A sermon preached at Journey United Church of Christ on Sunday, September 11, 2011.
Based in part on a review, “Challenging the Status Quo” by Elisabeth Leitch at www.hollywoodjesus.com
READINGS FOR THE DAY: Esther 4:1-17 (CEV)
1 When Mordecai heard about the letter, he tore his clothes in sorrow and put on sackcloth. Then he covered his head with ashes and went through the city, crying and weeping.
2 But he could go only as far as the palace gate, because no one wearing sackcloth was allowed inside the palace.
3 In every province where the king's orders were read, the Jews cried and mourned, and they went without eating. Many of them even put on sackcloth and sat in ashes.
4 When Esther's servant girls and her other servants told her what Mordecai was doing, she became very upset and sent Mordecai some clothes to wear in place of the sackcloth. But he refused to take them.
5 Esther had a servant named Hathach, who had been given to her by the king. So she called him in and said, "Find out what's wrong with Mordecai and why he's acting this way."
6 Hathach went to Mordecai in the city square in front of the palace gate,
7 and Mordecai told him everything that had happened. He also told him how much money Haman had promised to add to the king's treasury, if all the Jews were killed.
8 Mordecai gave Hathach a copy of the orders for the murder of the Jews and told him that these had been read in Susa. He said, "Show this to Esther and explain what it means. Ask her to go to the king and beg him to have pity on her people, the Jews!"
9 Hathach went back to Esther and told her what Mordecai had said.
10 She answered, "Tell Mordecai
11 there is a law about going in to see the king, and all his officials and his people know about this law. Anyone who goes in to see the king without being invited by him will be put to death. The only way that anyone can be saved is for the king to hold out the gold scepter to that person. And it's been thirty days since he has asked for me."
12 When Mordecai was told what Esther had said,
13 he sent back this reply, "Don't think that you will escape being killed with the rest of the Jews, just because you live in the king's palace.
14 If you don't speak up now, we will somehow get help, but you and your family will be killed. It could be that you were made queen for a time like this!"
15 Esther sent a message to Mordecai, saying,
16 "Bring together all the Jews in Susa and tell them to go without eating for my sake! Don't eat or drink for three days and nights. My servant girls and I will do the same. Then I will go in to see the king, even if it means I must die."
17 Mordecai did everything Esther told him to do.
Every morning, Abileen Clark entered the home of her employers, gathered toddler, Mae Mobley, from her crib wrapping her arms around her and has her repeat those affirmations. “You is Kind. You is Smart. You is Important.”
While the words initially seem to be spoken directly for baby Mae, as the movie unfolds, it becomes apparent that the mantra is just as important for Abileen, “the help”. Each is as underappreciated as the other. Mae Mobley? Well she just doesn’t fit her mother’s picture of a perfect beautiful baby. She’s too big for her age and far too needy for her mom’s life. And Abileen? Well, she’s an African-American and she’s a maid. She’s not really a person. She’s “the help.”
The Help takes us back to a time when racism was overt. Jackson, Mississippi, is just another typical southern city of the time. The white middle class households all had children and they all had maids. The maids cleaned, shopped, cooked, raised the babies .. and most importantly, they know their place.
The young white society women gather regularly to play bridge and occasionally hold a benefit for the hungry children in Africa. The maids ride buses back and forth from the other side of town to work at their houses everyday. The society ladies were likely raised by the same “help”. Now they employ them and treat them with disdain following the example of their leader, Ms. Hilly Holbrook, who begins a campaign to establish a law that would require each home to build an outside restroom for the “the help” so they don’t use the household toilets.
It all goes along unchallenged, like it has for generations, until on of their own, Skeeter, comes home from college and become the catalyst for change. Wanting to become a writer she is inspired by what she feels is a great idea – one that will bring about change. She’ll interview “the help”, gather their stories about what its really like to work for their white families.
The only problem is that she doesn’t understand how big the risk is for the interviewees. Losing their jobs may be the least of their worries.
Initially Aibileen wants no part of this, nor does Minnie of who can only get a job working for the “outcasts of white folks”. It isn’t Abileen hears these powerful words from her pastor that she changes her mind.
Video Clip
Preacher … “Courage is ..”
The whole film is an eye opener for me. It portrays a world that existed only 50 short years ago. This is the world that many of us look back on as the “good old days”. Happy Days, Ozzi and Harriet, The Andy Griffith Show, Leave it to Beaver. This is the world that all those shows ignored. As one reviewer states: “The entertainment media of that day ignored the plight of oppressed people just as the socialites of Jackson couldn’t see the plight of the women that were in their homes each day. But they would help hungry children in Africa. (Darrel Manson, Hollywood Jesus)
Of course these were turbulent times and change was on its way. For the folks in Jackson, that change begins with women of color telling their stories – both the good and the bad. They revealed the truth about the world around them. Out of contentment or fear, nobody had ever set the truth out in the open. The very act of speaking the truth was the beginning of a journey to freedom for “the help” of Jackson.
Not that much different from that Old Testament story of Esther. It’s not one we usually share with our children in Sunday School. And lord knows, we don’t usually preach it on Sunday morning. I think the only place the story may be told may be in one of those Bible studies, “The Bad Girls of the Bible”.
But just as Skeeter and Abileen change the course of history by speaking the truth with courage, so does Esther, the beauty queen. Like Skeeter, her life was actually going along pretty good; but like Aibileen the very existence of her people is at stake. And finally, with the prompting of her uncle Mordecai, she speaks the truth to her husband, the King. With great courage, she starts the ball rolling. Because she is willing to life her life out on the limb, literally thousands of lives are saved.
Esther 7:1-10 (CEV)
1 The king and Haman were dining with Esther
2 and drinking wine during the second dinner, when the king again said, "Esther, what can I do for you? Just ask, and I will give you as much as half of my kingdom!"
3 Esther answered, "Your Majesty, if you really care for me and are willing to help, you can save me and my people. That's what I really want,
4 because a reward has been promised to anyone who kills my people. Your Majesty, if we were merely going to be sold as slaves, I would not have bothered you."
5 "Who would dare to do such a thing?" the king asked.
6 Esther replied, "That evil Haman is the one out to get us!" Haman was terrified, as he looked at the king and the queen.
7 The king was so angry that he got up, left his wine, and went out into the palace garden. Haman realized that the king had already decided what to do with him, and he stayed and begged Esther to save his life.
8 Just as the king came back into the room, Haman got down on his knees beside Esther, who was lying on the couch. The king shouted, "Now you're even trying to rape my queen here in my own palace!" As soon as the king said this, his servants covered Haman's head.
9 Then Harbona, one of the king's personal servants, said, "Your Majesty, Haman built a tower seventy-five feet high beside his house, so he could hang Mordecai on it. And Mordecai is the very one who spoke up and saved your life." "Hang Haman from his own tower!" the king commanded.
10 Right away, Haman was hanged on the tower he had built to hang Mordecai, and the king calmed down.
If you were Esther, would you have lived life on out on that limb?
If you were Skeeter would you challenge the status quo?
If you were Abileen, would you be able to speak the truth?
Yes, we’ve made strides since then. When we think of destroying a whole race, we like to think we’re above that. When we see the way the maids are treated, we know immediately that such behavior is unconscionable. It seems hard to believe that this would have been acceptable such a short time ago. So it would be easy to celebrated the progress we’ve made in racial issues. Those advancements are indeed worthy of celebration.
But we also still need to have the truth set before us. There is still prejudice that is less overt that continues to infect our society. In plays out in many ways – both in personal lives and in government policies.
I am reminded of that in these days when we remember and reflect on the meaning of 9-11. This week as I want sitting with students and staff in a planning meeting for a 9/11 Interfaith Remembrance Service on campus, I was reminded that we may not always have the “big picture”. We began our meeting with introductions and I asked each person to share what they remembered about where they were on 9/11 in 2001. I wasn’t expecting much because most of our students were pretty young at the time. However, I was immediately proven wrong as the president of the Muslim Student Association shared her story. She lived in NYC at the time. She remembered that many of her classmates were picked up by their parents early that day. Their teachers didn’t tell them anything about what was happening outside those four walls, but she knew something was going on. Her suspicion was confirmed when her mother finally arrived to pick her up … her mother was not wearing her hijab – the customary head covering. She proceeded to remove her headscarf as well and she ushered her home quickly. Only then did she begin to explain that she would not be going to school the next day and that things had changed. In fact, Bibi would not leave her home for weeks and would not wear her hijab for a long, long time. A member of the Counseling Center, also a Muslim, chimed in. She remembered her neighbors yelling at her and her family to “go back to Afghanastan”. She thought it was curious because her family wasn’t even from there.
These stories stand in stark contrast to the stories I remember hearing and seeing in the days after 9/11. I remember stories of heroes and survivors. I remember seeing pictures of people working together in a time of great fear and anxiety. Not that those stories were wrong. It’s just that I didn’t have the big picture. I didn’t have all the information. I didn’t have the whole truth.
In moments like this I recognize that we have a log way to go before we have a picture that includes all aspects of prejudice and racism and discrimination. I recognize that I miss many stories of discrimination based on race, based on religion, based on sexual orientation, based on a whether a person is a legal or illegal immigrant. The list goes on an on.
To watch “The Help” and only think how wonderful it is that the world isn’t like that any more would only be to see what we want to see, like the white women of Jackson. Like Esther who is tucked safely away in the palace.
Perhaps our challenge is to continue to look for the truth – to seek out ways we continue to overlook prejudice and mistreat the people around us. And then, alongside Esther, and Skeeter and Abileen, to have the courage to speak out in small ways and in big ways. As individuals to confront the racism we encounter in the comments, jokes and attitudes of those around. To be aware of policies and systems that perpetuate that discrimination. As a faith community to work together to be informed and to speak for those who may not have a voice.
May we have the courage to make a difference recognizing that WE IS KIND, WE IS SMART AND WE IS IMPORTANT in making a difference.
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