Scripture: Daniel 5:13–31
King Nebuchadnezzar is dead. The bad guy from last week’s sermon had a rough go of it since we last left him. In Chapter 4, he has some kind of psychotic breakdown, where he ends up out living in the fields, eating grass and living off the land. He eventually comes back to his senses, but he has lost just about all credibility and when he dies, his son Belshazzar takes over. But he isn’t really much better than dad.
Case in point, just before today’s reading, he and a thousand of his buddies were hanging out, drinking too much wine. I think the phrase in the NRSV is “under the influence of the wine….” The story never ends well if that phrase is involved. They drank too much, and decided to get out the holy Israelite chalices that had been stolen when they sacked and destroyed the Temple in Jerusalem. And they used them for their drunken festival.
But right in the middle of the party, a hand appeared from nowhere, and wrote on the wall of the room a set of unintelligible words. You have heard the phrase “handwriting on the wall”? This is the story that that phrase literally comes from. Needless to say, the king and his buddies sobered up real quick, and decided they better figure out what these words mean. Which leads us to today’s passage…
Daniel 5.13-31
13 Then Daniel was brought in before the king. The king said to Daniel, “So you are Daniel, one of the exiles of Judah, whom my father the king brought from Judah? 14 I have heard of you that a spirit of the gods is in you and that enlightenment, understanding, and excellent wisdom are found in you. 15 Now the wise men, the enchanters, have been brought in before me to read this writing and tell me its interpretation, but they were not able to reveal the interpretation of the matter. 16 But I have heard that you can give interpretations and solve problems. Now if you are able to read the writing and tell me its interpretation, you shall be clothed in purple, have a chain of gold around your neck, and rank third in the kingdom.”
17 Then Daniel answered in the presence of the king, “Let your gifts be for yourself, or give your rewards to someone else! Nevertheless I will read the writing to the king and let him know the interpretation. 18 As for you, O king, the Most High God gave your father Nebuchadnezzar kingship, greatness, glory, and majesty. 19 And because of the greatness that he gave him, all peoples, nations, and languages trembled and feared before him. He killed those he wanted to kill, kept alive those he wanted to keep alive, honored those he wanted to honor, and degraded those he wanted to degrade. 20 But when his heart was lifted up and his spirit was hardened so that he acted proudly, he was deposed from his kingly throne, and his glory was stripped from him. 21 He was driven from human society, and his mind was made like that of an animal. His dwelling was with the wild asses, he was fed grass like oxen, and his body was bathed with the dew of heaven, until he learned that the Most High God has sovereignty over the kingdom of mortals and sets over it whomever he will. 22 And you, Belshazzar his son, have not humbled your heart, even though you knew all this! 23 You have exalted yourself against the Lord of heaven! The vessels of his temple have been brought in before you, and you and your lords, your wives, and your concubines have been drinking wine from them. You have praised the gods of silver and gold, of bronze, iron, wood, and stone, which do not see or hear or know, but the God in whose power is your very breath and to whom belong all your ways, you have not honored.
24 “So from his presence the hand was sent and this writing was inscribed. 25 And this is the writing that was inscribed: MENE, TEKEL, and PARSIN. 26 This is the interpretation of the matter. MENE: God has numbered the days of your kingdom and brought it to an end; 27 TEKEL: you have been weighed on the scales and found wanting; 28 PERES: your kingdom is divided and given to the Medes and Persians.”
29 Then Belshazzar gave the command, and Daniel was clothed in purple, a chain of gold was put around his neck, and a proclamation was made concerning him that he should rank third in the kingdom.
30 That very night Belshazzar, the Chaldean king, was killed. 31 And Darius the Mede received the kingdom, being about sixty-two years old.
“To the victors go the spoils.”
This phrase originated after Andrew Jackson’s Democrats won the 1828 election. NY Senator William Marcy defended Jackson’s firing of a large number of federal employees to replace them with his loyal supporters, friends, and financial backers. According to Marcy, Jackson was the victor, and so he got the spoils.
It is a hallmark of our political system, that didn’t start or end with Jackson. There have been attempts made to build in merit-based systems, which have helped to provide consistent leadership that rewards people for doing good work. But we still live in a culture where the winner takes all and the loser goes home empty handed.
- Think about the sports world. In the last couple of weeks, we have seen a Chiefs game where the opposing receiver was just a few inches from having his feet in bounds on a touchdown that could have tied the game…we have watched the Jayhawks lose after a 4th and 1 at the goal line; if they had stopped them from scoring they would have won…and the Royals lost to the Yankees on a close play at home in the 11th inning, where Bobby Witt almost threw out the player at home. How many points did those three teams get for close games? None. No partial points for a close call.
- Or similarly, think about the world of politics, where we saw on Tuesday night a debate surrounded by talking heads and analysis afterwards where both parties rushed to insist that their side “won” the debate, whatever that means.
- Or think the violence in the Middle East, where both Netanyahu and Israel and Hamas alike seek not a draw, nor a compromise, but total annihilation of their enemy.
To the victors go the spoils. We love our winners. And winning means winner take all.
That’s the underlying theme of today’s story.
Daniel tells the story of a King and a party. The Babylonians were known for these huge, long, drunken parties that lasted several days. Somewhere deep into this one, someone had the idea that they should pull out the Israelite chalices that they had stolen from the Temple when they destroyed it. These were the sacred cups that are talked about in Exodus, the same ones used in the worship of God in the Tabernacle and then the Temple. The same ones that the people took all of their gold from their homes, and off from around their necks, and gave it to the goldsmiths, who worshipfully created them. Generation after generation, they had been cared for. And then Belshazzar and his drunk buddies used them like red solo cups at a kegger. And not only that, they then bragged about their gods, who must have been so much better than the God of Israel, because they had won and their God had lost.
And that’s when the God of Israel had had enough. A hand appears and starts writing on the wall. King Belshazzar freaks out, as one probably should, and sets to work trying to find someone who can interpret these words. And it is probably not a surprise that to do this, he resorts to what he knows best: competition. To the victors go the spoils, right? He declares that whoever can interpret these words will get a purple robe and a gold chain and will immediately become the third most powerful person in the kingdom!
But when they line up out the door for the chance to win, everyone loses. They all show up, but none of them know what these words mean. Failure after failure after failure. No one gets the robe. No one gets the fancy chain.
And then Daniel shows up. After all of these failures, someone says, “Hey, I know a guy,” and they grab Daniel and bring him in to see what he can figure out. Look closer at the way that Daniel responds to this competition. There are a couple of elements that I want to lift up.
The first is this: Daniel doesn’t want to play by his culture’s rules. King says…“you get a robe…” and “you get a chain,” and Daniel says “I don’t care. You can keep your robe.” He rejects these cultural terms of what is valuable and what is not. “I don’t care about your reward. Just show me the wall.” And he immediately interprets the handwriting. “Oh, that word is MENE, meaning ‘numbered.’ That one is TEKEL, meaning ‘weighed.’ And that one is PERES, which means ‘to divide.’ All having to do with measuring. God is saying that you are going to be measured, and be found wanting.” And by the end of the night, his words prove true, as Belshazzar is dead, his political rivals have taken over, and the spoils of his kingdom are lost forever to the Babylonians. To the victor goes the spoils.
That’s the second thing I want us to see about Daniel. He gets it right precisely because he is not fully enculturated. God grants him a discerning ability because he is outside of the system. He is living in the system, but not fully a part of the system. He thinks from a different perspective. Daniel is a discerner. He is a reader of the world, precisely because he stands outside of that world and sees it from the outside-in.
A parallel. A moment ago, Pastor Cristina read John 3 about the interaction between Jesus and Nicodemus. According to this translation, Jesus says that Nicodemus needs to be “born from above.” Live from a different perspective. Stand outside of the world in which you live in order to see it more clearly. Like in Daniel, Nicodemus is a guy with cultural and political power, and Jesus tells him that that power doesn’t matter, but he needs to operate from a different power. Have a different definition of greatness. Live by different rules. Be born from above. Lee Camp, who I talked about last week, calls this an “alternative politic.”
Daniel’s vision and discernment stand out because he sees differently. That is the beginning of resistance. Both rejecting the power and purple robe of this world, and operating out of the rules of a different one.
Which has to be our goal. So how do we get there? How do we engage in this alternative politic? How do we get a Daniel perspective? How do we as Nicodemus get a Jesus perspective? A couple of weeks ago, I introduced this concept of Paideuterion, or a school of faith. Kay Northcutt introduced to me what is actually an old concept, and one that is tied to ancient Christian models of spiritual direction. She suggests six different models for learning in this paideuterion, and today I want to talk about three of them. Consider these your general ed required courses for the school of faith. Three courses that we need to take to be able to operate out of this alternative perspective.
First class: Northcut says that we need to learn to “Listen with the ear of the heart.” Holy listening is crucial for us to receive a Daniel perspective. Northcut talks a lot about spiritual direction, and one of the principles of spiritual direction is to stop talking and listen. To listen for the voice of God. To listen to the promptings of the Spirit. She uses the language of a “holy hunch,” which involves having the patience enough to discern something about a person or a relationship or a situation. Maybe some of you have had these “holy hunches” before, where you don’t know why you feel strongly about a thing, but you know that you do. These hunches can be cultivated, by slowing down, quieting down, eliminating distractions and stopping to ask yourself “where might God be in this?” “I wonder where God might be leading.” Seems kind of super obvious (but we so rarely actually do it.) OK, so that is your first class in your required curriculum. 8:00 am Monday, Wednesday and Friday “Listen with the ear of the heart.”
Your second class is related, but distinct: “Beholding” or “Cultivating Attentiveness.” We not only need to listen for the voice of God, but also be aware of the realities of our world. Christine Valters Paintner talks about beholding as it relates to the spiritual discipline of photography. Talked about her a ton after my sabbatical, as she helped me to practice this intentional attentiveness to the world. She writes this about beholding: “Beholding has a slow and spacious quality to it. Your vision becomes softer as you make room to take in the whole of what you are seeing. There is a reflective and reverential quality to this kind of seeing. You release your expectations of what you think you will see and instead receive what is actually there, while in the process everything can shift.” How do we behold the world around us? Photography can be a tool. Journalling about what you have seen. What are other tools for attentiveness? Northcutt reminds us that attentiveness is not only beholding beauty and awe and order. But also disorder, and chaos. We are attentive to injustice. We are attentive to others’ pain. We are attentive to broken hearts and broken spirits. We rightly see and we rightly behold the world as it is.
Two classes down, one to go. Another third course in the paideuterion is what Northcut calls “Building toward sacramental life.” Now, as Baptists, we get a little twitchy when we talk about sacraments. We would rather talk about ordinances of Jesus. Sacraments sound too much like magic, or manipulation, to say that God’s action happens when we say it happens. But here she is not talking necessarily about THE sacraments, but more about sacramental living.
This is about finding God in the ordinary moments of our day. The day-in and day-out activities that are actually gifts from God. The idea is that when we are listening, and when we are beholding, we begin to see God’s finger writing in our world. Daniel saw and understood what was happening because he was listening, and attentive. What if Belshazzar had been that attentive from the beginning? Would he have discerned how broken his values were before God had to literally write it on the wall in front of him? Can we learn to read what God is writing before our very eyes, in coming and going through everyday life? We learn this alternative politic through the school of listening, of watching, of thanking God for the sacrament of every day.
I close with Northcutt’s beautiful description of this life: “And so we pray: offering up the burden of our love as we bathe our babies’ bodies, smooth and slippery in bathwaters of everyday baptism then scramble into the minivan, listening to our children, driving them to school on our way to work. Our lives become sacrament whenever we bring the full force of our attention: as we work to save a family farm, as we make love to spouses and life partners, as we cook, garden, or pursue graduate studies or finish a GED, as we persist in our recovery from alcohol and drug addictions, as we practice law or answer phones, when we work for our neighborhood to be free from violence, when we resist sexism, violence, or the will-to-power in our homes and our churches and our institutional relationships—we make a sacrament of the ordinary. All of it: holy.”
Amen and amen.
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