Grace and peace to you my sisters and brothers. I bring you greetings from our sisters and brothers in the greater Boston area where I have the pleasure and honor of serving as a minister of the gospel.
I greet you all in the name of Jesus Christ, not singling out anyone of you by name nor rank but greeting all as equals, for we are all beloved in the sight of God.
It is indeed wonderful to join you in praise and celebration on the occasion of the 40th anniversary of nationhood for our beloved Barbados — island in the sun, gem of the Caribbean, God’s dwelling place, Paradise, the Rock — whatever you choose to call it. It is great to be here in NY for I consider myself a Bajan New Yorker. I am much hated because of my love for the NY Yankees, of which I do not make a secret, which means I take my life in my hands when I reveal that in Red Sox nation.

40 is a very significant anniversary, many of you recognize 40 as a biblical number. It is also a very human number.
We can think of a number of times forty appears in the Christian sacred text the forty days and nights it rained in the time of Noah, the forty years that the Hebrews spent wandering in the wilderness after God delivered them from a life of oppression in Egypt, the forty days and nights that Jesus spent preparing himself for his ministry among us, and the forty days between the resurrection, the bodily resurrection of Jesus and the celebration of his Ascension into heaven.
Forty, is very important number, and a very human number. Life they say, begins at forty. Forty speaks of a maturity, a stage of development, a stage of accomplishment on the human plane.
And so we celebrate the accomplishment of nationhood, and it is fitting to celebrate, for Our God is after all, a God for all times and seasons, a God everlasting and ever living, a God of the feast and the fast, a God of challenge and blessing, a God of overcoming and celebration.
But my focus on this day is not celebration, but challenge. Whenever we reach a milestone in our existence either as individuals or groups is a fitting time to ask, ‘What next? What are we to do now that we as a people — God’s people - have reached this milestone? What is it that lies ahead of us? What is it that is even now beside us, at our door? What is it that we are to give our attention to?’

We claim, as a nation, to be Christians, followers of Jesus Christ. He who was a radical, traveling preacher/ teacher, who disturbed the status quo in his day, and astounded the powerful, positioned and the wealthy by his radical inclusiveness and supreme expression of love.
So it is in this tradition of challenge, this radical, powerful, Jesus-like way of preaching and teaching that I want to challenge you on this day.
I have often repeated the phrase used by many preachers and prophets who have come before me: ‘I am here to comfort the disturbed and disturb the comfortable.’ So if you count yourself among the comfortable this day, prepare to be disturbed; and if you are disturbed by something that is bothering you, you may, God being my helper, look forward to a word of comfort, a word of hope.
So I ask you now to pray with me:
Fix me Jesus, fix me. Fix the words of my mouth so that the Word of God, and no other word may flow easily from my mouth to the ears of those who hear.
Fix us Jesus, fix us, so that the words that we hear on this day may be indeed a word from you and you only for there is none other worthy of our attention and our praise. You are our God and we your people.

I chose as my text the book of Esther because it offers us many lessons about how to live in the midst of challenge, in the midst of a threat to our lives and livelihood. The story of Esther is particularly appropriate for a people who live in a foreign territory, for the story of Esther occurred when the Jews had been taken captive by King Asaherus, of Persia.
This story is referenced many times in Bajan community during my time growing up, not so much for Esther and the courageous stand she eventually took, but as a commentary on the revenge aspect of this story. I have heard the remark, and I’m sure you have too, ‘Yuh betta be careful that de same gallows you prepare for somebody else, you don’t get hang on yourself, or, De same grave you dig for somebody else is the same one they might put you in!
That refers to the plot that Hamaan, one of King Asaherus’ henchmen hatched against the Jews. Hamaan hated Mordecai , Esther’s uncle, and framed Mordecai, because Mordecai did not bow down to him and pay him homage. He had a gallows prepared for Mordecai and was hung on the gallows himself, when his plans were turned upside down.
God, though not mentioned directly in this story was present among his people. But our focus today is Esther, the queen, Mordecai’s niece.
As a result of her beauty, Esther became queen of Persia, taking the place of Vashti, who had asserted her independence when she audaciously refused to dance to the king’s music. Vashti was banished and Esther chosen queen.
Esther, also called Hadassah, was a Jew in Persia, but it appears that she had been successfully brainwashed into her new culture and forgot where she had come from and who she was once she was chosen queen.

Forgetting where you come from can be a dangerous thing. Forgetting your roots and your upbringing can be a very dangerous thing.
You see, Mordecai learned about the plot against himself and the all the Jewish people and sent a message to Esther asking her to use her position to avert the disaster that was about to come upon the Jewish people.
‘Perhaps,’ Mordecai said, ‘you were given a royal position for such a time as this!’ This time, Esther, this time is your time to act.
Esther at first refused, but when Mordecai pointed out to her that relief for her people would come form somewhere else, Esther never gave it a second thought. She took action, with the support of her people, who fasted and prayed to God as she positioned herself to act on their behalf. She took her life into her hands and was able to save herself and all her people from extinction. Sometimes when we have been away from home for a long time, sometimes when we have achieved a high position, sometimes when we have accumulated great wealth, sometimes when we are in a place where we think we are impervious to the everyday struggles that most people face, we tend to forget where we came from, we tend to forget the values and principles that enabled us to rise to the positions that we are in, we tend to forget that we were taught to love God and neighbor, to care about the fate of those around us, to live in community, as a community and not to live only for self. We adopt the lifestyles of the country where we are in exile.

We can forget. We do forget. It is human to forget. And we are human. 40 is a human number of struggle and accomplishment. We can be dazzled by the new and strange things that we see in foreign lands. Esther forgot, at first, until her uncle Mordecai reminded her. Esther was dazzled by her position, her wealth. She was not thinking about her people — at first.
Many of us need reminders about what is really important, just as Esther needed to be reminded. We are dazzled by the might and power of the new and strange place in which we live, in the positions in which we find ourselves.
When we have come to a place, a position, a context, a circumstance where we can help others, do we pay attention to the signs and symbols that tell us that we can help someone else and then reach out and help that person, or persons? Or do we turn away, smug and secure in our new found comforts?

It is a human thing not to want to get out of your comfort zone and make an effort to help others. It is a human thing to think that ‘I’ve got mine and therefore I don’t have to worry about any one else.’ It is human, but not Jesus’ way. It is human, but not the way that the people of God act, for we are both human and divine. When we claim the identity of God we must claim everything that God is.
It took courage for Esther to act, for she had to go up against the law of the land that said she could not initiate a visit to the king, she had to be invited to see the king, but Esther once she was made to realize the urgency of the situation, decided that she would go to the authority on behalf of her people saying, “If I perish, I Perish.”
Esther had reached a critical point in her life, where she realized one of her purposes — to save her people. And she met the challenge in her time, the time in which she was called to do, or die.
Others in our recent history have reached out and taken on challenging tasks, others in the history of Barbados, answered the call to lead their people, save their people, in large and small ways. You know their names: Sarah Ann Gill, Grantley Adams, Ermie Bourne, Errol Barrow, Nita Barrow, Tom Adams. They are all now part of the cloud of witnesses who watch us live our lives, who call their names and the name of the God of Israel.
But what are we doing? What kinds of challenges face us, living in this strange land with different rules and values from which we are accustomed? Not all of us will be called to lead nations, to make a difference and have an impact on millions of people, but all of us are called to act, all called to serve either as parents, heads of families, as children, as friends, as neighbors as sisters and brothers in Christ.

There are many ways in which you can help to save others, especially your fellow Barbadians who may be suffering silently in different ways especially in the prevailing anti-immigrant atmosphere that we are now experiencing.
Those of us who are citizens of this country can show up and speak up on behalf of immigrants. We should remember that there was a time in the not too distant past, that many of us and many of our family members stretched out our time so that we could stay and have a chance at a different life.
We tend to forget these things and it is dangerous to forget.
There are others who work under harsh, oppressive conditions, and still others who fall prey to the easy access to drugs, guns and other activity that will surely get them into trouble. And as a people of God, not born in this land we are to reach out and help those, especially, not exclusively, our own kind who are having a difficult time.
I recall a visit to the state prison in Ossining NY, Sing Sing, some years ago, to lead a workshop for some prisoners of African descent. In the group were several men from the Caribbean, or with Caribbean roots. Several were from Barbados. When I asked for a volunteer to lead the closing meditation, it was the Bajan who led the prayers at the end of the session, This Bajan who had gone to Sunday School every week, had learned the bible and could repeat from memory, several of the psalms. His grandmother, he said, had taught him the bible.

But he had forgotten, forgotten many of the things he had been taught, living for self, and not neighbor and so found himself in a desolate place, without anyone to support or encourage him.
My own grandmother now of blessed memory, would tell us often, ‘Do your best, and when you do your best,’ she said ‘not even one of God’s angels could do better.’
We can do our best. Some of us long for the big opportunity to do something grand. But while we wait, we can do little things. Esther did little things, like listen to her uncle when he told her not to reveal her identity — that was not the time — but there did come a time when revealing her identity was critical to saving herself and her people.
We can do the little things — invite those who have no family or are lonely to our homes at the holidays, offer a word of advice and provide resources, information when we know of those who are faltering with the authorities, introduce those who have no relationship with God to a relationship with God, to a Christian community where they can find hope and help, use our positions to ask a question on behalf of those who have no voice or standing.
n this way we build up individuals, families and communities and a nation, even when we are far away and in a strange land.

Now is our time. Time to look at our surroundings and take action to improve the lives of those around us. Time to look outside of ourselves. Martin Luther King Jr. said we are all bound together in a single garment of destiny. No man or woman is an island unto himself or herself. This time is our time as we look to the future to the next forty years as a nation, and the way we continue to build the nation Barbados is that we realize the challenges and the opportunities that are all around us, waiting to be met.

Sometimes we will be called upon to risk our positions, our lives, ourselves. If that time comes when we have to choose, we should know that we are not alone. We have the support of others in the community around us, and if we do not readily have that support, we should ask for it and expect it to be forthcoming. Esther asked for support and she received it.
Esther rose to the occasion in her time. Many others answered the call in their time and this time, is our time. This is our time, our time to act with courage and conviction as Barbadians, as people of God.


Laurel E. Scott: 11/26/06