I Know Who I Am (part One)

I Don’t Care What You Call Me, I Don’t Care What You Say About Me, I Know Who I Am .

(Special Edition, Part 1)

Daniel 1: 6-17; 3:1-18

They were young men, probably about from thirteen to seventeen years old. Their names were Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah. Hananiah means “YAH has been gracious.” Mishael means “Who is like God is?” Azariah means “YAH has helped.” Their names all had the name of God --Yah and El-- all up in them. (El is the Creator name. Yah is the name God answered Moses when he asked Him who He was.)

J. Regina Blackwell

But they were captured by the Babylonians, and Nebuchadnezzar decided to indoctrinate the young men, to divorce them from their home and culture. Very probably the first thing the king commanded was that all of the captive young Israelites become neutered. By neutered, I mean that the young men had had their stones removed. How many of y’all know what I mean by “stones”? Raise your hands. Keep them up! Y’all who don’t know what I mean, look around at your sisters, note those who have their hands raised, and ask them because I’m not explaining that anymore, except to say this: Along with the rape of the enemy’s women and the murder of the enemy’s children, ripping open pregnant women and killing the unborn, making eunuchs of young men is deliberately calculated to destroy a culture. A eunuch cannot father children. This operation, along with rape and murder, signals the destruction of generations. They had to call Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah eunuchs. But you know what? “I Don’t Care What You Call Me; I Don’t Care What You Say About Me; I Know Who I Am.”

The next step was to change the young men’s names to Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. Shadrach means “Illuminated by the Moon God”; Meshach means “Who is what Aku is?” and Abednego means “Servant of Abu.” Like the previous operation, the king changed their names against their will. The young men’s names originally represented their relationship to the Lord God Yahweh.  The Babylon name changes represented their relationship to Nebuchadnezzar’s favorite gods. But you know what? Just because the king called those boys Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, just because the bible calls those boys Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, just because TODAY, we call those boys Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, it does not therefore mean that when those boys were alone that they called themselves Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. Of course, that’s not bible. It’s just my opinion. “I Don’t Care What You Call Me; I Don’t Care What You Say About Me; I Know Who I Am.”

The next step was to change the young men’s diet. You become, you know, what you ingest. (We say, “You are what you eat.”) But this is true of more than food, Beloved. What you read, what you watch on TV or the movies, what your friends –and enemies-- say in your ear, what your mind rests on –these things can also be ingested. And just as some food is poisonous, other things I can ingest are poisonous as well. They can change who I am. But Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah just flat refused to eat the king’s food or drink his wine. Having already gotten favor with the chief of the eunuchs, Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah requested, and received, permission to eat only vegetables for a trial period. And y’all know the story: After ten days, they looked better than the young men who had eaten the king’s delicacies. These boys were faithful to what they knew. So who they were was manifesting itself. “I Don’t Care What You Call Me; I Don’t Care What You Say About Me; I Know Who I Am.”

Not only did they look better than the other young men; Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah were found to be “ten times better than all the magicians and astrologers that were in all of [Nebuchadnezzar’s] realm.” I said who they were was manifesting itself. “I Don’t Care What You Call Me; I Don’t Care What You Say About Me; I Know Who I Am.”