Give up Objectification

Lent 2023 Sermon Series
Give Up Objectification

Then the king’s servants who attended him said, “Let beautiful young virgins be sought out for the king. --Esther 2:2

In the US today we like to say that slavery is no more, that after the Civil War all people were free. Chattel Slavery in the US ended, and that is because of a great many people who fought to end the despicable institution, both people who were enslaved and people who were free. And yet, other types of enslavement continued on. Families were tied to leasing land from land owners, forced to farm while also paying off exorbitant loans and charges, never really being able to get out from under those loans. Slavery continues in the world today and even here in the US. People are bought and sold, especially those unable to become citizens, folks are used and abused by those seeking to take advantage and objectify others. 

We may think that if we were to just make buying and selling and owning people illegal that we would end all these facets of enslavement. But it is not simply the institution of such practices, it is the desire to turn someone else into something to be owned, something to be used - it is the desire to objectify others that will continue forms of one kind or another of slavery in the future. 

Predatory loans are a fairly easy example of that continued ideology with us today. It is an extreme symptom of the ways that we can used and abused by our economic systems. In moments of need of food, medicine, rent or a whole host of other financial requirements, predatory loan companies offer instant funds in trade for oppressive terms, where the amount of what is owed can be multiplied many times. Payment plans, monthly terms, and "easy pay" options just end up extending what started as a small loan into years of pay. This can push people into cycles of poverty limiting options and opportunities for the individual's life. Like share cropping and indentured servitude before it, predatory loans proclaim freedom when really seeking to turn the person into a money making object to be owned. 

I imagine the women that King Xerxes sought out would have been lured into this kidnapping in much the same way. Esther is part of the Jewish people. The Jews in Persia, while free to worship their own god, were still conquered by the empire. They were spoils of colonialism and so we can take some liberties and assume that she is poor, disadvantaged and oppressed. So when someone asks, do you want to be Queen, the lure is set. Imagine no longer being poor. Imagine no longer being powerless. Imagine what life could be like with riches, power and influence. And then multiply this thought process to hundreds of women. The reality of what would be before this group of women was a life of being objectified. Kept around for the desires of a King whose sole evaluation for the next "Queen" was how these women looked. 

Objectification is not just simply about turning someone into an object to be owned and used as desired by someone else. The darker truth is that it is about trying to get them to do that to themselves; to internalize an external demand on their lives. And so much of the objectification done to ourselves and done to others is in hopes of fulfilling a need or a want. In predatory loans, the hope to fulfill the need for living. With the women taken for the King's desires, the hope is more freedom. 

Esther's story continues, she is chosen to be queen, she fulfills the requirements of her position, but when push came to shove, she was asked to break those expectations in a way that would seek freedom, not just for herself, but for her people. Christ does not seek for us become someone else's object, but instead instills in us, through his own leadership, a mutual indebtedness. If objectification shows us how we can use one another for our own needs and desires, disposing those we don't need or can't use anymore, the opposite is not complete independence. Instead it is the responsibility we have to one another simply because we are made by the same God, part of the same Divine family. 

What then can we do about a King who uses and abuses and objectifies so many people? What then can we do about predatory loans? The more challenging answer to this question comes to us from the love of God. To send God's Son to earth. To seek out and love those around us. To humanize one another even when we can't always tear down the structures that dehumanize. If objectification is turning someone into a commodity, then the love of God seeks to return them back to being our sibling. Perhaps we cannot fix all the problems in the world, but we can treat one another in ways that proclaim who we are. May God bless us this week as we seek to resist objectification.