Faces of Our Faith: Shadrach, Meshach, & Abednego | Daniel 3:1-28 | 7.12.26

Grace and peace to you in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.

This week we continue our series of faces in our faith.

We get to spend some time with some faces who, frankly, I remember learning about when I was probably eight or nine in VBS.

I remember this was a big VBS story for me.

And then very quickly, I'm remembering my faith life, they seem to have been promptly ignored ever since vacation Bible school.

And so if your experience was like mine, maybe it's worth a revisit to three uh young Hebrew men in a tale of brave resistance to idolatry.

The book of Daniel, at least in its canonical form, the way we have it today, is a product of a time period where the Jews were under intense persecution by Antiochus IV.

Following a disastrous military defeat in Egypt, Antiochus took out his frustrations on Jerusalem.

He stationed troops in the Acra fortress and issued strict decrees to force the assimilation, uh the assimilation of the Jewish people into the ways of Greek culture.

He outlawed Torah observance, circumcision, the Sabbath, and he desecrated the second temple by erecting an idol to Zeus in it, and by sacrificing pigs.

And those who refused to abandon their religious practices under his reign were executed, and the sacred scriptures were burned, and this brutal persecution provoked the Maccabean revolt, which our Jewish neighbors still celebrate to this day during the season of Hanukkah.

And it makes sense why such brutal oppression would lead to the codification of a piece of resistance literature like the book of Daniel.

The book looks back on an older hero in order to speak to a present crisis.

The first half are court tales set in the Babylonian period, which are always asking the question: what do you do under pressure to abandon your values and to worship idols?

Daniel, Hananiah, Meshael, and Azariah were given Babylonian names.

They were to be called Belteshazzar, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego.

Have you heard those names before?

Yeah, they're fun to sing.

There was a song I learned one time.

Daniel and his friends maintained, in these, in the first couple chapters of this book, they retained their religious fasting and eating practices, despite rules otherwise, only to end up more healthy than their Babylonian peers.

And they gain wisdom.

Daniel gains the ability to interpret dreams.

And they're so strong and healthy and smart and wise that they get put into the king's service.

So far, so good.

Then in chapter two, Daniel's newfound ability to interpret dreams comes in handy.

King Nebuchadnezzar begins having unsettling dreams.

And what's perhaps even more unsettling is how unhinged these dreams make the king's behavior.

He starts to demand that his servants explain not only what his dream meant, but even what his dream was.

He won't even tell them what he dreamed.

Without him telling them what he dreamed in the first place, they had to become mind readers.

And he threatens his servants that if they can't tell him what he dreamed and what it meant, that he would tear them limb from limb and burn their houses.

And if they did the impossible, then he would shower them with great gifts and with honor, he said.

I don't know if you know anyone like this, but this is classic uh villain egomaniacal behavior.

Do exactly as I'm asking of you, with no regard for whether or not it's possible.

And if you don't, I will crush you.

But if you do, I will love bomb you with all the best things and give you, I'll give you a raise.

Well, this has been foreshadowed.

Daniel can interpret that dream.

Daniel uh receives a vision in the night, uh, and he's able to tell Nebuchadnezzar what he dreamed about.

The dream was of a huge, dazzling monument, a statue whose head was made of pure gold.

This is in chapter two, if you're following along.

We're gonna get to three for the main point.

The head was made of gold, its chest and arms were made from silver, its abdomen and hips were made from bronze, its legs were made from iron, and its feet were a mixture of iron and clay.

A rock structure, the unstable feet of the statue and the whole of it, uh, after a rock strikes the feet, it crumbles into a pile that's higher than any mountain, which covered the whole earth.

That's what the dream was.

And then Daniel goes on to explain that the sections of the statue, the gold and the silver, and the bronze and the iron and the clay, that these represented kingdoms, uh, different kingdoms that would come along in history.

And the current king, Nebuchadnezzar's section, of course, was the top dazzling part in gold.

But there would be other kingdoms after his.

Gold gives way to silver, silver gives way to bronze, and bronze to iron.

Iron, ironically the strongest of the metals, uh, if less precious, it still isn't strong enough.

And it's mixed with clay just to keep it standing, and even the empire at its most fortified is held together with something that cracks.

And then a rock, not flung by human hands, the scripture says, the text says, uh, no, no army, no empire, just a stone rolled by God, it strikes at the feet, and it doesn't just topple, it crumbles into small pieces, it becomes chaff on the threshing floor.

If you're a Jew in Jerusalem, suffering under Antiochus the Mad, this image is a promise.

Every gold head thinks it's the last word, but it never is.

And the mountain that fills the whole earth, the one thing that uh that in the dream that isn't made of anything that rusts or cracks or fails, that's not Babylon, that's not Antiochus, it's not Greece, it's not Rome, it's not Mongolia or Azteca, or Russia or Germany or America.

That is the reign of God.

The ultimate reign of God, still standing when every empire that believed itself eternal is dust in the wind.

That's what Daniel tells the king.

So, what does the king do with this information about this divine vision?

You would think that a vision about collapsing under its own weight uh might humble a guy.

But no.

Instead, more gold, a bigger statue.

If chapter two was a warning, chapter three is Nebuchadnezzar cranking the volume to 11 and telling the band to play it again.

In fact, before I read this, I'm gonna read chapter three most of it, and I want you to listen to how many times the text stops to list out every instrument in the royal band, literally every rank of government official.

And it's not sloppy ancient bookkeeping that it sounds like this.

The writer is mocking the pomp and circumstance that this king, who has been told the empire is going to fall, he's mocking the pomp and circumstance of this uh this ask of the king.

It's the biblical version of a royal wedding program that lists every usher's job title and educational history.

But before we read a bit from that third chapter, let's pray together.

May you pray with me.

God, our helper, by your Holy Spirit, open our minds that as the scriptures are read and your word is proclaimed, we may be led into your truth and shown your will for the sake of Jesus Christ our Lord.

Amen.

Now let's read together from chapter three of Daniel.

And I want you to notice the way it pokes fun at the pomp and circumstance of the empire.

It reads, King Nebuchadnezzar made a golden statue, whose height was sixty cubits, and whose width was six cubits.

And he set it up on the plain of Durah in the province of Babylon.

And then King Nebuchadnezzar sent for the satraps and the prefects, and the governors and the counselors, and the treasurers, and the justices, and the magistrates, and all the officials of the provinces to assemble, and come to the dedication of the statue that King Nebuchadnezzar had set up.

So the satraps and the prefects, and the governors and the counselors, and the treasurers and the justices, and the magistrates and all the officials of the provinces did assemble for the dedication of the statue that Nebuchadnezzar had set up.

And when they were standing before the statue that Nebuchadnezzar had set up, the herald proclaimed aloud, You are commanded, O peoples, nations, and languages, that when you hear the sound of the horn, pipe, lyre, trigon, harp, drum, and the entire musical ensemble, you are to fall down and worship the golden statue that King Nebuchadnezzar has set up.

Whoever does not fall down and worship shall immediately be thrown into a furnace of blazing fire.

Therefore, as soon as all the peoples heard the sound of the horn, the pipe, the lyre, the trigon, the harp, drum, and entire musical ensemble, the peoples, nations, and languages fell down and worshipped the golden statue that King Nebuchadnezzar had set up.

Accordingly, at this time, certain Babylonians came forward and denounced the Jews.

They said to King Nebuchadnezzar, O king, live forever.

You, O king, have made a decree.

You made a decree that everyone who hears the sound of the horn, the pipe, the lyre, the trigon, the harp, the drum, and the entire musical ensemble, shall fall down and worship the golden statue.

And whoever does not fall down and worship the golden statue shall be thrown into a furnace of blazing fire, and there are certain Jews whom you have appointed over the affairs of the province of Babylon.

Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego.

These men pay no heed to you, O king.

They do not serve your gods, and they do not worship the golden statue that you have set up.

Then King Nebuchadnezzar, in a furious rage, commanded that Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego be brought before him, and so they brought those men before the king.

Nebuchadnezzar said to them, Is it true, O Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, that you do not serve my gods, and that you do not worship the golden statue which I have set up?

Now, if you are ready, when you hear the sound of the horn, the pipe, the lyre, the trigon, the harp, the drum, and the entire musical ensemble, you should fall down and worship the golden statue that I have made.

But if you do not worship, you should immediately be thrown into a furnace of blazing fire, and who is the God who will deliver you out of my hands?

Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego answered the king, O Nebuchadnezzar, we have no pret we have no need to present a defense to you in this matter.

If our God, whom we serve, is able to deliver us from the furnace of blazing fire, and out of your hand, O king, then let him deliver us.

But if not, be it known to you, O king, that we will not serve your gods, and we will not worship the golden statue that you have set up.

Then King Nebuchadnezzar was so filled with rage against Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego that his face was distorted.

That word means so twisted he was unrecognizable.

And so he ordered the furnace heated up seven times more than was customary.

And he ordered some of the strongest guards in his army to bind Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, and to throw them into the furnace of blazing fire.

So the men were bound, still wearing their tunics, their trousers, their hats, and other garments.

And they were thrown into the furnace of blazing fire.

Because the king's command was urgent, and the furnace was so overheated, the raging flames killed the men who lifted Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego.

But the three men, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, fell down, bound into the furnace of blazing fire.

Then King Nebuchadnezzar was astonished.

He said to his counselors, Was it not three men that we bound and threw into the fire?

They answered the king, True, O king, he replied, but I see four men unbound walking about in the midst of the fire, and they are not hurt.

And the fourth has an appearance like a god.

Nebuchadnezzar then approached the door of the furnace of blazing fire and said, Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego, servants of the most high God, come out.

Come here.

So Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego came out from the fire.

And the satraps and the prefects and the governors and the king's counselors gathered together and saw that the fire had not had any power over the bodies of these men.

The hair of the heads was not singed, their tunics were not scorched, not even the smell of fire came from them.

Nebuchadnezzar said, Blessed be the God of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, who has sent his angel and delivered his servants who trusted in him.

They disobeyed the king's command and yielded up their bodies, rather than serve and worship any God except their own God.

This is God's word for God's people.

Thanks be to God.

What did you notice about this story?

What did you notice about the way that it was written, about its tone and its narrative arc?

For me, what stands out continuously, especially when I consider its original audience, when I consider its original audience, uh is the humor and the satire and the freedom with which the author pokes fun at Nebuchadnezzar and all of his satraps and prefects and governors.

It's uh, if you'll pardon the pun, the story is definitely a roast.

But it's a roast of the king.

He's fickle, he's fearful, he's given the truth.

He has the truth revealed to him by Daniel, and yet, instead of following the truth, he chooses to serve himself, even in response to divine revelation.

In an attempt to force compliance, he ends up getting his own strongest guards killed.

Uh, they were absolutely cooked.

The statue that he ends up building, by the way, is 60 cubits by six cubits.

It's hard maybe in the English to understand, but that's a 10 to 1 ratio.

It's absurdly tall.

Uh, a human being's likeness would look really distorted at that range, and it would be wildly unstable.

To build something that was, you know, imagine hundreds of feet tall, not very wide.

And trying to secure and protect his own power and stability, the thing that he builds is really already destined to fall.

Something, something, compensation, yada yada.

It's all in there in the text.

This is Esther's cousin story, if you were with us last week.

It's from that same era.

It's about courage under a fickle king, and I wondered this week why stories like this in our scriptures always seem to contain two things as I read them.

They contain uh a humor on the one hand, and they would contain within them a call to reject idolatry on the other.

Humor and a rejection of idolatry.

And here's what I think: I think that when we live in times where the powers that be can sometimes leave us feeling uh crushed or helpless or overpowered, overwhelmed.

In either our attempts to push back or our resignation to apathy, without joy, we can become hopeless.

And sometimes to laugh at the absurdity of it is to take its power away and to remind us of the only real power in the world, the power of the God of love revealed to us in Christ.

As Dr.

Michael Lef's work reminded me recently, he writes that when Scripture gives us these sort of slapstick or satirical narratives, done right, such humor lays bare the shallowness of society's values.

And it does so in a way that frees us from the temptation to share those values.

Comedy is not just the stuff of late-night entertainment, he writes, it can also serve the purposes of Sunday morning sanctification when it is created to serve the ends of faith.

Moments of comedy and satire in Scripture are vital for us because they remind us not to take the wrong things too seriously.

Because when we take the wrong things too seriously, we end up with idolatry.

Idolatry is taking something with ultimate seriousness that is not the God revealed to us in Christ Jesus.

That's what idolatry is.

Our denomination has just wrapped up its general assembly that happens every couple of years.

And one of the things that's been going on the last few of these has been a call to write a confession for today.

And the confession of faith that speaks to particular forms of idolatry that are rearing their ugly heads in our world today.

And the committee that gathered these last couple of years lifted up the idolatry of wealth and power and the wielding of Christian language that is aimed at antichrist-like ends, particularly Christian nationalism.

Now, in true Presbyterian fashion, by the way, it'll take multiple committees and multiple years and lots of talking and voting before anything like this comes before us.

It would be 2030, I think, before this would come to our church to talk about.

But that said, I think it's clear to many of us that idolatry is rampant.

And idolatry is often draped in the language of faith.

Many of us in our world are tempted to join the powerful in their idolatry of wealth and power.

But stories like Daniel and Esther, along with Jesus' teachings, of course, camels and needles and whatnot, are here to remind us that idolatry warps the way we see the world and it warps the way we act in the world.

If the acquisition of money becomes its own inherent good, for example, then we end up with systems that use and abuse people.

Our bottom lines become the thing that causes us to ignore the lives of others.

We treat folks like employees instead of people, and we watch our 401ks instead of rates of homelessness and childhood hunger.

We become wealth managers first and our brothers keeper second.

If the acquisition of power, for example, becomes its own inherent good, not only do we then stand in counter-testimony to the humble rejection of empirical power that we see in Jesus, but we start to trade away our values and our relationships to others bit by bit in order to hang on to or gain more of that power.

So here's what I'm saying this morning.

Don't let it get you so down that you forget how to laugh.

Don't let the doom scrolling uh keep you from enjoying your neighbors, from building community with one another, from making music together, from singing, from laughing.

Don't let it steal the lightness.

Don't let it rob you of the joy of small moments, the moments where light breaks in, and we remember the God we know in Jesus Christ.

A God whose last laugh has already been set in stone, and it will not be the laugh of destruction, it will be the laugh of restoration, of embrace, of love.

And if in your life there is something or someone so untouchable, so precious, so far above a good, godly giggle, friends, that might not be devotion, that might be an idol.

Maybe it's politics, maybe it's wealth, maybe it's comfort, maybe, and this one might sting a little bit, maybe it's the previous interpretation of the Bible that we had, right?

We don't worship the Bible, we worship the God who gave us the Bible.

We don't worship things, we worship the source.

We worship the God who loved us so much that we were created in our diversity, each of us in God's image.

And God who laments our wars and our self destruction so much that in Christ's life, death, and victory over death itself, God revealed a spirit so powerful that our joy cannot be contained.

May it be so amen.