sermons
For a Time Such As This
We Have Always Had Enemies
Steve Watson
Feb 15, 2026
We’re going to start today with telling the Bible’s story of Esther, the way we tell stories to our youngest kids every Sunday, called Godly Play. Kids, we’d love for you to come forward for this part – elementary kids, kindergarten kids, preschool kids – we’d love as many of you up front as we can. Come on forward. You can come by yourself if you’re old enough or brave enough. Or you can come with a parent or a caregiver or a friend.
A long time ago, many of the Jewish people lived far away from home, in exile in the land of Persia. Today we will hear the story of Esther, who was from a family who stayed in Persia even after the exile was over.
We need to be ready.
There was once a young woman who was very beautiful, and the king picked her to be the queen. She did not know yet that she was more than beautiful. Others saw that she was kind, but there was so much more to Esther than anyone knew.
Before Esther was queen, she lived with her cousin Mordecai, because her parents had died. Esther and Mordecai loved God more than anything. Their family was Jewish.
There were people in the palace, starting with a man named Haman, who hated the Jews just because they were Jews. It made them angry that they loved God more than anything—even more than the king! So Mordecai told Esther never to tell the king that she was Jewish.
One of the king’s most powerful helpers wanted to kill all the Jews in the kingdom. And the king agreed. Mordecai told Esther that she could no longer keep her secret. She must go to the king to try to save her people.
“No,”
she said.
“If I go into the room, he will kill me, unless he raises his golden scepter.” Mordecai said, “You were born for such a time as this. This is why you are queen.”
Esther was silent.
She loved God, and her people. This gave her courage. She said,
“I will do it. If I die, I die.”
Esther got ready. She prayed for three days. Then she bravely stood at the door where the king could see her.
He raised his golden scepter.
Esther told the king that she was Jewish and asked him to save her and her people. The king said yes.
Esther saved her people. She found the love and courage to be the queen for a time like this.
- I wonder what part of this story you like the best?
- I wonder what part is the most important?
- I wonder what part is about you, or is especially for you?
Now kids, we’re going to go back to our seats in a minute while I do some more teaching today. But we need your help with one more thing during this teaching. Every year, there is a Jewish holiday called Purim. Two weeks from tomorrow, any of us who want to can go celebrate that holiday with Jewish friends of ours at a place called Temple Beth Zion in Brookline. And on that holiday, they tell the whole story of Esther every year. And when they hear the names of the heroes, Esther and Mordecai, people cheer. And when they hear the name of the villain Hamas, they boo.
Can we practice? Esther. Mordecai. Haman.
The whole time I’m teaching today, we’re going to try this, OK.
Let’s practice. Friends, for all of human history, we have always had Hamans. We have always had enemies. It’s true. And we’re going to talk about them today.
But it’s also true that we’ve always had Mordecais. And we have always Esthers. People who help each other keep the faith, even when we doubt. People who help each other stay strong together, even when we’re weak. People who stand up for what’s right, even when we’re scared. Esthers. Moredecais. Ordinary people who together, with the help of God, find extraordinary faith, resilience, and resistance.
I think the room is full of Mordecais and Esthers today. I really do.
Kids, you can head back to your seats now.
In addition to the story of Esther, we’re going to read one other Bible verse. It’s from the good news of John, the fourth biography of Jesus in the Bible. And it goes like this.
John 10:10 (Common English Bible)
10 The thief enters only to steal, kill, and destroy. I came so that they could have life—indeed, so that they could live life to the fullest.
So these words of Jesus are very important to Reservoir Church.
Jesus tells all God’s children that Jesus is a good shepherd. Jesus takes care of God’s children. He wants to help us be safe and healthy. And he wants us to be fully alive, to live the good life, life to the fullest.
Jesus says that he came so we could have abundant life.
Our church founders thought this was so important, they kind of made it the theme song of this church. I don’t know if you notice when you walk into this building, but that verse is over our heads for us to see every time we come in.
And that is the vision of Reservoir Church, that as many people as possible in our city can connect deeply to Jesus and to this church and thrive as a result, have more abundant life.
But this verse also comes with some honest context, which is the first half of this verse, that there are hard things in life. That are people and forces that steal, that kill, that destroy.
Jesus calls these enemies the thief.
When our kids were little, they talked about robbers and thieves a lot. Maybe it was part of how we taught them to lock the door to our house, to keep the robbers away. I don’t remember. But I know that robbers like that aren’t actually very common.
But there are lots of other enemies in the world, lots of thieves out there that steal, kill, and destroy.
And I think it’s helpful once in a while to name our enemies. Because it’s just a way of telling the truth. And because it helps us talk about our enemies and decide if they’re really as scary and powerful as they seem. And because naming our enemies and thieves helps us start to imagine what to do about them together.
- I wonder who and what the thieves are in your life?
- Who are your enemies that try to hurt you or others you love?
- Who tries to steal from you – steal your things maybe?
- Or maybe try to steal your peace of mind, steal your joy, your safety, your abundance of life?
If you’re like me, you have your personal things. Difficult people in your life. Difficult hurts in your past, difficult worries about your future. Maybe difficult habits inside yourself – sometimes we can even be our own enemies.
And there are the big, powerful enemies in the world we face together. The story of Esther reminds us that we have powerful thieves in every country and in every time in history. Thieves like Haman, who was so mean and small in his heart, and so jealous of people like Mordecai and Esther, that he wanted to push them down and hurt them.
In the story of Esther, there are people that sound like the president of our country, who lies to us all the time, who talks and acts like a big bully.
There are people who sound like an evil man named Jeffrey Epstein and the morally bankrupt billionaire cabal he was friends with – people who only care about the weird things they like and taking everything they can for themselves, shameless men who hurt kids and disrespect women.
A lot of the time, our enemies aren’t just people, but big forces that involve many, many people. Like our multi-billion dollar companies that want us distracted and afraid and outraged, or that destroy the earth and don’t pay for it.
These days, in our city, the congregations in Greater Boston Interfaith Organization are starting to organize to try to change the behavior of one of our multi-billion dollar organizations that doesn’t need to be our enemy but has started to act like one.
One of our country’s big banks, Citizens Bank, founded right here in New England, has become the most important financier to the country’s two biggest private prison builders – companies building private detention centers for ICE, companies that make money when our government locks up more people, companies with a horrible track record of mistreatment and abuse of the people they detain.
If you want to be part of the brave fight to stop lending people like this money, you can join me this Thursday evening in Boston for a teach-in and training on how to be part of this GBIO campaign to interrupt this bad behavior. Let me know if you want to come with me.
Sometimes these big, big enemies feel far away from us and sometimes they feel very close to home. Last week, I was leading a house meeting for some other clergy in our city to talk about the thieves and enemies in the world that are threatening us or the people we love. We run these house meetings in GBIO and here at Reservoir Church every few years to listen to each other, find out what in the world is hurting us, and what we can do about it together.
In that house meeting, one colleague talked about her husband, who wonders if he’ll be allowed back in the country after a big trip he has to take soon. Another colleague of mine talked about the planes that fly over his house at night from the air force base, where the government planes fly out with people they want to send out of the country. And another colleague talked about your young adult friends who’ve given up all hope in life and wondered about what kind of world would help our young adults feel safer and more hopeful about their futures.
We listened to each other’s hard stories, and we felt braver together, because there were people who cared with us, and because we started wondering if together, we can make things better.
I really hope a lot of you can be part of one of these house meetings. Please pay attention when Pastor Lydia or members of our Faith into Action core team announce these opportunities. If you’d like your community group to have one of these house meetings together, you can also talk to Pastor Lydia about how to make that happen. Because again, talking about the enemies and the thieves in our world is one way we work together to help them be less scary and to partner with each other and with the Spirit of God to stand up to them together.
God knows about our enemies, and God doesn’t want them to get the last word.
The most famous poem in the Bible after all says –
God, you have prepared a table for me in the presence of my enemies. The Lord is my shepherd. I don’t need anything else. God makes me lie down in green pasture. God leads me beside still waters. God restores my soul, saves my life. God leads me in good paths, and even though I walk through the darkest valley, you are still with me God.
God does not promise us no dark valleys.
God does not promise us no enemies.
But Jesus, our good shepherd, promises to help us live abundantly, live life to the fullest, even in the presence of our enemies. Jesus, our good shepherd, promises to walk through the darkest valley with us, and help us find the way together.
Friends, there are three things I really want to remember today.
One is that our enemies are real. There are many thieves that want to steal, kill, and destroy. But they never have all the power, in fact they often have less power than we think. There are things that our enemies can not touch. Like our breath.
Put your hands on one of your lungs for a minute. Feel them filling up with air – so steady, so strong. Sometimes when someone surprises us, or sometimes when we’re very much in love with someone, we say they take our breath away. But it’s not literally true. As long as we’re alive, our breath is one of many things that no one can touch. It’s our breath, and it’s God’s breath in our lungs, and it gives us life and power that no one can touch.
We are stronger than we think.
Which brings me to the second thing to remember.
That resilience in the face of hard times is beautiful and it is very much possible. I am very much convinced in my heart and my prayers, friends, that 2026 is not a year when our troubles will all go away, but it is a year when with the help of God and friends, we can stand our ground and be unshakable and strong.
I’m even taking this special year in the Chinese zodiac tradition as a little encouraging sign of this. This Lunar new year welcomes the year of the Fire Horse – which is an image of passion, or energy, or unstoppable drive. I’m no expert on this tradition, but I wonder if with the help of God and friends, we can be like Mordecai and Esther and find some fire horse energy together.
We’re actually starting a special and important season in the life of our church, a season that can help with this. This season is called Lent, which means spring. It’s the month and a half before Easter each year when we ask God to pull us close and make our faith, hope, and love deeper, wider, bigger, stronger. And Reservoir Church has some invitations for you this Lent.
Our theme this year is drawn from a line in the book of Esther – “for such a time as this.” The theme is resilience and resistance, as we keep the faith in hard times.
We’ll be exploring this theme together over the next seven Sundays at church. We’re inviting you to explore it on your own too, with a powerful guide to the season written by Hanna Reichel. We’re selling this guide in the dome again this week, so you can get one easily and be ready to read it and pray with it together.
We’re also collaborating with other faith communities in this season. A sister church of ours in this city that shares our values and beliefs, New Roots AME Church in Boston, is going to share this season with us this year. Their pastor Mariama and I are each going to take a turn teaching each other’s churches as our churches go through this season together.
And a local Jewish synagogue I really love, Temple Beth Zion in Brookline, has invited us to attend their Purim celebration this year as well. Purim is the Jewish resistance festival commemorating the story of Esther. This year it’s on Monday, March 1. There’s a kids’ carnival that day at 5:00, and a raucous, fun celebration that starts at 6:30. We’re talking storytelling, but also costumes, drinking, and lots more. We’ll have the info in our church newsletter the next couple of weeks, and I’ve got a flyer from TBZ back at the book table too. Take a look!
Whether you make it over for Purim or not, friends, I hope you can lean into this season together with energy, hope and faith. With the help of God and one another, we’re going to get more resilient and strong, like the fire horse. We’re going to make sure we’re a meaningful part of resistance in the face of our enemies, and we’re going to keep the faith in hard times.
Pray with me, as we begin this season together.