July 25, 2021: Faithful Courage

Daniel 3:1-30
Rev. Rhonda Blevins 

King Nebuchadnezzar made a golden statue whose height was sixty cubits and whose width was six cubits; he set it up on the plain of Dura in the province of Babylon. Then King Nebuchadnezzar sent for the satraps, the prefects, and the governors, the counselors, the treasurers, the justices, 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, the prefects, and the governors, the counselors, the treasurers, the justices, the magistrates, and all the officials of the provinces, assembled for the dedication of the statue that King Nebuchadnezzar had set up. 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 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, pipe, lyre, trigon, harp, drum, and entire musical ensemble, all the peoples, nations, and languages fell down and worshiped the golden statue that King Nebuchadnezzar had set up. Accordingly, at this time certain Chaldeans came forward and denounced the Jews. They said to King Nebuchadnezzar, “O king, live forever! You, O king, have made a decree, that everyone who hears the sound of the horn, pipe, lyre, trigon, harp, drum, and entire musical ensemble, shall fall down and worship the golden statue, and whoever does not fall down and worship shall be thrown into a furnace of blazing fire. There are certain Jews whom you have appointed over the affairs of the province of Babylon: Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. These 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 Nebuchadnezzar in furious rage commanded that Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego be brought in; 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 you do not worship the golden statue that I have set up? Now if you are ready when you hear the sound of the horn, pipe, lyre, trigon, harp, drum, and entire musical ensemble to fall down and worship the statue that I have made, well and good. But if you do not worship, you shall immediately be thrown into a furnace of blazing fire, and who is the god that will deliver you out of my hands?” Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego answered the king, “O Nebuchadnezzar, 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, 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 Nebuchadnezzar was so filled with rage against Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego that his face was distorted. He ordered the furnace heated up seven times more than was customary, and 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 their 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 and rose up quickly. He said to his counselors, “Was it not three men that we threw bound into the fire?” They answered the king, “True, O king.” He replied, “But I see four men unbound, walking in the middle of the fire, and they are not hurt; and the fourth has the appearance of 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, the prefects, the governors, and the king’s counselors gathered together and saw that the fire had not had any power over the bodies of those men; the hair of their heads was not singed, their tunics were not harmed, and 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. Therefore I make a decree: Any people, nation, or language that utters blasphemy against the God of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego shall be torn limb from limb, and their houses laid in ruins; for there is no other god who is able to deliver in this way.”  Then the king promoted Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego in the province of Babylon.

______ 

I bring you greetings from the 71st Annual Conference of the International Council of Community Churches (ICCC)! My son, Rhys, and I had the pleasure of attending the conference, held just outside Columbus, Ohio, and gathering with our siblings from across the United States. Chapel by the Sea has long been a part of this network of community churches that connects us to the global body of Christ through our participation in the National Council of Churches, the World Council of Churches, Christian Churches Together, Churches Uniting in Christ, Church World Service through which our church participates in disaster relief, refugee assistance and resettlement, and development programs globally. All that to say, we are not an island (we may be ON an island, but we are not AN island)!

Among all the denominations represented in these ecumenical groups (including large denominations like the Episcopal Church, the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America, the United Methodist Church, Presbyterian Church (USA), the United Church of Christ, predominantly Black denominations like the National Baptist Churches and the African Methodist Episcopal Church, as well as Quakers and several Orthodox denominations) our ICCC has a unique origin story.

In 1950, two networks of community churches, one predominantly black and the other predominantly white, “joined in a historic merger. At the time, their joining represented the largest interracial merger of religious bodies in America.” The story is told that at that time, the only place in the country the two groups could find that would host such an interracial group was Union Theological Seminary. The white leader of the white communion entered one side of the stage, the black leader of the black communion entered from the other side of the stage. The two men met in the middle and shook hands, and in doing so, they shook Jim Crow to its evil core.

It's easy to take that rich history for granted, as if it is ancient history. “What matter is it for us here and now?” But think about the courage it must have taken in 1950, from both sides, from black faith leaders and white faith leaders, to join together before joining together was cool (or for that matter, legal?). 1950: before Rosa Parks sat, before John Lewis marched, before Brown vs. the Board of Education—thirteen years before MLK wrote his “Letter from Birmingham Jail” to white clergy who criticized his methods. Our ICCC was, in its founding, a protest against oppressive laws that separated and alienated an entire race from opportunity and the “American Dream.”

At it’s founding, our International Council of Community Churches did not support “separate but equal.” Our founders were “together AND equal.” Take that, Jim Crow! Say that with me? “Take that, Jim Crow!”

Courage.

Courage seems to be in short supply these days. Too many faith leaders don’t bring the fire because they don’t want to feel the heat. (Confession: guess how I know this?)

But today, we meet three people who weren’t afraid of the heat. Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. Three Hebrew young men, brought into King Nebuchadnezzar’s palace after Nebuchadnezzar defeated Jerusalem. Nebuchadnezzar instructed his men to take from among the Hebrew captives handsome, bright young men from among the elite, bring them into the king’s palace where they would be clothed, housed, fed and educated. This was not done out of some sense of altruism, mind you, but to win the hearts and minds of the Hebrew elite. The king had their bodies—if he could win hearts and minds, the Hebrew slaves would be assimilated into Babylonian culture. Brilliant!

There was one problem with that plan. Actually, there were three problems: Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego.

You see, Nebuchadnezzar erected a statue—an impressive golden idol standing roughly ninety feet tall by nine feet wide. And whenever music played, all the people of the land had to stop whatever they were doing, fall prostrate, and worship the golden idol. Those who failed to follow this edict would be thrown into the fire. So the King’s plan worked seamlessly, except . . .

. . . there was one problem with the plan. Actually, there were three problems: Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. These young Hebrew men refused to worship King Nebuchadnezzar’s idol as they remained loyal to Yahweh.

It is a reasonable assumption that Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego were adherents of the Ten Commandments—that set of laws delivered straight from God to Moses on Mount Sinai. To refresh our memories, here’s how the Ten Commandments begin:

I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery; you shall have no other gods before me. You shall not make for yourself an idol, whether in the form of anything that is in heaven above, or that is on the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I the Lord your God am a jealous God, punishing children for the iniquity of parents, to the third and the fourth generation of those who reject me, but showing steadfast love to the thousandth generation of those who love me and keep my commandments.[1]

Don’t you think that, when Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego heard the decree that they must bow down to King Nebuchadnezzar’s statue, that they immediately remembered the 2nd Commandment—don’t make idols; don’t bow down or worship idols?

So here was their dilemma: break the 2nd commandment and live, or adhere to the 2nd commandment and die in a fiery furnace.

Their COMMITMENT to Yahweh required COURAGE

Their COURAGE would result in a CONSEQUENCE

Their CONSEQUENCE would make them CHARCOAL.

COMMITMENT—COURAGE—CONSEQUENCE—CHARCOAL.

It would have been so much easier for them just to bow down to King Nebuchadnezzar’s idol. But we know that there’s no such thing as an easy courage. But there is faithful courage. And that’s the path that Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego chose.

They refused to bow down to King Nebuchadnezzar’s statue. They did not yield themselves to either/or thinking: break the 2nd commandment and live, or adhere to the 2nd commandment and die in a fiery furnace. They imagined a third way. Listen to what Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego tell King Nebuchadnezzar:

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

The three young men imagined a scenario in which they were thrown into a furnace of blazing fire without turning into charcoal. And you know what? That’s exactly what happened.

So the King had them thrown, still completely dressed, still bound by ropes, into the fire—a fire seven times hotter than normal—a fire that killed the King’s lackeys tasked with throwing the three Hebrews in. Then at least two miracles happened: when the King looked into the fire, he noticed the men walking around unbound. Not only were there three men—there were four—and one (in the words of King Nebuchadnezzar) had the appearance of a god. And when the King ordered them out—out walked the unbound Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. Not a hair on their heads was singed. Not a speck of their garments burned. Not a whiff of smoke emanating.

I love this story!

I love this story because it reminds us that we don’t have to be fire avoiders. We can face the fire and come out just fine, thank you very much.

I was listening to the On Being podcast recently. Krista Tippett was interviewing Glennon Doyle and Abby Wambach. I was particularly struck by a part of the conversation in which Glennon was talking about parenting:

One of the challenges . . . in parenting is . . . just letting them have their pain, . . . So we say, all the time, with our kids, “Everything’s a pattern. It’s first the pain, then the waiting, then the rising — over and over and over again. Pain, waiting, rising. And when we skip the pain, we just never get to this rising. 

When we don’t let our kids fail, and we don’t let our kids feel, they don’t learn how to become human. So one of my greatest challenges in my personal life and in my parenting is just to look at my kids and say, “I’m not going to protect you from this. I’m going to let you fail here. I’m going to let you feel that. Yes, yes — life is that hard. It is that hard to be human, and I’m not going to grab that from you.” 

We’re trying to raise these kids who don’t think they have to be fire avoiders, who don’t have to constantly avoid the fires of their lives and of their relationships and of the world, because they learn over and over again that they can walk through the fires, because they’re fireproof. That’s what we learn when we keep showing up for hard things and we keep making it through: that we don’t have to skip the hard things anymore, because we somehow always survive and end up stronger.[2]

Courage is showing up for the hard things over and over and over again. We don’t have to be fire avoiders. My friends, there will always be fire. But we don’t have to let the fire keep us from showing up and standing up.

While Rhys and I were at the conference in Columbus last week, we had a free afternoon. I heard from several people how wonderful the Columbus Zoo was, so I decided to take Rhys to the zoo. It truly is a wonderful zoo! One of the attractions was a 4D theatre, complete with wind and water and bubbles and a pulsating chair. The feature film we saw was an abbreviated version of the original Wizard of Oz.

As you probably remember, Dorothy is told that she can find help getting home to Kansas by going to see the great and powerful Wizard. And when Dorothy finally arrives at the Emerald City with the Scarecrow and the Tinman and the Cowardly Lion—they meet the great and powerful Oz. He is terrifying! He’s huge. He has a booming voice. He appears in the midst of a great and dangerous fire. Dorothy and her three companions are petrified. The Wizard refuses to help them, demanding that they return with the broomstick from the Wicked Witch of the West, a daunting quest. They accomplish this task, and return to the Wizard, the huge, loud, fiery Wizard. The fiery Wizard is irritated; he gives them all kinds of grief. Then (spoiler alert), Toto pulls back the curtain, revealing that the great, fiery Wizard of Oz is nothing more than an old humbug. The fiery Wizard was nothing more than an illusion all along.

Friends, I don’t know what fire you might be facing: a diagnosis or a breakup or a financial hardship or a life-change that seems overwhelming. Just yesterday I received a text from a church member who is terrified with the spike in Covid, especially with a grandchild who just tested positive.

Here’s what I know, there is no courage without fear. So yes, we can be fearful of many things. Faithful courage is doing the right thing in the face of our fear. 

Life will throw you into the fire. That’s a guarantee. But here’s another guarantee: God is with you in the fire. And like the refiner’s fire that burns away the impurities, you will be stronger on the other side of the fire.

I close with a beautiful promise from scripture, Isaiah 43:1-3:

Do not fear, for I have redeemed you;
I have called you by name; you are mine.

When you pass through the waters,
I will be with you;
and when you pass through the rivers,
they will not sweep over you.
When you walk through the fire,
you will not be burned;
the flames will not set you ablaze.
For I am the Lord your God,
the Holy One of Israel, your Savior.

[1] Exodus 20:1-6

[2] https://onbeing.org/programs/glennon-doyle-and-abby-wambach-courage-is-the-presence-of-fear-and-going-anyway/#transcript