God With Us

King Nebuchadnezzar made a golden statue whose height was sixty cubits and whose width was six cubits; he set it up on the plain of Dura in the province of Babylon.

Accordingly, at this time certain Chaldeans came forward and denounced the Jews. They said to King Nebuchadnezzar, “O king, live forever! You, O king, have made a decree, that everyone who hears the sound of the horn, pipe, lyre, trigon, harp, drum, and entire musical ensemble, shall fall down and worship the golden statue, and whoever does not fall down and worship shall be thrown into a furnace of blazing fire. There are certain Jews whom you have appointed over the affairs of the province of Babylon: Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. These pay no heed to you, O king. They do not serve your gods and they do not worship the golden statue that you have set up.”

Then Nebuchadnezzar in furious rage commanded that Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego be brought in; so they brought those men before the king. Nebuchadnezzar said to them, “Is it true, O Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, that you do not serve my gods and you do not worship the golden statue that I have set up? Now if you are ready when you hear the sound of the horn, pipe, lyre, trigon, harp, drum, and entire musical ensemble to fall down and worship the statue that I have made, well and good. But if you do not worship, you shall immediately be thrown into a furnace of blazing fire, and who is the god that will deliver you out of my hands?”

Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego answered the king, “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.”

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, 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. 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. 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. But the three men, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, fell down, bound, into the furnace of blazing fire.

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.” 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.” 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. 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 were not harmed, and not even the smell of fire came from them. 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. Therefore I make a decree: Any people, nation, or language that utters blasphemy against the God of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego shall be torn limb from limb, and their houses laid in ruins; for there is no other god who is able to deliver in this way.” Then the king promoted Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego in the province of Babylon. Daniel 3:1, 8-20 (NRSV)

Grace and peace to you from our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen.

Our story today is one of the stories about God’s people when they were in exile—after the temple in Jerusalem had been destroyed and the remaining people had been removed from their country and forced to live in Babylon, a foreign country.

Last week, we heard from the prophet Jeremiah. Jeremiah told God’s people that they should invest in the welfare of their new land. That, even though they were exiles in Babylon, they should “move into the neighborhood” and become part of it. That their new country’s welfare would become their welfare.

Today, we turn to the book of Daniel. This is a little bit later in time than Jeremiah. The book of Daniel is a collection of stories that was intended to tell people how they should live while they were in exile. 

It’s what we call “resistance literature.” These are stories that meant to help God’s people resist a culture that was going in a place or in a direction that they didn’t want it to go.
Our story today is about three young men. Does anyone remember their names? (Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego)

So, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego had followed Jeremiah’s instructions. They had “moved into the neighborhood” and had become leaders in the government. 

We heard the story earlier. But, let’s watch a short video that gives us a quick summary of their story.

The story of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego is the story of what to do when someone says you can’t keep the first commandment. (Do you remember what the first commandment is?)  

One of the things we hear in the story is that Daniel uses humor as a weapon. Daniel recognizes that humor and satire can be one of the most important tools we have that can bring life out a situation that feels desperate. When it feels like there’s no hope.

We see this in our story today.

First, there’s the goofy orchestra. 

Then, there’s the statue, which is 90 feet high and only 9 feet wide, like a 90 foot tall toothpick. Also ridiculous.

And, then, there’s King Nebuchadnezzar. (Can you say that three times fast?)

Now King Nebuchadnezzar is kind of a buffoon. He’s really full of himself. He insists that the people bow down and worship his statue. When Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego don’t, well he gets really angry. So angry, in fact that he has the fire increased 7 times. 
Even with this, he’s still not able to be effective against the God of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego.

When we look at Nebuchadnezzar and how ridiculous he is, we start to roll our eyes. As soon as this begins with someone who is a weighty figure the tide has already begun to turn. We—like Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego—might feel threatened, but as soon as we can roll our eyes, we realize that we’re not really held captive. That we can have a different point of view. This is what Daniel does so well. He uses humor and satire to show the people of Israel that they aren’t really held captive. He uses it to give them hope. It is then that the people begin to resist.

This is what Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego do. They are prisoners of conscience. Their refusal to bow down to Nebuchadnezzar’s statue is an act of civil disobedience.
They refuse to renege on their basic faith commitments. They are not willing to sell out their most basic convictions. 

Do you hear what they say? In verse 17, they say to the king that if God is able to rescue them, then let God rescue them. And, then, in verse 18, they say that if God doesn’t, they still will not serve Nebuchadnezzar’s gods or worship the ridiculous statue he has set up.
Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego don’t know where this will lead, but, they know they must not let go of their most basic commitment—and that is to worship the one true God.
This is important for us to hear. God does not spare us from the fire. But, God is with us in the fire. And God’s life-giving purposes can be accomplished in and with and through the fire. God is faithful even in the midst of trouble. 

How is God’s presence with you in times of trouble? 

When have you been in your own “fiery furnace”? 

When have you been in a tough situation when things were not going very well?

Have you ever gotten in trouble?

Turn to your neighbor for a few minutes to share your response or responses to any or all of these questions. Be sure to give your neighbor a chance to share, too. And, if you prefer not to share, you should feel free to think for a few minutes about how you might answer these questions.

I’m wondering if, as you were sharing or thinking of your story, how many of you mentioned others—perhaps friends or family—who helped you get through your own times of trouble? Or your own “fiery furnace”? Or the people who helped you through a tough situation when things weren’t going so well? Or, even when you were in trouble?

Today is the first Sunday in Advent. Advent is the season when we remember God with us. It’s the time when we hear how Jesus put on flesh and moved into the neighborhood. It’s the story of the incarnation.

God getting born in a barn reminds us that God shows up in even the most forsaken corners of the earth, even in the midst of a fiery furnace.

Everything in our society teaches us to move away from suffering. To move out of neighborhoods where there is high crime, to move away from people who aren’t like us or who don’t look like us. To move away from people who we perceive, perhaps, as weaker or not as smart or good looking or wealthy or whatever other reason we come up with to keep us apart from them or afraid to be in relationship with them.

But the gospel calls us to something altogether different. Throughout the history of the church, there have been movements of believers who have gone to the desert, to the slums, to the most difficult places on earth to follow Jesus.

As followers of Jesus, we are to laugh at fear, to lean into suffering, to open ourselves to the stranger. To be the presence of Christ for those who need help or for those who are in trouble.

For some, like Staff Sergeant Cory Hinkle, it may mean an incredibly heroic gesture. 

Staff Sgt. Hinkle, who is an Iraq combat veteran, was on his way home from the National Guard base in Charlotte, NC, when he witnessed a head-on collision right in front of him.

When he saw one of the cars begin to smoke, while others might have run in the opposite direction, Sgt. Hinkle ran toward it. The driver of the vehicle, 28-year-old Brandy Guin, was having trouble getting out because of a broken ankle she had sustained in the collision.

Sgt. Hinkle charged ahead. And, even when the shocks started to explode and hot debris was flying everywhere, he shielded her with his body and said, “It’s going to have to go through me to get to you.”

And although he was hit in the ankle by a piece of debris, he saved this mother of two. 

He said that he wouldn’t hesitate to do it again.

But, being Christ-like in our world, doesn’t always mean engaging in life-threatening heroic gestures.

Like the story of this young college student. According to his roommate, who posted this picture online, this young man calls home every week to help his younger sister with her high school algebra homework.


Or perhaps it's the story of this cashier in a Walmart in Mississippi that was posted on Facebook by a woman named Spring Bowlin.

When the cashier gave the elderly man in front of Miss Bowlin in the checkout line, he looked back at her apologetically and started to take handfuls of change out of his pockets. According to Bowlin, he miscounted and started to get flustered, saying, “I’m so sorry.” She noticed that his hands and his voice were shaking.

Then, the cashier offered to help. Bowlin wrote, “This beautiful cashier takes his hands and dumps all the change on the counter and says, ‘This is not a problem, honey. We will do this together.’”

Once the transaction was finished, Bowlin thanked the cashier for patiently helping this elderly man. The cashier shook her head and replied, “You shouldn’t have to thank me, baby. What’s wrong with our world is we’ve forgotten how to love one another.” 

And, then there’s the story of Deputy Matt Holman and Robert Morris. Let’s watch their story.

God came to earth to be with us. God does not promise that our lives will be free from hardship. When Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego refused to bow down to the statue, they made a stand for God, knowing that the punishment for such actions was death. They faced the possibility of dying together not knowing whether God would deliver them. What they did know, though, is that, no matter what happened, God would be with them. 

In the same way, no matter the circumstance, we, too, know that God will be with us. Often we experience this through other people. God sends many helpers to help us in times of need. When family or friends or, sometimes, even complete strangers walk with us through hardship or difficulty, they help to share our load. And we are comforted by their presence. 

We, too, can provide this same ministry of presence to others who are facing their own challenges. To be with them. In the same way that God came to earth to be with us.

We do this because God loved us so much that God entered into our world to be with us, even though it meant experiencing betrayal, hunger, pain, and death.

God knows hardship. God knows our hardship. And God promises to be with us. 

Always.

In this Advent season as we begin this first Sunday in the fire, may all of us know that God is present with us in the fires of our lives. That God is faithful to us in the midst of trouble. May we help others to know this in our Christ-like presence for them. And may this story of hope be encouragement for us in the midst of difficult times. 

Amen.


Preached November 26, 2017, at Grace & Glory Lutheran Church, Goshen, KY
1st Sunday in Advent
Readings: Daniel 3:1, 8-30; John 18:36-37

Drumstick Ice Cream Cones

John 20:19-31 (NRSV). When it was evening on that day, the first day of the week, and the doors of the house where the disciples had met were locked for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you.”After he said this, he showed them his hands and his side. Then the disciples rejoiced when they saw the Lord. Jesus said to them again, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you.” When he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.” But Thomas (who was called the Twin), one of the twelve, was not with them when Jesus came. So the other disciples told him, “We have seen the Lord.” But he said to them, “Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands, and put my finger in the mark of the nails and my hand in his side, I will not believe.”

A week later his disciples were again in the house, and Thomas was with them. Although the doors were shut, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you.” Then he said to Thomas, “Put your finger here and see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it in my side. Do not doubt but believe.” Thomas answered him, “My Lord and my God!”Jesus said to him, “Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.” Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not written in this book. But these are written so that you may come to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that through believing you may have life in his name.


Welcome to this Sunday, April 3rd, only 2 days after April Fool's Day. One day isn't enough, is it? For me, one day of jokes just isn't enough. You see, in my family, we didn't celebrate just one day. I come from a family of people who love to laugh and play practical jokes on each other.  So, that first day of April often dragged into three, frequently a week and, sometimes, up to a full month.  One of us would play a joke on another which led to the need to reciprocate and on and on and on.

So, today it just seemed right to play an April Fool’s joke on you.  It also seemed right because, in my home parish in Pasadena, this Sunday, the Second Sunday of Easter is always celebrated as Holy Hilarity Sunday.  A Sunday where we are invited to bring jokes -- respectful jokes, of course -- to share, and to laugh with each other.

Celebrating laughter on this second Easter Sunday is actually a long and very rich tradition in the church.  There is much history of congregations celebrating this day, sharing jokes and fun stories and engaging in pranks on each other.  The tradition comes from some of the church’s early theologians, where they reflected on Jesus’ resurrection from the dead as a huge practical joke that God played on Satan.   They called it the risus paschalis, meaning the Easter laugh. 

And, so, it seems very appropriate today for us to laugh.  For us to celebrate the joy of Easter in a fun way the week after we’ve celebrated it in a glorious way.  To mix faith and humor and to stir both deeply into our lives so that we might live more fully into being and sharing ourselves as people of the resurrection.

I think God must have an amazing sense of humor.  After all, look at the characters, in the Bible and here in this congregation, who God has gathered together as his people.  From those in the Hebrew scripture, to the disciples of Jesus, to us here today, God has a way of finding very imperfect people and forming and shaping all of us into people very well-suited to do the Church’s work--the work of sharing the good news of that Easter resurrection.

Notice that I used the word “imperfect.”  Often, I think that we get this notion in our heads that, in order to share the Gospel, you must have led a perfect life.  That, to be called, one must have lived in a way that is completely faithful and above reproach.  Well, I, for one, know better than that.  And all one needs to do to further disprove that theory is to look at the characters--the imperfect characters--in our reading today.

Let’s look at the disciples.  That first Easter morning, we know that Mary, after discovering that the gardener was, in fact, Jesus, runs back to the disciples and announces to them that she had seen the Lord.  And, then, proceeded to share with them everything Jesus had said.   

And, their response?  Well, they hid!  They went behind closed doors and hid because they were afraid of the Jewish authorities.  Why?  The story doesn’t say.  Perhaps they thought they might be accused of stealing Jesus’ body so they could start rumors of his resurrection.  Or perhaps they were afraid to rejoice publicly--to show joy over Jesus’ resurrection and incur the wrath of the authorities.  Whatever it was, they were afraid and they hid.  And, my guess was that, as they hid away, there was not much laughing.  Until, of course, Jesus appeared and showed them the marks of his resurrection.  Only then were they filled with joy.  Only then did they actually come of out of their own tomb of fear and truly enter into the resurrection.

And, then, there’s Thomas.  Oh, poor Thomas.  You see, I kind of get Thomas.  He was the realistic one, wasn’t he?  He was evidence-driven.  He wanted proof.  He wanted facts.  "Prove it to me."  (Aren’t we all a little bit like him?  How do I know God exists?  Why would God allow something like that to happen?  We are always looking for the proof, for the facts, for the answers.) And, then, just like with the disciples, Jesus appears.  And tells Thomas to put his finger in his hands and his hands into his side.  Here, Thomas!  Here’s your proof!  

And Thomas, without even having to put his fingers into the nail holes or into the sword slice in Jesus’ side--without touching the actual proof, he gets it.  He gets Jesus’ resurrection and immediately confesses, “My Lord and my God!”  Out of his tomb of doubt and into the resurrection.

Aren’t we so like Thomas and the rest of the disciples?  You see, I think sometimes the immensity of the resurrection is way too much for us to fully grasp.  That it’s way too big for us to truly understand.  And so, piece by piece.  Bit by bit.  Just like with the disciples, Christ comes into our presence and, little by little, we enter into the resurrection, into our own resurrection from fear and doubt.

In February of 2008, my sister was dying.  She had fought cancer over a lifetime, but had reached a point where she was tired of fighting.  She was ready to die.  Ready to be reunited with Christ.  Over the six months that she was in and out of the hospital, I urged her on.  In the midst of my own fear and doubt at losing her and what life would be like without her, I urged her to continue to fight.  

When she made the decision to come home to my house on hospice, I was devastated.  But, I was also determined that those last days would be the best for her.  So, I asked her what she wanted to eat, what her favorite foods were.  All she wanted were Drumstick ice cream cones.  

Over the next 7 days, friends and family came to visit, to gather around her and cry and laugh and share stories of amazing memories we had together.  And all the while, we ate Drumstick ice cream comes--4 boxes of Drumstick ice cream cones to be exact!  In that week--in the sharing of stories and ice cream, I experienced Christ’s presence.  And my own resurrection.  A resurrection out of my own tomb of fear and doubt and into the hope and joy of the resurrection with the knowledge that, no matter what, Christ would continue to be present with me.

You see fear and doubt and joy and gladness often walk hand-in-hand with each other.  All we have to do is open the Psalms to see this.  Yet, in their midst, our resurrected Lord is present, welcoming us into a new life, a resurrected life.  A life of joy and laughter, a life of love and freedom, a life of peace and wholeness, a life together with him as part of the body of Christ.  That, my friends, is the joy of the resurrection.  That is the basis for our laughter.  

And that is the reason that it is we, and not death or the devil, who ultimately have the last laugh! 

Thanks be to God! Amen.

Preached on Sunday, April 3, 2016, at Chatfield Lutheran Church.