When the World Destroys: The Fiery Furnace

---

A quick review. We are in the book of Daniel. Daniel and his three friends are Israelites who have been forcibly removed from their homes and families to live in Babylon, where they are in an assimilation program to follow the practices and the gods of the Babylonians. Chapter 3 tells the story of the three friends, who have been given the Babylonian names of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, who have been commanded by King Nebuchadnezzar to bow down and worship a golden statue. They refused, holding to the commandment from the Torah to not worship idols, and it absolutely infuriated the king. He chose to make an example of these disobedient youths, and have them killed by placing them into a fiery hot furnace:

Daniel 3.19–26

¹⁹ 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 ²⁰ 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. ²¹ 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. ²² 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. ²³ But the three men, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, fell down, bound, into the furnace of blazing fire.

²⁴ 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.” ²⁵ 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.” ²⁶ 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.

Anyone else grow up on Choose Your Own Adventure books? For those who did not, these were books that began a story, and then came to a place where you could literally choose what you wanted to happen next: “Do you want to fight the dragon? Turn to page 12.” “Do you want to run away from the dragon? Turn to page 44.” Then, you turned to that page and read until either the story ended, or you had another choice.

Today is a “Choose Your Own Adventure” sermon:

• If you want to hear a sermon about “what God COULD do,” turn to page 15.

• If you want a sermon about “what Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego DID do,” turn to page 47.

• If you want to hear a sermon about “what God WILL do,” turn to page 109.

 Choose wisely.

 Sermon #1

Some of you this morning turned to page 15, because you wanted to hear what God could do. I have heard many a sermon and Bible study on this text that makes this the central focus. It becomes a sermon about the power of God vs. the power of the king. It begins with a reminder not to underestimate the tremendous political power of this world to kill and destroy. Historical examples abound. Last week, we talked about the power of the government to take Native American children away from their families and force them to leave their culture and language behind. We could talk about the Japanese internment camps, where Asian Americans were targeted, abducted, and sent to camps, where hundreds died, because of the political fear that they were Japanese spies. We could talk about the Tuskegee Syphilis experiment, where 600 black men—many of whom were being exposed to syphilis by the US Public Health Service —were studied without their knowledge or consent. And the scary thing is that this can still happen today. There are political leaders and their followers suggesting that tyranny isn’t that bad. After all, if we are right, it doesn’t hurt to force others to follow us.

That is the story of Nebuchadnezzar. The text is not 100% clear who the statue represents, but many scholars believe that it was a statue of the king himself, since there are historical examples of this happening around the time that Daniel was probably written. The king required not only obedience, but also worship, with a full worship band. Whenever anyone heard the band, they had to bow down. Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego refused. And the king was beside himself with anger. Again, we must not underestimate the tremendous political power in this world to kill and destroy. Thus, Nebuchadnezzar heated up his furnace of punishment seven times hotter than normal. It was hot enough that the guards who were in charge of throwing people in were killed just because they got close enough to the opening. This was the violence heaped upon Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, as they were thrown into the opening.

We must remember never to underestimate the tremendous political power to kill and destroy in this world. But we must also remember that even that power is inconsequential next to the power of God to save. These three men were tossed to their certain death. But because of the power of God, they walked back out. Anyone looking for a sermon about what God could do could find it here. God saw the violence and deadly power of Nebuchadnezzar…and shrugged. This story has become a story of encouragement to slaves under the thumb of white slaveholders, as told in numerous African American spirituals. It is a story of encouragement to those who Howard Thurman said lived “with their backs against the wall,” retold in song by blues and jazz artists. It is even a story of encouragement to children, who often feel powerless and alone…as told in the classic VeggieTales story “Rack, Shack, and Benny”! If you feel afraid, if you feel powerless, if you feel like no one is on your side, take heart…God saved Rack, Shack, and Benny, and God could save you, too!

True confession. I cheated whenever I read Choose Your Own Adventure books. When I got to a choice, I would stick my finger in the book and look ahead and read, but keep my options open in case I wanted to go back. If the dragon ate me, I wanted the chance to go back and run away.

And some of us might be feeling the same about the first sermon…about what God could do. A sermon that focuses on what God could do has the danger of presuming that God should do the same for us. It has the potential of reducing God to a firehose, with us in control. Our faith. Our prayers. Our abilities make God use God’s strength to put out the fires in our lives. But the problem with that interpretation is that it doesn’t always fit life. Plenty of people go into the fire and don’t come out again. Into the furnace, never to return. Even Jesus prayed let this cup pass, and it didn’t. It ended on the cross. Even if God could, there are times when God does not. It makes us want to flip back and look for another way.

Sermon #2

There is another way. What if instead we looked at the text through the eyes of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, and what they did do. The sermon series this month is focusing on resistance, and these three men are brilliant examples of that theme.

The folks in the Two-way [Sermon Discussion Group] last week recognized this. They looked more closely at the words that these men said to the king. When the king threatened them with the political power to kill, one might think that they laughed in his face: “Who do you think you are? Our God is bigger than you and you can do your worst…we promise that our God will save us from your silly little Smokey Joe charcoal briquettes. Do your worst!” That isn’t what they said. Instead, they said something more like this: “Your furnace may kill us. It may not, and God may save us. But we don’t know. We may be dead men walking. But we do know this…even if these are our last moments on earth, we will never, ever, bow down to worship you or this statue, because we would rather die as faithful men than live as idol-worshippers.” That is resistance.

And that is power. In comparison to a king who is so weak that he needs to use royal decree in order to force people to pretend that they like him, these three men demonstrate true power. Power that is faithful not because they are 100% sure that God will save them. But faithful enough to obey, even if God didn’t. It is same power that Jesus preached to his disciples, that even if we are persecuted and tortured and even killed for our faith, there is power in the resistance.

 What a powerful sermon for us today! Who are the idols that demand our allegiance today? Political power. Money. Violence. Influence. Each of them a shiny, gold statue surrounded with clanging instruments and noisemakers. Author Lee Camp pushes us a little harder in his little book Scandalous Witness. He writes about these kinds of issues in his chapter boldly titled, “The United States is not the hope of the world.” He tells the story of the persecution of Jehovah’s Witnesses in the 1940’s—meetings attacked, members beaten, held by police without being charged, one member literally tarred and feathered…and another brutally castrated. Why were these Jehovah’s Witnesses treated in this way? Because they publicly refused to salute the flag of the United States. “Oh, but we wouldn’t do anything like that today!” How many of you publicly supported NFL quarterback Colin Kaepernick when he nonviolently protested during the national anthem? Not a single team in the NFL, who ran like cowards to worship the golden statue, assuring that he would never again throw a pass in the league. Camp writes of both of these stories in his book, concluding: “In what ways did an idolatrous nationalism engender the sort of visceral contempt evoked by the Christian Colin Kaepernick kneeling instead of standing—as Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego had stood instead of kneeling?” Camp doesn’t mess around.

Which brings us to the problem with Sermon #2. Whenever we preach a sermon about idolatry, or about the dangers of nationalism, even Christian nationalism…it always seems to be about those people. There are a ton of progressive Christian voices out there rightly concerned about the messianic language around Donald Trump’s followers. There are Trump supporters who think that he is the next messiah, that he is the Word of God incarnate, that God brushed the bullet away from his face to protect his prophet (even though you would think that God could have moved it a little more…and not killed another man in the process). And there are progressives out there rightly terrified of their kind of political power wed to their kind of religious power.

So what is their response? “We should wed our kind of political power to our kind of religious power. Because if we do Christian nationalism, it is OK.” It is fascinating how many folks are terrified of someone else’s authoritarian power, who are ready to replace it with their own kind of authoritarian power. Some of the fearmongering I have seen about Trump uses his same language of power and authoritarianism. What history tells us is that the tools used to resist are often the same tools used to oppress. Orwell had it right.

To that point, in the end of the story, Nebuchadnezzar recognizes the power of a God who could save these men from the furnace. But look at how he responds. Does he give up his violent authoritarianism? Does he renounce his use of violent torture and burning people alive? No! He just changes his source of violent authoritarianism! He issues a new decree in which anyone who doesn’t worship the God of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego will be “torn limb from limb, and their houses laid in ruins.” Still just as violent. Still just as motivated by fear. Still just as authoritarian.

I hope you kept your finger in that first page.

Sermon #3

Because there is at least one more sermon in here. We can learn from what God could do…we can learn from what these men did do…and we can learn from what God will do.

If I were to name this last sermon, I would call it “The Fourth Figure.” In the story, once these three men were thrown into the fire, Nebuchadnezzar looked in and saw four figures. He looked over at his officials and asked, “We just put three guys in there, right? So, who’s the fourth guy?”

I want you to take a minute and ask yourself, “What fire are you facing today?” What is the challenge that terrifies? What is the power that threatens to subsume? Sit for a minute with the reality of that pain and trauma and struggle. Hold that fire out in front of you.

The Torah made it clear: “the LORD himself goes before you and will be with you; he will never leave you nor forsake you. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged.”

• Jesus made it clear: “Behold, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.”

• The early church repeated the refrain: “Be content with what you have, because God has promised that he will never leave us or forsake us.”

God will not always take the fire away but God is always in the fire beside us. In the place of immature and weak political power, God steps into the fire. And God will not be consumed. The fourth figure stands with you, whatever fire you face. You are not alone.