a morning person) my friend and I read through John 1, and as I was looking through one of my journals I found a few pages I had written up over this same chapter when I had read it last June. It’s always interesting for me to go back and read some of my writings, I instantly know the voice and many times the setting around which I wrote. In this case I spent much of the journal entry talking about how I had come to the point where I needed God to father me. I remember that moment in Brazil where I was struggling with teaching, struggling with my online classes and stressed to the max with everything else. In that moment I needed God more than ever and John’s words seemed to speak clearly to my soul.

 

“Yet to all who have received him to those who believed in his name he gave the right to become children of God- children born not of natural descent, nor human decision or a husbands will but born of God.”

After reading that I wrote in my journal, “To be as a child, humble and eager to learn. To encounter Jesus…. He changes us… to ask the father to father us. I realized how I was denying God the right to father me, I was rebelling intentionally against my father and not allowing God to father me. I was able to confront that and ask for forgiveness and for God to really teach me. It’s humbling to say that I need a father, I need God to father me and teach me all over again as a child. It’s like encountering light right out of the womb, for the first time, it’s so amazing and mysterious at the same time. We slowly learn what it is and how to see, to speak, and move. Lord, I pray that as a child I would learn these things all again, to see you and others, to speak your words, to move as you guide and to listen as you speak.”

I want to encounter Jesus everyday. To learn to be fathered by my heavenly father and to listen to his voice as I move through the day. As I was reading through the old journal I was moved by the prayer.

“To see God and others, To speak your words, To move as you guide, To listen as you speak”

What does that look like to see God and others? This requires us to get out side of ourselves, to wake up, open our eyes and begin to take in every moment of life. To breathe deeply and ask God to reveal himself to us through the world in which we live, we see. God is moving but sometimes we have so blinded ourselves with the business and chaos of our lives that we have lost sight of the presence of God moving in and through our world.

He is there we just have to look.

God will teach us how to see him.

Like exploring light to a new born baby we may have encountered it but with farther learning and experience with it we will better understand and see it. God is showing himself through his creation. Like a gardener who has labored hard over the plants and flowers for months watching them grow, God takes us excitedly into this world, this garden, this planet he has created and says “See me, see what I have created, I will always be present and show myself, my love to you.

However, God has also filled this world with people. This may be inconvenient for some people that would rather keep to themselves and forget the rest of the world but over and over God says love others. How can we love others if we don’t see them? If we don’t open our eyes to the world around us and start caring that other people do inhabit this earth.

As we begin to see people we begin to get to know them. I don’t simply want to stop at seeing people, I want to move to get to know them. This takes time, to learn, to love. We need God to father us as we encounter him.

Ask God to Father you it may change the way you see the world?

-Caleb Ross Hunter

Day 29 “A Year of Thoughts”: Tell Me a Story

When I search back to the earliest memory in my life, the one thing that really stands out to me is the stories. Stories I would listen to and stories I would tell. As soon as I was able to talk I told stories. I’ve always had a wild imagination and that often flowed through when I told stories.

I remember as a kid going on long car rides with my family and my sisters asking me to tell stories. Perhaps at the age of four or so I had discovered who I was and then spent eighteen years trying to forget. My creativity and passion would show through my stories. Perhaps my purpose is to tell stories or more rather to live a story. Our lives are stories, an oral tradition of new experiences that are marked by our days. Each day, each moment is a part of our story.

The world around us often tries to read our story but for them to assume they know the characters and the plot is useless unless they honestly and intentionally get to know the characters. For the world to even understand your story you have to tell the truth. You have to be honest with yourself and stop trying to be someone you are not. We have to discover who God made us to be. We have to learn to tell our story by the way we live our lives.

Today in church, the sermon was over the story of Cain and Able. The bible is full of stories and it seems as God is screaming the fact to us on each page that your life is a story. A story worth telling, worth living. One of the things mentioned in the sermon this morning was that Abel’s life still spoke after Cain killed him (Hebrews 11:4). We don’t know much about Abel’s life other than the short story about his offering and his death. But that story still speaks.

The point of Cain and Abel is one of faith and unbelief. In faith Abel offered his sacrifice to the Lord. Cain’s attitude and offering was poor and he allowed his anger to push him to unbelief. He had a choice how the story was to go. God asked Cain, “why are you angry?” Yet Cain would not listen, he killed Abel out of unbelief that his life could be more, That God is outside of time and there is more potential in Cain to turn his life story into one of worship like his brother.

We face this same choice in our story. Our lives are a story told by non other that you. Yes guided hopefully by the grace and love of God, yet we still have the choice. To live by faith, faith that moves mountains, faith that says tomorrow can be better than today, faith that says God has so much more for my life than the sin within me. Faith that transforms our lives, heals our wounds, redeems our past and leads us to move through our discontent to live an even more unbelievable story.

For much of my life I was like Cain. God kept asking me why I was angry? Why I didn’t want to believe there was more? I allowed the people that were trying to read my story assume everything was fine, I allowed them to put assumptions and expectations on me based off of what little they knew. I was angry because didn’t want to be honest I didn’t want them to know me. To know that I had unbelief, to know that I doubted my dreams just because of things people said.

I hid behind my stories because it was safe. Now I want people to know the true story. I want to be honest and real. Even if that shaders the world’s simple understanding of who I am. Even if that means it hurts. I’m not angry because my story makes me who I am and my tomorrow is shaped by the way I live.

 

What is your story?

 

Does the world really honestly know your story?

 

What dreams have you given up on?

 

How can we tell our stories?

 

When my children someday say “tell me a story”, I will. The Good the bad and the ugly.

 

Tell A Story, Live your story.

 

-Caleb Ross Hunter

Justice

We claim justice for those who do not speak

 By the words that they are not able to take

We free them by light of pure radiant hearts won

Through love each day, closer to having another

Rest is far from injustice but granted to each one

The soul, my soul, broken soul justice has come.

 

-Caleb Ross Hunter
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