Stranded In Babylon
Slowing Down, part 7
Wildwind Community Church
David Flowers
January 10, 2009
Galatians 4:19 (KJV)
19 …until Christ be formed in you.
Last week I posed the very difficult question of whether our current way of thinking about the Christian life, and living the Christian life, is sufficient to actually form us into the image of Christ. I do not believe that our living out of the Christian life is happening at a level that stands a reasonable chance of doing that. Why? Because in so many ways we have conformed to our culture. We are not distinct enough from the world around us to offer a real alternative.
Romans 12:2 (MSG)
2 Don’t become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking…Instead, fix your attention on God. You’ll be changed from the inside out…Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity, God brings the best out of you, develops well-formed maturity in you.
Have we become so well-adjusted to our culture that we fit into it without even thinking? I believe in many ways, we have. And the without even thinking part is absolutely critical if we are to understand what Paul is saying here.
If I stand up here and say, “
What about such and such song – is that helping us fix our attention on God,” your response might be, “It’s just a song.” If I say, “How does this or that movie help us fix our attention on God,” you might say, “But it’s just a movie.” If I say, “How does this commercial, or that TV show fix our attention on God,” you might reply, “It’s just a commercial – it’s just a TV show.” If I say, “How does this job or that new car or that lifestyle help us fix our attention on God,” you might reply, “But it’s just a job. It’s just a car. It’s just a lifestyle.” If I say, “How does this particular decision fix your attention on God,” you might say, “Dude, lighten up – it’s only one decision.” But there’s the problem? What else is life in America, if not songs, without movies, without commercials and media, without jobs, without cars, without lifestyles, without decisions? Our lives are the sum total of all of these things. We cannot live or act as if our relationship to external things is separate from our relationship with God. God is interested in you – in your life as it is lived every day, in every way, through every moment and movement.
Romans 12:1 (MSG)
1 So here’s what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life—your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life—and place it before God as an offering…
My friends, it is precisely in doing this thing – taking our ordinary, sleeping, eating, music listening, movie watching, decision-making, car driving, lifestyle having, going to work and walking around life – it’s precisely here that I am concerned we are, despite our best intentions, coming up short. In what way? Because as I said last week, we have largely relegated our “spiritual life” to about 6-7 of our waking hours per week, leaving the other 105 largely untouched. Proof of this is that 60% of our high schoolers are jumping ship and leaving the church after graduation. We’re simply not living in a way that provides a real alternative to what the rest of the world offers.
Now far be it from me to stand here and tell you this, as if I’m shoving it in your face. If you cannot look into your own heart, your own life, your own struggles, and maybe even the lives of your own children , and confirm what I am saying to be true, then please feel free to dismiss what I am saying. But when you look into your heart, do you see that more often than not you are disconnected from God? When you look into your own life, do you see that more often than not you go through life making many or most decisions with little awareness of God’s right to be involved? When you look at your own struggles, do you see that many of them involve a sense of spiritual dryness, a sense that even though you know you’re supposed to be living in communion with God, you in fact are not doing any such thing the majority of the time? When you look at your children, are you concerned that they seem to be growing increasingly far from God as they get older?
If you see any or all of these things, I hope to speak to where you are tonight. I want to do that by looking at the life of a person in the Bible who faced many of the same challenges you and I face today. His name was Daniel. Daniel’s story is easy to find in the Bible because it’s in a book named Daniel. I’m going to read the story, then we’ll look for parallels between Daniel’s situation and our situation today. Next week is the baptism and membership service, but the week after that we’ll seek solutions using Daniel’s example.
In 604 B.C., King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylonia was the most feared king, and Babylonia the most feared kingdom, in the world. When your country was invaded by Babylonia, defeat was certain – much like the United States today. Daniel was a young Jewish man living in the kingdom of Judah, when its capital Jerusalem was attacked and of course defeated by Nebuchadnezzar. Let’s check out the story from that point.
Daniel 1:3-10 (MSG)
3 The king told Ashpenaz, head of the palace staff, to get some Israelites from the royal family and nobility
4 —young men who were healthy and handsome, intelligent and well-educated, good prospects for leadership positions in the government, perfect specimens!—and indoctrinate them in the Babylonian language and the lore of magic and fortunetelling.
5 The king then ordered that they be served from the same menu as the royal table—the best food, the finest wine. After three years of training they would be given positions in the king’s court.
6 Four young men from Judah—Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah—were among those selected.
7 The head of the palace staff gave them Babylonian names: Daniel was named Belteshazzar, Hananiah was named Shadrach, Mishael was named Meshach, Azariah was named Abednego.
8 But Daniel determined that he would not defile himself by eating the king’s food or drinking his wine, so he asked the head of the palace staff to exempt him from the royal diet.
9 The head of the palace staff, by God’s grace, liked Daniel,
10 but he warned him, "I’m afraid of what my master the king will do. He is the one who assigned this diet and if he sees that you are not as healthy as the rest, he’ll have my head!"
Some powerful countries used vinegar to get the bees – others used honey. Babylon was a honey user. Assyria preferred vinegar. See, if Babylon was the most powerful city, Assyria was the most cruel. When Assyria attacked, citizens of the invaded country were impaled on stakes. Others were stripped naked and led out of their homeland with rings in their noses, and forced into slavery back in Assyria. They were never again allowed to return home. Now what do you think was the response of people conquered by Assyria? How would you respond? Is it likely, after seeing your spouse or mother or child impaled on a stake, that you would ever come to have any loyalty to the king who did it? Of course not – it has now become your mortal enemy, for as long as you live.
Babylon was very different, very crafty. Instead of the wanton torture and humiliation practiced by the Assyrians, the Babylonians would do just what our text here says. They would select the brightest, strongest of the citizens of the defeated country and would take them back to Babylonia and “indoctrinate” them in Babylonian culture. They would treat them like royalty. These people would receive leadership training and would eventually go to work in the king’s court. They were given new names and every attempt was made to drain out of them the values of their native homeland and culture and turn them into devoted servants of the king of Babylon. The poor were left behind in their newly conquered homeland and were allowed to assume ownership of the property that had been vacated by the rich who were taken into Babylon. This cultivated loyalty to Babylon among the average people of the defeated country and made it less likely that citizens would mount a revolt against their new rulers. So whether you were rich or poor, Babylon offered what might well have looked like a promotion. Of course the price was your freedom, your history, and maybe your homeland, values, and loved ones.
So here’s Daniel – one of the “privileged” few who were taken into Babylon to learn to serve the king. He was a Jew. He had spent his life learning the Torah and praying in the temple. His life was a life of studied devotion to one God. Now suddenly he finds himself in the midst of Babylonian culture, that knows nothing about his God and cares even less. But man do they have the eye candy. There he is in the king’s court. I can imagine that this young man is offered not only the finest food, the finest drink, the finest clothes, but perhaps also the finest Babylonian women. He is given everything a young man’s heart might desire. From one perspective he has the good life. He is being trained to serve in the court of the king. He has never seen anything like this extravagance that now surrounds him. But Daniel realizes something right away.
Daniel 1:8 (MSG)
8 But Daniel determined that he would not defile himself by eating the king’s food or drinking his wine, so he asked the head of the palace staff to exempt him from the royal diet.
To this day Orthodox Jews observe a diet that is directly connected to their religion and thus to their identity. Daniel is offered this incredibly fine food and drink, but immediately realizes that he has a choice to make. He can eat and drink and enjoy his new life, or he can hold on to his identity as a worshipper of the one true God. He realizes that he cannot do both, that to eat this diet would “defile” him in the eyes of God.
Here we have the first obvious place where the glossy, powerful, beautiful, alluring, wealthy, extravagant kingdom of Babylon is rejected by Daniel – where he sees clearly through the seductive and lavish world of privilege around him and makes a decision to remain rooted in his identity as a child of God.
Daniel was not being mistreated – in fact he was being deferred to – taught o serve the king – given everything he could ask for. In using torture and death and humiliation, Assyria made it almost impossible not to see them as an enemy. In using wealth and privilege and power, Babylon made it very hard not to see them as a friend. But Daniel was very insightful to realize that perhaps this is the worst thing that could happen to him.
Daniel 1:4 (MSG)
4 —young men who were healthy and handsome, intelligent and well-educated, good prospects for leadership positions in the government, perfect specimens!—and indoctrinate them in the Babylonian language and the lore of magic and fortunetelling.
Verse 4 uses the word “indoctrinated.” Daniel was indoctrinated in Babylonian language, and the lore of magic and fortunetelling which, of course, he would have rejected wholeheartedly as a Jew. See the attempt that was made with Daniel was not to force him to give up his devotion to God at knifepoint – rather it was an attempt to lure him into it with privilege, ease, and luxury. He was a citizen of God’s kingdom, surrounded by the Kingdom of Babylon on every side, and now in the position of being expected to drink its drinks, eat its foods, and enjoy its privileges and perks.
Many of you, too, are citizens of God’ s kingdom. Like Daniel, we find ourselves surrounded on every side by the most glorious, most fearsome, most sophisticated, most attractive, and most opulent culture the world has ever known. Like Daniel, we live in a culture that has no problem with religion – it just doesn’t want our commitment to our religion to supersede our commitment to the empire. We are welcome to worship whatever gods we choose, as long as the empire is at the top of the list. We are expected to consume its goods, and to adopt its values. We are daily indoctrinated into its language. Think of language not only as words, but as assumptions and attitudes and perspectives and ways of seeing the world.
Daniel was in the king’s court. It was all around him. He could not escape it. Much like television today, which surrounds you, and constantly declares the values of the empire where you find yourself living. You can’t go to McDonald’s without catching some boob tube, or take your family out for a peaceful dinner at your favorite restaurant without making space for Larry King at the table. Apparently people are not capable of sitting at the car repair center without sports center running in the waiting room. Some of us feel like we just have to know what Tom and Katie, and Britney, and Brad and Angelina are doing – even though we have no idea why. Our high priestess is named Oprah, who thinks spirituality is great – who likes feeling spiritual and talking spiritual – but who has specifically rejected the idea of a personal God who cares for her, and who is doing everything in her power to steer her viewers in other directions as well.
And we have really been taken in. Unlike Daniel, who at least had the privilege of growing up Jewish, we who have come to Christ have done so in the middle of the empire where we live. It has immersed us thoroughly in its values before we ever thought about God. Christian families are so taken in by it that we barely know how to raise our own children in a way that can stand against the torrential waters of the culture. Our president never had to beat down the doors and carry us off to another land to indoctrinate us. We willingly do it to ourselves for hours every night sitting in front of that box that sets our standards, that numbs us to the tragedy of sin, that brings us gradually to laugh at things that break the heart of God, that minimizes our faith not usually by mocking it but simply by excluding it from every arena of activity. It’s not taken seriously in sitcoms, or dramas, or news. Faith is minimized and conveyed as something that can maybe add some extra value to your life if you’re a spiritual kind of person, but certainly not something worth building your life around, and DEFINITELY not something that might ever seriously compete with the empire for our deepest loyalties. And we now have taken over the job that was being done by the television. TV doesn’t even have to defend itself. It simply establishes itself in our homes, is quickly given ownership over vast numbers of hours of our lives, and then we become so enamored by it that we find ourselves becoming apologists for it.
“What? It’s just TV – don’t be so intense.” “It’s not a big deal, everybody does it.” “Man, what is your problem with entertainment?” If I stand up here tonight and seriously suggest that every person here tonight go home and decide on one day per week (just one) where they’ll leave the TV off, many would turn on me, acting as if I’m the problem. The idea of leaving that box in the ditch for even one day, for most people, is beyond all reasonable expectations.
And that would be okay if it weren’t for what we talked about last week. What are we doing with the 105 or so waking hours when we’re not sleeping or going to church and small group? Well, statistics say the average person is spending 40 or so of them at work, and around another 30 a week sitting in front of that box. And as we sit in front of that box, what is NOT happening? As we sit and watch families live their lives on television, we are not living our own. We sit and watch romances blossom on television, often next to the person who is supposed to be the love of our lives, and we often sit in silence – not speaking, not touching. And as the romance really gets moving, we watch couples hop in bed, and then afterwards we listen to their pillow talk – all when we could be in bed ourselves, and enjoying that pillow talk in real life. We watch stories about parents sacrificing for their kids and we are so deeply moved – except it’s annoying when our children come in and interrupt the show. I’m convinced that TV is so powerful that most of us would sit and watch another family play Monopoly on TV without ever seriously considering shutting if off and getting out our own Monopoly boards.
And I don’t know if it’s coming through, but I’m angry about it. I’m angry that we have been Babylonized – that we have ingested Babylon’s honey. Rather than standing for something unique in our culture – rather than offering something that can’t be found anywhere else – we have been content to just offer Christian versions of whatever our culture has. I mean think about it. When I ask you the question, “What is the Christian way of life?” what would you say? Going to church and small group (let’s be entirely honest – many people think that small group is just way too much to ask), not swearing, and what else? As we have gotten more and more modern in the church, we have increasingly called elements of the “Christian lifestyle” into question. So drinking isn’t off limits. Swearing for many is just fine. Many have decided that the Biblical prohibition against premarital sex is archaic – out of date. So sex before marriage is within bounds for many. We don’t observe the Sabbath and rush around as busy as everybody else. We watch the same movies, the same TV shows, listen to the same music, laugh at the same things, set the same goals for ourselves financially, raise our children in similar ways. Our divorce rates are the same or higher. We are ensnared in gambling, in drinking, in pornography, and other vices to the same degree as non-Christians. We by and large spend precious little time praying and even less time reading our Bibles. We make excuses for hurting others and not apologizing. We rationalize our bad tempers and immature reactions and selfish ambitions. And so on, and so on. Sorry to be depressing, but the picture is depressing.
That’s what many Christians are doing the other 105 hours of the week. Almost the exact same thing everybody else is doing. Why? Because in our zeal to not be legalists we have said, “You can be a Christian and still ________” (fill in the blank)” to the point where there is no longer a unified understanding about what it means to live a distinctly Christian life.
Now here’s what many of us have going for us. Insight. Many of us sense that God is not central in our lives the way we want him to be, but we can’t figure out what’s wrong. After all, we do what the church says to do – we go to church and small group, we serve in ministry, we give – but something’s missing and we don’t understand why. Many of us desperately want more of God in our lives. We are honest with ourselves about sin and struggling, and we really WANT to move forward. Many of us are even seeing significant growth in our lives, and that’s awesome.
But until we learn a lesson from Daniel, we are missing something huge. See, the story of Daniel is not the story of a guy who came into Babylon and started making excuses. Daniel did not say, “I wonder how much I can soak in the empire and still go to heaven?” He carved out a way to continue to belong to God in the midst of the empire. In our passage today we see how he rejected the king’s diet. If as Christians today we started rejecting America’s diet, what would that mean? What does America “feed on” that we could no longer have a part in?
Now don’t get the wrong message today. I’m not saying we go back to legalism. Legalism says you can’t be a Christian unless you do certain external things. I’m not suggesting that. What I am suggesting is that structuring our lives around God in a way that is distinct will show itself in things that can be seen on the outside – in clear decisions we will make that will part radically from the pattern of the empire that surrounds us.
It is no wonder that the church is thriving in cultures that are cruel and obviously harsh to the Christian faith. In using vinegar, anti-Christian governments have driven believers further into the arms of God. But in a country like ours that uses honey, believers are often weak and apathetic – lulled into passivity and spiritual laziness by luxury and the privilege of lapping up the king’s wine. We are stranded in Babylon.
If you are looking for another way – a better way – if you want to live your life distinctly for God in the middle of Babylon, I’m going to have some ideas for you next week based on lessons we can learn from Daniel.
