The scroll of Esther, mid-15th century Iberian Megillah.
Digitized by The National Library of Israel, Jerusalem, Israel.
A couple months ago, my daughter asked me if I’d help her and her friends have a Bible reading group. I was delighted at the suggestion, but tried to play it cool—nothing kills a tween’s excitement more than an overly enthusiastic mother! After a few weeks of casually discussing logistics, we settled on a four-week plan for the end of the school year focused on a few stories of women. Of course, we looked at the story of Esther.
A month later, I heard from the mother of one of the girls in the group. Her daughter was a Bible Camp where they also learned about Esther and Mordecai. As the girl reported to her mother, the story concluded very nicely, with something like…
“and no one died because of what Esther had done for her people.”
The girl knew better and raised her hand, and explained that
“Actually, that isn’t entirely true. The Jews were able to have a day where they got to get revenge on their enemies. The Bible says lots of people died.”
The councilor replied with something like,
“Ummm, yeah. That’s not part of our story today.”
Hearing this story I was delighted and disturbed.
Christianity…particularly Protestant Christianity…and particularly Evangelical Christianity claims to take the Bible “seriously.” Yet, we seldom trust the text, particularly the harder passages, and particularly when our children are involved. We’d rather skip over the violence and ignore problematic characters. We prefer to alter and edit the text, which subtly tells our children that the Bible (as a whole) is not an authorizing story. It tells our children we can just enjoy the good parts and that we don’t have to wrestle with the parts we dislike.
I understand the temptation to sanitize the Bible…some stories are hard to explain, especially those that appear to give divine sanction to violence. And, let’s be honest—the Bible is not a safe story. But who said anything about safe? Of course the Bible isn’t safe…but it might just be good.
Kids seem to get that safe and good are not the same thing. When we read the story of Esther in our girls’ group, the girls had no trouble with the violent ending. They likened it (as my daughters guest post on Esther shows) to the end of the Harry Potter series or Star Wars. No one feels bad when death eaters like Bellatrix Lestrange die. No one mourns the passing of Emperor Palpatine in Return of the Jedi. In aligning Esther to these stories, my daughter and her friends reflected a deep knowledge that comes to us in many of our most beloved stories: evil must be utterly destroyed for justice to be done and for peace to reign.
Stories like Esther remind us that God takes the forces of power that would destroy his people seriously. Stories like Esther remind us that God will save his people from the forces of destruction and that evil will be vanquished. Stories like Esther—and my daughter and her friends’ reading Esther—remind us that we can trust both the text and the God whose story it tells.
The Bible is not safe…it is violent and troubling and full of hard moments just like human life. But in that truthfulness that takes evil seriously, the stories in the Bible point us to a conclusion where evil is no more and where our God—who is goodness and love—reigns.
grace & peace,
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