FIERY FURNACES AND THE PARAMETERS OF WORSHIP
Daniel 3: 1-30

A sermon given by the Rev. Richard H. Taylor
August 21, 2005 / 14th Sunday of Pentecost

Well, I think you might see why so many love to read that passage. But what is it about?

On its own surface the writer is telling us a story of some Jews during the captivity in Babylon. The armies of Nebuchadnezzar the King have captured and laid waste Judea and Jerusalem. Many of the best educated Jews, the royal family, the scientists, doctors, keepers of the culture, have been brought as captives to Babylon to serve in the King's house. There they add luster and shine to the imperial court. All of that really happened.

The author then, with creative license, tells us some individual stories of how some of these individual captives live their lives. They are actually hard working. They are gifted. Apparently they pray for the country in which they find themselves. And they are successful. Over and over again Daniel, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego dazzle the palace master or the king and get promoted to prominent jobs in the Empire. Yet the writer is careful to point out that these upwardly bound civil servants - while always loyal to nation state - are careful to point out their religious differences, and to point out their loyalty to Judaism. They are apparently gifted at what they are doing. But it is also apparent that they have antagonized a group of Chaldeans. Some are opposed to people of a different race and a different religion getting ahead in the land. They undermine our four heroes at every opportunity.

The book is about how to survive, with God's help, as a minority in a nation whose values you do not fully accept. It's something of a cheering section to keep up the good fight.

Now actually a careful analysis of the Aramaic language and references in the story tell us that this book was actually written centuries later than its setting. The clues seem to be that it was written after Alexander the Great, when Egypt and then the Selucids controlled Judea. Foreign emperors were choosing who got to be chief priest in the Jerusalem Temple. Jewish money was being sent off to provide tribute to pagan Greek gods. People felt these and other corruptions would destroy all that their culture and faith stood for. The writer of Daniel says that other people responsibly opposed the rule of an evil empire. Take courage and resist!

It is not an unusual Biblical theme. Think of the prophet Elijah on Mount Carmel opposing the corruptions of Jezebel. Think of the Christians who opposed Nero and Caligula who ended up the lion's den. How does the cause of good survive in a corrupt valueless empire?

It is interesting, therefore, how our writer structures his story of opposition to the powers that be. The writer never suggests that the minority take up arms, that Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego buy some rifles, or blow up a federal office building. They instead work hard to keep peace and stability in the kingdom. Instead the writer says draw the line at what you worship. It is okay to work for Nebuchadnezzar, and keep peace in his kingdom, but it is wrong to fall down and worship the idol that the king has set up.

Now some would say they were not asked to give up their religion. Nebuchadnezzar never says "stop worshipping the God of Israel." He merely says "worship me." Add the nation, the state, the king to your beliefs. Worship God and the state. Add to your religion the veneration of an object, a thing, an item to symbolize the power of the state.

The king doesn't say eliminate the Jewish religion. He says corrupt it. Add to it. Make it a system of more than one God. Worship Yahweh and the nation. Add to the worship of God in heaven, the worship of the idol the king has set up on the plain of Dura.

As such it runs right into the first commandment "one God," and the second commandment "do not make any graven image."

What do you think about those commandments on the first table of the law? Those about worshipping one God, and having no other gods? Those of us with a strong social conscience usually get most excited about the moral lessons in the second table of the law: no killing, no stealing, no false witness, no covetousness. We don't usually get all that worked up about the first table.

But our writer here says, "if you expect to survive in an empire whose values and goals are not your values and goals, pay attention to what you worship." Pay attention to what your worship.

Judaism is essentially iconoclastic. Most synagogues and temples that I have been in lack ornate symbolism. Only the tablets of the law, the scrolls, the books are prominent.

Other Christian groups accuse those of us in the Reformed tradition of being too Jewish, too Old Testament oriented. Indeed we picked up that iconoclasm, the desire to destroy images. And, unfortunately, our desire to destroy images led our forbears to wipe out much great art.

But our simplicity even here is shown in our plain glass windows. The Bible is in the center, and our worship spaces have few symbols. When Governor Cooke, a member of this Church, the first revolutionary Governor of Rhode Island took office in 1775, his simple plain attire was a marked contrast to the ornate, lush show of his Tory predecessor, Governor Wanton.

The same Reformed tendency to remove symbols became a primary issue after the adoption of the Barmen Declaration in opposition to the Nazis in 1934. One of the chief things that got Confessing Church leaders arrested was their refusal to allow the red, white, and black, Nazi swastika flag in their churches.

Right at the same time Arthur Wilson, my predecessor here, led a valiant fight to insist that we move the American flag to the back of the Meeting House. He did not want it up front, where people might see it as an object of worship.

Coming from the same place as "Parson Pete," you can understand why it was a great disappointment to me when my congressman recently voted to set up an item of national veneration for Americans. He voted for a bill to make it a Constitutional Amendment to make it a crime to burn an American flag. In effect that would establish a thing that must be venerated above all others.

Now I respect the flags that I own, and I am not going to steal yours to do something with it. And its true that armies in a battle need a symbol to find out what side of the field their people are on.

But Nicholas Cooke, and John Adams, and Roger Williams did not imagine governments, did not imagine Constitutions where people would be required to venerate and protect a thing.

Similarly, I have troubles with the "Pledge of Allegiance." True, we were all forced to memorize it when we were children and give it no thought. Am I willing to give allegiance to ideas of liberty and justice for all? Absolutely! Am I willing to be loyal to the nation in which I live, by keeping it decent and peaceful, and working to move it to the finest and most inclusive ideals? Yes, of course. I am loyal to my government in the same way that Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego were. But I can't say this pledge. I am not loyal to a piece of cloth. To my native land? Yes. To the ideas of democracy, human rights, and peace? Even more. I have lots of allegiances. But the highest can not be to a thing.

So this proposed amendment troubles me to the core. Are we trying to equate a worship of the nation to the worship of our God? Think deeply on this.

The writer of our text, says that if you wish to survive in an Empire whose values are not yours: work hard. Serve the common good. But be careful what you worship.

"Thou shalt have no other God's before me. Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image." Where are your allegiances? What will you bow down to? What is worthy of your life?

Your decisions on these questions may subject you to a fiery furnace.

Amen.