Clark Kent...

"You will give the people of Earth an ideal to strive towards. They will race behind you. They will stumble. They will fall. But in time, they will join you in the sun. In time, you will help them accomplish wonders." -Man of Steel

"I'm more than a bird. I'm more than a plane. I'm more than some pretty face beside the train. And it's not easy being me." -Five for Fighting, Superman (It's Not Easy)

"Who knows? Perhaps you have come to royal dignity for just such a time as this." -Esther 4:14

When I was a kid, I loved superheroes. Batman? Loved him. Spiderman? Loved him. Superman? Loved him.

Truthfully, I was really a Batman kid more than anything. I would get home every day and watch Power Rangers and then the Batman Animated Series. And it wasn't so much that I loved Batman as much as it was that I loved the bad guys. I loved the adventures of the Joker. And the Riddler. And Two-Face. And Mr. Freeze. Who didn't love supervillians?

I also remember having the coolest Superman shoes in the world. This was probably when I was about six years old, but I'm telling you they were the slickest shoes I've ever owned. On the sides they had a picture of Superman flying and getting ready to punch the bad guy. There was so much action in those shoes that I thought I could lift off at any moment and be called back to Krypton to help Superman save the universe.

There's a story in the bible about a woman named Hadassah. She was a Jewish exile in the Persian capital city of Susa living with her uncle Mordecai. After dismissing his queen because she failed to appear before him, the Persian king Ahasuerus ordered young women from all over the city be brought to him so that he could pick his favorite to become his new queen. Hadassah was one of those picked.

But Mordecai warned her not to let the king know who she was and where she came from. She even used another, more common, Persian name to conceal her identity: Esther.

Well, after some time the king had all of the women brought to him, and wouldn't you know, Esther was the one he desired the most. Esther was made Ahasuerus' queen, the most important woman in Persia.

Now, a man named Haman became the head of all of the king's officials and demanded that all in the king's court bow down, but Mordecai would not. Some people asked him why, but he would not say. So they told Haman. And when Haman discovered that Mordecai was a Jew, he demanded revenge. He had the king order that all Jews be annihilated, and the order was sent to all the corners of the kingdom with the king's stamp of approval.

When Mordecai heard this, he sent a message to Esther demanding help. If anyone could change the king's mind, it must be the queen. But Esther was hesitant. "Don't you know I could be killed for going in to see the king, even as the queen!? You're the one who told me not to let them know I am a Jew after all!" But Mordecai was undeterred. "Perhaps," he replied, "it was for just this moment that you were made queen!"

So Esther went. And she threw two banquets for the king and Haman together. With some cunning she convinced the king to honor Mordecai, an honor which burned within Haman. And then when the king was pleased, with more courage than I can imagine, Esther turned to the king and pled for her people to be spared from destruction. And the king ordered that Haman be hanged and that all Jews be saved from the massacre.

Esther was an outsider in the court of the Persians. Her people had been ordered to death, and if anyone had discovered who she was, she may well have been killed as well. But in spite of that danger, and with the fate of her people hanging in the balance, Esther found a courage of immeasurable magnitude. In the face of death, she took off her mask and fought for her people. She had been Esther for too long. She had to be Hadassah again.

Do you remember what Superman's costume looks like? You know, the blue spandex and the red underwear outside his pants? The red cape? The red boots? The yellow belt? The red and yellow "S" on his chest?

Yes, Superman wears these things. But they aren't his costume.

Superman has a similar story to Esther's. The original Superman comic was created by a couple of teenagers named Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster.

Jerry and Joe were the children of Jewish immigrants hoping to find a safer home in America than they'd had in Europe in the first half of the 20th century. Jerry's family had immigrated from Lithuania. Joe's had come from different parts of eastern Europe. But even in America, their families were met with discrimination and were labeled as "outsiders." Their very existence was a challenge.

So with their love of comics, Jerry and Joe created a new superhero, Superman, an alien from a foreign world Krypton who was an outsider on Earth. He had superpowers. He was more powerful than a locomotive. He could leap tall buildings in a single bound. He could save anyone and beat any villain. He was a hero. He was their hero.

But he didn't fit in. He was a stranger here, an outsider. He was an alien. Just like Jerry and Joe. So to fit in, Superman disguised himself in a costume: Clark Kent, a mild-mannered reporter for the Daily Planet dressed in a suit and tie and glasses. Superman, the greatest superhero of all, wanted to fit in. He needed to put a costume over his real identity. So he put on a disguise.

We do the same thing every day don't we? We put on masks to hide who we really are. We change for different people so we won't ever feel insecure or out of place. We yearn to be insiders instead of outsiders. We crave acceptance, and rarely do we have the courage to rock the boat for fear our shipmates might throw us overboard when they find out we're different somehow.

I bet this must've been what Esther felt like. She must've been terrified. She knew if she approached the king it could mean her death. She'd be done. Finished. The ultimate outsider.

But she took off her mask. She found a courage I don't know I could've found. She found her Superman and left behind her Clark Kent.

That's our call: to take off the glasses and the suit and tie and the masks we wear every day. The world needs a superhero willing to stand out from the crowd and show it the light. The world is yearning for something to stand behind and show it that it can be better than it is. Our cities are looking for this. Our schools are looking for this. Our offices and our homes are looking for this. Our friends and our spouses and our boyfriends and our girlfriends and our children are looking for this. Our enemies are looking for this. We are looking for this.

The world is looking for a love so radical in its breadth and its depth and with boundaries so impossibly wide that it can't help but take notice and follow. So may you take off your costumes and your disguises and let the light in you shine for all of those around. May you let the gifts and beauty God placed in you at your birth shine God's light so brightly in this world that others can't help but notice and be drawn in. May the fruit of Jesus' love in you be so evident that people want to grab hold. And may you find your Superman while you let go of your Clark Kent.

The world needs your Superman, not your Clark Kent.

forever unfinished...

(Much of this blog is drawn from a sermon titled "Esther" by David McNitzky at Alamo Heights UMC in San Antonio on August 3.)