From Sunday, August 21, 2018

Reading:  Daniel 3 (Three Jews in exile in Babylon -- Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego, are working for the Babylonian imperial civil service and no one around them has any reason to suspect they are not just good Babylonians doing their job until their commitment to Yahweh and the ways of Yahweh bring them into conflict with the gods and ways of the empire.)

It can be discomfiting, but it’s good to be on the hot seat – to be in a situation where like gold or silver or steel being refined, we have a chance to show what we’re really made of – what the heart of our way of being human really is. 

It can be as simple but far-reaching as teaching your son to drive in a community arena parking lot in the winter, and after he slides your car into a parked car, leaving a dent in the bumper, having to choose whether to go in and find the car’s owner, leave a note with your name and number and an offer to make it right on the windshield, or just leave.

It can be as sudden as someone striking out against you, maligning you, hurting you, and people who know you are Christian watching to see what you say and do in response?

It can be as common as listening to others scapegoating immigrants or refugees or First Nations’ people or people of different gender identities, and having to choose if you will join the conversation and what you will say.

In the ancient folk tale of the fiery furnace, until Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego are tossed into the fire they are not much different from other civil servants and citizens around them.  They are hard-working, honest, upright people -- just like other hard-working, honest, upright people of the empire.

They are Jews, of course, while their neighbours and co-workers are Babylonians.  They worship Yahweh and obey Yahweh’s Law, while their neighbours and colleagues worship the gods of Babylon and embrace the kind of violence, greed and brutality that those gods encourage.  But in their day-to-day work and life, there is not much difference, and no reason for anyone not to suppose these three are just good Babylonians like everyone else.

It’s only when their core allegiance is questioned and they face the fiery furnace of socio-politico-cultural-religious testing, that their relationship with a different God and their commitment to a different view of the world than their neighbours live by, becomes evident.  It is only then that people looking at them can see the "fourth figure" -- the living presence of God, with them.  It is only then that people who know them have any reason to make a decision themselves for or against the God these three men believe in and trust. 

And I wonder would any of them have done what they did, alone?  If even just one had backed out – had not been willing to endure the furnace, would the other two have had the faith and courage to do what they did?

Not that there’s anything magical about the number three.  We like the number three because of our trinitarian experience of God, and in engineering a triangle is the strongest and most stable of shapes.  But how stable is a lovers’ triangle?  And in family systems, triangulation and the inability of two people to deal with one another directly, is maybe the worst of all family dysfunctions to wander into.

So the point of the story is not the absolute value of three, but the fact of faithful companionship.  As much as we each have our own journey to live, our own faith to grow into, and our openness to God to affirm, we also all depend on the company of others for our journeys, our faith, and our openness to God to be good and strong.  Courage, commitment and comfort come to us in community.

I think of the den Hollander clan and all the families and friends who come to be attached to you and be part of your life in the world.  This is the second triple baptism we have shared and celebrated with you, and it happily reminds us of the communal nature of our faith and faithfulness.

I think of other families that have been at the heart of this church for generations, and how they help bring a particular vitality and resilience to this place.

I think of the church as a whole, and how we depend on, and reach out to one another to get through difficult and trying times.

I think of the global community of interfaith relationship – people of different religious traditions from all over the world today finding common ground and strength together against the evils and anxieties of our time that threaten to tear us apart as a human race, and destroy life on Earth.

In all this connectedness, being “one of the gang” and taking our place, as little as it may seem, in the larger cohort of all Earth’s people of faith, hope and love, is one of the more important things we do – for our own life and witness, for others who are encouraged and strengthened just by our being part of them, and for the well-being of Earth itself.

Because in the furnace of our time, through the horrible tests we face today as a species – as humanity on Earth, is it maybe not only our openness to one another within our own circles, but also our openness to others beyond ourselves that opens us in significant and saving ways to the One beyond us all?