A sermon for a Women in the Pulpit event at my seminary.

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The biblical text underpinning this homily is the first chapter of the book of Esther.

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If you have seen the Oscar-winning film Moulin Rouge, you might get a sense for what the opening chapter of the book of Esther is like. A grand celebration! A party beyond all parties! One that goes on for days without ceasing.

The film, of course, is fiction. Yes, there was a Paris, and yes there was (in fact, there still is) a Moulin Rouge. But this particular tale is imaginary, to illustrate a point.

The same is true for the book of Esther. There was a king Xerxes (Ahasuerus, as many of our texts say), and yes, the Jewish people were under Persian domination once upon a time. But this particular biblical story cannot be verified outside of the biblical writings. The rabbis from earliest times in their commentaries treated it as if it was a story. It was a Hebrew Bible Moulin Rouge, with love, intrigue, parties, and a moral.

As with many great stories, in the book of Esther there are subplots. One subplot that often gets overlooked is the tale of Vashti, a character who we find in the first chapter of Esther, but we never really see her. We never really meet her. We never get to hear her voice. We don’t even really know her name – the word Vashti is derivative of the Persian word for best. We only know one thing that she did. She shocked the kingdom by her reaction of the king when he issued what she felt was a disrespectful and unjust command.

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Society has often been an oppressive force to women. In the book of Esther, Vashti is seen as an object, as a possession of the king. This is quickly extended to all the women of the kingdom, as the king’s male subjects at the party with him gather together to figure out how to respond to Vashti’s action. The Persian society, like many other societies past and present, saw women as property.

Commentators from the early rabbis to the present time have tried to figure out why Vashti refused to obey the king’s command. Often they have figured that, for whatever the king’s unreasonableness might have been, Vashti was still wrong to refuse the king’s order. Few have been willing to accord a dignity to Vashti, just as women today who challenge patriarchial structures are branded with unflattering names, and perhaps, like Vashti, banished from the company of the powerful.

Now, women sometimes succeed in patriarchial systems, but usually only to the extent that they participate in these systems without challenging them. We see people like Margaret Thatcher, Golda Meir, Indira Gandhi and Corazon Acquino becoming leaders of nations, but we do not see them challenging the patriarchial system. These women are, for want of a better term, female patriarchs.

The cultures of the world have often been, and continue to be, an oppressive force to women.

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But Vashti refused to participate in her own oppression. She said ‘no’. One might say, to use modern terminology, she acted up. When summoned by the king in a manner that was lacking in dignity, she stood her ground. This was a major threat. If Vashti would refuse something that admittedly seems so trivial, what would happen if she or other women refused to do something that was not so trivial? What if women said ‘no’ to their husbands and fathers? The king and his courtiers were very concerned, almost to the point of panic.

This is not just an ancient concern. Into the middle part of the last century, women in America who wanted to be teachers had to agree to a stringent list of rules of conduct: they were not to ride in cars with men who were not their fathers or brothers; they were not to loiter downtown in cafes; they were not to leave the city limits without permission of the superintendent. And when the woman got married, she lost her job. These rules did not apply to male teachers. Eventually, women started disregarding these rules, by refusing to participate in their own oppression. Sometimes systems of oppression only work if the oppressed buy in to the oppression.

These women, like Vashti, refused to participate in their own oppression.

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God is calling us to stand for justice.

God is always calling us to be advocates for justice. God always calls us to be workers for justice. Sometimes it is even those without a voice and without power who can bring about the greatest change. Vashti, without even speaking a word that has survived to us, threatened to turn an ancient superpower upside down.

This has happened in our own time, too. Rosa Parks didn’t have to say a word on that bus in Montgomery, Alabama in 1955. She simply refused to get up and participate in her own oppression. She stood for justice by staying seated. This small, heroic act became a symbol that resonates to this day.

Other women did claim their voices to speak for justice. Women like Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony in America, and Emmeline Pankhurst in Great Britain, risked all in the fight for equal rights for women. They put their reputations, their careers, their social standing, even their own lives on the line for the call to justice and full humanity. They refused to stay silent.

But what all of these women started has not yet been finished. Even today, there is oppression, and God is still calling us to stand for justice.

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Vashti was banished for taking a stand for justice. One wonders if she really minded; after all, she refused to come into the presence of the king – to be punished by being barred from the presence of the king seems to be a bit of a non-event.

In our rush to get to the end of the story, we are likely to gloss over this event in the book of Esther to get to the ‘real point’. There is some irony in the fact that, later in the story, Esther succeeds for her people also by being disobedient to the king. But let us take time to reflect on Vashti, who, despite being a queen, is still a marginalised character.

And when we notice the systems of oppression in the world and we are called to compromise our principles and integrity, let us remember what Vashti did.

Vashti refused.