VLHE—Wednesday Morning Sacred Pause

“For if you keep silent at this time, relief and deliverance will rise for the Jews from another place, but you and your father’s family will perish. Who knows? Perhaps you have come to royal dignity for just such a time as this.”
—Esther 4:14

The book of Esther in the Bible is a story about calling, or ”vocation,” we like to say, at Lutheran colleges and universities. It’s a story about a calling that Esther discovers by understanding herself, understanding the moment, and seizing an opportunity.

In case you’re new to the book of Esther, or need a refresher, here’s a quick synopsis of the story:

Esther, a Jew, has been appointed queen by the King of Persia.

The king’s advisor, Hamaan, is plotting to have every Jew in the empire killed because Esther’s cousin, Mordecai, refuses to bow down and worship Hamaan, and that has left a bad taste in Hamaan’s mouth for all Jews.

Mordecai, knowing that his cousin, now Queen Esther, holds a unique (perhaps even providential) place in the kingdom, convinces Esther that she is the one called to use her influence to save her people from destruction.

Mordecai speaks that famous line to Esther: “Perhaps you have come to royal dignity for just such a time as this.”

The story has a predictably happy ending. Esther reveals her Jewish identity, and Hamaan’s heinous plot to the King, and Esther and her people are saved.

The title of our conference is “Vocation of Lutheran Higher Education,” which suggests that it is not just individuals, like Esther or you or me who have a vocation; but that institutions, and even whole enterprises; this broad thing called “Lutheran Higher Education,” has a calling.

And perhaps the vocation of Lutheran Higher Education, perhaps the calling of my beloved institution, and yours, is for just such a time as this.

We like to say that no other kind of institution is better positioned for such a time as this. We want to believe that we are the special ones. In the midst of challenges facing enrollment and finances, in the midst of changes in young adults, staffing, technology, educational models, values, the list goes on…perhaps our colleges and universities have been called to and for this very moment.

But what is it in particular that sets our institutions apart, and sets us up for this time and this calling?

We could quote Rooted and Open here, and list all the buzz words: liberal arts, freedom from and for, intellectual humility, service of neighbor, hospitality.

But there’s another idea that we don’t talk about all that much. And it may just be the thing that positions our colleges and universities best for this moment. It is the very Christian, very Lutheran notion of death and resurrection.

And just like “rooted and open,” the hardest word in the phrase “death and resurrection” is the word “and.”

Death and resurrection. It’s both.

We are so often tempted into either/or thinking. Especially about death and resurrection. Either we live or we die. We flourish or we fail. It’s one or the other.

But Jesus always says it’s both. We don’t have life without death. We don’t have success without failure. And every end is met with a beginning. Everything old is met with something new that God is doing.

Death and Resurrection. Finding life and losing it. The “and” is the hardest part.

But ask any person, at any of our NECU institutions, and they are doing it. They’ll tell you a story about how their institution is dying and how it is finding new ways to live. How their students are thriving and they are floundering.

I don’t know of other kinds of institutions that can say this with the same honesty or the same hope. We live and we die. There is truth and promise in both.

Esther discovered her calling by understanding herself, understanding the moment, and seizing an opportunity.

Those last two we’re pretty good at. We understand the moment, the stakes, and we’re ready to seize every opportunity.

The reminder we need now is to understand ourselves; what it is that is distinctive about us as leaders, and about our institutions, that calls us into this very moment.

For Esther it was understanding her identity as a Jew.

For us it is understanding our colleges and universities as places founded on and fueled by faith. It is not lost on me that the book of Esther never once mentions God, which maybe gives us license not to talk about God too much at our institutions either. To be sure, at many of our schools it is becoming rarer and rarer to hear God’s name uttered…and when we do talk about our church-relatedness, we prefer to emphasize “Lutheran” over “Christian,” which I think is helpful to some of us because “Lutheran” feels, oddly, more specific and less specific at the same time.

But Esther needed reminders of her identity, and we do too. And I am of the (sometimes unpopular) opinion that naming God, out loud, as an active subject at our institutions is a good way to remind ourselves and others of who we are.

Friends, we are spiritual people. We are God’s people. Our institutions are Christian places, even if the majority of the people who live and work and learn there aren’t Christians. Our colleges and universities are not churches, but they are places where God is at work; where God is doing death and resurrection work. And the callings we have, they don’t come to us out of thin air. Someone is doing the calling. We believe that it is God who calls us. We can, and should, give God credit for that.

For just such a time as this. We are called. By God. To live, to die, and to live again.