Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednigo

I can’t remember the first time I heard about this celebrated threesome, Shadrack, Meshach, and Abednigo.

Possibly it was in Sunday school at the old United Church of Morrisville, N.Y., a 19th century structure long since burned down. But in the late fifties I don’t remember Mrs. Dutton dropping their names during her Old Testament ruminations.

As a devotee of old-time movies on WSYR television in Syracuse, I do remember W.C. Fields dropping two thirds of their names. It was one of Fields’ eloquent oaths fashioned to satisfy the censors of the thirties. When confronted with something he didn’t like, such as discovering he didn’t have enough money to buy a drink, he’d growl, “Shadrach and Abednego.” I can hear him now.  I don’t know why he dropped Meshach from the exclamation.

My parents may have encountered the trio in their Methodist or Presbyterian churches, but they never told me about them. 

More likely they heard Louis Armstrong singing about them on the radio in a rhythmic melody that never leaves your head once you’ve heard it: 

So the king put the children in the fiery furnace
Shadrack, Meshach, Abednego!
Heaped on coals and red-hot brimstone
Shadrack, Meshach, Abednego!
Eleven times hotter, hotter than it oughtta be!
Shadrack, Meshach, Abednego!
Burned up the soldiers that the king had put there|
Shadrack, Meshach, Abednego!

Well they couldn't burn a hair on the head of|
Shadrack, Meshach, Abednego!
Laughin’ and talkin' while the fire jumpin’ round
Shadrack, Meshach, Abednego

The song was popular and profitably covered by Brook Benton, the Wanderers, the Larks, and many others.

So who were these three guys? Really.

For many, the threesome have become emblematic of the eternal struggle against tyranny. 

Martin Luther King, Jr., dropped their names in his Letter From a Birmingham Jail when he reminded skeptical pastors that civil disobedience is an ancient strategy. “It was evidenced sublimely in the refusal of Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego to obey the laws of Nebuchadnezzar, on the ground that a higher moral law was at stake,” he wrote. 

Their story is told in today’s scripture reading: King Nebuchadnezzar demands the loyalty of these three rebellious youths; the three refuse and the king flies into a rage so violent that it distorts his face; the king throws them into the fires of an overheated oven; Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego step casually into the fire where they are seen standing with a mysterious fourth figure; the three step out of the fire unharmed; the king blesses the God of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, crying out, “There is no other god who is able to deliver in this way.”

What a great story. And I suppose it behooves us as Christians taught to read scripture critically to ask: did it really happen?

If we apply the Henry IV rule of critical analysis, perhaps not. The story goes that as the excommunicated holy roman emperor, Henry trekked across the Alps in 1077 to beg Pope Gregory VII’s forgiveness and Henry knelt barefoot in the snow for three days until the Pope welcomed him back into the fold. There were dozens of eye witness and contemporary reports of the king’s frigid penitence and the story was accepted for centuries. But today historians say it didn’t happen. The reason: No one can kneel barefoot in the snow for three days and survive. It was not a true story. It was at best a mythical metaphor to communicate how really, really sorry was the king.

So were Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego thrown into a fiery furnace? And did they survive?

Well, you tell me.

Whether it really happened or not, the truth of the story could not be clearer:

Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego were faithful to their God and spoke their truth to a terrible power. God did not abandon them.  And they survived.  As Dr. King said, they are sublime evidence of civil disobedience when we are required to stand for justice and truth.

Richard W. Nysse, professor of Old Testament at Luther Seminary in St. Paul, writes that anyone who wants to be a modern day "Nebuchadnezzar" should take a look in the mirror this chapter of Daniel provides. “God will not be mocked -- that is an enduring threat to the oppressor and hope for the oppressed.” 

But Professor Nysse also warns there may be a little bit of King Neb in the best of us. We may be miniature oppressors without even realizing it. In our current reality, this may be as miniscule as refusing to wear masks or to maintain proper social distances from our fellow humans when we mingle. 

But we may encounter Micro King Nebs in so many ways: bullies with too much power who make life unpleasant in the shop or office or home or even in the church; racists, misogynists, homophobes, who press themselves too uncomfortably into our lives; and mansplainers; which reminds me: it’s time for me to stop talking.

Professor Nysse wraps it up nicely:

“Where we and our audience are on the spectrum from oppressor to oppressed will create a different engagement with this chapter and the book of Daniel as a whole,” he writes. 

“Some will be comforted: the oppressor does not have the last word and God creates a future beyond the oppression. 

“Some will be discomforted: they don't have the last word and God ends their domination.”

And because God is faithful to us to the end, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego – if we can remember their names – will be helpful prompts to remind us of God’s grace, and the just love that God expects of each of us.