A sermon preached at Calvary Presbyterian Church in San Francisco, CA

July 14, 2024

Daniel 3:

Introduction to Worship

Good morning. Welcome to worship. We are glad you are with us. 

I had a different plan for how I was going to open the service today, but then there was another shooting yesterday in our country. The scourge of gun violence continues.  Last year, when gun violence entered my empty home and one of my beloved churches, I learned how close gun violence is to all of us. Yesterday, former President Trump learned about it too. 

And so we pray for him and for the other people who were injured and for the man who was killed in yesterday’s shooting. And we continue to pray that the people we elect to represent us might actually do something to enact meaningful laws to reduce gun violence. 

And if I’m being honest here, I confess I am also annoyed. I’m angry that someone who uses violent rhetoric and encourages it in his supporters now gets to be the recipient of my prayers for his health and safety.  I’m annoyed that person who had the power to get congress to enact meaningful legislation but who chose to do the opposite of it and glorify the myths of violence and act as if the second amendment was written so their supporters could violently invade the halls of congress to keep him in power—that man is also now the person I’m praying for. 

Because of course I will pray for him to fully recover and to continue to be safe. And I will continue to pray for all the other victims of gun violence on the other days of the week whose stories didn’t make the news. Violence has no place in our democracy. And I will pray for our country to step away from glorifying and normalizing language of violence, because it is literally killing us. I pray for our country to come together after this, even as I worry it will drive us into further conflict with each other.

And so it is good that we are here together, so we can worship, sing, and pray together, support each other, and confess together. 

Today in worship, we’ll be hearing a story from the Book of Daniel about a giant statue that the king builds to his own honor, and the cost that comes to people who won’t worship the idol he has made to himself. 

And it reminded me of the poem by Percy Shelley, Ozymandias. He and his poet friend Horace Smith each wrote a poem about the same topic as a friendly contest. England had just acquired, today we might say had just looted, a fragment of a statue of Ramses the Great of Egypt for the British Museum. Ozymandias was the Greek name for Ramses. And a Greek historian once wrote about finding the ruin of a statue to Ramses in the sand, all that was left was the inscription to Ramses power. 

Both poems describe the ruin of the statue in the desert sand. Shelley’s is the more famous of the two. His poem ends with: 

And on the pedestal, these words appear:
My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings;
Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal Wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.”

—Percy Shelley, Ozymandias

Smith’s poem speaks more directly to the future of their own British Empire and ends this way:

We wonder — and some Hunter may express
Wonder like ours, when thro’ the wilderness
Where London stood, holding the Wolf in chace,
He meets some fragment huge, and stops to guess
What powerful but unrecorded race
Once dwelt in that annihilated place.

— Horace Smith, Ozymandias

As we enter worship this day, as we consider the idols in scripture and in our lives, as we pray for our former president and others in the path of violence and danger,  let us pray, using a prayer by Laura Jean Truman:

A Prayer for the Tired, Angry Ones

by Laura Jean Truman

God, We’re so tired.
We want to do justice, but the work feels endless,
and the results look so small in our exhausted hands.

We want to love mercy, but our enemies are relentless,
and it feels like foolishness to prioritize gentleness in this unbelievably cruel world.

We want to walk humbly, but self-promotion is seductive,
and we are afraid that if we don’t look after ourselves,
no one else will.

We want to be kind, but our anger feels insatiable. 

Jesus, in this never-ending wilderness,
come to us and grant us grace.

Grant us the courage to keep showing up to impossible battles, trusting that it is our commitment to faithfulness,
and not our obsession with results, that will bring in Your peace.

Grant us the vulnerability to risk loving our difficult
and complicated neighbor, rejecting the lie that some people
are made more in the image of God than others.

Grant us the humility of a de-centered but Beloved self. 

As we continue to take the single step that is in front of us, Jesus, keep us from becoming what we are called to transform.

Protect us from using the empire’s violence—in our words,
in our theology, in our activism, and in our politics—
for Your kingdom of peace.

Keep our anger from becoming meanness.
Keep our sorrow from collapsing into self-pity.
Keep our hearts soft enough to keep breaking.
Keep our outrage turned towards justice, not cruelty.
Remind us that all of this, every bit of it, is for love.
Keep us fiercely kind.

Amen.

Sermon:

Last week, we heard the story of King Nebuchadnezzar’s dream about a great statue, that was, and I quote, “huge, its brilliance extraordinary.” And then it was broken into pieces, an allegory about how kingdoms may seem ever powerful and endless, but in fact, will fall. 

In the moment, he seemed to appreciate Daniel’s interpretation of the dream, but I warned you it wouldn’t always stick in his head. And so here we are, in the next chapter, and he has made a golden statue whose height was sixty cubits and whose width was six cubits. If my biblical math is correct, that’s about 90 feet tall, and about 9 feet wide, which in addition to the hubris it reveals is also not a hallmark of strong engineering. It doesn’t have a base wide enough to support the weight of it.

As I mentioned in the introduction to worship, Herodotus and other contemporary writers spoke of kings building giant statues like this, so even if this story is more of a fable than a historical account, we know ancient rulers did build such statues and so we can imagine someone like Nebuchadnezzar building a big monument to their own ego.

And King Nebuchadnezzar intended for everyone to bow down and worship this statue. It was a BIG DEAL. He sent for the satraps, the prefects, and the governors, the counsellors, the treasurers, the justices, the magistrates, and all the officials of the provinces, to assemble and come to the dedication of the statue that he had set up. All of them. And then he assembled the best praise band any church had seen, with the horn, pipe, lyre, trigon, harp, drum, and entire musical ensemble.

Who wouldn’t want to worship at that church? I mean, idol.

And so Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego were faced with a dilemma. Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego were Daniel’s companions, exiled from Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon–they were Jerusalem youths of privilege, educated to serve a foreign king. It’s interesting that we refer to Daniel by his Hebrew name, and not Belteshazzar as the Palace Master tried to re-name him, but we forget Hananiah (Shadrach), Mishael (Meshach), and Azariah’s (Abednego) original names.

And even literary Jewish characters in a book know that the first commandment was “you shall have no other gods before me”. You cannot be an observant Jew, even one living in exile, and bow down before some 90 foot tall gold statue that Nebuchadnezzar builds in the town square.

Many of the people go along with the plan. They show up, they bow down. Some Chaldeans notice the three Jewish guys aren’t there. Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego aren’t causing a fuss. They aren’t trying to topple a statue that clearly will fall over of its own merits. They just won’t worship it. And perhaps they don’t want to be in its shadow when it falls.

Idols, when they fall, can cause a lot of damage.

I don’t know how you’ve felt about the news accounts of powerful men losing their jobs as stories of their sexual abuse and harassment have come to light in recent years. The men accused work in news, TV, comedy, politics, Hollywood, sports, the church. Some men have lost their jobs. Others remain in power while they call their victims liars.

While the political parties may respond to the news differently, men on both sides of the aisle stand accused, facing credible allegations. The thing all of these situations have in common is power. People in power—in these situations, all men—abusing their power over people dependent on them for employment, for career advancement.

Power.

What will people do for, do with, power, once it’s in their grasp?

Nebuchadnezzar built himself a really big statue.

What he needed, instead of Chaldeans pointing out who wasn’t in the forced crowd worshiping with the big praise band, was advisors to help him dial back his ego so he could use his power for better ends.

“Sir, may you live forever, this statue will be prohibitively expensive. You will have to tax the people. Perhaps if you used that money to feed people, they would worship you spontaneously, without being forced to do so?”

or

“Most royal highness, I’ve been looking at the blueprints for this statue, and I have some concerns. If you want it to stand forever, might I suggest a few changes that might help it not topple over into a crowd of people who are worshiping you?”

or

“O King, your greatness won’t be known from these acts of worship but from your care for your subjects. Let’s build a stronger society instead of building statues”.

Where were those voices for Nebuchadnezzar?

These men in our newsfeed, many now fallen from power—where were the voices in their lives reminding them of their higher goals and values? Where were their friends, the ones more interested in their wholeness than in how the fame could trickle down?

We get seduced by proximity to power. We saw that last week when the temple authorities buddied up with the Seleucid invaders and it was great, until the invaders desecrated and demolished the Temple. 

We see it today, as politicians, voters, churches clamor to be on the side of the guy who promises riches and glory. Anyone who tries to sell you a Bible they are marketing so they can charge you for autographing it is not doing it because they love Jesus. It should make you question other things they do too. 

And while I am praying for former President Trump’s health and safety as we mentioned in the introduction to worship, I  remain appalled that someone of such little integrity and character is a leading candidate for higher office. And I am also sad for him. Where are the people in his circle speaking truth to him? Where are his loved ones and trusted advisors helping him be a better human? It has to be lonely, to be surrounded by people who won’t call you on your lies, missteps, and deceptions. Where is the meaning in life when the people who supposedly love you let you continue to lie and be deceitful? I pray that all that is set aside in these days as he recovers from his injury yesterday and can heal surrounded by loving support. 

And this failure of advisors happens on both sides of the aisle. No matter what you think about whether a candidate is too old to serve as president, it matters that people ask the questions. And every time I will choose the candidate with integrity who has people around them asking the difficult questions. 

One of the things I’m grateful for in the Presbyterian Church, and at Calvary, is that we have built divisions of power into our structures. I take my ideas to the Session, our elected leaders of the congregation. And sometimes they agree with me. And sometimes they tell me where I’m wrong. And sure, that leads to uncomfortable moments sometimes, but I hope we see that the alternative to that is idolatry and crumbling statues.  

I think this is why the recent partisan decisions of the Supreme Court are so alarming to us. We worry the checks and balances that were built into our system to keep a president from becoming a Nebuchadnezzar are being dismantled. 

We have to trust that the faithful way is to be able to speak uncomfortable truths to each other, and not just surround ourselves with people who give us the answers we want. 

Should we be surprised when Nebuchadnezzars lose their way, when the idols fall?

We think we know who they are, because we see a version of them on screen, in the news, over our radio waves. And so when the news breaks, we feel betrayed, perhaps. Disappointed, for sure. We thought we knew them.

We didn’t know them.

Two of my favorite musicians, who provided the soundtrack to much of my life, were Van Morrison and Eric Clapton. And after covid, they revealed to the world that they believed the vaccines were propaganda and that covid was less of a risk than lockdown. I can’t listen to their music with the same joy I used to. I didn’t know them.   

We build our idols up to be 90 feet tall, covered in gold, but only 6 cubits wide. These idols were not meant to stay standing.

Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego never bothered to get attached to the idol. They didn’t bother to admire the gold, the workmanship of the idol. They weren’t seduced by the fact that all the important people were there to worship it. I mean, the satraps, the prefects, and the governors, the counsellors, the treasurers, the justices, the magistrates, and all the officials of the provinces—they were all there.

Maybe one of the satraps (I don’t really know what a ‘satrap’ is, but I like to say the name) would be standing in the crowd where they could get up close and take a selfie with him. If you’re standing next to the right people when the photographer takes their picture for the newspaper—maybe it could be your moment for fame!

Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego didn’t get caught up in that idol worship. They managed to not succumb to the lure of power that goes with fame and idols. They see the golden statue for what it is—a vain plea for validation from a narcissist. 

They hear the big praise band for what it is—a noise to cover the silence where we hear our insecurities. 

What is that compared to worshiping the God who created the universe, put the stars in their courses, and made humanity in the divine image?

Nebuchadnezzar can’t abide by their indifference to his schemes. His very success is built on everyone gathering for the spectacle, reading his tweets, filling the world with noise, worshiping an item of his creation.

What would happen if others started behaving as Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego—unimpressed with shallow displays of ego and power? 

What if the satraps, the prefects, and the governors, the counsellors, the treasurers, the justices, the magistrates, and all the officials of the provinces all went back to work and about their business, without bowing down at Nebuchadnezzar’s golden feet? 

What if they stopped reading his tweets and quit giving him a microphone?

What if the horn, pipe, lyre, trigon, harp, drum, and entire musical ensemble all stopped playing and people were left with the vacuous silence of Nebuchadnezzar’s empty promises?

There’s a whole system at risk here.

And so our three friends are thrown into the furnace.

One of my friends commented on this text, wondering if she would have the courage to die for her faith. And that was certainly a risk for Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, as they were thrown into the flames.

Dying is always an option, though, whether we’re in a furnace or not. We are fragile, human beings who die in car crashes, from cancer, from gun violence, or, if we’re lucky asleep in our beds of old age. Dying is always on the table for us.

I wonder if Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego actually call us to ask a different question. Do we have the courage to live for our faith?

When they are called before Nebuchadnezzar, here is their reply:

‘O Nebuchadnezzar, we have no need to present a defense to you in this matter. If our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the furnace of blazing fire and out of your hand, O king, let him deliver us. But if not, be it known to you, O king, that we will not serve your gods and we will not worship the golden statue that you have set up.’

They don’t have guarantees of deliverance—dying is always on the table for human beings—but they have hope. They lay out the conditions by which they want to live. They will not worship the idol of Nebuchadnezzar’s ego. They will continue to serve their God, the God of the exiles in a foreign land.

They choose to live by placing their HOPE in God, not in human idols or power.

There are many idols today we could choose to worship. To some degree, at some point or other, I’m sure we all fall prey to their shiny promises, at least for a time.

But then we remember that even God, in Jesus, chose to have courage to live for his faith, by living a human life, where death was always an option.

The idols around us will always fall. They aren’t engineered to stand forever. The God we serve is not a human built statue of gold.

God, in Jesus, is a divinely born human, who chose to walk next to us in humility, aware of his vulnerability.

Jesus did not grab hold of power when it was offered him. He was not swayed or impressed by the men who held the power of earthly rule. And by not being afraid to die, he showed us how to live.

He is our hope. It is with hope we prepare for his coming, by having courage to live for our faith.

One of my friend and seminary classmate’s brother Hunter died of AIDS 27 years ago this week. And she shared a letter he had written shortly before his death to someone else who was HIV+. Hunter knew he was going to die and that changed how he lived.  He wrote:

“Whereas many people live their lives as though they will live forever, putting off in some remote unforeseeable future the important moments that they are drawn to, moments of particular significance such as the long-awaited vacation, the tenth anniversary, being made partner in a law firm, or some sort of hoped-for future event. 

“In other words they live in an idealized future, combined with an embellished or edited past.  They leave a tiny corner of their lives for the present.… They just don’t see the potential of the moment they’re in. The potential to come into contact with and touch the lives of the people they encounter, whether co-workers or cashiers, whatever service personnel, even telephone solicitors. Things can be irritating, but irritating things can be turned around. 

“I told someone I feel like a tourist all the time, even in my own city. I notice everything as though it is new, even landscapes I pass daily.  I notice trees have been pruned, someone has discarded some underwear, the creek has risen and altered the sand bar, a particular drainage structure is stopped up creating an artificial pond with its floating litter.”

I never got to know Hunter, but I love his sister and am so thankful for his words, and for his reminder to see the potential for hope in  our living, even as we are dying. 

With the news lately, it’s easy to question if “hope” is the right feeling to have. But our grief for the brokenness of the world doesn’t erase our hope. As Rebecca Solnit wrote about the news we read:

“It’s too soon for despair, though not for grief. Grief and hope can coexist: grief for who and what has already been harmed, hope for preventing more harm.”

Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego also knew of despair and grief. Exiled to a foreign land, their home in ruins, called by names other than their own—they still had hope—
as Emily Dickinson described it:

“the thing with feathers –
That perches in the soul –
And sings the tune without the words –
And never stops – at all -“

Their hope gave them courage to live for their faith.

May it be so for us. Amen