Title: Benedict Arnold’s New Name
Text: Daniel 1:5-8
FCF: Do not let the culture name you
Intro:
When Susan was growing up, Loudoun was changing every bit as much as it is today. She grew up on a road without a name – Landmark Road just turned into some gravel that was Rural Route 1. But for safety’s sake, the fire services wanted every road to have a name. And so, one day, as Susan is turning down Rural Route 1, what does she see, but a street sign. And on it: the name “Boo-Hoo Church Road.” You can imagine how overjoyed she and her family were now living on “Boo-Hoo Church Road.”
A hundred years ago, apparently, there was a church known for its emotional worship services. A hundred years later, the church was gone, the whole town of Landmark was gone – but when it came time to name that road, the impression that Leesburg had of Landmark – just because of one church – was still there. Names and reputations last a long time.
They have the power of first impression. And whether you realize it or not, names dictate what people will think.
Imagine, for a moment, that you’re Susan, and you’re filling out an application for college or doing your taxes. Do you really want to say you’re on Boo-Hoo Church Road?
Well thankfully, the people who lived on the road were able to convince the county to rename the road. Since ‘Landmark Road’ was just too sensible for Loudoun, so they eventually settled on honoring John Champe – a revolutionary war hero whose house sat right next to Little River.
Last week, we began reading about Daniel, and we learned how drastically his world was changing. We heard how his Temple was set on fire, and how he was taken away from his parents and sent hundreds of miles away to Babylon. They wanted to so radically alter the identity of what they had taken, they even took away the kids’ names.
See, those Babylonians had a pretty simple and good idea. They figured if you took over a place, you should take the best and the brightest, retrain them, brainwash ‘em, and put them in your service. Well who are they to decide anyway? They are simply the few that sit at the top of the heap, dung heap though it is.
So, Daniel and his friends are being packed up and shipped off to boarding school. But, if they are going to be of any use to Babylon, their minds are going to have to be changed.
See what happens here in vs. 5. They’re sent off to be educated in the language and the literature of Chaldeans. They were going to dictate everything he saw, everything he spoke, even the thing he would eat. In other words, they wanted to rebuild him, in their image.
If you keep reading, you see they even try to rename him. It was a powerful thing - three of those names: Shadrach, Meschach, and Abendego, have stuck. And those men weren’t slouches by any stretch of the imagination. But you will understand that we are not reading the Book of Belteshazzar, we’re reading the Book of Daniel.
Daniel is a Hebrew name that means “God is my judge.” Not the King, not the culture, not even the Babylonian gods, but God is Daniel’s judge. It is a testament to Daniel’s character that he knew that about himself. God was his judge; and God was the means by which he would judge everything that would try to shape him. In a world that conform you to its identity, Daniel is going to have a lot to say about how to keep yours.
You’ve probably heard the lines: Stick and Stones may break my bones, but names can never harm me. Well, they may not physically hurt you, but this morning I want to suggest to you that names can do something even worse – they can define you.
I find it interesting that the first job that Adam had in the garden was to give names to everything. He had been given dominion over all the animals of the earth – he was supposed to use that authority to care for the garden: to nurture it. And so, as a token of that authority, God gave Adam a job. Go name it all. Define it.
Scientists are still doing that today. Just look at the big news this week. How many planets do we have? Well, if Marvin was still around, he’d have given you the right answer – 8. Pluto wasn’t discovered until he was 10 years old. He had to learn that new name. It totally changed the solar system for him and everyone like him. But the rest of us grew up thinking there were 9. This week, astronomers in Prague finally put a contentious debate to rest. They decided that Pluto really wasn’t a planet – or if it was, they’d have to make ‘Xena’ the TV warrior princess a planet too! With a simple classification, they have reordered the solar system yet again. The simple definition of the world “planet” radically redefines how you think about things. Jonathan will probably never really think of the solar system as having anything other eight real planets, plus a bunch of other junk. It’s literally a different world.
Sometimes, different worlds can be a good thing. For years, it was just an unwritten rule that any black man – regardless of age – was ‘boy.’ Why? Because society wanted the black man to think he was just that – a boy – they wanted him to ‘know his place’ in a white man’s world. A simple name helped to define the power.
I suspect in school that each of us who hit a certain age became a ‘nerd,’ a ‘jock,’ or something else. The names were given to us then have stuck with us. Obviously, I wasn’t called ‘jock,’ very often. When you hear your place in society often enough, you start to live up to your name. As Henry Ford used to say, “Whether you think you can or think you can’t, you’re right either way.”
I know that when people hear the name ‘Hollinger’ I want them to think that’s a good thing. It’s a good name and I try to live up it. If I mess it up, I’ve messed it up for a lot of people. I married a woman who comes from a perfectly good family. When we were married, she loved me enough to choose to call herself by that name. That’s a pretty powerful statement. She loved me enough to take my name as hers. What would I be saying about that trust if I were to disgrace it?
In Acts 11:26, it says the believers in Antioch were the first ones to call themselves, ‘Christians.’ Before that, the followers of Christ were simply part of a movement they called ‘The Way.’ The name ‘Christ’ wasn’t particularly popular in the first few centuries. I mean, after all, why would you want to take the name of a guy they had killed on a cross? But those believers in Antioch knew that Jesus was the Way. And that way meant conforming not to the culture, but being like the one who really was despised and rejected among men. They loved him enough that they wanted his name.
They even sang about that Jesus, who though he was God, chose not be received as God, but he humbled himself. He became the lowest thing he could become – a man – and because of that, he was glorified. Nowadays, we know that at the name of Jesus, every knee will bow and every tongue will confess that Jesus is Lord to the glory of God the Father. But he was rejected by the culture long before he was ever exalted as Lord.
You see, fundamentally, being a Christian means rejecting the culture. And when you reject the culture, the culture will reject you. You can choose to be shaped, like so many of Daniel’s colleagues – or you can choose to do the shaping.
You can name or be named.
It’s always hard to talk about Benedict Arnold. As soon as I say that name, you already have an impression about him. That’s really too bad, because the truth is, it didn’t have to be that way. Col. Arnold made quite a name for himself early in the war.
When he stormed Fort Ticonderoga, his name was praised throughout the colonies. He was even made the equivalent of a one-star general for that. The canons he liberated from the British were the very same ones that liberated Boston only a month later.
And, while we Americans may not realize it, Gen. Arnold came awfully close to annexing Canada to the colonies. He waged a bitter campaign aimed at taking over Quebec. It might have succeeded too, if his leg hadn’t been taken out by a horse. Later, he and only 100 men stopped the British from marching through Connecticut. And remember – he was injured.
And about the only victory the Americans had – the Battle of Saratoga in 1777 – was won largely because Arnold ignored orders and a hail of bullets, taking General Burgoyne by surprise. Had the British won, the colonies would have been divided in two – New York and the Hudson Valley would have been in British hands. But his heroics saved the day, and possibly even the war. He paid for it dearly – losing the leg that had just barely survived Quebec.
There is still monument up there today – but it only shows a boot. His name is still that unpopular. As one soldier was reported to say later, if they ever caught Arnold, they would have taken the leg and buried it with highest military honors. The rest of him they would have hung on the highest gallows.
As a “reward,” Arnold was sent back to Philadelphia and essentially given desk duty. There, he began to court and then marry a British loyalist by the name of Peggy Shippen. The two of them loved high society. They loved the extravagance. And they loved each other. After only a month, she took his name when they were married, but he ended up taking her way of looking at the Americans. Disenchanted with the dream, debt piling up all around him, the British culture in which he now walked renamed this great American general into what we know him for today – a traitor.
For money and his new wife’s approval, he hatched a plan to give West Point back to the British – to overturn the victory that finally cost him his leg – to divide the colonies in two, just as they had planned.
But by God’s grace, the plan was stopped. Arnold fled over to the British side. He was never paid the £20,000 ransom he had been promised, and he was never really accepted in British society. His name meant nothing in two countries.
About a year after his betrayal, Gen. Washington picked out a man from Loudoun County – John Champe to try to capture Arnold back. He bravely risked his own life and limb, only to fail when Arnold mysteriously broke off his normal pattern the night of the plan.
But Washington remembered the name Champe nonetheless. Nearly 20 years later, Washington tried to name him to the command of an army. Two hundred years later, I’m proud that his name defines my road.
John Champe isn’t a household name, but it’s a good one. It’s the simple name of a man who stayed true to his country, in contrast to Benedict Arnold who didn’t.
We too have the choice to define what our names will mean in the future, but only by choosing now whose name we will take. We can name our culture in the name of a rejected Christ, or we reject their power over us. We can choose to take a stand for love and peace – or we can be cowed into being nothing more than another stand for the world. Paul said it so well: Don’t be conformed to this world, but rather be transformed by the renewing of your minds.
Don’t let the world name you. It may not be easy, but in the end it’s so much better.
I want to close with this simple prayer that all West Point cadets will hear at chapel every Sunday. Would you bow your head as we pray:
O Lord, Make us choose the harder right instead of the easier wrong, and never to be contented with half truth when whole truth can be won. Endow us with courage that is born of loyalty to all that is noble and worthy, that scorns to compromise with vice & injustice and knows no fear when right and truth are in jeopardy.
XXX
Benediction (2 Chron 29:11, Heb 13:5; Isa 49:16)
The LORD has chosen you to stand in his presence to minister to him, and to be his ministers and make offerings to him. Remember he loves you and named you his own child. He will never leave you, never forsake you. See – he has engraved you on the palms of hands.
XXX
Sign for next week:
‘Come to me. I will give you rest’ Matt 11:28
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Even the great names come with an identity, something to live up to. You may remember several months ago, England’s Prince Harry did something really silly. He went to a costume party dressed as one Adolph Hitler. Now, I doubt that Prince Harry is a neo-Nazi, and if you ask him, he’ll tell you he was just having laugh. I mean, he’s not even 20. But the press really blew this up. Why? Because he had a name he was supposed to live up to. And he didn’t. That’s why it was a story.
You may have also seen in the news just this week, an Indian guy started a restaurant in Mumbai which he called ’Hitler’s Cross’. And, as you might have expected, people made a fuss. Why? Again, because in taking a name synonymous with evil, the guy was associating himself, and frankly defining himself, with hate. The guy backed down, because again, he thought it was a joke. But sometimes society can be right – a bad name is a bad thing.
XXXX
There’s something pretty special about a name. A name is a very personal way of defining who and what you are. When you name something, you define it. We live in a world that constantly wants to name us and define us.
Pretend, for a minute, that you lived Mexico and wanted a better job. Like thousands of your fellow countrymen, you realized that your odds of obtaining the proper paperwork were slim to none. Even if you beat the odds, you were still looking at a process of over ten years. So, what do you do? You take your chances across the desert with a guide who is as likely to leave you or rob you as he is to get you safely to the U.S. But then, you are in a state where you don’t really have a name. On this side of the fence, you don’t even have a term to really describe who you are.
Some people want to call you an ‘illegal alien.’ Now, alien of course means not native to the country, which seeing as half of the country was once Mexico isn’t exactly accurate. And illegal defines your entire existence. Most ‘illegal immigrants’ file tax forms so they can prove residency, and they simply can’t afford to break even minor laws like speed limits. Anyone who has ever driven 66 when it’s not gridlocked knows that the real speed limit is definitely not 65 MPH – it’s a lot closer to 80. But people who are illegal know that if they’re pulled over, they go home. So, these ‘illegals’ tend to be about the only ones who do the speed limit. But still, that’s what we call them.
On the other side of the fence, however, I have to admit even the term ‘undocumented worker’ isn’t really that much better. It sounds like they just lost their paperwork. Truth is they broke a law.
And either way, what is the result of this? Whatever you want to call them – the people who cut our lawns and build our houses live in fear, uncertainty, and doubt. If they go home, they fear they can’t provide for their families. If they stay here, they fear getting sent back. All they want is a name that says, they have a place in this country.
In Daniel’s case, …
XXX
You may have noticed that I tend to shy away from a lot of what I call “12-Step Christianity.” I know a lot of people who listen to WAVA – you know it’s a Christian station now – and God bless those that do. Still, I can only handle so much of pop-psychologists who know how to quote a few bible verses. It seems so often that
Charles Smith, president of the American Association for the Advancement of Atheism, reported that the lack of opposition was the cause of the decline of atheism. “We don’t have the old repressive religion that stimulates atheism, and they don’t preach hell-fire and Jonah in the whale anymore. They go in for this cheer-them-up religion. That’s not the old-time religion. It may be that this new sort is not so bad but they don’t let it interfere with their lives. They spent more time in the old days pleasing God. Now they try to please their fellow men.”
INVOCATION – IF I STAND (Rich Mullins)
There’s more that rises in the morning
Than the sun
And more that shines in the night
Than just the moon
It’s more than just this fire here
That keeps me warm
In a shelter that is larger
Than this room
And there’s a loyalty that’s deeper
Than mere sentiments
And a music higher than the songs
That I can sing
The stuff of Earth competes
For the allegiance
I owe only to the giver
Of all good things
So if I stand let me stand on the promise
That you will pull me through
And if I can’t, let me fall on the grace
That first brought me to You
Long Branch Baptist Church
Halfway, Virginia; est. 1786
Sunday August 27th, 2006
Enter to Worship
Prelude David Witt
Invocation Rich Mullins, “If I Stand”
*Opening Hymn #66
“There is a name I love to hear”
Welcome & Announcements
Morning Prayer [See Insert]
*Hymn #383
“How Firm a Foundation”
*Responsive Lesson [See Right]
*Offertory Hymn #337
“The Solid Rock”
Offertory Mr. Witt
*Doxology
Scripture Daniel 1:1-8
Sermon
“Benedict Arnold’s New Name”
Invitation Hymn #385
“Once to every man and nation”
Benediction
Congregational Response
May the grace of Christ of Savior / And the Father’s boundless love
With the Holy Spirit’s favor / Rest upon us from above. Amen.
* Congregation, please stand.
Depart To Serve
RESPONSIVE LESSON
Has a nation changed its gods, even though they are no gods? But my people have changed their glory for something that does not profit.
Do not fear, or be afraid; have I not told you from of old and declared it? You are my witnesses! Is there any god besides me? There is no other rock; I know not one.
See, the Lord your God has given the land to you; go up, take possession, as the Lord has promised you; do not fear or be dismayed.
Only, do not rebel against the Lord; and do not fear the people of the land. The Lord is with us; do not fear them.
Therefore come out from them, and be separate from them, says the Lord, and touch nothing unclean; then I will welcome you,
It is the Lord who goes before you. He will be with you; he will not fail you or forsake you. Do not fear. Do not be dismayed.
Now therefore revere the LORD, and serve him in sincerity and in faithfulness; put away the gods that your ancestors served beyond the River.
Choose this day whom you will serve:
Whether the gods your ancestors served in the region beyond the River or the gods of the Amorites in whose land you are living;
But as for me and my house, we will serve the LORD.”
And the people answered:
“Far be it from us that we should forsake the LORD to serve other gods;”
Now, if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see: everything has become new!
So if you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth, for you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God.
When Christ who is your life is revealed, then you also will be revealed with him in glory. Put to death, therefore, whatever in you is earthly: fornication, impurity, passion, evil desire, and greed (which is idolatry).
Let your speech always be gracious, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how you ought to answer everyone.
Prepare your minds for action; discipline yourselves; set all your hope on the grace that Jesus Christ will bring you when he is revealed.
Like obedient children, do not be conformed to the desires that you formerly had in ignorance.
Instead, as he who called you is holy, be holy yourselves in all your conduct; for it is written, “You shall be holy, for I am holy.”
I appeal to you therefore, brothers and sisters, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds, so that you may discern what the will of God— what is is good and acceptable and perfect.
MORNING PRAYER
Lord Jesus Christ, you stretched out your arms of love on the hard wood of the cross that everyone might come within the reach of your saving embrace: So clothe us in your Spirit that we, reaching forth our hands in love, may bring those who do not know you to the knowledge and love of you; for the honor of your Name. Forgive us the things which we have done and the courage to do those things thing we ought to have done, as we confess these things to you now.
Confess your sin before the Lord
Almighty and everlasting God, by whose Spirit the whole body of your faithful people is governed and sanctified: Receive our supplications and prayers which we offer before you. Strengthen Marian, we pray – give her the breath of your life. Be Martha’s comfort, let her body and soul be made whole with you. Lord, we lift up the great heart that Warren has always given to us, heal it now we pray. Heal Susan even as you have healed her in the past. Continue to let Kathy heal. Continue to let Lee’s body not wage war against itself. Encourage Emma and Nannie and Irene, we pray. Make Mark and Lori and others like them whole, even we as ask for these as well.
Lift up your neighbors
Lord we praise you for what you done in our lives this week. We thank you for blessing us, even as we tell you how much we love you now.
Praise him for how he has blessed you
O God, you who have made of one blood all the peoples of the earth; You who sent your blessed Son to preach peace to those who are far off and to those who are near: Grant that people everywhere may seek after you and find you; bring the nations into your fold; pour out your Spirit upon all flesh, and hasten the coming of your kingdom; through Jesus Christ our Lord. We pray that our country and our church might partake of your holy plan. Guide us, use us, let us be a part of Your holy plan, we pray.
Pray for the leaders of the land
Lead us too, we ask. Strengthen us when we are weak. Hold us when we are afraid. Teach us when we are complacent. And always Lord, make us your chosen children, your disciples, even as you taught them to pray, saying: Our Father, who art in heaven…
ANNOUNCEMENTS
If you haven’t already done so, please sign up to help get the church ready for homecoming, September 17th, 2006. If you have signed up, thanks!
Our guest speaker this year will be David Fox, pastor of Marshall Baptist Church. Service will be at 11am, and we will be joined by members of Middleburg, Marshall, and hopefully all of the churches that came out of Long Branch.
1 In the third year of the reign of King Jehoiakim of Judah, King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon came to Jerusalem and besieged it. 2 The Lord let King Jehoiakim of Judah fall into his power, as well as some of the vessels of the house of God. These he brought to the land of Shinar, and placed the vessels in the treasury of his gods.
3 Then the king commanded his palace master Ashpenaz to bring some of the Israelites of the royal family and of the nobility, 4 young men without physical defect and handsome, versed in every branch of wisdom, endowed with knowledge and insight, and competent to serve in the king’s palace; they were to be taught the literature and language of the Chaldeans. 5 The king assigned them a daily portion of the royal rations of food and wine. They were to be educated for three years, so that at the end of that time they could be stationed in the king’s court. 6 Among them were Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah, from the tribe of Judah. 7 The palace master gave them other names: Daniel he called Belteshazzar, Hananiah he called Shadrach, Mishael he called Meshach, and Azariah he called Abednego. 8 But Daniel resolved that he would not defile himself.
Daniel 1: 1-8
