Stones in the Road

Daniel 3: 1 – 30 (adapted for readers)

 

Some texts don’t need a lot of unpacking and contextualization. In fact, were it not for our exploration of pilgrimage in this season as we journey toward Emmanuel, I would probably leave today’s story to sit on our hearts:

 

A power-hungry leader is consolidating power and demanding loyalty – in this story requiring all kinds of people from all kinds of places to bow down and worship an outrageous idol of gold.

 

That means asking the Jewish people to abandon their loyalty to God and God’s law – abandon their commitment to the widow and the orphan and the stranger in their midst and instead to show blind loyalty to the human king – Nebuchadnezzar. 

 

And Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego refuse to worship they idol – they are loyal to God even in the face of the threat of the fiery furnace, from which they are eventually miraculously delivered alive.

 

Alive – a testament to God’s power. And a testament their commitment to resist earthly powers seeking absolute loyalty like Nebuchadnezzar.

 

So yes, I could just leave that story with you. And we could all have a good think about what we are called to do. In fact, I encourage you to spend time with this story in the week to come. Maybe even treat yourself to streaming the Veggie Tales classic interpretation of it entitled Rack, Shack and Benny.

 

But we are also on a journey – a pilgrimage. Remember that a pilgrimage is a journey with a particular purpose.  The pilgrim adopts some practices and behaviors for the journey – and those practices and behaviors help the pilgrim to notice what is happening around them and be shaped by what shows up. A pilgrim is somehow changed by their trek.

 

Our pilgrimage through the first weeks of this series is shaped by biblical prophets – all of whom are writing in some relationship to an upheaval in Jewish society – the upheaval of being exiled from everything that was important to them – their temple, their tradition, their language, their community, and I am sure at times it felt like they were exiled from the special relationship they had with God, the same God who had delivered them out of slavery, through the wilderness and into the promised land.  

 

 

Pilgrimage is often born out of wrestling. OR if pilgrimage isn’t launched by a season of wrestling with a hard thing, it often brings the pilgrim face to face with some difficult circumstances to wrestle with along the way – either a literal obstacle like blisters or stolen backpacks or wrong turns, or emotional obstacles like grief about the road not taken, fear of the unknown, uncertainty about the ability to do the work that the journey requires.

 

Imagine the difficulty of the exile to Babylon for the Jewish people. And into it, different prophets offer commentary from different points in the long season of exile. 

 

Remember that prophets aren’t fortune tellers or future – seers.  They are those who are called by God, attuned to God, engaged with God, sharing God's will and desire with the people, and reflecting the people's responses back to God.

 

Two weeks ago, out of the specter of exile, Isaiah offered a vision of hope to the people - the promise of a new leader who would be born in David’s family tree, a leader who will be loyal to God and who will bring peace to the people.

 

Last week, Jeremiah offered counsel on how to live when the world is turned upside down – as it was among the those in Babylon. Jeremiah counseled the Jewish people to build homes, plant gardens, marry and have children. They were to seek the well-being of the place in which they found themselves because in that place, they would find their own well-being.

 

And today, this story from Daniel sheds light on what commitment looks like when individuals must face a hard choice about their relationship with God.  

 

The story as written has a farcical quality to it. There is the impossibly tall gold statue. There is the command to stop everything and bow down to the impossibly tall gold statue every time any one of many named musical instrument sounds. There are fiery threats.

 

And when Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego confirm to Nebuchadnezzar that they will not worship his stature, the king’s response seems absurdly reactive. He has the furnaces heated up far beyond normal – so hot that one of his servants is consumed in fulfilling his orders.  

Faced with the threat of fire, Shadrach, Meshach and Abendego have a ready response – if our God is able to save us, so be it. And if not, know that we will still not have worshipped your statue. We have remained loyal to God’s command.

The men heroically lean into who they know God to be. They know that if they die in the furnace, they will die honoring God.

 

In that, they seem to find some hope. 

 

Like many good stories intended to convey a message, this one takes an extreme situation and makes the solution seem very cut and dried.  But I want to invite you to dwell in a few things in this season of Advent:

 

Exile disrupted everything the Jewish people knew.  And we have these stories in our scripture today because it was the stories that were told and the lessons that were learned that got the Jewish people through their difficult time of exile.  Sometimes we have to tell stories about our difficulties and how we survived. Those stories matter.

 

While the Babylonians were consolidating power, conquering neighbors, gathering up territory and wiping away people’s identities, some sought to make their life easier by bowing to the powerful king. The Chaldeans really thrived and prospered in this way.  But others, like Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego expressed faith in what they knew and remembered about their God – even when God seemed far away.

 

As we travel on as pilgrims toward Bethlehem, as we travel on as pilgrims seeking to follow the way of Jesus, how will we face the hardships, the obstacles, the challenges that show up?

 

It was from the hardships of exiled Jews that the earliest promises of a Messiah surfaced. From the exile to the destruction and rebuilding of the Temple, prophets cast vision of one who would come to restore God’s reign and unite the people under one God.

 

It is from these earliest imaginings of Messiah that we as Jesus – followers draw the outlines of the story of a baby who is born in the city of David, in Bethlehem. 

 

Out of hardship comes a narrative of hope, a narrative of hope that has lasted for thousands of years. It has power.

 

In Advent we wait on Jesus who is born in a stable to a virgin mother as the Son of God. 

 

In Advent we also wait on Jesus who is the Christ, the Messiah, who will return to bring about a new Kin-dom right here in our midst.

 

We wait for God with us…Emmanuel.

 

As we are about to sing, “All the world, bound and struggling, seeks true liberty, it cries out for justice and searches for the truth.”

 

Come, thou long expected Jesus.

 

May it be so.

Amen.