Sermon: Daniel 5, “Weighed and Found Wanting,” October 5, 2025

Scripture: Daniel 5

Preacher: Rev. Ryan Slifka

 Title: “Weighed and Found Wanting”

Here we are again in our sermon series “Faith in Exile” on the Old Testament book of Daniel.

This week we’ve got Belshazzar, a successor to the throne of Babylon, holding an opulent feast for all his lords. So opulent they’re drinking from goblets stolen from the Jerusalem temple. It’s caviar and cocktails, and plenty of concubines. Think the late Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi’s “bunga bunga” parties. Or Diddy’s freak-offs, maybe.

Then suddenly a giant disembodied hand appears in the air. With one of its fingers it etches these words on the wall: “Mene, mene, tekel, peres.” The king’s terrified, and—as usual—none of his magicians know what it means. So he consults Daniel, the wise Jew as to what it means. And it’s not good:

“Mene,” says Daniel: “God has numbered the days of your kingdom and it’s over.

Tekel: you’ve been weighed on the scales of divine judgment, and found wanting.

Peres: your kingdom is getting chopped in half and given over to two of your rivals, the Persians and Medes.”

And that’s exactly what happens. That night the king is killed. And Darius the Mede takes over at the age of 62 years old.

The words on the wall are all punny double meanings, involving weights and currency. Basically, the king measures his life by the size of his banquet, the number of his soldiers and the quality of his concubines. But he’s been using the wrong yardstick. And the result? He loses it all, including his life. Mene mene tekel peres. His life is weighed and found wanting.

What do we measure our lives by? What do you measure your life by?

Some of us measure our lives in the same way. Wealth—whether it’s in cash or the size of our stock portfolios. How many banquets we can throw or the quality of the palaces we possess (aka real estate). Our sexual satisfaction (though not necessarily with concubines). Or power—how high we’ve made it up the career ladder. How successful, influential or how lauded we are.

And there are others. What it means to be a good parent. What it means to be a loving spouse. We measure ourselves by our health, by our emotional well-being, by our spiritual wellness. By our beauty, or lack-thereof. Some measure by the inverse of the injustice of Belshazzar. Some of us measure ourselves by our victimhood. We measure ourselves by how much we do—or don’t do—for the marginalized. By the rightness of our values. And our political stances.

Not all of this is bad, of course. But whatever we are measuring ourselves by, it never does feel enough, does it? And even if we do, doesn’t it feel kind of empty…? Like, no matter how we weigh ourselves, we go wanting. Even though I have everything I always wanted—feels like something’s missing. I ate right, exercised everyday—but still got cancer. I followed all the trustworthy parenting influences, and yet, somehow my kid’s a mess. What did I do or not do, to tip the scales like this?

I mean, the outcome may not be death and the loss of a kingdom. But we know something about weighing our own lives. And going wanting.

Now, at this point you might be expecting me to say something like, well you may not measure up, but let me show you how you can.

I wish! But unfortunately, today’s scripture suggests is that the only truly important measure of our lives is God. For Christians, specifically the God we meet in Jesus Christ.

A few years ago a gentleman told me he’d given up his Judaism because he thought it was too hard, too full of rules. He told me Jesus had it right when he trimmed it down to two: “love God and love your neighbour.” “Now,” he said, “that’s doable.”

I failed to point out to him that these commandments actually come from the Old Testament. And that Jesus isn’t dropping the number of commandments, but he’s making those to the ones that everything else is judged by. And not only that, but it’s not just “love God,” but “love God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength.” And not just “love your neighbour” but “love your neighbour as yourself.”

Sure we can love God… but with everything we’ve got? The totality of our being? And sure, we can love our neighbours. But as much as we love ourselves? Compound that with all other stuff Jesus says. Love your enemies, and bless those who persecute you. Turn the other cheek. Forgive seventy-times seven. Take everything you’ve got and give it to the poor. Don’t just avoid committing adultery–even thinking about adultery is a form of adultery. Take up your cross and die to yourself. And oh yeah, and be perfect as your father in heaven is perfect. And if you do think you’re perfect, well then you’re actually full of prideful self-justification. Like, if we’re to take Jesus seriously, how many of us can actually measure up?

According to the scriptures—none!

“If you were to take an account of all of our sins,” says the Psalm. “who could stand?”[i] The Apostle Paul quotes another one of the Psalms when he says this: “no one is righteous… not one.” It doesn’t say except for Christians. It doesn’t say except for all the bad people. No! Again, Paul. “All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.” All!

Like, if Jesus is the scale, Jesus is the model of goodness, none of us could ever possibly measure up. We will never be enough, or do enough, to fully live up to our calling as creatures of God. It’s like the height sign thingy at the pool. But no matter how high we stretch our spirits, we’ll just never meet the mark. All of our lives have been measured by God. And found wanting.

Now, I know this all sounds pretty bleak. Like, what’s the point of even trying if the thing’s impossible? I recently read The Narnian, a biography of the great author C.S. Lewis in a letter to a friend he said that this is what made him leave Christianity in his teens. He just couldn’t ever meet the divine quota, and he was tired of living under a weight of perpetual guilt. Guilt he could do nothing to relieve.

The thing about the Christian gospel, though, is that even though our lives can never possibly measure up, we believe that a whole new system of measurement has been introduced into our world. Some of you are old enough to remember the transition from the imperial system with inches and quarts and pounds to metric with millimeters and litres and kilograms. It’s like that, but we no longer quantify ourselves by the calculus of good or bad karma. We no longer weigh ourselves by the scales of justice or injustice. No, the little rulers on our hearts have been etched with one single unit called grace. And it’s infinite.

Because even though, like King Belshazzar, we have all the wrong priorities. Even though like Belshazzar, we’re seduced by all the wrong evaluations. Even though like him all of our lives, ALL OF THEM, have been weighed and found wanting, on the cross, Jesus Christ has taken the full weight of it all. Even though the sentence was certain death. The death we are all owed for not measuring up. And has exchanged it all for resurrection. And eternal life.

I know this idea has always rubbed some us the wrong way. The idea that God is so mean that he’s gotta take his eldest son out to the woodshed to spare us his brothers and sisters. You’re right—that’s sick. But it’s also a distortion. Because the idea isn’t that God punishes someone else instead of us, but that it’s God in the flesh taking the consequences of sin for us. God in Christ has stepped right into the breach on our behalf. The great Swiss theologian Karl Barth uses the image of judge who comes down from his bench and takes the convict’s sentence for him. The judge who is judged in our place.

All of your sins, all of mine. All the ways you’ve never measured up. All the ways you’ve fallen short. All the ways you’ve never done enough, been enough. It’s all been put to death. Nailed to the cross of Christ. The writing on the wall is no longer condemnation. But the words “forgiven.” The words “mercy,” and “love.” Written in the blood of the Creator of the universe herself.

Why? Not for anything we’ve done or could do. But out of pure, self-giving love. Remember that classic old Charles Wesley hymn. “Amazing love, how can this be? That thou my God wouldst die for me?”

What a relief! An end to all our endless self-justification, virtue signalling, and guilt and shame! An end to all our ceaseless striving, and countless disappointment! What a relief!

It's liable to change the way we see ourselves, yes. But also the way we see and treat others. Because when you believe this dear friends, when YOU begin to believe this… it’s liable to change the way you see everything.

A couple weeks ago I was in Vancouver for the Chancellor’s Dinner at the Vancouver School of Theology. This year’s speaker was Benjamin Perrin, a professor at UBC’s school of law gave a talk titled “Jesus, Justice and Mercy.” Perrin was, at one time, an advisor in the Prime Minister’s office, and he described himself not simply “tough on crime,” but “pro-punishment.” Basically, he believed that most issues could be fixed with harsher sentences and more retributive consequences.

But that all changed when he found himself in a difficult place in his life and decided to return to his childhood faith. As he read through the entire Bible, he experienced a sense of divine conviction. Here he encountered a Jesus who loved the worst of humanity so much that he would die for them—the very criminals Perrin wrote off as scum of the earth. He said he’d come to realize that Jesus had died in his place for his own sin. His, life, like Belshazzar’s, had been weighed and found wanting, and yet Jesus had shown him mercy. It made him want to measure others, even the worst criminals, not by their own virtues or vices, but the Lord’s love for them. How can we treat people this way in prison when they are people for whom Christ went to hell and back to save?

His internal calculator was being refurbished by the Holy Spirit. Being renovated by that wonderful word: grace. It not only changed the way he measured himself. But how he quantified the dignity and worth of other people. That’s what happens. When we start to measure our lives, not by the world’s standards, by the mercy and grace of the living God.

As followers of Jesus, we have been given this tremendous freedom. The freedom to take all the weights and measures of the world, all those things we judge our lives by, and toss them out the window. All the performance indicators of whether we’re strong enough, good enough, smart enough. Whether we’re healthy enough, or wealthy enough. Whether we’re the victims of others or of circumstances beyond our control. Whether we’ve succeeded or been total failures. Whether we’ve got the right politics, or the wrong ideas, have pristine spouses, or are perfect parents.

Though we have all been measured and found wanting, there is One who deems us worthy. Not based on our own merits or our deserving: the fact that that out of pure love, the Creator of the universe would die for us, declaring us his own forever.

So drop the scales of judgment my friends, and pick up the only criteria that matters: a cross. That divine measurement we call grace. Not only for your sake, but the sake of your neighbour.

In the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit

[i] Psalm 130:3.