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Introduction to Scripture
Our Hebrew Scripture reading this morning starts midway within a larger story. Earlier in this story, King Nebuchadnezzar rewards Daniel for interpreting his dreams by appointing three of his companions to oversee affairs in the province of Babylon. The three companions are Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. Some time after this the king creates a golden statue that may have been of himself or of an idol god. The king orders everyone to bow down and worship the statue whenever they hear the royal band play. Because of the requirements of their Jewish faith, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, refuse to obey the command and worship someone other than Yahweh. Our scripture picks up the story at this point…
Hebrew Scripture Reading—Daniel 3: 19-28
Once upon a time, there was a gigantic car dealership. It was called King Al’s, and it had become an auto empire ruling over the Pacific Northwest. King Al’s had become so big that it was buying out its competition. One of those competitors was called Zach, Mack, and Betty’s Honest Car Sales. Contrary to pernicious stereotypes of those who sell cars, Zach, Mack, and Betty were decent, ethical people. The success of their business was in fact due to their upright character. People knew they could go to Zach, Mack, and Betty’s and not get swindled. True to their name they made honest sales.
When he bought them out, King Al assured them that he too was honest. King Al, however, prided himself not on his ethical character but on how many cars he sold and how much money he made. Zach, Mack, and Betty were to be King Al’s sales associates, and they soon learned the business culture of King Al’s. Every car sales associate at King Al’s was focused on one thing and one thing only: the coveted trophy that was given to the person with the most sales. The trophy was actually a golden statue of King Al himself. King Al didn’t care how his staff sold their cars. He only cared about the bottom line. Zach, Mack, and Betty soon saw that many of the other sales associates were less than honest.
Nevertheless, they did well in their first few years. They continued to get customers because of their reputation for honesty. All was going well until the recession struck. People simply were not buying cars like they once did, especially the American-made ones that King Al liked to sell. To make matters worse, Zach, Mack, and Betty were being outsold by the rest of the staff because they refused to promote a misleading low interest rate program with their customers.
Unfortunately, King Al also had a king-size temper. Zach, Mack, and Betty were berated for their failure to make sales. They were worthless to the King Al Empire. They lacked ambition. They lacked salesmanship and business sense. And, worst of all they could not follow orders. They needed to start pushing the low interest rate gimmick now! But Zach, Mack, and Betty refused to do it. Through various underhanded means, all three were pressured out the door as weak and pathetic. They didn’t deserve to be a part of King Al’s Empire.
All three were devastated. In different ways, their lives quickly went to ruin. At a later date, I will tell you the stories of Mack and Betty. This morning, however, I want to focus on Zach. After he was pressured to quit, Zach’s self-esteem plummeted. He felt like a complete and utter loser. He blamed himself for losing his job. If only he had been more aggressive and cutthroat. To heck with values! Sometimes one simply has to put food on the table. It was true that after several months of unemployment Zach and his partner Scott began to have financial difficulties. Their savings had been depleted, and because Zach was pressured to quit and was not fired, he couldn’t get an unemployment check. Soon Zach even had to trade in his red convertible Porsche for a beat up used Kia.
To make matters worse, Scott had secretly been attracted to Zach because of his confidence, his fabulous wealth, and his nice cars. Now that Zach lacked all three of those things, their relationship was on the rocks. One day Zach came home from applying for jobs to find a letter on the table. Scott had left Zach for a Nascar driver named Jimmy Jake Jack. For Zach, life had hit an all time low. The world that had once been bright and beautiful was now bleak and barren of meaning. Life was entirely unfair and simply cruel. Zach was depressed. All he could do was watch TV late at night and sleep until noon the next day. The only reason he got out of bed was to walk Beef Cakes, his five-pound chihuahua. Zach would look at Beef Cakes with envy, and say, “Your so lucky. You don’t have to worry about being loved or making money.”
Eventually, while watching TV one day, Zach decided to follow Oprah’s advice: he needed to reach out to someone for help. He called up two people: his rabbi and his best friend Kate. Even though he sometimes doubted that religion did much good for anyone, he first met with his rabbi. His rabbi was old and wise and a little mysterious. He listened to Zach calmly, occasionally saying, “I see, I see.” At the end of their session, he simply told Zach to read chapter three of Daniel. He then said, “Come back to me when you understand the meaning of this story.”
At home, Zach rushed to his Hebrew Bible and flipped to the chapter with the hope that it would contain an insight that would free him from all his misery. Instead, he found this story about Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego that seemed entirely irrelevant to his own life. What did he care about three guys thrown into a furnace by some stupid king? How was this story supposed to help him?
Next Zach had coffee with Kate. He poured out his soul to her. He cried, and he wept. He ranted, and he raved. Kate listened with compassion while occasionally exclaiming, “That jerk!” After a few hours, Zach felt much better. The two decided they would get together a week later to talk again. And so they did. This time Zach talked about how worthless he felt, how bad a salesman he was, how he felt like an unattractive loser after Scott left. Kate told him that he could keep on believing those things if he wanted, or he could try measuring himself by a different stick. Kate told him that he could measure himself by his integrity and values. He was a great car salesman and a great person according to that yardstick. Then, she said, “Did you ever think that the problem wasn’t you, but it was Scott? Scott only loved you for your money and cars. You need someone who loves you for being a kind, decent, and big-hearted person.” Kate made Zach feel appreciated and cherished. For the first time in a long time, he felt loved.
Day by day, Zach slowly started to put his life back together. He continued to grieve. He continued to search for understanding. He continued to re-shape and re-mold his identity and life in a post-Scott and post-King Al world. He began to think that maybe selling cars wasn’t his true calling in life after all. Maybe the world needed more honest lawyers or furniture salesmen. All the while, he continued to meet with Kate, and she helped him find the strength and the courage he needed.
All the while, he also continued to re-read chapter three of Daniel everyday. He couldn’t figure out how it was supposed to be at all meaningful for him until one day he drove by a house that was on fire. The fire department was there spraying water into the flames, and then all of the sudden he saw a fireman run out of the building with a child in his arms. The fireman had saved the child from what would have been a certain death in a house that had become a burning inferno.
At that moment, Zach had a revelation. Quickly, he turned his car in the direction of the synagogue. Once he got there, he parked and rushed to the office of his rabbi. Barging through the door of the office, he exclaimed, “Kate is my fireman!” The rabbi looked up from a book he was reading and said, “I see, I see.” Turning red with embarrassment Zach added, “What I mean to say is that Kate is my angel in the furnace. She saved me from the fire. She helped me find the strength and the courage to survive and crawl out of the flames.”
The rabbi’s eyes brightened, “Yes, yes, angels are the humans through whom God speaks and cares.” Zach was elated, but he wondered out loud, “Why couldn’t you have just said that?”
“Well,” said the rabbi, “sometimes it helps to do a little of the work yourself.”
“I guess I won’t ask you for a job then,” said Zach. “That might make things too easy.”
“Ah, yes, I wish I could help you with that,” said the rabbi, “but I am afraid religion does not always guarantee employment or a happy love life. What religion does do is help us to find our angels. I hope I have helped you to find yours.” Amen.