Day 30: Two Thrones

The other pair of characters important to the story of Esther is the married couple. I interpret this story first of all as a story about the prophecy--"every valley shall be exalted and every mountain and hill made low." Haman and Mordecai's see-saw. But I also see a plot that involves conflict and resolution in the arena of authentic love and honor between men and women.

The story opens with a king who does not have a healthy relationship with his queen. There is a strong indication, based on the party conversation, that in this kingdom, women are seen as lesser subjects than the men, as sex objects to be shown off and used for male ego and pleasure, and kept low on the totem pole when it comes to power and influence. Depending on whether or not we think that is a good thing, we may also condemn Vashti as an unsubmissive wife, or cheer for her bravery in refusing to be treated as a pretty toy in the presence of a roomful of drunken men.
There also seems to be a need for a significant number of eunuchs at court, those that have been surgically castrated into a kind of neutral between-gender, who are treated as a buffer population to work in the chasm between the penis-people rulers and the vagina-people harem.

Vashti is sent away from court as an object lesson to the rest of the kingdom's women, and we sense that there is no real chance that the king will move to a new kind of relationship with any woman in his new harem collection.

The social mess and the major alienation of the king from everyone else is made very clear when it turns out to be even impotent eunuch bodyguards who are willing to plot an assassination attempt upon the king. Who can he trust if he can't trust even his eunuch bodyguards?

The Greek Esther and the film Esther that I saw both spent a little more time developing the progress of the relationship between Esther and her king. I don't think they are out of line for doing so, because there is something special about how Esther uses her wits and her timing and her beauty and her courage to use her own personal and kin-group crisis to draw the king into a different perspective about how he could relate to his wife.

Esther's major dilemma by the middle of the story is that she is in a prime place to appeal to the king on behalf of her people, but the king's law is that he gets to call the shots on when his wife visits with him, whether day or night. She is considered one of his subjects, and so it is a risk to her life to rebel against his rules and come before him uninvited. The Greek Esther has a spot where something huge changes in the relationship during this crisis. This is just after the more dramatic scene of entrance in Greek Esther, she faints with fear at her boldness in approaching him uninvited. Know what, I just have to quote it all here:

Then, majestically adorned, after invoking the aid of the all-seeing God and Savior, she took two maids with her; on one she leaned gently for support, while the other followed, carrying her train. She was radiant with perfect beauty, and she looked happy as if beloved, but her heart was frozen with fear. When she had gone through all the doors, she stood before the king. He was seated on his royal throne, clothed in the full array of his majesty, all covered with gold and precious stones. He was most terrifying. Lifting his face, flushed with splendor, he looked at her in fierce anger. The queen faltered, and turned pale and faint and collapsed on the head of the maid who went in front of her. Then God changed ths spirit of the king to gentleness, and in alarm he sprang from his throne and took her in his arms until she came to herself. He comforted her with soothing words, and said to her, "What is it, Esther? I am your husband. Take courage; you shall not die, for our law applies only to our subjects. Come near.

It goes on, but the turning point in their relationship is that he recognizes their relationship as husband and wife, as co-rulers, no longer as ruler and subject. She has taken the courageous risk to push the relationship to that level, and he responded. Now she can reveal her true identity and vulnerability as a doomed Jew to him and count on his protection and advocacy. The film demonstrates this beautifully by closing the story with a picture of two thrones, and Esther and the king ruling the land as a true partnership. What a relief it must have been to a man who never before knew who to trust and respect as a help-meet and right hand person, who was paranoid and immature as a result of having no intimacy with a person who was his royal equal and who had the courage to take a personal risk to show him the truth about a foolish and blind decision that he had made to trust Haman!

In the wording of the second edict (Greek Esther writes them all out) that is put out to take the teeth out of the first edict, the king refers to Esther as "the blameless partner of our kingdom." What a change in his perspective from when the story opened!

This is definitely a beautiful love story, and I hear it announcing two things that make me glad: 1. an invitation for the fake-smile-fear-frozen-heart Queen-Church to boldly approach the King-Judge's throne for a more direct and honest kind of intimacy. 2. a hopeful model for a life-giving way that men and women can relate to one another with equal dignity as co-leaders in various institutions (church, household, workplace.)

My final comments about this story have to do with the differences between the Jewish original story and the Greek supplemented story of Esther. The first makes no mention of God, and the second is full of what you could call God-talk. The first seems content to imply that fate and casting of the lots and luck of timing were the elements that just happened to work out for the ultimate good of the Jews, and the other makes clear over and over and over and over that God was working behind the scenes and in the hearts of each character. I would like to say that either way of telling the story is valid. If the Greek Jews added the God-references to make the story more "religious," I don't think that has to be done to a good story. Sometimes you can just be content that a story, which may appear to be completely secular, making no mention of its Author and Finisher, is still a story that honors the Author and Finisher, One who often prefers the modest place of a hidden uncredited presence. There is no need to separate stories into two categories: secular or religious. Every story, if it is crafted with an internal integrity of plot and character, is a story that reveals the truth about humans, their condition and their nature, where they have come from and where they are going, and helps every listener recognize more about the identity of the One who made them and loves them and never will give up on untangling them from the impossible knots of human conflict.