"My People" and All People- A Reflection from Esther

“I remember you was conflicted, misusing your influence. Sometimes I did the same, abusing my power full of resentment, resentment that turned into a deep depression. Found myself screaming in a hotel room. I didn’t want to self- destruct. The evils of Lucy was all around me. So I went running for answers until I came home. But that didn’t stop survivors’ guilt. Going back and forth, trying to convince myself the stripes I earned or maybe how A-1 my foundation was. But while my loved ones was fighting a continuous war back in the city, I was entering a new one.”

– Kendrick Lamar, Hood Politics

            Recently I had a discussion with someone about my choice of words and the pastoral message I present.  The individual was concerned with the term “my people”, me making claim on the people I represent on a daily basis. I was told a pastor should be for all people. This is true. A pastor should in fact be for all people. This does not make the communities that I represent any less part of my identity, culture, or social spheres. Regardless of my collar I am still Black, I am still Woman, I am still Queer. These so happen to be some of the largest marginalized and exploited communities in the United States today.  How can I as a Christian leader in the church neglect or not acknowledge the same people the rest of society has forgotten? By being prideful and hopeful towards these same groups do not negate my care and love for all people. 

Maybe this is also the balance that Pastors of the margins continuously try to create. It is for this reason I bring up the story of Esther. Esther was a young Jewish woman living in Exile with her cousin Mordecai, the man who raised her after the death of her parents.  They were in the citadel of Susa under the rule of King Xerxes. Her family was refugees, minorities, in a land they were expected to now call home. During the early stages of the story, King Xerxes begins a quest for a new queen. Out of all the young women in the land, it is the young Jewish woman that captures the heart of the king. Regardless of his infatuation with Esther, she continues to keep her nationality and family background a secret. Queen Esther is assumed to be another Persian of the kingdom.

⁵ When Haman saw that Mordecai would not kneel down or pay him honor, he was enraged. ⁶ Yet having learned who Mordecai’s people were, he scorned the idea of killing only Mordecai. Instead Haman looked for a way to destroy all Mordecai’s people, the Jews, throughout the whole kingdom of Xerxes.

⁷ In the twelfth year of King Xerxes, in the first month, the month of Nisan, the pur (that is, the lot) was cast in the presence of Haman to select a day and month. And the lot fell on the twelfth month, the month of Adar.

⁸ Then Haman said to King Xerxes, “There is a certain people dispersed among the peoples in all the provinces of your kingdom who keep themselves separate. Their customs are different from those of all other people, and they do not obey the king’s laws; it is not in the king’s best interest to tolerate them. ⁹ If it pleases the king, let a decree be issued to destroy them, and I will give ten thousand talents of silver to the king’s administrators for the royal treasury.”

¹⁰ So the king took his signet ring from his finger and gave it to Haman son of Hammedatha, the Agagite, the enemy of the Jews. ¹¹ “Keep the money,” the king said to Haman, “and do with the people as you please.”(Esther 3: 5- 10)

Whether she asked for this or not, she is a leader of a people unfamiliar to her. She pledges allegiance to a nation that later commits themselves to the discrimination and violence against the Jews. While she is living in privilege, she sits at the table with those who plan the demise of the people who raised her and made her whole. Now her kin are being hunted by the people who she is obligated to uplift and serve. Every night she lies in the bed of injustice. I wonder if she tosses and turns wondering if her loved ones are resting well or if their heads are impaled on poles. I envision Esther today wrapped in prints of the American flag as her olive skin reflects the blue, glows through the white, and bleeds into the red. Her long dark hair, thick like rope, is tied up like the secrets of her origin. She sits at a desk watching every single body camera that suddenly turns off before shots are fired. She saves every recording of her brothers lying on freedom’s concrete as they leak like an old faucet. Then she is asked to preach on a Sunday morning about God’s steadfast love to an audience that looks less familiar as the videos become clearer.

Miriam Harris, Philadelphia BLM Protest

I cannot speak for my peers but I do believe it is fair to say, we clergy-types are people first and pastors/ vicars second. This is our vocation the same way others are lawyers, nurses, house keepers, and landscapers. I am a Black Queer Woman with or without a collar like Esther is a Jew with or without her crown. We cannot escape or abandon those who made and created us, nor is that what we want. When I wake up thousands of miles away from home and see another hashtag, my heart aches. It aches for the cyber activists trying to breathe life back into these names. My heart aches for the parents and loved ones that could be any one of my aunts or cousins. But it also aches for the boys, men, girls, women, and others that see themselves in these videos. It is haunting see yourself lying in a street left to die and that is the reality. If my nationality, race, origin, and life experiences made me the spiritual leader I am today, why does that influence have to stop because of my vocation?

“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. ² But he went only as far as the king’s gate, because no one clothed in sackcloth was allowed to enter it. ³ 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.” (Esther 4:1-3)

My reality is that my North American church does not and may never reflect who I am. That is my decision to continue to be a member of that church. I believe that my church body is still a beautiful reflection of God’s people. I also believe that within the margins of my church, my people are still present and I can uplift them as well. Esther is not a prophetess because she was silent about the ethnic injustices happening in her country. She was both, queen to the oppressor and to the oppressed. She had a duty to all people and that looked like her speaking for the ones bearing pain, her people.

7 So the king and Haman went to Queen Esther’s banquet, ² and as they were drinking wine on the second day, the king again asked, “Queen Esther, what is your petition? It will be given you. What is your request? Even up to half the kingdom, it will be granted.”

³ Then Queen Esther answered, “If I have found favor with you, Your Majesty, and if it pleases you, grant me my life—this is my petition. And spare my people—this is my request. ⁴ For I and my people have been sold to be destroyed, killed and annihilated. If we had merely been sold as male and female slaves, I would have kept quiet, because no such distress would justify disturbing the king.”(Esther 7: 1-4)

            Esther was brave by acknowledging her nationality. She placed her own life on the line for her people simply by acknowledging the social injustice in the Kingdom. When Esther says “and spare my people-“she unbinds herself from any chances of her being the exception. Rather she aligns herself with the oppressed. She gives the faceless a face. In case the King could not find compassion for her people before, he is now looking at the kind hearted woman he loves pleading for her life and the life of others like her. Esther speaks with transparency about the realities her people are facing. While they are cozy within the palace walls, genocide of sorts is happening around them. Take mercy on my people. Pastors of the margins (and allies) take on this task every time they bring up the issue in our country. When I say my people, I am letting the world know that I value us. And I will continue to claim my people as I will continue to demand justice. Like Esther, I will continue to serve all people of God and keep justice at the frontier. I will be unapologetically committed to protecting us even when it means placing me in compromising situations with those in power. In the words of almost every one of SJW Twitter, “Yes, all lives do matter and it is the (Black/ Trans/ Women/. .) Lives that are being murdered right now so let’s do something about that.” Rest in Power Terence Crutcher.

#ReclaimMissionary