1 Advent
Narrative BFC 2017
Daniel 3
December 3, 2017
If you have ever heard the
music from Australian vocalist and composer, Lisa Gerrard, it is strongly
evocative. Her music conveys deep
emotion, not with words, but with sounds that get into your bones. She provided the soundtrack for the movie
“Gladiator.” In one of the most moving
pieces she has done, “In Exile,” Gerrard conveys deep, deep pain and yearning
such that I find myself almost in tears as I listen. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EgHTf2qtX3o) I
imagine it is the sound of a mother who holds her dead child as she wails in
the rain. It is the guttural feel of a
community coming back to their obliterated homes and lives after a natural
disaster. It is the bruised foreheads of
a nation beaten down and forced to abandon their culture, their spiritual
practice, their language, and the land to which they were connected.
Much
of the Bible was written as resistance literature to empires that were about to
or had overrun the Jewish people. The
Bible then relates how the Jewish people were to live faithfully in a foreign
land under foreign rule. It is Psalm 137
which has the foreign rulers, lying back on their sofas, eating their grapes,
and telling the conquered Jewish people, “Entertain us! Sing us one of those songs of your homeland!” And the Jewish people, in tears, respond
back, “How can we sing the song of the Living God in a foreign land? You have traumatized us. Slaughtered our children in front of us. Shred all of our holy sites. How?
Why?”
Hannaniah,
Mishael, and Azariah are brought from the royal court in Jerusalem and the
first thing that happens to them is that they are renamed, their identities
stripped and given names in accordance with Babylonian gods: Shadrach, Meschach, and Abednego. Their fellow Jew, Daniel, is asked to abandon
his spiritual practice, his kosher, vegetarian diet, in favor of the wines and
meats found at the Babylonian palace. Later
in the story, Daniel remembers his identity, his culture, his spiritual
practice, and his homeland by praying in the direction of Jerusalem, three
times a day, instead of to the king. Praying
to the king is in keeping with the cultural practice and law of his new
homeland. This draws the king’s
suspicion. I think King Darius was
worried that Daniel might be trying to institute Sharia Law.
But
the central question is, “If I abandon my spiritual practice, the daily things
that identify my loyalty to and my relationship with God, particularly at times
of discomfort, threat, or opposition, do I really have a faith at all? If I forget the central story of my people,
forget the values that define my faith, cannot remember the character of my
God, did I really have any faith to begin with?”
Shadrach,
Meschach, and Abednego, are asked to make a central breach of their faith. The first two commandments in the Ten Commandments
are: 1) You shall have no other gods
before me and 2) You shall make any graven image for yourself. King Nebuchadnezzer makes a statue, a graven
imagine. And everyone, including
Shadrach, Meschach, and Abednego, are asked to bow down and worship it. Show your loyalty. They refuse to do so. Their allegiances are elsewhere. The penalty is that they are thrown into the
fiery furnace. The king tries to cut
them slack to say it must have all been misinterpreted. The three men say, “Nope. And we know the story of our God and our
people. Throw us into the furnace. God may very well deliver us. God may very well not.”
And
they are thrown into the fiery furnace.
But in keeping with the story of their people, while they are in the
fiery ordeal, the king spots someone in there with them. The God who promised
one thing to Moses when he returned to Egypt, “I will be there with you[1] shows
up, walking in the fire with them.
Now
whether this story really happened historically is somewhat immaterial. That is not the purpose of telling a story
such as this one. The purpose is to
provide resilience to a people who might be going through similar conditions,
without hope, wondering whether we, as Jewish people, can make it when time
gets tough and our backs are against the wall.
Of course we can. For as
Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego found a way, so shall we. We too often think we are much more fragile
than we are. We could not make it if we
were without some form of status, or income, or health. We imagine that it would be a disaster to
have a certain kind of relationship, a breakup or divorce, or house, a terrible
grade at school, or job. The reality is
we could make it when things are much tougher:
poorer, not popular, living alone.
It
was the ancient Roman philosopher Seneca who owned beautiful homes filled with
the most wonderfully crafted furniture.
But to remind himself of his own resilience, Seneca would regularly sleep
on the floor of his outhouse, drink lukewarm water, and eat stale bread. He therefore never worried what kind of
catastrophe might befall him because, at the very worst, he would be sleeping
right down near the dog basket the next night.[2] Just like he did every night.
But
our fears of our own fragility keep us timid and risking little. Our Biblical stories are often about
reminding us that nothing could be so bad for us as the calamity and
catastrophe experienced by our faith ancestors.
Their stories are a reminder that there is a faith, a story, a God who
is two somethings deeper than whatever trauma might be a part of our
lives. These are riches to rags
stories.
We
are in a culture that is so obsessed with rags to riches stories that we forget
stories of faith are about recognizing that we are not as fragile as we are
told. Most Biblical stories are riches
to rags. All things fall. All things fail. But failure is healthy, intrinsic, normal,
and necessary to almost all complex systems.
In fact, author Andrew Zolli believes that people of faith tend to be
the most resilient because who they are tends to rhyme with those who are
psychologically hardy. People who are
psychologically hardy 1) Tend to believe the world is a meaningful place; 2)
Believe that they have agency within that world; 3) And believe that successes
and failures are placed as hurdles before us to teach us. Those markers help us to be more resilient in
the world.[3]
The
Gospel writers, in trying to define the life and time of Jesus, used Scripture
verses from the Exile story more than any other. They wrote in a hopeless age. What they tried to say was that there were
spiritual practices, values, and stories which gave their world meaning, told
them that they could act upon their world, and that they could learn about,
with the hurdles placed before them, the activity and work of God in the
world. In the end, like Shadrach,
Meshach, and Abednego, the gospel story borrowed from the exile to say that
even in the midst of a fiery ordeal, a whole community could see God’s presence
walking with them.
The
story is told of a coastal town that had a great sandbar, when coupled with
fog, caused many a ship to wreck off its shores. After many lives were lost, a small cadre of
people on the coast built a shack and kept watch, so that ships run aground
would not result in loss of life. This
hardy group of people knew the risks involved but, at their core, wanted to
save lives. And so they did. Many lives were saved. After some time, some of the people who were
saved pointed out how nice it might be to have a shower inside the shack so
that people could have a place to warm up once rescued. The saved donated the funds to make that
happen. As more and more lives were
saved, others pointed out that it would be nice if a warm meal might be served
along with the showers. Gracious
survivors donated money for that.
Eventually, the little shack became a full-fledged restaurant and one of
the most happening social places in town.
Some of the original group decided that the original mission of saving
lives had been lost in favor of a social club.
Therefore, they decided to move down the coast a bit and built another small
shack. Eventually, however, the same
thing happened: showers, meal,
restaurant. And even smaller group broke
off with another shack further down the coast.
And it happened again—showers, meals, restaurant. Until all along this beautiful coastline were
some of the most wonderful restaurants in the area—neat, orderly, very few
people tracking in sea water or beach sand.
But . . . no lives were saved.
Hope,
in our faith tradition, is not about a rags to riches story. It is about knowing that trauma and
catastrophe and failure, a fiery ordeal, most certainly come in all of our
lives. What I pray is that we have the
spiritual practice, the story, the values, the sense of God’s presence that is
two somethings deeper than any trauma, catastrophe, or failure. If we are about being the successful social
club, then where is our hope? But if we
are about saving lives, then we continue in a long tradition of practices,
values, and a story that is two somethings deeper than anything we might
face. We may think we are fragile. We are not.
For God is walking with us. Amen.
[1]
This is how the Jewish scholar interprets the name of God in Exodus, Chapter 3,
“I Will Be There.”
[3]
“Interview with Andrew Zolli: A Shift to
Humility: Resilience and Expanding the
Edge of Change,” On Being with Krista
Tippett, May 15, 2013. https://onbeing.org/programs/andrew-zolli-a-shift-to-humility-resilience-and-expanding-the-edge-of-change/.
