THE FIVE MEGILOTH ESTHER SONG OF SONGS RUTH ECCLESIASTES LAMENTATIONS

Transcription

1 SONG OF SONGS THE FIVE MEGILOTH ESTHER RUTH ECCLESIASTES LAMENTATIONS

2 Odd shaped pebbles roll And tumble round the Rock which Smooths them into five smooth stones One of which will kill a giant

3 1 The Spirit of the Sovereign LORD is on me, because the LORD has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim freedom for the captives and release from darkness for the prisoners, 2 to proclaim the year of the LORD s favor and the day of vengeance of our God, to comfort all who mourn, 3 and provide for those who grieve in Zion - to bestow on them a crown of beauty instead of ashes, the oil of joy instead of mourning, and a garment of praise instead of a spirit of despair. Isaiah 61

4 Hooglied Paas fees Rut Pinkster fees Klaag liedere 9 de van Ab Prediker Hutte fees Ester Purim fees Om INTIMITEIT te vestig binne n Verlossingskonteks Om IDENTITEIT te ontwikkel binne n Verbondskonteks Om LYDING te herdefinieer binne n Herstel-konteks Om GODSDIENS te ontmasker binne n Voorsien-konteks Om GEMEENSKAP te vier binne n Vyandige konteks

5 ESTER

6 Max Weber, the German sociologist, visited America in 1905 and spoke with admiration of the voluntary associations that proliferated on our landscape. A standard cliché about American society is that the Americans are joiners and belongers. All of which is evidence that persons know that they are no longer sufficient unto themselves. [No individual is complete in himself; humanity is person-in-relationship.] We need community to complete our humanity. And yet these secular attempts at community are notoriously void of meaning.

7 The American is a person without a community part of a crowd, not of a group. David Reisman explored the American character in terms of its submission to the tyranny of crowds and the failure of the individuals to heal their loneliness in the crowd. The myth of the selfsufficient individual permeates the American self-consciousness. When these individuals get together in crowds the myth is simply accentuated, for the crowd is not a company but a aggregate, a multiplication of individuals rather than an organic body. Even in the crowd each person is an individual.

8 The congregation (qahal) is the basic working unit in God s relations with the Hebrew people. To be cut off from the community was the worst punishment in their legal system. An individual, forced to exist alone in exile, was not a whole person. The biblical view of man is person-incommunity, a people of God. In the New Testament the energies of ministry bring churches into being instead of a mass of individuals, pebbles in a box, there was a consciousness of being one body. Persons who had been turned by Roman censustakers into statistics were initiated into communities of faith.

9 Ester Purim fees Om GEMEENSKAP te vier binne n Vyandige konteks

10 Is dit moontlik vir n geloofsgemeenskap om hoegenaamd te oorleef in n gans onverskillige en vyandiggesinde wêreld? Can a community of faith prevail on the simple grounds of being God s people? without demonstrating usefulness to the society in general, and without access to power in that society? This question is answered with a resounding affirmative in the Esther story, and then celebrated noisily in the feast of Purim. God acted to preserve the community, His people. The result was a wildly celebrative joy. Purim, an annual feast in the early spring, is characterized by rejoicing and thanksgiving. There are exchanges of gifts between friends and charity to the poor. Life together is celebrated as a joyous gift, snatched unbelievably from the gates of death and hell. A people who had faced the possibility of not being are emphatically alive! Community is not explained in historical terms, it is not analysed in sociological terms, it enjoyed in the language and rituals and food and laughter of a festival.

11 Joy is not an individual stroke of good luck. It is a community participating in God s redemption (Ester 8:15-16). Salvation is not only individual; it is corporate. In the corporateness, and because of it, there is joy. Joy is not a private emotion; it requires community for both its development and expression. Henri Nouwen writes, Our culture is a working, hurrying, and worrying culture with many opportunities excepts the opportunity to celebrate life. The two themes, the indisputable fact of the community and the irrepressible feast of the community, are interwoven in the story and the festival. The story of the survival of the community is told; the joyous festival is celebrated. Esther and Purim; the story and the feast, are two parts of the same thing, namely, the community of faith.

12 Ahasveros Hosea remembered when things were different when bare economic survival was accompanied by spiritual wealth. He represented God as saying Hosea 2: Return to the wilderness became synonymous with getting back to the basics. In the light of that tradition it is possible to see the Persian diaspora as a kind of wilderness experience.

13 Ek sal die Akorlaagte n poort na n nuwe toekoms maak. Hosea 2:14

14 Koop die tyd uit. Efesiërs 5:16, OAV Wie weet, miskien is dit juis met die oog op n tyd soos hierdie dat jy koningin geword het. Ester 4:14 Maak die beste gebruik van elke geleentheid. Efesiërs 5:16, NAV

15 In one of George MacDonald s books, there is a woman who has met a sudden sorrow. I wish I s never been made!, she exclaims petulantly and bitterly; to which her friend quietly replies, My dear, you re not made yet. You re only being made and this is the Maker s process.

16 n Tyd daarna het koning Ahasveros vir Haman, die Agagiet, vereer en hom bevorder. Haman het na n manier om al die Jode in die hele koninkryk van koning Ahasveros uit te roei. Ester 3:1,6 There is danger, and there is threat: there is an enemy. Pastoral work takes place in an environment of hostility. There are times in history when it is overt; other times when it is covert: always it is intense. Haman

17 Ek stel vyandskap tussen jou en die vrou, tussen jou nageslag en haar nageslag. Haar nageslag sal jou kop vermorsel en jy sal hom in die hakskeen byt. Genesis 3:15 Die draak was woedend oor die vrou en het weggegaan om oorlog te maak teen haar nakomelinge wat die gebooie van God nakom en aan die getuienis vashou wat Jesus gelewer het. Openbaringe 12:17 Trek die volle wapenrusting aan wat God julle gee, sodat julle op julle poste kan bly ondanks die listige aanslae van die duiwel. Efesiërs 6:10-11

18 Samuel vra toe: Wat vir 'n geblêr van kleinvee is daar dan in my ore? En wat van die gebulk van beeste wat ek hoor?. 1 Samuel 15:14

19 Mordegai The importance of Mordecai for the pastor derives from his style of leadership, a style that exemplifies the way of the servant. It is noteworthy that in the one story in the Bible that is given over to narrating the survival of God s people, the leader most responsible for the survival is a behind-the-scenes figure known only as the Jew. This is an important observation, for the leadership models that are most attractive are charismatic. But when it comes to telling the story of the diaspora community of faith surviving in a strange land the leadership model is plain and unassuming: A servant. Die Seun van die mens het ook nie gekom om gedien te word nie, maar om te dien en Sy lewe te gee as losprys vir baie mense. Markus 10:45

20 It is probably that Hadassah, the Hebrew name for Esther is not a proper name at all but a title, meaning bride, from the Akkadian hadasstu, bride. If so, it is consistent with the extensive use of a biblical metaphor that designates God s people as his bride and emphasizes, in the retelling of the Esther story, God s affection for and designs upon the community of faith, His people. The most important single thing about the people of God is that they are there. The exist. They are, not because of favourable conditions in the empire, not because of certain perceived needs for which the church can provide a market, but because God called them out of nothing and made them a people (Hosea 1:10). They will continue for the same reason. Nothing can annihilate that creation, not Amalek, not Agag, not Haman, not Judas, not the Beast of the Apocalypse. Hadassah, the Bride of Christ, is adorned for her husband! Ester

21 God het haar dit vergun om fyn, helder blink klere aan te trek. Hierdie fyn klere is die regverdige dade van die gelowiges. Openbaringe 19: 8 and to present her to Himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless. Efesiërs 5:27

22 God As jy nóú swyg en daar kom van 'n ander kant af uitkoms en redding vir die Jode, sal jy en [מ קו ם] jou familie omkom. Wie weet, miskien is dit juis met die oog op 'n tyd soos hierdie dat jy koningin geword het!. Ester 4:14 to devise (from the idea of secrecy); to be.:ח ר ש silent; to be deaf; hold peace; speak not a word; hold tongue