Daniel 3:14-28 and 30
Ephesians 1:16&17
I Love to Tell the Story: Revisiting Shadrach, Meshach and Abed-Nego
The Bible is a treasure trove of stories. And this summer we hope to explore some of those stories together, and think together about what lessons they hold for us in our own time and place. The German theologian Karl Barth cautioned that we should always hold the Bible in one hand and the newspaper in the other. In other words, in order for the ancient texts to have meaning for us we need to free them from the constraints of a sole historical context.
The Old Testament has a vast number of great stories: Noah and the flood, Jonah and the whale, Adam and Eve in the garden of Eden, to name just a few. In our faith tradition we see these stories as representations of how ancient peoples imagined their God – and their relationship with their God. As such- they are not, literally, true. They are not, literally,”the word of God.” The historical narratives of the Old Testament need to be seen as humankind’s attempt to understand their wars, their famines and floods, as well as their triumphs through the lens of either God’s judgment and wrath, or His approval and affirmation.
I believe that the great richness of these ancient stories is to be found in what they reveal about human nature: the jealousies and insecurities, the arrogance and pride that still bedevil humankind to this day.
And so, this morning I’d like to begin our summer quest with the story of King Nebuchadnezza, his chief, chosen advisor, Daniel, and Daniel’s three close friends: Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah. If you know someone looking for an unusual name for a newborn baby – there’s a goldmine! But the king confers on them new names, I suppose as an honor: Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-Nego. Those are the names by which history remembers them.
The story begins with King Nebuchanezzer having a long and upsetting dream that predicts the downfall of his rule as king. And we know well how insecure and unhinged that might make an ensconced leader feel. Nebuchanezzer calls in Daniel, who has a reputation for interpreting dreams and begs him to offer some advice. And following Daniel’s complicated explanation, Nebechanezzer decides that he’ll build a large statue of himself, made of gold. By and chance do you still have the Bible story in one hand and the newspaper in the other?
King Nebuchanezzer then declares that everyone in the kingdom must prostrate themselves before the statue and pay homage to his greatness, or be cast into a raging hot furnace. Shadrach, Meshach and Abed-Nego refuse to pay homage to the golden image, saying that they will only worship their God. So, as you know from our scripture lesson, they are thrown into the blazing heat. But, as the King looks upon the furnace, delighting in his power, two very strange things happen: first; there seems to appear a fourth “person” in the furnace with the three men – a kind of mysterious presence alongside them. And second; the flames do not consume them. They emerge from the fiery furnace unscathed.
Our interest in the story, at least on this particular morning, ends here. King Nebuchanezzer realizes that the God of Shadrach, Meshach and Abed-Nego is far more powerful than he is. And he proclaims, “Blessed be the God of Shadrach, Meshach and Abed-Nego. He has sent his angel to save his servants.”
I’ve selected this story for today because I’d like to draw some parallels between it and our journyes to Green Grass, South Dakota.
Our partnership with the Green Grass community on the Cheyenne River Reservation has endured for 35 years. I’ve lost track of how many of our members and friends have made the journey out there to experience life on that Lakota reservation. Hundreds, I am sure. One of the great gifts of those trips is the broad range of ages of those who participate. Every year we’ve had young children among our own group, and they delight in the simple activities that bring joy to children the world-over; water balloons, Frisbee games, and volleyball. There are horse-back rides, and a playground, and expeditions to the river nearby to hunt for special rocks. Every year we’ve had people of a grandmotherly or grandfatherly vintage who relate very well to the stories told by the elders of the tribe. An important part of each journey is to simply sit and talk – reminisce and share our lives. And every year we have blessedly energetic worker-bees who gather the groceries and cook the meals to which we invite the entire community. For the three or four solid days we are “on” the reservation we share a precious fellowship that enriches both the people of Old Lyme, and the friends we have returned to again and again on that quintessentially beautiful native prairie. Our time there becomes a kind of inclusive family reunion, richly laden with all the joys and laughter, the challenges and heartache that one can possibly imagine.
There are those among us who feast their eyes on the rolling, lavishly green hills and focus on the physical beauty of the prairie. There are some among us who reconnect with the human stories that have woven their way through the fabric of the families since last we visited. There are those among us who seek out the elders and the tribal leaders and try to unravel the complicated morass of laws that define reservation life. And puzzle over the questions of whether or not there is adequate health care, and accessible educational opportunities. And there are those among us who are sobered and haunted by the enormous poverty and deprivation that erodes and bedevils each and every person’s life on “the REZ.” I fall into that latter group – and I always return from these trips with a cloud of depression hanging in the air above me.
But this year the story of Shadrach, Meshach and Abed-Nego emerged in my mind and carried me forth in a way that was enormously helpful.
Our Native American friends live life in a kind of fiery furnace of trial. They live on a reservation which is cripplingly isolated. The only comprehensive hospital facility is three hours away. Food scarcity is real. One grandmother, a little younger than I, lives with a daughter and three grandchildren and the total value of the food stamps they receive is 60 dollars a month. Fresh food is hard to find, and more expensive that the highly processed breads and cookes that contribute to an epidemic of diabetes. Alcoholism is prevalent.
There is no industry to generate jobs. When the snow flies in winter, the school buses can’t reach the children on the outskirts of town, so they miss critical days of school and fall behind their peers. The federally-funded HUD housing is poorly insulated; so when the deep, bone-chilling winds of winter whip across the prairie, they are forced to spend most of whatever money they have on heat. The poverty is crippling. And yet… and yet……
Standing beside, or maybe within, a good many of our Native American friends is a mysterious, strengthening presence. Like King Nebuchanezzer, I can’t quite name it or identify or decipher it. But it’s there. I hear it in the traditional songs our friend Travis sings, and the constant drum beat that he says is the heartbeat of the mother of us all. I see it when young François rides by on his wild horse, racing like the wind with his long black hair flowing out behind him, and a broad smile on his face. I find it in the presence of Rhonda who drives us way out onto the prairie along desperately muddy and rutted paths to show us how to harvest wild turnips.
The mysterious presence makes itself evident in the broad smile of a little girl named Jesse who finds a precious fossil on the river bed and hands it to me shyly, and with a twinkle in her eye says, “Keep it- it’s a gift for you.”
What is the mysterious, strengthening presence that enables them to find the endurance and patience and courage to survive? What accompanies them into the furnace, into the fire, that allows them to come out at least somewhat unscathed?
Maybe it has to do with the God they know in their sacred, ancient rituals – the sweat lodge and the vision quest, the sun dance, the give-away and the pow-wow. Maybe it is, in some small part, found in the friendships with people like those of us from Old Lyme who return every year, even though, as vacations “go”, the journey to Green Grass is hardly a vacation. Maybe it’s found in the knowledge that, even though their path through history is laden with oppression and degradation, with disrespect and brutality, they come from a long line of brave and resilient people who have carried on carrying on despite the incredible odds stacked against them.
If we are a part of that mysterious presence that allows our Native American friends to withstand the heat of life’s furnace, I give thanks. If we are a part of that mysterious presence that allows them to stand in the trial of the furnace, then each person who has made that journey to South Dakota should feel proud to have been a part of something mysterious and powerful and life-giving.
Millions of years ago, the prairie of the Cheyenne River Reservation was part of the sea bed of the vast oceans that covered our earth at that time. The cliffs and hillsides of South Dakota have yielded some fascinating fossil remnants over the years. And on our trips, one of the excursions I enjoy most is to walk the stream bed of the Moreau River and look for the precious remains of clams and other ancient sea creatures. And, surprisingly, they are not hard to find.
I’ve left a few of pieces of my fossil collection on the communion table this morning for you to see. Exactly how fossils form, and how they are preserved, is something of a beautiful mystery to me. Perhaps somehow akin to the mysterious life-force that Native Americans seem to be able to access to keep from being defeated by the trials they must endure. It is my fervent hope that their culture, like the tiny clam shells preserved in stone, survives the fires of the racism and deprivation that are so pervasive in our times. And it is my hope that there will be others in the future who walk into that blazing furnace alongside them.
Emerging from the fire in the company of a friend is a privilege to be cherished. Amen
Carleen R. Gerber
The First Congregational of Old Lyme