Trinity 17 Esther, HLF, ‘Let the Stones Live’ and Mission at St George’s
(Proper 21)
The story of Queen Esther is one of the best stories in the bible.
Esther’s Jewish forebears were carried off to Babylon in the exile. Later
when the Persians overcame the Babylonians, her family and all Jews
in the region lived under the rule of the Medes and Persians, specifically
in her case King Ahaseurus. Esther was an orphan, and lived with her
older cousin Mordecai, who raised her as his daughter. The day comes
when there is a hiatus at the court of King Ahaseurus, because his wife,
Queen Vashti, has been banished for refusing to come before the king
when requested to do so during a drunken banquet – and we don’t
blame her. The king’s male advisers, however, suggest that if Queen
Vashti is not punished, all women will rebel against their husbands,
especially the noble women, wives of the king’s advisers – women will
no longer obey their husbands, and the husbands will be made fools of;
“every man must be master of his own house”, they say! – and so it is
that Vashti is banished and a new queen sought. To cut a long story
short, the chosen maiden is of course Esther, but at this stage it is not
known that she is a Jew. The story goes on that Mordecai foils a plot on
the king’s life, for which the king is profoundly grateful. Then one,
Haman, comes on the scene, and is appointed as the king’s chief
official and everyone is required to do obeisance to him,.... but, not
surprisingly, Mordecai refuses; “you shall have no other God before
me”. Knowing that Mordecai is a Jew, this enrages Haman, and he plots
to kill and destroy all Jews in the kingdom. He gains the king’s approval
for this and secures the king’s seal on letters that go out around the
kingdom. It is an evil time for the Jews. Amidst great trauma, Mordecai
approaches Esther and pleads with her to divert the king’s intentions, as
only she is placed to do. At the risk of her life, as no one may approach
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the king on pain of death except by his request, Esther approaches the
king to plead the case for her people. As good fortune has it, or the
divine will, he entertains her, asking, ‘what is her purpose’? Her strategy
is to invite the king and Haman to a banquet. At the banquet, knowing
that something is afoot, the king asks her, ‘what is her request?’, and
promises her anything she wishes up to half his kingdom. She says,
‘she’ll tell him tomorrow at a second banquet she will give’..... In the
intervening time, Haman meets Mordecai again in the street and is
angered by his calm demeanour and failure to be intimidated by him,
Haman. In his fury, Haman devises a further plan, with his friends and
wife Zeresh, to build a gallows and have Mordecai hanged on it the next
morning. Also in this intervening time, the king decides to honour
publically the man who foiled his assassination, and as chief offical he
consults Haman. He asks him, ‘what should the king do for the man he
wishes to honour?’.... Haman, thinking that that man is himself, advises
every honour and decoration and privilege! It then becomes his job at
the king’s command to lavish all these things on Mordecai whom he
hates! He is not happy but restrains himself. However, at the second
banquet that night, Esther finally makes her request to the king and it is
for her life and the lives of her people, the Jews, to be spared. When the
king asks who is planning their destruction, Haman is unmasked and
the king orders that he should be hung from the gallows prepared for
Mordecai. There is of course great rejoicing among the Jews of the
kingdom, for their sorrow and foreboding is turned into gladness. The
14th day of the month Adar, on which the king declared that the Jews
should be saved, and the fifteenth day, are inaugurated in perpetuity as
days of gladness and feasting, for the sending of gifts and giving
presents to the poor – the feast of Purim. It is kept to this day.
The story gives us, of course, the familiar maxim, ‘to be hoisted by
one’s own potard’, after Haman and his plan that rebounded back onto
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him. It also gives us the line from Mordecai to Esther, when he is
seeking her intervention, “Perhaps you have come to royal dignity for
just such a time as this”... that times or moments may come when the
situation we are in presents us with an unusually promising opportunity
for good to be achieved, and that we must act, and act shrewdly, so that
the opportunity is not lost. And the story of Esther is memorable chiefly
for this feature of human affairs. Esther is a great exemplar of courage
and diplomacy.
I have chosen to tell the story of Esther partly because it’s such a good
story, but also because as a parish we are in a ‘moment’ of some
impact. It’s not, I wouldn’t say, an Esther moment. It is not, either, a
moment of the Spirit, a kairos moment, certainly not in any obvious way,
but it is a ‘moment’. A moment perhaps of taking stock... and it is that
we learnt on Wednesday, as some will know, that we have been
unsuccessful in our bid to achieve a Heritage Lottery Fund award for
our stonework repairs. I trust that everyone knows that we had put
forward a heritage lottery bid for £250,000 to undertake our essential
repairs to the stone work and rainwater goods up high. Sadly we were
unsuccessful. This is clearly a major disappointment. As many of you
will know, Carol Couse and Jane Darnton have been working on this
project for over two years. It has involved collection and collation of a
huge amount of information, and then turning that into something
acceptable and appealing to the Heritage Lottery Fund. This recent
application was the second bid we have submitted. We were told this
week that we had made an excellent application, but that there were not
enough funds to cover the applications submitted, so other applications
were favoured ahead of us. Apparently, two things acted against us in
particular, the perception of Edgbaston as wealthy and the fact that we
were not able to demonstrate sufficient ‘community outcomes’ in the
way that term is understood by HLF. This is particularly galling, in my
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opinion, as the many ways in which we either contribute to community
projects and community flourishing for example via Karis or at
Ladywood Methodist Church or at the Ladywood Centre or through St
George’s Primary School, or how we contribute to community benefit for
example through St George’s Day or at Sunrise Senior Living, or to a
wider sense of community, for example through last weekend’s WW1
commemorations or through our partnership with the United Methodists
and the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahido Church – little of this appears to
count! Under the heading of community outcomes, the funders
apparently want to see ‘bricks and mortar’ projects like coffee shops in
church, or soup kitchens. Round the calendar contributions to the
Foodbank are less valued, or so it would seem. You can detect the
frustration.
In respect of this, and mindful of the work that has been put in, I would
like to convey our very sincere thanks to Carol and Jane for their
extensive and very generous work on our behalf in putting together both
this last application and the first one. We are very sorry that all of this
has not been rewarded with what would have been a much deserved
positive outcome, and we share the disappointment and frustration. As
Jane and Carol know, in the immediate, we will be seeking a full debrief
with HLF to understand more clearly why we were unsuccessful, and
how this affects the next steps we may choose to take. In due course
the Fabric Committee, the Finance Committee and the PCC will be
giving careful consideration to all of this.
There are however positives. One is that owing to all the work that has
been done, we have extensive data and information collected together
and set out in the application plus expressions of our mission and
heritage work. This will be very valuable going forward especially for
funding applications. Already the HLF has invited us to make a third bid.
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We will of course give this due consideration if we think it’s really worth
doing. Our initial instinct is that we are most likely to make best
progress by raising the profile of our ‘Let the Stones Live’ campaign and
finding new funding streams that are appropriate to this. As PCC
members will know, we have now been designated by Historic England
as being an ‘at risk’ building. This sounds problematic, but is actually a
good thing, as it should increase our capacity to attract funding.
It is also timely to be looking towards increasing the momentum of our
‘Let the Stones Live’ project as this weekend is our second collection
day for the auction on October 17th. And I hope we’ll achieve a really
good collection of items and a good outcome from the auction itself.
Biddle and Webb tell us that they have received a good selection of
items already, so the signs are very good.
As I see it, this present setback is a moment for taking stock.
Notwithstanding the disappointment, which is considerable, there are, I
think, plenty of reasons to look forward very positively. We may have to
tailor our aspirations and undertake separate items of repair and
refurbishment over a slightly longer period. We may also have to decide
to commit more of our present very healthy reserves to achieve what
has to be done to ensure that the stone work is safe and the building
water-proofed. But these are measures we can take. This also means
that our push to raise our regular giving under the banner of Funding 15
becomes even more relevant. If our regular giving is secure, the PCC
will feel more able to dedicate and commit reserve funds for these
necessary works.
Having got over the apparently negative comments about our so-called
‘community outcomes’ there is also a challenge here to look again at
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our missional commitments, and to perhaps refresh these and develop
them. This can only be good.
Some of you may have read a piece I wrote in the magazine in the July
issue about the covenant of salt. I’m not going to rehearse the argument
now, but suffice to say, it is about the pervasive way in which salt is
understood in the Hebrew bible and in Jesus’ day as an indicator of
divine-human cooperation and commitment in the business of living
fruitfully in the world. It’s like a secret and essential ingredient. In the
closing sentence of our gospel reading Jesus urges, “have salt in
yourselves”. In her courageous actions on behalf of her people, Esther
was fortified and empowered, I would say, by the covenant of salt. ‘She
had salt in herself’. She let herself be used by God for the good. I would
urge us, at this moment in our journey, to heed Jesus’ call: let us “have
salt in ourselves” and discover where the Spirit is leading now us.
Reverend Julian Francis
September 27th 2015
1904 Words
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