Unfortunately, the Book of
Daniel gets very little “air time” in the Episcopal Church. It’s a bit like the
Book of Revelation in this way and for similar reasons. But it is our privilege
to get this bizarre little text today, as we celebrate All Saints Sunday, welcome
a new “saint” into the Body of Christ through Holy Baptism, and gather in and
bless our financial pledges to support this parish in 2026. All of this and
I’ll try to do it in the usual amount of time. Ready?
The Book of Daniel is almost
certainly addressed to a Jewish community in the second century before Christ.
The unknown author is a pious Jew living in a time of severe persecution. The
goal is to encourage fellow believers by telling six stories and sharing four
visions about what it means to be a person of faith living through very
troubling times.
The interesting (and at first
somewhat confusing) thing is that those stories and visions are set in a much
earlier time in history. More than 400 years earlier, in fact; during the days
of the Babylonian exile. The writer, in other words, is making an analogy. So
it’s “once upon a time” there was this
guy Daniel, a guy who lived during through difficult times, without
compromising his faith. You, too, can do the same, the narrator argues; you too
can live through these troubling times with the same kind of courage,
perseverance and trust that Daniel showed.
Sound relevant?
For those of you who may not
be familiar with the stories, I’ll remind you very briefly of my three
favorites. First, there’s the story of Daniel and his friends, who get a
scholarship to attend the King’s College. They are the brightest and best in
their generation. But scholarships like the one they are offered by a foreign
king come with a price. The danger of nice Jewish boys studying in the halls of
Babylonian imperial power is that they will be co-opted by “the system.” The
danger is that they may well forget where they came from and in the process
forget to love God and neighbor. Their scholarships are a full-ride that
includes a wonderful meal plan: the king’s best wines and richest foods. But
Daniel and his friends opt out of that meal plan and instead choose a vegan
diet. It’s a small act of resistance. But it’s a way for them to remember who
they are, and whose they are. And they thrive. In fact they are stronger,
healthier and more vibrant than the Babylonians. God takes care of them, in
other words, and rewards their fidelity.
Then there is the story of
Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego; three Jewish boys who refuse to worship a
golden image that Nebuchadnezzar wants everyone to pay homage to. For their
disobedience they are cast into a fiery furnace. But guess what? They do not
burn up. They are unscathed, protected by a God who rewards fidelity.
And then a law is passed that
prohibits the practicing of Jewish faith. Daniel is set up: his room is bugged and
he is caught praying. His punishment is to be fed to hungry lions. But guess
what? When Daniel is tossed into the den, the lions somehow lose their
appetite. Like Shadrach, Mesach and Abednego he is kept safe and no harm comes
to him.
So we have these children’s
stories, perhaps stories some of you remember from Sunday School, especially if
you grew up in a more evangelical tradition. The message, however, is very
“grown up.” Do not give up the fight! Do not be co-opted by imperial power. Do
not be frightened away from keeping the faith in difficult circumstances. Resist!
Along with the stories there
are also four visions, visions that sound much like the language and visions of
the Book of Revelation in the New Testament. They are somewhat difficult to
understand, but we keep on the right interpretative track when we remember that
the message is the same. The text we heard today marks a shift in the narrative,
away from the tales and into the first of the visions.
Daniel has a nightmare. It’s
about these “beasts,” which is just Biblical code language for abusive
political power. Initially the dream causes “Daniel” no small amount of
anxiety: it “troubles” his spirit and “terrifies” him. Yet the interpretation
of the dream is this: don’t let your nightmares get the best of you, because God is faithful—and God is strong—and God is
bigger than any beast.
The message to Daniel (and
through Daniel to those Jews suffering persecution in the second century before
Christ) is that they must not let their fear get the best of them. They must not give in to terror and anxiety, to their
worst nightmares. Rather, God’s people are called to trust: called to a non-anxious
presence. To remain resolute, determined, and steadfast, even in the face of
persecution. The holy ones, the saints of
God, will receive and possess the kingdom forever and ever, Amen.
Over the centuries, and
especially in anxious times, some people have spent a great deal of energy
trying to “figure out” who the beasts are, here in Daniel as well as in
Revelation. But it isn’t really the point. As I said, the beast is all corrupt
political power that destroys the creatures of God. It does that by instilling
fear and exerting control rather than governing in a way that brings about real
community.
One of the most powerful
liturgical books I’ve ever read was written by a scholar named William
Cavenaugh. It’s about Chile in the 1980s, under the dictatorship of General
Pinochet, entitled Torture and Eucharist. The human rights violations
under Pinochet were brutal. Cavanaugh’s thesis is that torture, especially
state-sanctioned torture that becomes a matter of policy is bigger than the
pain inflicted on individuals. It creates a society that uses fear and terror to
control people, because you never know who is working for whom. You don’t know
who to trust. And so community is destroyed. People are isolated one from
another and scared, all the time.
Cavenaugh’s thesis is that the
antidote to Torture is the Holy Eucharist. That Eucharist isn’t just a
spiritual matter, something we do for our souls for an hour a week. That the
celebration of Holy Communion is never a private matter, but a matter of coming
together in community. Literally about forming Christ’s Body, with many
members. The Table of our Lord is the place where fear is overcome by trust;
where the suffering of a torture victim named Jesus brings healing to all
people and unleashes hope and the courage to resist all other forms of torture
and violence. Perhaps the most provocative line in Cavanaugh’s book is this
one: “torture creates victims; Eucharist creates witnesses.”
Now if we can hold the Book
of Daniel alongside Cavanaugh’s book, then I think we can begin to hear a “Word
of the Lord” for us on this All Saints Sunday. It also opens for us a much more
powerful way of understanding Sin, and the ways that it truly does “destroy the
creatures of God.” We will promise
today, along with Cameron’s parents and godparents, to stand against Sin and
with the One who calls us to new life.
“The beasts” keep changing.
The issue isn’t that there are “four”—I bet we could come up with four hundred
if we brainstormed a few minutes. It might be the Roman Empire that puts to
death a rabbi from Galilee because he refuses to live his life in fear. But
that isn’t the end of the story. Or Nazi Germany where people like Dietrich
Bonhoeffer who resisted even when it cost them their lives. “The beast” might
be the South African apartheid government; where people like Nelson Mandela and
Desmond Tutu and Steven Biko did not give up hope or buckle under to fear and
intimidation. “The beast” might be the Soviet government—imprisoning its
artists and poets and visionaries in the gulags under the mistaken belief that
if you send the poets away you will shut them up. Yet people like Alexander Solzeneitzen
continued to write their stories and find a way to get them out. You can come
up with way more than four examples, right up to the present day, of regimes
that give us nightmares, of visions that keep us living in fear.
But that’s not the narrative
around which we are called to organize our lives. We have another story to
tell: the story of Daniel in the lion’s den and Shadrach, Mishak and Abednego
in the fiery furnace. It’s the same story we tell each week in the Eucharistic
Prayer and through the Sacramental life of the Church, where we are being
called to organize our lives around the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus
Christ. So that we are creating not victims, but witnesses.
There is no room in the
church for denial. This is not a little “escape” from the “real” world. Rather,
we gather in resistance—and even perhaps in defiance—across political
differences and ideological divides, because we know that beneath and beyond
all those other stories there is a deeper truth still. Not a “spiritual”
reality but an incarnate reality; an embodied reality. For we have been claimed
and marked and sealed by a God who is faithful. And we therefore need not live
in fear. We have been marked as Christ’s own--forever. Forever.
That means that Holy Baptism
is about so much more than finding an occasion to throw a nice party. It
suggests that the baptized community that shares the Eucharist together is bound together and knit
together as an alternative reality in the midst of a violent world. So that at
the Table we can be made into witnesses, not victims. We have been placed among
a great cloud of witnesses, bound together across generational, political,
ideological, nationalistic lines. By God’s Holy Word we are empowered to trust
that God is with us, even in trying times, and especially in trying times. We
need not be afraid…
Today as we celebrate Cameron’s
baptism we renew our own commitments to live by those promises, to resist the
Evil One and to love God and neighbor one day at a time. Before we share the
bread and the cup we will gather up our pledge cards and bless them. They don’t
represent joining a club or paying a tax. They represent our generous offerings
used to build up the Body of Christ here at St. Michael’s, so that we might share
this work to which we have been called in this time and place, blessed by the
example of the witnesses who have gone before us.
We recommit ourselves on this
All Saints Sunday to live by trust and not fear, to create witnesses, not
victims. We get a foretaste of what is to come, by God’s grace. May our life
together inspire hope and unleash courage and wisdom for the living of these
days.
