When the Mighty Have No Mercy

Scripture: Daniel 4: 20-27, Isaiah 47: 5-7

Sermon: When the Mighty Have No Mercy

Topics: anger, merciless, mercy, culture, Christ

Preached: June 10, 2018

Rev. Mike Abma

Preamble

We are in Daniel chapter 4.

In this chapter Nebuchadnezzar sounds very reasonable.

But in earlier chapters, Nebuchadnezzar often appears very angry.

So in chapter 2, when his advisors cannot tell him his dream

we are told in 2:12 that

Nebuchadnezzar flew into a violent rage

and commanded all the wise men of Babylon destroyed.

The picture is the same in chapter 3 when Daniel’s 3 friends refuse to bow before Nebuchadnezzar’s golden statue.

We are told in 3:19 that

Nebuchadnezzar was so filled with rage against Shadrach Meshach and

Abednego that his face was distorted.

Now in chapter 4, Nebuchadnezzar has a second dream of a large tree that is cut down.

Here is how Daniel interprets this dream:

²⁰The tree that you saw, which grew great and strong, so that its top reached to heaven and was visible to the end of the whole earth, ²¹whose foliage was beautiful and its fruit abundant, and which provided food for all, under which animals of the field lived, and in whose branches the birds of the air had nests— ²²it is you, O king! You have grown great and strong. Your greatness has increased and reaches to heaven, and your sovereignty to the ends of the earth. ²³And whereas the king saw a holy watcher coming down from heaven and saying, “Cut down the tree and destroy it, but leave its stump and roots in the ground, with a band of iron and bronze, in the grass of the field; and let him be bathed with the dew of heaven, and let his lot be with the animals of the field, until seven times pass over him”— 

²⁴this is the interpretation, O king, and it is a decree of the Most High that has come upon my lord the king: ²⁵You shall be driven away from human society, and your dwelling shall be with the wild animals. You shall be made to eat grass like oxen, you shall be bathed with the dew of heaven, and seven times shall pass over you, until you have learned that the Most High has sovereignty over the kingdom of mortals, and gives it to whom he will.²⁶As it was commanded to leave the stump and roots of the tree, your kingdom shall be re-established for you from the time that you learn that Heaven is sovereign.

 ²⁷Therefore, O king, may my counsel be acceptable to you: atone for your sins with righteousness, and your iniquities with mercy to the oppressed, so that your prosperity may be prolonged.’

That a lack of mercy was at the heart of the problem with both Nebuchadnezzar and the Babylonian empire,

I invite you to hear these verses from Isaiah 47: 5-7

⁵ Sit in silence, and go into darkness,

   daughter Chaldea!

For you shall no more be called

   the mistress of kingdoms. 

⁶ I was angry with my people,

   I profaned my heritage;

I gave them into your hand,

   you showed them no mercy;

on the aged you made your yoke

   exceedingly heavy. 

⁷ You said, ‘I shall be mistress for ever’,

   so that you did not lay these things to heart

   or remember their end. 

This is the Word of the Lord

Thanks be to God

INTRODUCTION

So Nebuchadnezzar has a dream.

The dream is of a tree.

The tree is Big.

The tree is Beautiful.

The tree reaches all the way up to heaven.

But then a figure from heaven comes down.

This figure gives the order to cut the tree down,

leaving only a stump.

And Nebuchadnezzar is stumped —

stumped by the meaning of this dream.

Enter Daniel

who both explains the dream

and diagnoses what is wrong with the tree.

In spite of its Big and Beautiful appearance,

the tree has heart rot:

The heart of Nebuchadnezzar and his empire

is full of pride

and full of anger.

Daniel’s prescription is this:

to treat the heart rotten with pride,

do acts of righteousness or justice every day;

to treat the heart rotten with anger,

do acts of mercy for the oppressed every day.

DANIEL’S ROLE

The Book of Daniel is “resistance literature.”

The Book of Daniel tells the story of God’s people

maintaining their identity as God’s people

even as they live in the middle of this big empire.

The overarching narrative

is that there is something deeply wrong about this empire,

but there is something deeply right about Daniel and his friends.

Most sermons on Daniel chapter 4 focus on Nebuchadnezzar’s pride

as the main thing that is deeply wrong.

There is no doubt that pride is a big problem.

But what I would like you to see this morning

is that, up to this point,

Nebuchadnezzar has been portrayed as a person

filled with anger and rage

and that this anger has blocked the flow of mercy.

Daniel says that Nebuchadnezzar’s coming humiliation

is, to a large extent,

because he failed to show mercy to the oppressed.

The prophet Isaiah says the same thing.

God had allowed Babylon to have all this power,

but Babylon showed no mercy.

And thus their humiliation,

their “cutting down”

was coming.

This dream and this prescription

do not only apply to Nebuchadnezzar and the Babylonian Empire.

The Bible often portrays kingdoms as trees.

Egypt is such a tree,

and so is Israel,

and so is Judah.

Each of these kingdoms becomes

too full of power and wealth.

Each of these kingdoms becomes

too closed to the needs of those

both within and outside their borders.

Each of these kingdoms eventually

needs to be cut down to size.

Is it any surprise that God says in Ezekiel 17: 24

All the trees of the field shall know

that I am the LORD.

I will bring low the high tree,

and make high the low tree;

I will dry up the green tree,

And make the dry tree flourish.

I the LORD have spoken:

I will accomplish it.

WESTERN WORLD – MORE MERCILESS

Here is the disturbing thing about all these passages.

By all appearances, we look like that BIG and Beautiful Tree.

We live in a culture that is rich and that is powerful.

But we also live in an increasingly

angry and merciless culture.

We see it in how people interact online.

We also see it in harsh attitudes toward the desperate and needy.

People tend to see the worst in others.

So when they see poor people,

too often, people assume the poor are lazy, or just trying to game the system.

When people see immigrants

too often, people assume immigrants are just job-takers or law-breakers.

When people see desperate people

fleeing the violence of their own countries

and simply seeking a better life in a new country

too often, people assume they are

opportunists at best,

or criminals at worst.

For some reason

people are hardening their hearts,

closing down their compassion to the plight and needs of others.

This is happening in our culture.

But, unfortunately, this is also happening in our churches.

It is becoming so widespread,

that Mark Galli, the Editor of the magazine Christianity Today

recently asked in exasperation:

“Who is teaching Christians

to hold such unmerciful attitudes?”^[1]

It wasn’t always like this.

A very recent book called Holy Humanitarians, describes how, for much of the 20^th century, the Evangelical Church led the way in showing mercy to the world.^[2]

But not anymore.

Why not?

Have we forgotten who we are?

Have we allowed mercy to leak from our hearts?

HERTA OBERHEUSER

The process of mercy leaking from a person’s heart struck me as I read the novel Lilac Girls by Martha Hall Kelly.

This is the true story of 3 women between 1939 – 1959:

one Polish woman, one American woman, and one German woman.

The German woman is a doctor by the name of Herta Oberheuser.

She became a doctor to help people.

Early in the book Herta is offered what appears to be a good job –

the medical director of a women’s re-education camp.

It turns out it is actually a women’s prison, and it is not for criminals.

It is for women arrested for resisting German occupation.

Herta feels some mercy for these women prisoners.

But she also thinks, if only they had obeyed the law,

they would not be in prison.

Later in the book Herta’s role as doctor was not simply to heal people.

She was also expected to experiment on them –

to intentionally wound them and monitor how well they recovered.

Herta still feels a little pity for the prisoners,

but justifies what she is doing because it promises to improve

the care of soldiers at the front lines of battle.

Later yet, Herta is told she must find a way to kill and dispose of the

weakest prisoners.

Again, she finds a way to justify her role –

She was simply putting the prisoners out of their misery.

Throughout the book

you see mercy leaking out of Herta’s heart,

and anger, anger at these poor prisoners, finding its way into her heart.

WAY OF HUMILITY

What hope do we have?

What hope of becoming better, more merciful people?

In Daniel 4,

Nebuchadnezzar’s hope is in his humiliation.

Nebuchadnezzar falls from his exalted position,

and becomes like a beast of the field.

That humiliation becomes his hope.

In ways, we all deserve to be cut down like that,

brought down like that.

But the sweet truth is this:

We serve a king who took our place.

We serve a king who willingly humbled himself.

He came from the heights of heaven

and walked this earth as one of us.

But he fell even further –

He allowed himself to be treated

as a common criminal;

He allowed himself to take

onto himself and into himself

all our merciless anger.

And why did he do this?

So that we might be His people.

So that we might know His mercy.

So that we might live His mercy in this often merciless world.

GREG SCHILLER

We simply need to let God’s mercy in Jesus Christ get

deep into our heart and our bones

so that we can be cured of the cultural rot within us.

This is what happened to Greg Schiller.

Greg is a mechanic who lives in Elgin Illinois.

He used to see the homeless people in his neighborhood

as a nuisance –

addicts, undocumented, unemployed.

But the more he got to know Jesus,

the more the words of Jesus sank into his heart:

“whatever you do for the least one of these,

you do for me.”

So this past winter,

on one of the colder nights

Greg invited some homeless people into his home.

He gave them something warm to drink, warm to eat.

He gave them a warm place to sleep.

And he kept doing this on those cold nights.

There was a problem, however.

The City of Elgin did not like it.

They told Greg he was breaking the law:

he was not complying with fire regulations;

his house did not comply with ventilation codes.

“Well then,” said Greg,

“Don’t just criticize me.

Why not help me….help me take care of these needy people.”^[3]

CONCLUSION

What Greg knows,

and what we all must know

is that, as receivers of mercy

we also must be barriers of mercy in this world.

The question is: Are we?

Are we offering mercy beyond our thresholds?

Are we offering mercy beyond our borders?

Are we offering mercy beyond the bounds of our creedal confessions?

Are we people who truly

love mercy

seek justice

and walk humbly with our God?

Lord, have mercy on us.

And Lord, make us more merciful.

Amen

PRAYER

O Lord,

Make us your children of Light in this dark world;

Make us your children of warmth in this cold world;

Make us your children of mercy in this harsh world.

In the name of Jesus we pray.

AMEN

1. Mark Galli, Editorial in Christianity Today, June 7, 2017. ↑

2. Heather D. Curtis, Holy Humanitarians: American Evangelicals and Global Aid (Harvard U. Press, 2018) ↑

3. “When Mercy Collides with Law” NYT January 10, 2018 ↑