DEVOTIONAL |
THE TRANSFORMIST IN US “Now the king was attracted to Esther more than to any of the other women, and she won his favour and approval more than any of the other virgins. So he set a royal crown on her head and made her queen instead of Vashti. And the king gave a great banquet, Esther’s banquet, for all his nobles and officials. He proclaimed a holiday throughout the provinces and distributed gifts with royal liberality.” Esther 2:17-18
This part of the story of Esther reads as the climax of the king’s process of selecting a queen to replace Queen Vashti who had been expelled. Esther is chosen among multiple beautiful virgin girls who had been under the king’s palace for a 12-month beauty therapy programme. Esther is chosen by the king who doesn’t even know Esther’s secret, that she is a Jew (an inferior race in the eyes of the powerful Persian king) and an orphan (a despised social position). Here begins some real drama with queenship bestowed upon a nobody, an inferior orphaned girl. Many difficult questions come to the fore in the setting of this story. Is it right to treat the virgin girls like this where each evening one girl would is brought to the king as a virgin and in the morning she returns to a new group – as one of the king’s concubines! Do these girls have a choice considering that this same king had expelled Queen Vashti for refusing to be displayed before a drunken crowd? Will these girls ever feel the love of a husband or experience a mutual marital relationship with anyone ever or are they doomed to a life of giving the king attention once in a blue moon? Is this crowning really a favour for Esther, or a jail sentence where if she doesn’t obey
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she too will be expelled, or worse still, killed? It is in this context of no real choices, a pre-determined destiny, no human rights, a dictator king and an inferior social position that Esther finds herself crowned as queen instead of Vashti. Yet Esther is not a weakling to be pitied, but a humble force to be reckoned with, a person who changed the dictator king’s mind against his own law! Vashti was a ‘NON-CONFORMIST’ – she was expelled for disobeying the king. Esther was expected to do the opposite and be a ‘CONFORMIST.’ Esther became neither a ‘conformist’ nor a ‘non-conformist’ – she became a ‘TRANSFORMIST’ - a revolutionary, a game-changer, a pathfinder, a creator of solutions, an empowerment discoverer, a pacesetter, an alternativist. With God’s Spirit we are called to be transformists in our societies. To be wise about standing up to the present systems of oppression and suppression. To create a revolution that brings about wholeness and safety for all rather than revolutions of blood and war. To change the rules of the unfair classification of people according to skin colour in our societies.
INSiGHT | October 2020
