In The School Of Babylon
Bible Study
The Key to Life
Reflections on the Lord's Prayer
Object:
Some time ago I listened to Dr. Van B. Dunn speaking to a group of ministers at Duke University. His theme was "The School of Babylon." He took his theme from a stanza of a poem by Thomas Blackburn:
This is the school of Babylon,
And at its hands we learn...
To walk into the furnace --
And whistle as we burn.
All this comes from the story of the Hebrew children, Daniel, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, as they were carried captive into Babylon. Quickly they ran into a major conflict of wills. Nebuchadnezzar, the king, set these bright young men at his own table and offered them all the rich food and drink that he was accustomed to. This was to train them for places of leadership. Daniel thought that this was not the food that God would have them take, so he refused the king's offer and stuck to the simple diet of the other captives. This was not good politics, but he thought it was the will of God. In the pagan culture of Babylon, Daniel and his friends sought to follow the will of God as they understood it. They stood the test.
In the School of Babylon tough decisions constantly have to be made -- life and death decisions. Daniel's three friends were caught up in a terrifying situation. The king set up a golden image and called all the ambassadors and resident leaders to the dedication. He announced that, at the sound of the music, everyone must bow down to the image or be destroyed in the fiery furnace. Again the Hebrew captives faced a decision between the will of God and the demand of the king. They made their decision: they did not bow down.
Of course, word of their action was carried to the king. Because he liked them, he called them in and announced: "I will give you another chance: we will have the sound of music again and if you bow down, all right; if not, who is that God who will deliver you out of mine hand?" The three young men, seeking to obey God's will, turned down the second chance and said with courageous bluntness: "Our God whom we serve is able to deliver us out of the burning fiery furnace, and he will deliver us out of thine hand, O King; but, if not, be it known unto thee, O King, that we will not serve thy gods, nor worship the golden image which thou hast set up."
At this total insubordination, the king blew his top. He had the furnace heated seven times hotter -- he had his soldiers seize the three young men and immediately throw them into the furnace; and yet they survived.
Now the memory of the king who thought he could defy the will of God is almost forgotten. As we fly over the Fertile Crescent today and look down from our window to the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, we see only a barren mound of earth marked with a few ancient scars -- all that is left of mighty Babylon.
Babylon, however, is not dead. Babylon is the continuing center of power that opposes the will of God and exists in every generation. In our contemporary culture we Christians still live in the "School of Babylon" and have to make our daily decisions in keeping with the demands of contemporary culture or in keeping with the will of God. Where do we stand as we face life and its issues, its demand, its conflicts of will -- God's will, our will, the forces of injustice and destruction? Here we live and operate. Here we stand as persons of faith, or we yield to the pressures and deteriorate into nothingness. On the other hand, we can catch the spirit of the Hebrew youths and take our stand in Babylon. In our personal encounters we come to the position where we say: "This will I do! This will I not do! Because God wills it." We begin to understand the declaration of a Herman Melville character in Moby Dick: "To obey God, ye must disobey yourselves." God wills that you and I think and act responsibly in life situations. What is right; what is wrong? Which side should I be on? And what should I do about it? Am I serious when I pray, "Thy will be done on earth as it is in Heaven"? Do I want the Spirit of Heaven in earthly relationships?
How can I do God's will in today's world? One businessman declares: "I never let my business and my religion touch -- it would ruin both." Another businessman in the School of Babylon puts it: "I will simply continue to treat every situation as one in which only the fittest survive. I will have to act strictly in my own self-interest. I am going to have to take every short cut, every means at my disposal to achieve my desired ends." This is where our culture of greed and self-interest collides with God's will of honesty and caring.
If I accept the Jesus view of the universe, that requires that I put it into action in my world. It is our deeper nature to do the will of God. But there is something in all of us that fights against our deeper nature. When we give in to our surface life and will over our deeper life, we miss life. Christ lived out his obedience to the will of God in his everyday situations in the world. Look! Christ was praying a great while before day. He was constantly communing with the Heavenly Father. Then see what happened. He helped many discover the mystery of love at the heart of life. He gave the woman at the well a new identity. He healed Peter's wife's mother. He raised Lazarus from the dead. He healed the crazy man from the Gadarenes. He forgave the woman caught in adultery. And on and on. Christ is the teacher in the School of Babylon. When we get caught in our School of Babylon, we can look back to Christ and find strength to stand. We see him on the cross, forgiving those who crucified him. We see him in the glory of the resurrection and glimpse our own assurance of victory. In Christ we are prepared and enabled to do God's will in all the tests of life. Thy will be done, O God, on earth, in the whole universe. Help us to make thy will the code of life.
But "the world does not look like the work of a loving Father," writes Evelyn Underhill, "it looks more like the work of selfish and undisciplined children!" That is the picture of America today, because we are not committed to the will of God. Once more we need to hear the voices of great prophets -- persons who are not afraid to put up their lightning rods and let God strike them with His infinite spirit and put us back on track. Paul opens this door for all of us:
I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service.
-- Romans 12:1
Charles Colson in his book The Body (Dallas: Word Publishing, 1992) shares with us the contrasts in our particular School of Babylon. An advertising sign in Hollywood reads: "Life is short. Play hard." Millions in America are trying this and dying as miserable persons. Colson describes also the opposite lifestyle. Annie Howard drives down Interstate 60. They say that she has more energy than ten people and spends it all in the service of Christ. As she turns into the prison, she dials her home: "Bill," she says as her husband answers, "I'm turning into the prison now. We'll have inmate choir practice, then evening bible study, then six of the volunteers will be coming home for dinner. There's a big salad in the refrigerator, a loaf of raisin nut bread on the counter, and a pot of stew on the stove. At 8:45 could you turn the burner on medium low? We should all get there by 8:52. Thanks, honey!" Then she turns into the parking lot of Kentucky's State facility for women offenders. At her entrance the prison lights up.
It is in the School of Babylon, our contemporary world, that we discover, or repudiate life. Here we are shaped, humanity is shaped, by the things that are happening now, but our shaping depends upon our responses. Some great ones like Mother Teresa "whistle as they burn." They sing in the agony of encounter and decision, because they will what they interpret God's will to be and move with costly purpose. Discovering the will of God in the midst of life's fiery encounters is the completion of our humanity -- the abundant life.
God gave us Christ, the manger, the cross, the resurrection, and the Holy Spirit as our guideposts. In "Babylon" Hitler was discovered and discarded; Jesus was discovered and revealed. Here Daniel discovered who he was. Here we discover the glorious possibilities of life in the will of God.
In our contemporary culture we stand face to face with ourselves. Life demands that we decide under whose allegiance we will live. That decision about our heart's devotion is crucial in defining what kind of person we are. Life's loyalties are decided in the shattering encounters with the Golden Images of Babylon: "Be it known unto thee, O King, we will not serve your God." To come of age in our present-day culture is to be saved by grace. For only the grace of God can sustain us in our encounter, enable us to keep our balance, strengthen us to stand, and motivate us to move forward.
Recently I heard a Rotary speaker brilliantly sketch the picture of things in 2000 A.D. He said we would continue with our "controlled greed," and that everything would be richer, faster, and more concentrated. He added that we would have a three-day week, running in two shifts -- one group working from Monday through Wednesday, another group working from Thursday through Saturday -- and everybody having four days off. This might be true. I doubt it! With God, the totally unheard of breaks out again and again. In fact, we might have to learn to work again. There are thousands of important things that need to be done, that now are not even considered. We may come face to face with a whole new understanding of the service vocations. Under God it can be a "brave new world."
Sadly, we learn from things that have already happened. In The Deputy (New York: Grove Press, 1964) by Rolf Hochhuth, there is an amazing drawing based on the massacre of the Jews by Hitler. Not a single murder in a fit of anger, but years of premeditated, cold-blooded, useless murders by a corporation of intelligent, more or less normal people in our time. (It makes us shudder to think what we might do under pressure.) Six million Jews gassed and shot and beaten and starved and burned. Five thousand a day seemed to be the normal output of Auschwitz; sometimes "on a good day" they reached as many as nine thousand persons destroyed. The fires of Auschwitz: the smoke filled with human stench; the smog; the 24-hour glow and glare of death: thousands of human beings being consumed -- Hell! Hell on Earth! In our time!
When humanity goes mad, what do we do, if we are sensitive to the will of God? What is the will of God for us under the pressure of an impossible situation? According to The Deputy, the Pope, who could have acted effectively, did nothing. Count Fontana, one of the Pope's advisors, and his son, Father Ricardo, pleaded with the Pope to protest to Hitler. The Pope knew the situation, but he was afraid of jeopardizing the political position of the Vatican; and so the German murderers moved in. Even under the shadow of St. Peter's in Rome, they captured Jewish families, parents, grandparents, children, babies, pregnant mothers, some converted Catholics, and shipped them in cattle cars to Auschwitz for their destruction -- and there was no real protest from the Pope.
When we are disappointed by our leaders, do we still have a responsibility to act? Father Ricardo thought so. He joined himself to a family of Jews being shipped from Rome to Auschwitz. He pinned on himself the yellow star of the Jews, thus marking himself for execution. He ministered to the helpless ones; he suffered with them unbelievably. He refused to be released. He gave his life; he died; but his story stands as a witness to courage, to faith, to love, and to the will of God, perceived and acted upon in one phase of the School of Babylon.
We are the people of God. We want His will done; but are we willing to be involved as persons? Do we have the faith and courage to be the Agents of God's will? "When you have been addressed by God, called by your name, claimed," and given a task to do, you are no longer uncertain of your identity. You are yourself -- yourself under the will of God. This is your life! "Now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be." "For every day in the School of Babylon requires new birth."
But how do I know His will for me? The will of God is known in faith. I trust Him, I risk His will, and I begin to have insight into what His will is. In the arena of my life, God wills that I be intelligently responsible; that I be sensitive to Truth and Love; and responsive to His deeper guidance. Then, we might just decide to stay here; for where God's will is done completely -- there is Heaven.
There is a question I can ask myself: "In my situation, what is the real need?" What is the need that I can touch; the real need where I live and where I work; something that I can do something about; something that might be done or ought to be blocked; something that others have passed by because it was "too hot to handle?" What is the need that I behold in my own home? In my professional life? In the lives of my children? In the life of my city? My nation? My world? What is there that can be done within the reach of my competence? Will I continue to be "the priest" and "the Levite," passing by on the other side, or might I become the Good Samaritan, stopping and helping and healing? Jesus whispers to us: "Happy are your eyes because they see, and your ears because they hear."
Paul, in Phillips' translation of Romans 5, shows us that such courage is not a blind alley: "We can be full of joy here and now, even in our trials and troubles." Taken in the right spirit, these very things will give us patient endurance; this in turn will develop a mature character, and a character of this sort will produce a steady hope: a hope that will never disappoint us.
Remember the manger, the life, the cross, the resurrection! In the midst of the battle, pray: "Thy will be done." In the School of Babylon, through my life, even a little bit as it was in Christ! "Thy will be done on earth as it is in Heaven."
Ralph Spaulding Cushman exhorts us:
Set us afire, Lord,
Stir us, we pray!
While the world perishes
We go our way,
Purposeless, passionless,
Day after day.
Set us afire, Lord.
Stir us, we pray.
(from A Pocket Prayer Book and Devotional Guide, Nashville: The Upper Room, 1941)
This is the school of Babylon,
And at its hands we learn...
To walk into the furnace --
And whistle as we burn.
All this comes from the story of the Hebrew children, Daniel, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, as they were carried captive into Babylon. Quickly they ran into a major conflict of wills. Nebuchadnezzar, the king, set these bright young men at his own table and offered them all the rich food and drink that he was accustomed to. This was to train them for places of leadership. Daniel thought that this was not the food that God would have them take, so he refused the king's offer and stuck to the simple diet of the other captives. This was not good politics, but he thought it was the will of God. In the pagan culture of Babylon, Daniel and his friends sought to follow the will of God as they understood it. They stood the test.
In the School of Babylon tough decisions constantly have to be made -- life and death decisions. Daniel's three friends were caught up in a terrifying situation. The king set up a golden image and called all the ambassadors and resident leaders to the dedication. He announced that, at the sound of the music, everyone must bow down to the image or be destroyed in the fiery furnace. Again the Hebrew captives faced a decision between the will of God and the demand of the king. They made their decision: they did not bow down.
Of course, word of their action was carried to the king. Because he liked them, he called them in and announced: "I will give you another chance: we will have the sound of music again and if you bow down, all right; if not, who is that God who will deliver you out of mine hand?" The three young men, seeking to obey God's will, turned down the second chance and said with courageous bluntness: "Our God whom we serve is able to deliver us out of the burning fiery furnace, and he will deliver us out of thine hand, O King; but, if not, be it known unto thee, O King, that we will not serve thy gods, nor worship the golden image which thou hast set up."
At this total insubordination, the king blew his top. He had the furnace heated seven times hotter -- he had his soldiers seize the three young men and immediately throw them into the furnace; and yet they survived.
Now the memory of the king who thought he could defy the will of God is almost forgotten. As we fly over the Fertile Crescent today and look down from our window to the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, we see only a barren mound of earth marked with a few ancient scars -- all that is left of mighty Babylon.
Babylon, however, is not dead. Babylon is the continuing center of power that opposes the will of God and exists in every generation. In our contemporary culture we Christians still live in the "School of Babylon" and have to make our daily decisions in keeping with the demands of contemporary culture or in keeping with the will of God. Where do we stand as we face life and its issues, its demand, its conflicts of will -- God's will, our will, the forces of injustice and destruction? Here we live and operate. Here we stand as persons of faith, or we yield to the pressures and deteriorate into nothingness. On the other hand, we can catch the spirit of the Hebrew youths and take our stand in Babylon. In our personal encounters we come to the position where we say: "This will I do! This will I not do! Because God wills it." We begin to understand the declaration of a Herman Melville character in Moby Dick: "To obey God, ye must disobey yourselves." God wills that you and I think and act responsibly in life situations. What is right; what is wrong? Which side should I be on? And what should I do about it? Am I serious when I pray, "Thy will be done on earth as it is in Heaven"? Do I want the Spirit of Heaven in earthly relationships?
How can I do God's will in today's world? One businessman declares: "I never let my business and my religion touch -- it would ruin both." Another businessman in the School of Babylon puts it: "I will simply continue to treat every situation as one in which only the fittest survive. I will have to act strictly in my own self-interest. I am going to have to take every short cut, every means at my disposal to achieve my desired ends." This is where our culture of greed and self-interest collides with God's will of honesty and caring.
If I accept the Jesus view of the universe, that requires that I put it into action in my world. It is our deeper nature to do the will of God. But there is something in all of us that fights against our deeper nature. When we give in to our surface life and will over our deeper life, we miss life. Christ lived out his obedience to the will of God in his everyday situations in the world. Look! Christ was praying a great while before day. He was constantly communing with the Heavenly Father. Then see what happened. He helped many discover the mystery of love at the heart of life. He gave the woman at the well a new identity. He healed Peter's wife's mother. He raised Lazarus from the dead. He healed the crazy man from the Gadarenes. He forgave the woman caught in adultery. And on and on. Christ is the teacher in the School of Babylon. When we get caught in our School of Babylon, we can look back to Christ and find strength to stand. We see him on the cross, forgiving those who crucified him. We see him in the glory of the resurrection and glimpse our own assurance of victory. In Christ we are prepared and enabled to do God's will in all the tests of life. Thy will be done, O God, on earth, in the whole universe. Help us to make thy will the code of life.
But "the world does not look like the work of a loving Father," writes Evelyn Underhill, "it looks more like the work of selfish and undisciplined children!" That is the picture of America today, because we are not committed to the will of God. Once more we need to hear the voices of great prophets -- persons who are not afraid to put up their lightning rods and let God strike them with His infinite spirit and put us back on track. Paul opens this door for all of us:
I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service.
-- Romans 12:1
Charles Colson in his book The Body (Dallas: Word Publishing, 1992) shares with us the contrasts in our particular School of Babylon. An advertising sign in Hollywood reads: "Life is short. Play hard." Millions in America are trying this and dying as miserable persons. Colson describes also the opposite lifestyle. Annie Howard drives down Interstate 60. They say that she has more energy than ten people and spends it all in the service of Christ. As she turns into the prison, she dials her home: "Bill," she says as her husband answers, "I'm turning into the prison now. We'll have inmate choir practice, then evening bible study, then six of the volunteers will be coming home for dinner. There's a big salad in the refrigerator, a loaf of raisin nut bread on the counter, and a pot of stew on the stove. At 8:45 could you turn the burner on medium low? We should all get there by 8:52. Thanks, honey!" Then she turns into the parking lot of Kentucky's State facility for women offenders. At her entrance the prison lights up.
It is in the School of Babylon, our contemporary world, that we discover, or repudiate life. Here we are shaped, humanity is shaped, by the things that are happening now, but our shaping depends upon our responses. Some great ones like Mother Teresa "whistle as they burn." They sing in the agony of encounter and decision, because they will what they interpret God's will to be and move with costly purpose. Discovering the will of God in the midst of life's fiery encounters is the completion of our humanity -- the abundant life.
God gave us Christ, the manger, the cross, the resurrection, and the Holy Spirit as our guideposts. In "Babylon" Hitler was discovered and discarded; Jesus was discovered and revealed. Here Daniel discovered who he was. Here we discover the glorious possibilities of life in the will of God.
In our contemporary culture we stand face to face with ourselves. Life demands that we decide under whose allegiance we will live. That decision about our heart's devotion is crucial in defining what kind of person we are. Life's loyalties are decided in the shattering encounters with the Golden Images of Babylon: "Be it known unto thee, O King, we will not serve your God." To come of age in our present-day culture is to be saved by grace. For only the grace of God can sustain us in our encounter, enable us to keep our balance, strengthen us to stand, and motivate us to move forward.
Recently I heard a Rotary speaker brilliantly sketch the picture of things in 2000 A.D. He said we would continue with our "controlled greed," and that everything would be richer, faster, and more concentrated. He added that we would have a three-day week, running in two shifts -- one group working from Monday through Wednesday, another group working from Thursday through Saturday -- and everybody having four days off. This might be true. I doubt it! With God, the totally unheard of breaks out again and again. In fact, we might have to learn to work again. There are thousands of important things that need to be done, that now are not even considered. We may come face to face with a whole new understanding of the service vocations. Under God it can be a "brave new world."
Sadly, we learn from things that have already happened. In The Deputy (New York: Grove Press, 1964) by Rolf Hochhuth, there is an amazing drawing based on the massacre of the Jews by Hitler. Not a single murder in a fit of anger, but years of premeditated, cold-blooded, useless murders by a corporation of intelligent, more or less normal people in our time. (It makes us shudder to think what we might do under pressure.) Six million Jews gassed and shot and beaten and starved and burned. Five thousand a day seemed to be the normal output of Auschwitz; sometimes "on a good day" they reached as many as nine thousand persons destroyed. The fires of Auschwitz: the smoke filled with human stench; the smog; the 24-hour glow and glare of death: thousands of human beings being consumed -- Hell! Hell on Earth! In our time!
When humanity goes mad, what do we do, if we are sensitive to the will of God? What is the will of God for us under the pressure of an impossible situation? According to The Deputy, the Pope, who could have acted effectively, did nothing. Count Fontana, one of the Pope's advisors, and his son, Father Ricardo, pleaded with the Pope to protest to Hitler. The Pope knew the situation, but he was afraid of jeopardizing the political position of the Vatican; and so the German murderers moved in. Even under the shadow of St. Peter's in Rome, they captured Jewish families, parents, grandparents, children, babies, pregnant mothers, some converted Catholics, and shipped them in cattle cars to Auschwitz for their destruction -- and there was no real protest from the Pope.
When we are disappointed by our leaders, do we still have a responsibility to act? Father Ricardo thought so. He joined himself to a family of Jews being shipped from Rome to Auschwitz. He pinned on himself the yellow star of the Jews, thus marking himself for execution. He ministered to the helpless ones; he suffered with them unbelievably. He refused to be released. He gave his life; he died; but his story stands as a witness to courage, to faith, to love, and to the will of God, perceived and acted upon in one phase of the School of Babylon.
We are the people of God. We want His will done; but are we willing to be involved as persons? Do we have the faith and courage to be the Agents of God's will? "When you have been addressed by God, called by your name, claimed," and given a task to do, you are no longer uncertain of your identity. You are yourself -- yourself under the will of God. This is your life! "Now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be." "For every day in the School of Babylon requires new birth."
But how do I know His will for me? The will of God is known in faith. I trust Him, I risk His will, and I begin to have insight into what His will is. In the arena of my life, God wills that I be intelligently responsible; that I be sensitive to Truth and Love; and responsive to His deeper guidance. Then, we might just decide to stay here; for where God's will is done completely -- there is Heaven.
There is a question I can ask myself: "In my situation, what is the real need?" What is the need that I can touch; the real need where I live and where I work; something that I can do something about; something that might be done or ought to be blocked; something that others have passed by because it was "too hot to handle?" What is the need that I behold in my own home? In my professional life? In the lives of my children? In the life of my city? My nation? My world? What is there that can be done within the reach of my competence? Will I continue to be "the priest" and "the Levite," passing by on the other side, or might I become the Good Samaritan, stopping and helping and healing? Jesus whispers to us: "Happy are your eyes because they see, and your ears because they hear."
Paul, in Phillips' translation of Romans 5, shows us that such courage is not a blind alley: "We can be full of joy here and now, even in our trials and troubles." Taken in the right spirit, these very things will give us patient endurance; this in turn will develop a mature character, and a character of this sort will produce a steady hope: a hope that will never disappoint us.
Remember the manger, the life, the cross, the resurrection! In the midst of the battle, pray: "Thy will be done." In the School of Babylon, through my life, even a little bit as it was in Christ! "Thy will be done on earth as it is in Heaven."
Ralph Spaulding Cushman exhorts us:
Set us afire, Lord,
Stir us, we pray!
While the world perishes
We go our way,
Purposeless, passionless,
Day after day.
Set us afire, Lord.
Stir us, we pray.
(from A Pocket Prayer Book and Devotional Guide, Nashville: The Upper Room, 1941)
