“When Life Hands You Lemons” – August 27, 2023

Sermon Preached at Stouffville United Church
Rev. Capt. Dr. John Niles
Ninth in the Series on Esther: “For Such a Time as This”

Music by Guest: Rebecca Loo

The old, trite saying that reads, “When life hands you lemons, make lemonade!” Saying that to someone is a recipe for getting smacked. Yet, as the video says, there is indeed something to be said for making the best of a bad situation, because the truth is that we are all going to have some bad situations come our way.
I’d actually, love to do this on main street Stouffville. Life is not always kind and pleasant. Sometimes we find ourselves trying to survive a
very difficult season of life. Some refer to such moments as “wilderness experiences,” when we feel far from home and out of touch with normal life. Everything seems out-of-sync. Relationships are out of whack, contentment is fleeting, and peace of mind is hard to find. Been there?
A man who went through a deep depression found great strength in his Christian faith. For, in it he found hope. Hope that he would come through it. As he looked at God’s creation he saw the reality of this. Just as clouds come and go, so do the clouds of crises. Indeed, the brightness of the day and the light of his determined faith became not two things, but one in his experience. The sun arising in the East became for him the symbol of hope and the promise that his distress would not last forever. He found enormous strength in Browning’s words:
If I stoop into a dark tremendous sea of cloud
It is but for a time
I hold God’s lamp close to my breast,
Its splendour soon or late will pierce the gloom.
I shall emerge one day.
When he did emerge, it seemed fitting that he should describe our Christian faith, “The religion of the dawn.”
……….

I

When life hands you lemons remain strong 8:1 That same day King Xerxes gave Queen Esther the estate of Haman, the enemy of the Jews. And Mordecai came into the presence of the king, for Esther had told how he was related to her. 2 The king took off his signet ring, which he had reclaimed from Haman, and presented it to Mordecai. And Esther appointed him over Haman’s estate. 3 Esther again pleaded with the king, falling at his feet and weeping. She begged him to put an end to the evil plan of Haman the Agagite, which he had devised against the Jews. 4 Then the king extended the gold scepter to Esther and she arose and stood before him. 5 “If it pleases the king,” she said, “and if he regards me with favor and thinks it the right thing to do, and if he is pleased with me, let an order be written overruling the dispatches that Haman son of Hammedatha, the Agagite, devised and wrote to destroy the Jews in all the king’s provinces. 6 For how can I bear to see disaster fall on my people? How can I bear to see the destruction of my family?” (Est 8:1-6) The Episcopal minister George Ross used to love to tell the story about the woman in his congregation who was having terrible difficulty getting over the grief over the loss of her husband. She even went to see her physician and said, “You need to give me a prescription to help me with my melancholy. Every day I go to the cemetery and I put flowers on my husband’s grave, but it doesn’t help. It simply drives me deeper into grief. Give me a prescription to ease my pain.”
The physician said, “Before I give you a prescription, let me give you a suggestion. Instead of placing those flowers on your husband’s grave, why don’t you bring them to the hospital? I have many patients in the hospital who nobody ever visits and if you would visit them and bring them some encouragement in those flowers, it may be that you would bring a little joy into their lives.”
Strangely enough, even though she was resistant, she decided to do it and found that this was the turning point for her own healing. As she showed encouragement to others, she was able to drink deeply from the well of God’s own encouragement.
http://www.csec.org/csec/sermon/long_4603.htm
Esther knew it wasn’t just about her and her family. There were more lives at stake than just theirs. Even as the tears of relief after the days of anxiety well-up and she wept (8:3), she remained strong enough to continue to advocate for the safety of “her people’ (8:6) and “my
family”.
It wasn’t until that moment that she had revealed her heritage, and her relationship with Mordecai (8:2) that she had nothing to hide.
“We are only as sick as our secrets.” Is a saying from AA.
One of the most common barriers to healing, recovery and stability is the tendency to keep our problems hidden from others. When we are ashamed of ourselves, our mistakes, failures, or struggles, identity we may isolate ourselves and avoid seeking help and support. This
denial prevents us from facing the issue and finding effective solutions.
By keeping our problems secret, we are also depriving ourselves of the support, empathy, that we need from others to grow and heal.
We are only as sick as our secrets because they keep us stuck in a state of suffering.
Esther, finally, let Xerxes know everything she had been afraid to tell him, and found a renewed strength by doing so.
Trouble shared is halved
Joy shared is multiplied.

II

When life hands you lemons remain strong by take advantage of disadvantage as we remain strong, and also respond sensibly. 9:15 The Jews in Susa came together on the fourteenth day of the month of Adar, and they put to death in Susa three hundred men, but they did not lay their hands on the plunder. 16 Meanwhile, the remainder of the Jews who were in the king’s provinces also assembled to protect themselves and get relief from their enemies. They killed seventy-five thousand of them but did not lay their hands on the plunder. (Est 9:15-16)
Fred Craddock told the story the story of a missionary (Oswald Goltar) sent to preach the gospel in India near the end of World War II. After many months the time came for a furlough back home. His church wired him the money to book passage on a steamer, but when he got to
the port city he discovered a boatload of Jews had just been allowed to land temporarily. These were the days when European Jews were sailing all over the world literally looking for a place to live, and these particular Jews were now staying in attics and warehouses and basements all over
that port city. It happened to be Christmas, and on Christmas morning, this missionary went to one of the attics where scores of Jews were staying. He walked in and said, “Merry Christmas.” The people looked at him as if he were crazy and responded, “We’re Jews.” “I know that,” said the missionary. “What would you like for Christmas?” In utter amazement the Jews responded, “Why, we’d like pastries, good pastries like the ones we used to have in Germany.” So the missionary went out and used the money for his ticket home to buy pastries for all the Jews he could find staying in the port.
Of course, then he had to wire home asking for more money to book his passage back to the States. As you might expect, his superiors wired back asking what happened to the money they had already sent. He wired that he had used it to buy Christmas pastries for some Jews. His
superiors wired back, “Why did you do that? They don’t even believe in Jesus.” He wired back: “Yes, but I do.”
In chapter 9:15-16 it points out that the Jews in Susa protected themselves from the attacks but did not put their hands on the plunder. They weren’t acting to take advantage of those who were trying to do so with them Instead they just wanted to live their lives free from abuse.
The Hebrew translations reads “to stand for their lives and have rest from their enemies” (v 16).
They just wanted to go about and live. The king’s proclamation gave them that right and that right to protect themselves and no longer be afraid of attacks. When I was posted to Greenland to help supply our military station in Alert, and to be attached to the American Military, there was once that a few of us, travels to the waters edge to see the countless icebergs. Some were small and some gigantic. If you’d look carefully, you’d notice that sometimes the small ice floes move in one direction while their massive counterparts flow in another.
The explanation is simple. Surface winds drive the little ones, whereas the huge masses of ice are carried along by deep ocean currents.
When we face trials and tragedies, it’s helpful to see our lives as being subject to two forces–surface winds and ocean currents. The winds represent everything changeable, unpredictable, and distressing that operate around us. But operating simultaneously with these gusts and gales is another force that’s even more powerful. It is the sure movement of God’s wise and sovereign purposes, the deep flow of His unchanging love.

III

When life hands you lemons remain strong by take advantage of disadvantage as we respond sensibly, and also and finally react selfless.

When life hands you lemons remain strong by take advantage of disadvantage as we respond sensibly, and also and finally react selfless. 10:1 King Xerxes imposed tribute throughout the empire, to its distant shores. 2 And all his acts of power and might, together with a full account of the greatness of Mordecai to which the king had raised him, are they not written in the book of the annals of the kings of Media and Persia? 3 Mordecai the Jew was second in rank to King Xerxes, preeminent among the Jews, and held in high esteem by his many fellow Jews, because he worked for the good of his people and spoke up for the welfare of all the Jews. (Est 10:1-3) Autumn is a most beautiful time of year. But isn’t it interesting that the colorful, vibrant beauty of fall foliage stems from the process of dying?
As the season changes, temperatures drop and days get shorter. Trees get less direct sunlight, and the chlorophyll in the leaves breaks down. The lack of chlorophyll reveals yellow and orange pigments that were already in the leaves but masked during the warmer months. — Smithsonian Sparks
Like the beautiful, autumn leaves, believers are most beautiful when they learn to walk in self-denial. It is then that the true vibrancy of our walk with Christ shines in greatest contrast to the struggle.
When life asks nothing of us, our fullest potential for selflessness lies hidden within, just like the hidden beauty like the autumn leaves lies masked in the green leaves during the warmth of summer.
Then Jesus told his disciples, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me” (Matthew 16:24, NIV).
Chapter 10 1-3 King Xerxes remembers Mordecai’s greatness, but you may notice that both Esther and Mordecai are remembered most of all, for their selflessness. He adopted Esther when she was an orphaned cousin (Est 2:7). He remained concerned as a parent for her even
when she was in a palace. “Every day” he walked back and forth near the courtyard to find out how Esther was and what was happening to her (Est 2:11). And he remained sitting at the king’s gate (Est 2:19, 2:21, 5:13, 6:10). He sat there while Esther was in court, not to gain any favor but
to watch out for her welfare.
And it was Esther who did not remain silent even though it would cost her life to speak up. And after doing so, she didn’t stop at saving herself and Mordecai, but acted again to save her people.
So don’t hate the world; overcome it.
Don’t curse the darkness; shine in it.
Don’t close your eyes to evil; redeem it.
Don’t deny sin; forgive it.
Don’t evade the struggle; claim the victory.
Don’t pretend that there is no place of crucifixion and trouble;

Proclaim that in the place of crucifixion there is the power of the Resurrection