Sermon 13 November 2016 – Evensong – Daniel 6; Matthew 13: 1 – 9, 18 – 23; Psalm 97
I wonder if you, like me, have fond memories of the story of Daniel in the Lions’ Den from your earliest school days? The first six chapters of the book of Daniel are full of wonderful stories. We used them here for one of our children’s summer holiday clubs a couple of years ago -and they made great dramas for the children to act. Daniel in the lions’ den, Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego and the burning fiery furnace, and Belshazzar’s feast. One commentator says that the world of Daniel is perhaps “about as congenial to our daily experience as the Arabian Nights”. Curiously I suspect that this may be less true in our unpredictable 21st century world than it was in the 20th century when my commentary was written. As Rowan Williams said at the Donald Barnes Memorial lecture on Dietrich Bonhoeffer last Wednesday – I know a number of people from Hampstead Parish Church attended this – ours is an “insane political world”.
So – how does the book of Daniel speak to us in our times?
There has been much scholarly debate about the origins of the book. However, it is likely that it was written for the Jewish people at a time when they were a tiny persecuted minority struggling to survive in the face of an imperial policy committed to eliminating Judaism. It is also most likely that the story of Daniel is not historical, but based on an ancient heroic figure. Daniel’s story is intended to bring a message of hope to an audience in difficult times.
The story is set in the time of the Babylonian and Persian empires, the 5th and 6th centuries BC. Daniel is one of a group of young Jewish men from noble families who have been selected to be brought to live at the court of King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon and to receive special training there. He is outstanding in many ways and rises to high office under both Nebuchadnezzar and later kings, including Darius, the Persian.
To bring in our second reading this evening, the parable of the sower, Daniel is also clearly someone whose heart proves to be ‘good soil’ as far as his understanding and living out of his faith is concerned. None of his enemies can find any reason to denounce him to the king because he is faithful and honest in his service. In this sense one might also see him as a type or a prefiguring of Christ who was innocent and yet condemned. The only way to get rid of Daniel is by using his absolute faithfulness to his God as a means of tricking Darius into condemning him.
King Darius’ edict that everyone should worship only himself puts Daniel into an impossible position. Should he deny his faith or disobey his king?
As a critic of Nazi Germany and a supporter of the confessing church which opposed Hitler’s national church, Dietrich Bonhoeffer elected to return to Germany at the outbreak of the Second World War. So he certainly had experience of being forced into an impossible position by events around him. He was a pastor and theologian. Despite being a pacifist he became a double agent, was implicated in a plot to assassinate Hitler, was imprisoned and was executed in 1945. Before his death he wrote that he considered that these actions would mean that his pastoral ministry would be compromised. He would not have felt able to continue it had he lived. His great theological work was on ethics, but he had no easy answers to offer to such dilemmas as he faced. He believed that we have to make our decisions, often between two different evils, in a complex world, trusting only that in Christ our inevitable sin has been dealt with. For Bonhoeffer, in some circumstances there may be no absolutely morally good way in which we can act, and we have to accept this.
Daniel, however, is the hero in a story. He prays, ostentatiously, to His God and is delivered from the lions and reinstated to an even higher position by a grateful King Darius. However, the real miracle of the story as well as its chief message is Darius’ decree:
People are to ‘tremble and fear’ before the God of Daniel because “he is the living God, enduring for ever. His kingdom shall never be destroyed, and his dominion has no end.” (v26).
Both the fictional character Daniel and the theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer exhibited great courage in their particular difficult circumstances. Perhaps in their different ways we can allow them both to encourage us to live confidently and trusting in God as we navigate our way through the difficulties of the early 21st century.
Despite appearances, God is in charge. This was the message for the struggling people of Israel, but it also holds true for us. In other words – Do not settle for the status quo. Do not settle for the world as it is being presented to us by the media. Do not settle for the inevitability of what is said to be inevitable. We can hope for more than this. God will triumph. Because we believe this to be true and certain, we can live courageously now, and move with courage into a better future.
Amen