Daniel 3:16-28 16 Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego answered the king, “O Nebuchadnezzar, we have no need to present a defense to you in this matter. 17 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.[a] 18 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.”
The Fiery Furnace
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,[b] their trousers,[c] 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.”[d] 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. 27 And the satraps, the prefects, the governors, and the king’s counselors gathered together and saw that the fire had not had any power over the bodies of those men; the hair of their heads was not singed, their tunics[e] were not scorched, and not even the smell of fire came from them. 28 Nebuchadnezzar said, “Blessed be the God of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, who has sent his angel and delivered his servants who trusted in him. They disobeyed the king’s command and yielded up their bodies rather than serve and worship any god except their own God.
Psalm 149 1Praise the Lord! Sing to the Lord a new song, his praise in the assembly of the faithful.
2Let Israel be glad in its Maker; let the children of Zion rejoice in their King.
3Let them praise his name with dancing, making melody to him with tambourine and lyre.
4For the Lord takes pleasure in his people; he adorns the humble with victory.
5Let the faithful exult in glory; let them sing for joy on their couches.
6Let the high praises of God be in their throats and two-edged swords in their hands,
7to execute vengeance on the nations and punishment on the peoples,
8to bind their kings with fetters and their nobles with chains of iron,
9to execute on them the judgment decreed. This is glory for all his faithful ones. Praise the Lord!
Ephesians 1:11-23 11In Christ we have also obtained an inheritance, having been destined according to the purpose of him who accomplishes all things according to his counsel and will, 12so that we, who were the first to set our hope on Christ, might live for the praise of his glory. 13In him you also, when you had heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and had believed in him, were marked with the seal of the promised Holy Spirit; 14this is the pledge of our inheritance toward redemption as God’s own people, to the praise of his glory. 15I have heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love toward all the saints, and for this reason 16I do not cease to give thanks for you as I remember you in my prayers. 17I pray that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you a spirit of wisdom and revelation as you come to know him, 18so that, with the eyes of your heart enlightened, you may know what is the hope to which he has called you, what are the riches of his glorious inheritance among the saints, 19and what is the immeasurable greatness of his power for us who believe, according to the working of his great power. 20God put this power to work in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly places, 21far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and above every name that is named, not only in this age but also in the age to come. 22And he has put all things under his feet and has made him the head over all things for the church, 23which is his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all.
Luke 6:20-31 20Then he looked up at his disciples and said: “Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God. 21“Blessed are you who are hungry now, for you will be filled. “Blessed are you who weep now, for you will laugh. 22“Blessed are you when people hate you, and when they exclude you, revile you, and defame you on account of the Son of Man. 23Rejoice in that day and leap for joy, for surely your reward is great in heaven; for that is what their ancestors did to the prophets. 24“But woe to you who are rich, for you have received your consolation. 25“Woe to you who are full now, for you will be hungry. “Woe to you who are laughing now, for you will mourn and weep. 26“Woe to you when all speak well of you, for that is what their ancestors did to the false prophets.
27“But I say to you that listen, Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, 28bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you. 29If anyone strikes you on the cheek, offer the other also; and from anyone who takes away your coat do not withhold even your shirt. 30Give to everyone who begs from you; and if anyone takes away your goods, do not ask for them again. 31Do to others as you would have them do to you.
Good morning, St. Matthew. We gather on this morning in Itasca on the unceded tribal lands of the Kickapoo, Peoria, Ka-skas-kia, Potawatomi, Mya-a-mia, HoChunk, Winnebago and O-che-thi Sakowin nations, acknowledging that hard past and praying our way into a better future.
And so we pray.
Dear Lord, we meet you in our stories. Send your Spirit to us so that we may hear those stories with open hearts and open minds. Teach us to treat all stories with respect and dignity, seeking the truth that speaks to us through all sorts of words, wearing all sorts of trappings. Grant us the courage to let the stories change us and speak to us of a love that is bigger than our own immediate context. In your holy name, O Speaker of Stories, we pray. Amen.
Today we are about the telling of stories, about the celebrating of the ancestors. It would be a far easier thing if all those memories were happy, blessed and full of joy. But sometimes the stories that made us are ones of pain and betrayal. Some of our ancestors are truly saints and role models that we are delighted to remember and proud to own, but we all have those branches of our family tree that we wish we could saw off. The ones who embarrassed us, the ones who weren’t quite right and even worse, the ones that truly were despicable, the ones whose stories are more cautionary tales of what not to be. As a pastor, I have met both sides of that story, often being enchanted by the light that gets passed through the generations, and occasionally heartbroken by the jaw-dropping cruelty that equally gets passed down. But no matter for construction or destruction -the passing down is inevitable. So we gathered here this morning, need to consider what story we will leave to our descendants.
In the Old Testament lesson today, we hear the story of Old Nebuchadnezzar – a king who is remembered 2700 years later for having rages so savage that he is willing to cook people to death who dare to challenge him. And the threat isn’t just puffed up – we are told that people working on the furnace are incinerated, and it doesn’t even slow the King down. But the reason this story survives through the centuries is not because of Nebuchadnezzar’s horridness – but because of the faith of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego in God’s ability to walk them through that senseless rage. And God does – the furnace does no damage to them at all. And in their story, we find a witness and testimony to how faith is made manifest in the world.
We follow a faith that finds its expression in witness, testimony and story. I want you to take a moment though and think about those stories – how often do we today, in this time of near instantaneous communication and constant flow of information, take the time to listen to the stories of the past? In getting ready for today, Daniel was on the lectionary – but not this story; rather the scholars lifted up a prophetic dream Daniel has about the coming Messiah. And that’s all well and good, but on a day when we are remembering the stories of the ancestors – we need to remember the stories of the ancestors! It is those faithful stories that tell us why we can trust those prophecies – that say to us, God has acted before in our story and God will act again.
Paul writes to the believers at Ephesus, “In Christ you also, when you had heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and had believed in him, were marked with the seal of the promised Holy Spirit; 14this is the pledge of our inheritance toward redemption as God’s own people, to the praise of God’s glory.” In other words, all the stories have been leading us to understanding that God would act on our behalf, just as God did for our ancestors! God changed their lives in miraculous ways and God will change ours! Faith is wrapped up in remembering those stories because they tell us of how God’s action works – whether they warn us of failures or inspire us with successes. The followers of God can walk into being the followers of Christ because they have the stories of God’s promises and the witness of the receivers of those promises.
We hear so many of our siblings in disenfranchised communities tell us of the power of hearing the story of that one person who looked like them who changed their whole understanding of what was possible. You might say that Wakanda isn’t a real place – but the story of that nation has profoundly impacted people who had a painful history of enslavement and disempowerment. The Black Panther has created a story where that painful history is acknowledged but reinterpreted and told as a story of survival and endurance, despite trial and destruction. There are other more personally scaled examples of the importance of story. I am a huge fan of Billy Joel, and in song, he proclaims: “Still I would not be here now if I never had the hunger /And I’m not ashamed to say the wild boys were my friends / ’cause I never felt the desire / To let music set me on fire / And then I was saved, yeah.” That song’s title is “Keeping The Faith”, and it makes so much more sense when you know Joel’s backstory. His father, Howard Joel, was a World War Two displaced person, a Jew and a classically trained pianist – but he also was the guy who abandoned his family in 1957. So we begin to have an understanding why even with his talent, Billy Joel had a very complicated relationship with his musical heritage. But by witnessing the joy that music brought to his friends – he was able to trust that music could also bring him joy.
In our stories too, as we said at the start of the sermon, there are pieces we are given that bring us pain as well as joy – and the challenge the ancestors give to us is how we are going to tell those stories. Will we recall the powerful, seeming insurmountable cruelty of Nebuchadnezzar and build our worldview off that understanding? Or will we celebrate the courage of Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego who trusted that even when faced with a fiery furnace stood firm in their faith?
The stories don’t exist to entrap us into a way of being that we can’t get out of – rather, the stories of faith offer us ways to look at our choices and ask, how did the ancestors make them and how did that work out? Sometimes, those stories are told so that we know what NOT to do! Jesus warns the disciples:
Blessed are you when people hate you, and when they exclude you, revile you, and defame you on account of the Son of Man. 23Rejoice in that day and leap for joy, for surely your reward is great in heaven; for that is what their ancestors did to the prophets. 24“But woe to you who are rich, for you have received your consolation. 25“Woe to you who are full now, for you will be hungry. “Woe to you who are laughing now, for you will mourn and weep. 26“Woe to you when all speak well of you, for that is what their ancestors did to the false prophets.
And Jesus is very clear about the story we need to tell and the example we need to hand down to our children.
27“But I say to you that listen, Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, 28bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you. 29If anyone strikes you on the cheek, offer the other also; and from anyone who takes away your coat do not withhold even your shirt. 30Give to everyone who begs from you; and if anyone takes away your goods, do not ask for them again. 31Do to others as you would have them do to you.
That is the story we are asked to tell, to live into and to share. It is not an easy story – but the best stories are full of challenge and trials. And they don’t leave us where they find us – we journey through far flung places, cross oceans, and defeat dragons and if we stay true to our calling, we will find that we are forever changed – and that change will live on far after us. Imagine being the ancestor who brings the joy to the story! Imagine being the storyteller that watches the next generation find the wonder and power of faith – that is the charge placed in our hands today. To model how we trust God to help us live out the story of our impossible, miracle filled, love centred faith. We won’t do it perfectly; our ancestors sure didn’t! To quote Billy Joel’s song again, “The good old days weren’t always good and tomorrow ain’t as bad as it seems.” But Thomas Merton, a Catholic writer and theologian wrote a prayer about faith that I will close with today:
My Lord God, I have no idea where I am going. I do not see the road ahead of me. I cannot know for certain where it will end. nor do I really know myself, and the fact that I think I am following your will does not mean that I am actually doing so. But I believe that the desire to please you
does in fact please you. And I hope I have that desire in all that I am doing.
I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire. And I know that if I do this you will lead me by the right road, though I may know nothing about it. Therefore will I trust you always though I may seem to be lost and in the shadow of death. I will not fear, for you are ever with me, and you will never leave me to face my perils alone.
Let’s live that story of faith – let’s hand that story down to our descendants. Amen.
