Daniel 5:1-12
“Under the influence of the wine, Belshazzar commanded that they bring in the vessels of gold and silver that his father Nebuchadnezzar had taken out of the temple in Jerusalem, so that the king and his lords, his wives, and his concubines might drink from them. So they brought in the vessels of gold and silver that had been taken out of the temple, the house of God in Jerusalem, and the king and his lords, his wives, and his concubines drank from them. They drank the wine and praised the gods of gold and silver, bronze, iron, wood, and stone” (Daniel 5:2-4)
Tired of the red Solo™ cups, Belshazzar decided to go rooting around in the cellar to see if there was any better vessel to drink from. Now, there’s a lot we don’t know here. We don’t know if Nebuchadnezzar had explained the importance of these foreign vessels to his son, Belshazzar. We don’t know if he did and Belshazzar just didn’t care. We don’t know if he did and Belshazzar intentionally chose these cups in some sort of Oedipal jealousy of his father – that is, he took some of the bounty of his father’s conquest and used it so cavalierly as an intentional thumbing of his nose at his father, his father’s accomplishments, his father’s entire generation. We don’t know any of these things. What we do know is that items of sacred use that were formerly housed in a sacred Temple are now being filled with cheap wine and smeared with the lipstick of so many concubines and the pathetic men who chase after them.
Naturally, this story is an outrage to the pious. What is meant for God should be used by God. And if you’re not feeling the outrage just yet, metaphorically translate those vessels into something more abstract like “my faith.” Imagine powerful people taking your faith and using it for callous, petty, profane purposes. Ah, now we should all be feeling a little blood pressure spike.
Clearly the text wants us to be outraged to help set the scene for when God shows up – or, well, at least a free-floating human hand that we trust is God at work – to issue a warning to such calloused behavior. But what’s interesting to me is not the simple story of: (1) good thing used for bad purposes by bad guy, then (2) good God shows up to terrify bad guy in support of the good thing (and the people who love the good thing). God as white knight is perfectly fine, but also rather boring. It’s like watching professional wrestling in the 1980s. Oh, wow, did Hulk Hogan win again? Who would’ve seen it coming?
No, I think this story wants us to probe deeper than the obvious. And to do this, I want us to imagine that we’re Daniel. At the end of the reading today, Daniel is summoned because he’s the guy who’s going to understand the writing on the wall. Now, imagine Daniel is called up out of whatever little shanty he’s staying in. He’s brought into this huge party – thousands of people are there – but the atmosphere is far from festive. There’s a silent fear hanging over the place. The signs of debauchery are all over the place – spilled wine, half-dressed people, a few guys nursing black eyes from the fist fight that took place right before the hand magically appeared – but no one is acting particularly debauched at the moment. As Daniel shuffles his way through the crowd – a crowd that is both wide eyed and bleary-eyed at the same time – he sees the sacred vessels sitting on the king’s table. He would be outraged. This we’ve covered.
But now, imagine none of this happened. Imagine, in a hypothetical situation, that Daniel is given a tour of the king’s storeroom, the place where all the most precious bounty from previous conquests are kept. While walking past Assyrian and Turkish artifacts, he sees the Temple’s sacred vessels, covered in dust, resting atop a table previously used for sacrifices to a pagan god. How would he feel then? Would it be any better than finding greasy, drunken fingerprints on them at the king’s party? I don’t think so.
This story can be an allegory about faith. So often, the faithful think that the purpose of faith in God is to keep yourself from the debauchery of life. And that’s certainly part of it. But if faith begins and ends there – if it spends the rest of its time covered in dust in the basement of your priorities – then it is no better than if you were using it for profane purposes. The vessel of our life is meant for holy purposes in holy places. It is meant to be used, not preserved. Those who seek to merely preserve their faith will lose it. Let this story be a challenge to you to once again consider how you’re exercising your faith or how you’re keeping it locked in the basement of your personality and priorities. Amen.
