(Scriptures: Esther 7:1-10; 9:20-22; Psalm 124;
James 5:1-20, Mark 9:35-50)
Our Gospel reading this week is Jesus at his least warm and
fuzzy. Last week’s gospel ended with
Jesus cradling a small child in his arms and teaching his disciples that to
welcome such a child was to welcome him, and ultimately to welcome God. Though it wasn’t part of this week’s reading,
I decided to start there in order to make the connection to this week’s
reading. This week Jesus gives us
visions of millstones around necks, dismembered hands and hellfire – the stuff
of nightmares. And yet, ultimately it is
part of the good news of Jesus Christ.
"If any of you
put a stumbling-block before one of these little ones who believe in me, it
would be better for you if a great millstone were hung around your neck and you
were thrown into the sea.”, Jesus told his disciples. The Greek word translated here as “put a stumbling
block before” is skandalise, from
which come English words such as “scandal” and “scandalize”. So Jesus is telling his disciples not to
cause scandal that would cause “these little ones” – children or other
vulnerable persons – to lose faith.
In last week’s reading, Jesus told his disciples to welcome
children. While this week’s reading
contains vivid and even brutal imagery, it’s ultimately about creating safety
so that children and other vulnerable persons can truly feel welcome – after
all, how can we feel welcome and secure when we’re under attack. Parents can be very gentle with their
children, and yet very aggressive and even physically threatening – in a word,
fierce - toward anyone who threatens
harm to their children – and this is appropriate. Love can be both gentle and fierce – they are
two sides of the same coin, so to speak. Jesus is saying that God’s love for us is like
that – gentle toward children and toward all who are vulnerable and
disadvantaged, yet fierce toward those who would abuse and exploit the
vulnerable.
The words of Scripture are powerful, and have a way of
appearing in unexpected places. As it
happens, the verse about the millstone was quoted on page 129 of the
Pennsylvania Grand Jury report on abuse of children by Roman Catholic
clergy. A priest for the Diocese of
Greensburg, accused of having abused roughly three dozen underage males, had
testified to the grand jury that he had no idea his actions had caused
significant harm. The attorney for the
Commonwealth of Pennsylvania responded: “You didn't know
that Scripture itself says it is better to put a millstone around your neck and
be cast into the sea than harm a child?”
And the priest acknowledged remembering that verse, even
though he ignored it through the course of his ministry – as did hundreds of
other priests and bishops in Pennsylvania alone.[1]
We live in a time of scandal, a time in which we see all too
much of humanity at our worst. For children
abused by clergy, their sense of violation is compounded by the teaching instilled
in them that the abusive clergy stand in for God. And so those who are abused feel betrayed and
violated, not only by the offending clergy, not only by the church, but by
God. The faith of many who have been
abused is thus destroyed; many can hardly bring themselves to enter a church,
even if only for a wedding or a funeral.
And it goes without saying that parents who had been abused as children
are unlikely to bring their children up in the church, to subject them to the
same abuse they’d experienced. And so
the effects of clergy abuse of children are not only devastating to the abused,
but they are generational, as children and grandchildren are lost to the church.
It goes without saying that abusive clergy don’t walk around
with horns or tails or other obvious markers indicating their depravity – they can
hide in plain sight, so to speak. Decades
ago I was acquainted with an elderly Roman Catholic priest, now deceased, whose
name later appeared in the 2005 Philadelphia grand jury report. I had no inkling of his activities. I know that this issue hits close to home, as
abusive priests have served parishes in Bridesburg and in Port Richmond. And this problem is not unique to Roman
Catholic clergy – it cuts across all denominations. In the United Church of Christ, as in many
mainline protestant churches, there are measures to prevent such abuse –
psychological testing of candidates for ministry and regular boundary training
sessions for clergy serving churches. And
yet there is a lot of pain out there, and a lot of healing that has yet to
occur.
We also live in the time of the #Metoo movement. I, for one, welcome it. And I’d like us to consider our reading from
Esther from the standpoint of the women in the story. A summary of the book of Esther up to today’s
reading may be helpful. There was a
king, who had a queen by the name of Vashti.
On one fateful day, when the king was in his cups, he ordered Vashti,
his queen, to “display her beauty” to the king’s courtiers; that is to say, to
put her body on display for a bunch of leering, half-drunk men. Vashti put her foot down and told the king
that she would do no such thing. And the
king threw a royal temper tantrum. He
consulted his advisors, who counseled that if Vashti’s refusal was allowed to
stand, all the women of the realm would stand up to their husbands, and of
course they couldn’t have that – and so, on their advice, the king banished
Vashti from his presence – which, while hard on her purse, probably gave Vashti
a much saner life.
After the king’s royal temper tantrum had subsided, he
missed Vashti, and went on the prowl for a new queen to replace her. A sort of national beauty contest was held, which
Esther, a Jew, won. Her uncle Mordecai
had apprised her of threats against the Jewish people by one of king’s officials
whose name was Haman. Haman had issued
orders on the king’s behalf for the destruction of the Jewish people. Queen Esther took her life into her hands,
came out as a Jew, told the king about Haman’s plot – and the Jewish people in
the realm were saved.
While it’s quite a story, it’s notable that none of this
would have happened had the king listened to Vashti, his first wife. The king could have done the decent thing in
accepting his wife’s refusal to put herself on display. He could have listened to his wife. But he
didn’t. And he considered her
expendable, someone he could beckon or banish at a whim, with no autonomy or
control over her own life. He did listen
to Esther, though – perhaps his experience with Vashti taught him
something. But in speaking to the king,
Esther took her own life in her hands – as she told her uncle, “if I perish, I
perish”.
In the story, the Jewish people were saved because a woman,
at great risk to herself, spoke up to her husband about the threat she was
under. Today, a number of women are
speaking up about the harassment and worse that have marked their lives. Women
are telling stories, decades old, about how they’ve been harassed and assaulted
in the work place and elsewhere. Three
days ago, my mom – age 83 – told me about a male co-worker of hers decades ago,
in the 1970’s, when she worked as a stenographer, who pressured her for
services that were not a part of any written job description. She spoke of how she timed her arrivals and
departures at work, her restroom breaks, her routes from one office to another,
to avoid running into this coworker, particularly when she was alone. Yet she didn’t speak up, because she was
afraid of losing her job, a job that helped to support my sister and me. Not exactly the conversation I’d anticipated
having with my 83 year old mother, but there we were. While my mom has told me
lots of harrowing stories over the years about her work life, I had only heard
parts of this story before. It struck
me, the elaborate strategies and tactics my mom used in order to avoid
harassment. And it struck me that as a
male, I’ve never in my life had to give a moment’s thought to similar
precautions for myself.
Yesterday, downtown, there was a rally against rape. I took the train downtown and attended,
wearing my collar. There were
counter-protestors – religious counter-protesters. it’s hard for me to imagine anyone speaking
up for rapists, but these counter-protestors loudly proclaimed, claiming to
speak for God no less, that women who were raped deserved it because of how
they dressed, or because they allowed themselves to get drunk in places where
men were present. I walked over to join
a group blocking off the counter-protesters from the main rally. As I stood there, holding a sign saying, “No
means no”, an elderly African American woman walked over to me. She took one of my hands and held it between
hers, told me how much the counter-protesters had offended and upset her, and told
me how much it meant for her to see me there with my collar and my sign, as a
witness that the counter-protestors didn’t speak for all clergy or all Christians.
Jesus said, “If your
hand causes you to stumble, cut it off; it is better for you to enter life
maimed than to have two hands and to go to hell, to the unquenchable fire. And
if your foot causes you to stumble, cut it off; it is better for you to enter
life lame than to have two feet and to be thrown into hell. And if your eye
causes you to stumble, tear it out; it is better for you to enter the kingdom
of God with one eye than to have two eyes and to be thrown into hell, where
their worm never dies, and the fire is never quenched.” These words of Jesus sound over-the-top crazy
– and indeed, they’re not meant to be taken literally – but they are a strong
call for offenders to take responsibility for their own actions and for the
consequences. Jesus didn’t say, “If your
eye tempts you to sin, force the women around you to wear burlap sacks.” For Jesus, the responsibility is on the
harasser to change his ways, not on those around him to vary their routines, as
my mom did 40 years ago.
In speaking out to her husband, Esther showed a bold love
for her people, and was willing to risk her life on their behalf. Jesus also calls us to a bold love in
protecting children and the vulnerable, and speaking out against any who would
threaten them. May God grant us courage
to speak the truth in love. Amen.
[1] 40th
Statewide Investigating Grand Jury, Report 1, Interim – Redacted, p. 129
http://media-downloads.pacourts.us/InterimRedactedReportandResponses.pdf?cb=22148
