8 AM "Anointed For Authenticity" Minister Jillian Lea Twiggs Sunday February 12, 2023

1:09:41 Let's raise it one time. We'll get to the word. Oh, how I love Jesus. Come on, sing. How I love Jesus Sing oh How I love Jesus Because He first loved me Can you praise Him for His love this morning? Hallelujah, hallelujah You may have your seats You may have your seats Thank you, Lord Jesus Thank you, Lord Jesus us. Esther chapter 4 verses 12 through 14. I'll read it again because we got caught up a little bit. Verse 12 reads, when Esther's words were reported to Mordecai, he sent back this answer. Do not think that because you were in the king's house, you alone and all the Jews will, excuse me, you alone of all the Jews will escape. For if you remain silent at this time, relief and deliverance for the Jews will arise from another place, but you and your father's family will perish. And who knows, but that you have come to your royal position for such a time as this. With the remaining minutes that I have this morning, I want to speak simply from this subject, anointed for authenticity.

1:11:06 Anointed for authenticity. This book of Esther is a telling, a narrative of an intricate and a powerful story. It's about a Hebrew woman named Hadassah, also referred to as Esther, and she has a unique assignment for her life, for the lives of God's people. And so this book, this narrative begins in chapter one at a party, and there's Queen Vashti of Susa, who is the wife of King Xerxes, and she is summoned into the king's royal court. Very simply, what he wanted her to do was to come in wearing her crown. Scholars would contend that maybe that meant to be in the nude or to expose herself as to only wear her crown because King Xerxes says that she was beautiful and wanted all of the guests to quote unquote admire her. Well, in an effort to not be berated and accosted and exploited in this way, Queen Vashti says, no, I'm not doing that.

1:12:01 And so King Xerxes is now upset because Queen Vashti refuses his request. And so this chapter kind of begins the whole purpose of what this book and this narrative of Esther intends to articulate because now King Xerxes finds himself without a queen because not only does she refuse him and so now he's upset, but now he wants her dead. He wants her dead, but then he decides, okay, maybe that's not the best course of action. So he banishes her from the kingdom and now there's a vacancy in this queenly spot. Well, it's very interesting what happens next because he then sends out an oracle, an announcement about the fact that there is a vacancy for this queen. And so women from all around come as they, you know, are a part of the kingdom. They come to participate in this process, this selection process, if you will, for this position of queen. And this is where we are first introduced to our girl for today by the name of Esther. She comes as a part of this response to this oracle, to this decree, to this request, this petition for a new queen. And the Bible describes her as beautiful and even regal and royal.

1:13:11 And there's just something special about her. We're gonna see an ethic of favor that follows Esther throughout this. And so she's there among many other women and she's a Hebrew woman. I said that in the beginning, but I wanna emphasize very clearly that she is a Hebrew woman. This is important because King Xerxes is not Hebrew. And so these people, the Hebrew people, find themselves living in a kingdom, living in a regime of people that are led by somebody who's not a follower of God. And so because of that, their social location becomes disenfranchised. They are on the margins because they do not fit in. They do not subscribe. They do not relate to the people by which they have a submission under and who have power over them. On this Black History Month, I think it's quite interesting that we find ourselves identifying with the people who are on the margins. And so Esther's here. And so she finds favor. The king finds favor with her.

1:14:03 And so she ends up being selected as this new queen. A key part of this narrative is that her cousin Mordecai raised her. Her parents were gone. They had since passed on. And her cousin raised her. But he gave her this key piece of information when she was chosen as queen. He said, conceal your identity because as a Hebrew, you might be disqualified from this process, from the picking. And so she does that. And so here she finds herself with this favor that maybe to King Xerxes, he does not realize his favor. But we sitting on the outside reading this in hindsight can realize that this is the Lord's favor at work. And so she's chosen. Why is she chosen? Maybe just because God got it like that for her. Right. And so she's chosen to be this queen. But now there's an interesting set of events that follow this because there's a man named Haman. And Haman is this kind of right hand to King Xerxes. And so he's elevated because it was his responsibility and it was his idea that the queen be searched for. Right. that King Xerxes get a new queen. And so because it's successful, because Esther is now the new queen, the king lifts up Haman and says, hey, how can I honor you? Because you were the one who had this idea. This was a solution to replacing Queen Vashti. And so Haman is responsible for this.

1:15:14 And so he gets elevated. He gets lifted up, right? He gets honored. And so now what Haman is doing in his pride is he's walking around the kingdom, telling people to bow to him and honor him, because now he's elevated with the king, right? Very interesting thing that's happening here. And so because of that, he now expects people to bow to him. And one of those people is Mordecai. They have an exchange and he expects Mordecai to bow to him. He expects him to honor him like everybody else is doing. And Mordecai says, I won't bow. He protests, if you will. He takes a moment to make a stand and say, not only are you not the God that I serve, but you are a part of regimes and institutions of power. And so I want to protest this moment of honor to you because I don't really owe you too much. right? That's what we can biblically infer about this context and what Mordecai was doing in his protest, which is a very similar and interesting and relatable ethic to us as black people, because we know a little bit about protest, not just civil disobedience, marching and walking, but we know about what it means to be in contrast to institutions, systems, and circumstances that otherwise oppress us, dishonor God, and lift up people of power. And so he makes this decision to protest by not bowing down. It's very similar to Daniel, right? Who continues to protest and now he's thrown into the lines in to the three Hebrew boys who protest and now they're in this predicament in this situation. And so this ethic of protest, this ethic of being faithful to God, right? This ethic of being a disenfranchised, marginalized people, but choosing to stand up for what is right continues to flow through Mordecai's lineage. He protests in this way, but what happens because he protests. Haman is upset. He says, you don't want to bow to me? Come on, little bro. Be for real. You don't want to bow to me? Fine. Don't worry about it. I'm going to kill you. And then he takes it a step further and says, and I'm going to kill all the Hebrew people.

1:17:00 So not only is Mordecai taking this stand to protest, but now there's a target on the back of the Hebrew people. Another thing that we understand and identify with as systems and institutions and people in places of power and of supremacy would like to target us as marginalized groups. We are the majority by number, but they don't really want to talk about that, right? We are the majority in culture, right? But they don't really want to talk about that. And in this way, these Hebrews, right, are the majority in some regard, but they're marginalized in the society. And so he says, you know what? Not only am I going to affect you, but I'm going to affect everybody you're connected to. What does it mean for us as black people to understand how it feels like we can do one thing wrong and not everybody black is messed up, right? It's difficult, right? It's difficult. It's interesting. It's a relevant conversation in black history because you can't mess up on your job the way your coworker can mess up on your job, right? After that, they don't want to hire no more people. I hope I'm not getting too tight in our business today, but you can't do the things how other people want to do. Even as we raise our children and even as we raise our youth, we have to teach them, this is what you do when you get pulled over. This is what happens when somebody of authority comes to you. And it's a torturous existence, if we're honest. There's some tension here because all we're trying to do is live, right? All we're trying to do is serve the Lord. All we're trying to do is just be black. But we find ourselves, like the Hebrew people, with a target on our back, all because of one person's decision that in this text was the right decision. It's not enough to say, you know, one black person can kind of spoil the pot for everybody, but he was doing the right thing. He was in protest. He was standing up for what was right.

1:18:28 He was sticking to his beliefs. And it's here that we find this big now crisis and catastrophe for the Hebrew people because one person's decision to protest in righteousness now puts a target on all of them. And so Haman says to the king, hey, I want all of them killed, all these Jews killed. Well, I want you to remember our girl Esther because she's going to play a critical role in what happens in response to this. But we find ourselves around chapter three at this point, after he protests, this enrages Haman, right? And then he discovers that Mordecai's a Jew, right? So he says, everybody's going down with you, right? It's interesting because after this, Mordecai, along with the other Jews in the city, the king announces this decree that all the Jews are going down, basically. And so now all of them are weeping and they're wailing and they're mourning. And as the Bible says, they tore their clothes, which was an expression of despair or mourning in that context. And so now Queen Esther gets word of this.

1:19:22 Her servants, her attendants come to her and say, all of these people are out here mourning, right? If we saw a whole bunch of people crying outside a crowd, we'd be like, what's going on, right? They go and they find out what's going on. They come back to Queen and they say, and your cousin Mordecai is out there too. Now, remember, they don't know that Queen Esther is Hebrew, but she can see that her Hebrew people are in a state of mourning for some reason. And her cousin Mordecai is out there. So she has this responsibility in this moment to figure out what is going on. So she sends a messenger to say, hey, what's going on? And this is where we find ourselves right in our text today. Esther chapter 4 verses 12 through 14 they've had some dialogue at this point Esther says what's going on and Mordecai says they are trying to kill us because I did not bow and I need you to talk to the king he very frankly very clearly very quickly reminds her of her position and says hey if you don't talk to him we are going to die and that includes you it's this interesting thing that's happening, right? Because he went from telling her to conceal her identity to now saying it's time to reveal your identity to save God's people and thus your people as well. It's an interesting thing because essentially what Mordecai does in verses 12 through 14, I'll read them again for the sake of clarity, right? When Esther's words were reported to Mordecai, he sent this answer back to her. Don't think that because you're in the king's house, you alone of all Jews will escape.

1:20:50 now I was going to talk about the Bible being black history today and how there's so much black history in the Bible in and of itself and there are systems and institutions that would like to make us believe that these people in the Bible are not black this didn't take place in North Africa and the Middle East and thus we should have this this hermeneutic of distance and departure from our Savior because he doesn't look like us doesn't talk like us doesn't feel like us but that sounded black to me don't think that because you in the king's house you alone of all the jews will escape that sounded black to me Mordecai says to her, just because you're in a position of power, let me remind you. He goes on to say this in verse 14, that who knows, maybe you've come into your royal position for such a time as this. Let me be very clear. This is not Mordecai, you know, checking Esther in this way as to demean her or to remind her of her position as if she's forgot. Let me be very clear. If these people are black, which I believe that they are, she is very clear about her positions of power, right? She is very clear about what she has to access and the ability to do. And we're going to see that executed here. And I'm grateful for all the black people, especially the black women throughout history who have been very aware and keen to their positions of power, to the Kamala Harris's, to the Ketanji Brown Jackson's, to Harriet Tubman, and to the rest of them, even for people of pop culture, like Lizzo, like Beyonce, like Rihanna, who are taking a stand to know that their influence in their position of power has the ability to impact change for their people. So I'm not saying that he's giving her this kind of in case you forgot, but he is saying, let me remind you. Don't get up in here and let these people think that you're somebody that you're not. Don't get up in here and now, you know, be blind to the plight of your people just because you have a little position of power. He's reminding her in this loving way, how you would as a family member to say, I'm telling you this because I need you to realize that it's probably that very thing, your position of power that has put you in this place for such a time as this that you might deliver us. He's not trying to slap so right he's not trying to you know say whatever he wants to

1:22:58 he's trying to say I'm saying this so that you can see how the Lord might unfold this in our favor because you have the ability to do something with the position that he's favored you to be in and thank you for walking with me because it is here that we realize the title of our sermon today, anointed for authenticity. What we will find and what we will see is that it is the authenticity of Esther. It is her choice to claim her people. It is her choice to be true to herself. It is her choice to be faithful to God in this way, even though they don't know her faith, even though they don't know her ethnicity, even though they don't know where she's coming from. It's this choice for authenticity that's in response to Mordecai's challenge of her authenticity, Right. Authenticity being your genuineness, your God given, you know, creation. Right. It is the trueness, for lack of a better word, of you. He challenges this authenticity to say it might be time for you to do something with that. And furthermore, if you read the entire narrative from chapter one all the way to through chapter nine, you will see that there's an anointing on Esther for this moment.

1:24:06 You'll see she always asks. She even petitions and requests with the king. When she goes on to ask him what she wants from him, she says, if I find favor with you. Now we will read this because that was the context and the understanding that they had. If you find favor with me, if I find favor with you, that's what she's saying. But ultimately we realize that she means favor with God has positioned her for favor with him. But what's very important for us to realize about that is this favor is not just for her. It's for her people and it's her authenticity that's going to lead them to the victory of their deliverance. It is Esther being willing to say, I am Hebrew. This is the position that I have, but this is the power that goes with it. And if I choose to be myself, if I choose to exist as myself, if I choose to show up as myself, take up space, if you will, It will be that very thing that delivers my people because if Esther just stayed in her position as queen and never chose to be authentic and true to herself, true to her people, true to God, she would have missed an opportunity and everyone would have died. And Mordecai asserts that even she would have as well.

1:25:08 Is it possible that it is your authenticity in your blackness, in your history, in the richness of your melanin that is going to make ways not only for you, but for your family and for generations to come? We've seen time and time again throughout history how a harriet tubman can use her authenticity to say I was not I was born as a slave But I am not a slave and i'm going to use the power the skills the resources that I have to not only free me But to go back and free other people history would show at least a few 50 60 70 times at least that's what we can count I think they tried to shortchange that a little bit, but you know, it's all right, right? It's the people throughout history It is a martin luther king jr. Who says i'm going to use my authenticity I am a preacher, but I will protest, right? Who says, I am going to use my power. I'm going to use my position in the fullness of who God created me to be, to be able to support the people as we walk in this freedom fight.

1:25:58 It's Mordecai's challenge to her for this authenticity to say, hey, we need you. The queen is your vehicle, but you are the driver. It's a challenge to her, but it is her willingness to realize her anointing for her authenticity to be authentic in this moment to realize she was anointed to do this work in this way that frees her people and I want to encourage you today on this good black history month that it is your authenticity in all your black brown skin and glory to be exactly who God has created you to be as the Lord has created you to be that you might be able to do what he's called you to do when the time in the season is right? You are anointed for authenticity. We see it played out here. We see it played out here in this Esther, in this book of Esther. And so she responds, right? She responds. It's interesting because she has this tension here, right? She can choose to assimilate, right? She can choose to protect herself. God bless us. But some of us would have been like, well, I'm good. You know, I don't really know about that, right? She can choose to stay in her royal courts and not do anything about the people. And also she can choose to save her own life because it's a threat to her life to even expose to the king that she's Hebrew in the first place. Not only because they're a marginalized people, but sis basically lied. And in that context, if you lied to the king, if you lied to people in power, that was it for you, right? So she takes this risk. She's sitting in this tension to say, you know what? It is better for me and my people. It is more righteous. It is more authentic to myself for me to do the hard thing for the sake of everybody's deliverance.

1:27:35 I'm encouraging you today to do the hard thing for the sake of deliverance, right? I know you might be working in corporate America and it's difficult to come in with your afro because the people are going to, oh, let me see your hair. Don't even worry about it, right? It's difficult, but be authentic in doing how you would do, living how you would live, being how you would be, because that is what denotes and that's what facilitates, right? This deliverance. It participates in the work that the Lord is doing for this deliverance. So we see her doing it in three ways, but I would love to show you that today. Again, Mordecai challenges her authenticity by saying, hey, this might be the time. This might be the reason that the Lord allowed you to be in this place. And she receives that. She takes claims. She makes a choice for authenticity. And she does it in these ways. Are you ready? The first way she makes this choice for authenticity is she chooses to stay true to God. She chooses to stay true to God. For the Hebrews, this was as much of an ethnicity as it was a faith system, as a belief system, right? These were people who had historically and ancestrally been walking with God.

1:28:35 These were his chosen people, his favored people. And so for her to take the choice to be authentic and be true to God was the first step. Because not only was this an identifier of her ethnicity, but this was an identifier of her belief. It is safe to assume that King Xerxes, well, we know King Xerxes and the rest of them did not serve God. It's safe to assume we don't even know about their full God consciousness, except for the proximity to these Hebrew people who professed their God. And so for her to be in a position of power in a context that does not necessarily or explicitly serve God, may not even have a whole bunch of God consciousness. And to be true to the God of her salvation, that's a moment of authenticity to say this faith, this belief is a part of me. It's a part of my heritage. It's a part of my history. It's a part of my lineage. And it is that that generates the next steps for her because it is not until she is true to God that she realizes that she needs to be true to herself and to her people. Right. It's interesting. It's interesting.

1:29:29 what I love about this is she is having to situate her faith and her ethnicity in the same conversation, which I believe that we have not entirely been able to do as black people, especially on the West, because there has been this fallacy, this lie, this Western hermeneutic that Jesus is white, right? That all of this stuff happened to oppress us, right? And we have had this kind of disassociated third-party relationship to faith when we know that Jesus was in fact not white. How can you hide in Egypt if you don't blend in with the people, right? We know that this was not some third party, you know, kind of distance from faith. We didn't catch Jesus. We didn't catch God. We didn't have God consciousness just on the slave ship and just in the plantations. They were trying to hide these things from us that we might not have an invigorated sense of our faith and our understanding, right? That we might not raise up on them. This is this truth to God that we're talking about. And so she makes this choice, but to be authentic by first being true to God. it's in chapter 7 verse 3 that she literally makes the decision to say I'm with them and not only am I with them because I identify with their them ethnically but I identify with them in faith and what is important about her being true to God is that she has to choose this that she might put on the strength of God and the resources of God and the favor of God to do the next thing she chooses she makes a claim to authenticity by choosing to stay true to God she's positioned for such a time as this. But then she claims her authenticity by choosing to be true to herself, by choosing to be true to herself, right? It is her faith in God that's doing this, but it's her truth, right? Her truth and her ethnicity that is going to generate what needs to happen for the Hebrews. Why would it be important for her to save the Hebrews if she wasn't a Hebrew? In that context, that wouldn't have made a whole bunch of sense unless there was some divine intervention. She chooses to be true to herself at the risk of her own life, at the risk of being caught in a lie, at the risk of having concealed something to this king and says, you know what, I'm going to be true to myself and I'm going to tell you that it is me who needs salvation along with the people because I'm one of them.

1:31:36 It can be easy for some of us to kind of fly under the radar, to kind of go with the crowd, to kind of do what everybody else is doing, to toe the line of authenticity by not choosing to stay true to ourselves. but God created you in your blackness, in your boldness, in your beauty, in your strength, in your power, the way that God did that, that might assist you and help other people. She makes this choice to be true to herself. It's the authenticity that makes her powerful in this moment, right? To thine own self be true, right? It's this moment to say, she makes this assertion that I am enough to be used by God in this moment, right? What I have is enough to be used by God in this moment. And even in the face of danger, even in the face of difficulty. I love myself so much. I have so much pride in myself, right? That it's that that I need to assert and be honest about that I might be able to assist my people. So she makes this claim. She makes this choice for authenticity by choosing to stay true to God, choosing to stay true to herself, but then she chooses to stay true to her people. I think this is one of the most difficult things for us sometimes as black people because blackness is not a monolith. What I mean by that is there's not one way to be black. And what I've even had to check myself on is judging other black people's iteration of blackness and loyalty to their people because we've been told that everybody who's black in America came through the slave trade, not true, right? Everybody who's black in America has had this singular experience, not true. Everybody who's black in America has had this disenfranchised existence, not true. Everybody, like we've been told these lies that blackness is a monolith and so sometimes it challenges our ability to be loyal to our people or to understand different iterations of loyalty because we bought into the lie that we got to do this one way I'll leave that where it is but she makes this choice in her authenticity to be true to her people to say I was born Hebrew I'm a die Hebrew it's incumbent upon me that I choose to be Hebrew right now because it is my Hebrew-ness that puts me in a position in my power to save them at the end of the day, this would have looked different if she was not of that ethnicity trying to save

1:33:44 them. Maybe it would have happened. Maybe it wouldn't have happened, but it is her unique identity as a Hebrew and her loyalty, her truth to her people that makes us all the more powerful to say, the Lord was concealing me. The Lord was hiding me. He positioned me in this place that I might be raised up at the proper time to be able to assist my people. But if she was not true to them and she was not honest about her existence, if she was not honest about her identity, they all would have died in her too. It is her willingness to face the truth of herself that precipitates this deliverance for everybody else. It is her ability to accept who she is, how she is, with curly hair and brown skin, full figure in this way. It's her ability to love what other people would try to convince you is unlovable that makes her make this choice to be authentic that she might be true to her people it is in this truth to her people that she she's able to deliver them and not only is she able to deliver them so she goes to the king and she says hey i'm hebrew these people are going to die and i am too because your homeboy haman who is now a snake right tried to kill all of us because he was being prideful and he was upset and so king xerxes does something amazing right he believes her What a concept, right?

1:35:01 He believes her and says, oh, okay, say less. Don't even worry about it. I'm going to make sure that you guys are saved. And then I'm going to get Haman for all of his issues. What was very important about this, and I'm closing, is that Mordecai, right, was in, you know, kind of protest to Haman. And so Haman builds up this stake to put Mordecai on to kill him. And what ends up happening in chapters 8 and 9 is that the king then reverses it and says, no, this is my wife. These are the people that she's a part of. These are the people that she loves. And so I'm going to change the story here because I have a position of power. Shout out to advocates and shout out to allies, but we'll cover that another day, right? He says, in my position of power, I have the ability to change this narrative. And so the very stake that Haman built for Mordecai, I'm going to put Haman on it. Now, now, what I am not doing is endorsing retaliatory violence. I don't want to go viral. Hallelujah.

1:36:00 But what I am saying is that the Lord used Esther's authenticity for justice. Right. For for the reasonable end. That they deserved because they were first attacked and oppressed. And so King Xerxes uses his power. He puts Haman on this stake. Not only does he put Haman on this stake, he gives the Jews authorization to defend themselves. Because the people have gotten the message now. Everybody's about to come for the Jews in a few days. But he says, now Jews, I've given you the ability, Hebrews, I've given you the ability to defend yourself. And so they go and they kill everybody who was trying to kill them. Under the oracle of the king. And not only do they do that, but then Haman's sons and the rest of his lineage is then impaled the same way he was trying to impale Mordecai and the rest of the Hebrews because he came up against Esther and her people. And she had the willingness to be authentic, to be true to God, to be true to herself, to be true to her people. And it resulted in their deliverance.

1:36:55 Then Mordecai is lifted up. He's seen as this loyal, as this faithful person. And now both Esther and Mordecai are in the king's palace, safe and secure. All the Hebrews are good. They are saved because her willingness to be authentic. And I'm reminded of the Shirley Chisholm's. I'm reminded of the Martin Luther King's. I'm reminded of the Harriet Tubman's. I'm reminded of the Sojourner Truth's. I'm reminded of the Malcolm X who took a stand for authenticity. God had to use them the way God used them for the deliverance of those people. Which brings me back to one of the greatest expressions, I would argue the greatest expression of authenticity ever known to man. And that is Jesus Christ. It is in Jesus Christ's authenticity as a Hebrew. he was Jewish. He wasn't Christian. Christianity came in light of the work of Jesus Christ, but he was born a Jew in the hood of Nazareth, having to be raised up with people who would spit on him, would berate him, would disregard him, not only because of his exaltation as a son of God, but just because of his social location. They didn't like Hebrews. They didn't like Jews. And he was from the hood. And he chooses to be true to God in this moment because he chooses God's assignment, right? To say amidst all of this, amidst my social location, amidst this oppression, right? I am in a position to be able to advocate for my people, which is the sole purpose of me coming here. I'm true to self because it was in Jesus's authenticity as a Nazarene, right?

1:38:22 As this lowly, humble person, right? To be able to come in this way. Jesus was regular, degular, shmegular looking, right? Which means that he didn't come riding on a horse. He came lowly, right on a donkey. He's true to himself in this way, but then he's true to his people, all his people that he came to save and the Jews, even those who scholars may argue if or if not, they were hating on him and sending him to the cross. What I love about this is not only is Esther a parallel to us in this Black History Month as people, but ultimately it points us straight to Jesus Christ who shows us the ultimate expression of authenticity that reminds us and shows us that if you give God back what God gave you in your God-given truth, his truth, ultimately, he's able to use you not only for your deliverance, for the deliverance of your people. It is an anointing to be authentic, right? It's the favor of God on you to be authentic and be yourself in all spaces that continues to generate this victory. And ultimately the Hebrew people continue to live on and on and on. Amen? Amen. Let's pray. Lord, we thank you. We honor you.

1:39:33 God, we ask that you would empower us and embolden us, God, with authenticity as given by you, that we would not shy away from our brown skin, that we would not shy away from our blackness, shy away from our boldness that is given by you, some may argue, as even in your image. and so Lord I just ask that you would empower all of us to be like Esther to lean into our anointing anointing for authenticity and say you know what Lord you've put me in this position you've put me in this place of power you put me in this place of influence whether on large scale or small and you will use me in the fullness that you've created me to be a blessing to myself and to others and ultimately for your glory thank you for Jesus the greatest expression of authenticity God, I pray that you would equip us to be that as we walk in our daily lives. And we'll give you glory, honor, and praise. In Jesus' name, amen. Amen.

1:40:24 When Pastor Sharp asked y'all, if I went over, just go like, oh.