Looking to Mordecai: Resisting fear, numbness, and passivity through prayer and lament
With all the pain in the world and endlessly looping negative news, it's easy to become numb or indifferent. As followers of Jesus, we must resist numbness and despair, but not as the world does.
(This is the second post in our two-part series on what it looks like to be a people of “courageous discernment” in the rapidly evolving realities of immigration in the US. You can read the first post here.)
Let’s return to the story of Esther and Mordecai in the Persian empire.
What was Mordecai’s first response to the king’s edict? He prayed, fasted and mourned in sackcloth and ashes. “When Mordecai learned of all that had been done, he tore his clothes, put on sackcloth and ashes, and went out into the city, wailing loudly and bitterly… In every province to which the edict and order of the king came, there was great mourning among the Jews, with fasting, weeping and wailing. Many lay in sackcloth and ashes.” (Esther 4:1-4)
In the midst of all the pain in the world and exposure to the endlessly looping negative news cycles, it is easy to become numb or indifferent. Fasting and grieving, keeps our hearts soft and is the appropriate response to injustice and to a world gone awry.
I think churches, church leaders, and Christians — especially those involved in immigrant ministry — should be wailing, weeping, and laying in sackcloth and ashes across the country. Korean American professor, author, and theologian Soong-Chan Rah writes in his book Prophetic Lament: “Lament recognizes the struggles of life and cries out for justice against existing injustices. The status quo is not to be celebrated but instead must be challenged.”
What would it look like to organize specific meetings and prayer gatherings to lament what’s happening? What if immigrants — especially those who have lived in the US longer, those with citizenship, and others — came together to lament and prayed for God’s help? What if we told Him that “something is broken, something is really wrong?” Let us also be diligent in praying for those in leadership positions (1 Timothy 2:1-2), that God would soften their hearts and give them his heart for the “widow, the orphan and the stranger (Deut 24:17-22).
This prayer guide from World Relief (aptly entitled “Prayers For Such a Time as This”) is a helpful starting point.
“Lament recognizes the struggles of life and cries out for justice against existing injustices. The status quo is not to be celebrated but instead must be challenged.”
Looking to Esther: Counting the cost and speaking up
Prayer is key. But we can’t stop there. Following a period of prayer and fasting, Mordecai challenges Esther to speak to the king. This was incredibly risky. Remember she had replaced the former queen, Queen Vashti, who had been banished for standing against the king. Esther hears Mordecai’s challenge and first counts the cost: “All the king’s officials and the people of the royal provinces know that for any man or woman who approaches the king in the inner court without being summoned the king has but one law: that they be put to death unless the king extends the gold scepter to them and spares their lives. But thirty days have passed since I was called to go to the king” (4:11). The potential risk is stark: her very life.
But, following three days of prayer and fasting, she does so. She uses her privileged position to speak up on behalf of those who are vulnerable and suffering.
In the process of writing this series of posts, I have been reminded by several diaspora leaders and friends how scary and risky it is to speak up in the current climate. It is a lot easier and comes with less risk for me as a White American US citizen.
But I think this means that the broader, US American non-immigrant church has a greater responsibility to speak up for the vulnerable. Diaspora communities in the US have often come here trying to get away from authoritarian contexts where speaking out came with risk. As an immigrant you often try to blend in, hide, and not rock the boat.
But what if the privileges of living in the US, of earning an education — like the position Esther received by becoming Queen, even as a diaspora Jew — came with certain responsibilities to speak up for those from your own community who were more vulnerable “for such a time as this”?
What could that look like for each of us today?
First, I think we must all — following prayer, fasting and lament — be speaking about this within our churches and congregations.
Second, those with citizenship have the privilege and responsibility in a democratic society to both pray for and call on our elected representatives.
Women of Welcome, in partnership with Be the Bridge, has put together a helpful “how to” guide for both these ends called Using Your Voice. You can download it for free here. It includes guidance both for how to speak with your own church leaders as well as your elected representatives.
Faithfulness is always deeply contextual and requires individual and communal discernment. Lament and speaking will look different for a congregation made up of mostly undocumented Venezuelans, as opposed to an older and more established Korean congregation.
A first step for many diaspora churches and leaders may simply be to build relationships outside of your church with other immigrants in your city, and listen to how all this is impacting them. Perhaps it means that as pastor, you might invite another pastor to lunch and simply ask them how all that’s happening is affecting their community.
May we be a people of courageous discernment, a church who is willing to see and lament evil, to pray, fast, listen to the Lord’s leading, and then courageously act and speak out.
Rev. Jonathan Abraham Kindberg is the founder and Executive Director of the Diaspora Network. He is the second-generation in his family born in Perú and was raised in Chile, Panamá and Kentucky. He currently resides with his wife Lini in Austin, Texas.