Thursday, August 19

Hey you guys. What's going on?

Reading for August 19
Esther 4:1-7:10
Holy crap. The story of Esther is awesome.

So there's this guy, Haman, who is King Xerxes adviser. Haman is the one who ordered the destruction of the Jews - and he did this because of his hatred of one Jewish man - Mordecai. When Mordecai heard that the kingdom was hunting out and killing Jews, he fled the city and wept and mourned for days. Esther heard about this and was very upset. Mordecai sent a message to Esther saying 'now is the time to reveal your true heritage - you have a chance to make a difference and free the Jews from this terrible fate.'

Esther gathered up her courage and went to speak with the king. As soon as she entered hum chambers he said "Ah Esther! What is it you want? I will give you anything, even if it's half my kingdom." Esther asked to have dinner with Xerxes and Haman. They had wine and got drunk, but Esther did not ask for her wish - not yet. When Haman left the dinner, he was in very high spirits and then he met Mordecai at the city gate. And because Mordy didn't tremble in fear and fall down and worship Haman, Haman got all whiny and went home to cry to his family about it. What a baby. Someone in his family suggested building a 75 foot sharpened pole to impale Mordecai on. Haman thought this was a fantastic idea. So he set off to do it at once.

Meanwhile, Xerxes couldn't sleep so he called in one of his servants. This is great - he asked his servant to read the book of records from his own kingship. Can you get any more conceited? That would be like me asking Jilly to read my blog to me so I could fall asleep. Anyway, while he was being read to and sipping his microwaved milk and nibbling on his cookies, Xerxes heard a little detail about Mordecai in the records which his servant was reading. He found that Mordecai had stopped a couple of intruders from getting into the palace to attack Xerxes. He asked his servant what reward was given to Mordy for his service to the king - and it turns out it was nothing.

Just then, Haman came back to the palace to tell Xerxes about his plan to impale Mordecai on this ridiculous, definitely-compensating-for-something pole. When he walked in Xerxes asked him what should be done for a man who has honored the king. Thinking that Xerxes was talking about him, Haman gave a laundry list of things that included getting one of the kings horses and being publicly honored to everyone.

Xerxes said "Those are great ideas! Go and do those things for Mordecai"

Boom. In your face Haman!

Needless to say, Haman was mortified, and he went home again to cry to his family. The next night, Esther had another dinner with Xerxes and Haman and gave her request to the king to stop the hunt and destruction of the Jews, and specifically to protect Mordecai. When Xerxes heard this, he blew up and said "WHO ORDERED THAT?!" When he found out it was Haman he freaked out and tried to think of a punishment - then someone said "Hey, he's got a giant sharpened pole in his front yard. That would be perfect for hanging!"

"Agreed!" exclaimed King Xerxes.

And so he was hanged.

1 Corinthians 12:1-26

Here, Paul is talking about the idea of all of us being part of the body, and each one of our gifts is important to the overall stability and health of the body. No one should be ashamed that their gift seems less important than someone else's - each ability and gift was given to each of us by God, and we should be very proud of what we can do to honor him.

Paul also says that we each have different gifts so we can help each other. Think if everyone's gift was playing soccer. Nothing would ever get done - we wouldn't even be able to play the World Cup because there wouldn't be anyone to organize it. Paul mentions this idea too - he says "What if the entire body was made of eyeballs? How would we hear?"

This of course made me think of this:




Whoa-Whoa-Whoa-Whoa-GROSS!

Psalm 36:1-12

 ⁶ Your righteousness is like the mighty mountains,
       your justice like the great deep.
       O LORD, you preserve both man and beast.

This makes me think of my question of  "who is God ultimately out for?" Here it seems like he is out for all of his creations, both people and animals. It would make sense, I mean have you seen a baby elephant? Cute.

Proverbs 21:21-22
 ²¹ He who pursues righteousness and love
       finds life, prosperity ^[a] and honor.
 ²² A wise man attacks the city of the mighty
       and pulls down the stronghold in which they trust.

Word up, homies.