“Trusting in Troubled Times”                                     January 31, 2010
Daniel 6:  10–23                                                        The Rev. Dr. Beth Braxton

Intro to scripture: Daniel is a “hero story” of faith at the time of the Exile. Daniel 6 is a story of conflict between the successful Jewish courtier to the Persian King Darius–that would be Daniel, and his detractors and rivals in the court. Also it is a story of contest between immutable laws: “the law of the Medes and the Persians, which cannot be revoked” (v. 8) and the law of Daniel’s God. It is an example story of God’s wondrous working through his chosen servant against great odds.

Read scripture:

Although Daniel knew that the document had been signed, he continued to go to his house, which had windows in its upper room open toward Jerusalem, and to get down on his knees three times a day to pray to his God and praise him, just as he had done previously. The conspirators came and found Daniel praying and seeking mercy before his God. Then they approached the king and said concerning the interdict, “O king! Did you not sign an interdict, that anyone who prays to anyone, divine or human, within thirty days except to you, O king, shall be thrown into a den of lions?” The king answered, “The thing stands fast, according to the law of the Mēdes and Persians, which cannot be revoked.” Then they responded to the king, “Daniel, one of the exiles from Judah, pays no attention to you, O king, or to the interdict you have signed, but he is saying his prayers three times a day.”

When the king heard the charge, he was very much distressed. He was determined to save Daniel, and until the sun went down he made every effort to rescue him. Then the conspirators came to the king and said to him, “Know, O king, that it is a law of the Mēdes and Persians that no interdict or ordinance that the king establishes can be changed.”

Then the king gave the command, and Daniel was brought and thrown into the den of lions. The king said to Daniel, “May your God, whom you faithfully serve, deliver you!” A stone was brought and laid on the mouth of the den, and the king sealed it with his own signed and with the signet of his lords, so that nothing might be changed concerning Daniel. Then the king went to his palace and spent the night fasting; no food was brought to him, and sleep fled from him.

Then, at break of day, the king got up and hurried to the den of lions. When he came near the den where Daniel was, he cried out anxiously to Daniel, “O Daniel, servant of the living God, has your God whom you faithfully serve been able to deliver you from the lions?” Daniel then said to the king, O king, live forever! My God sent his angel and shut the lions’ mouths so that they would not hurt me, because I was found blameless before him; and also before you, O king, I have done no wrong.” Then the king was exceedingly glad and commanded that Daniel be taken up out of the den. So Daniel was taken up out of the den, and no kind of harm was found on him, because he had trusted in his God.

How do you build trust in a child? How do you build that confident expectation that the child can be relied on? How do you foster reliance on one’s integrity, strength and ability? How do you build trust?

First you prove yourself trustworthy, don’t you? You model it.

When your children are very young you touch, hold, love them so they feel secure. You establish routines that are dependable. As they grow, you do what you say. If you say you are going to be home early to play ball with your son, then you are home early to play ball with your son. If you say that you are going to take your daughter to the museum on Saturday, then you follow through with your promise and take her to the museum on Saturday. We build trust through providing the routine things that can be counted on–a meal on the table each night, help with homework, a bedtime story and prayers. These routines build a sense of security that a child can count on. Then, you trust them to be trustworthy.

I was impressed with one of our confirmands when describing his father said, “he trusts me; he lets me do x,y,z. He knows I will not get into trouble; he trusts me.” It reminded me of what my mother said to me when I was a teenager. She asked me when I was leaving to go on an outing with my friends–when will you be back? She did not say–“You will be back at 10:00 pm.” She put the responsibility on me. So if I said I’d be back at 10:00 pm then you better be sure I was back at 10:00pm because it was my word, my promise and I did not want to disappoint or lose my parent’s trust. We build trust by trusting.

Then what are the enemies of trust? Fear. Fear is primary–we are fearful that something will happen that wasn’t planned. We are fearful they might get hurt. Suspicion–we are suspicious about the friends they are with, are suspicious that they won’t make good judgments. Jealousy is also a factor. We are jealous that they enjoy their friend’s time more than time at home. We are jealous the friend’s home that it is more attractive than ours. Fear, suspicion, jealousy are all factors in diminishing trust.

The prophet Daniel is having some of the same problems with the friends he worked with. We learned from earlier chapters that Daniel is one of the three “presidents” placed over the satraps, of which there are 120. Daniel because of his extraordinary spirit that was in him so outshone the other chief ministers and the satraps, that the king was inclined to set him over the whole kingdom. Of course this brought jealousy, big time! The others are also fearful of his abilities; he out shines them. They are suspicious of what this might mean for them; he is a foreigner and a Jew. They are suspicious of his ethnic difference. They are jealous of the possibility of him getting prime leadership! They just don’t trust this guy. So they plotted how they could do him in.–I mean do him in for good! They knew they couldn’t pin anything on him–he was too virtuous. So they decide to trap him with a law, actually between two laws.

In verse 7 it says, “All the presidents of the kingdom, the prefects and the satraps, the counselors and the governors are agreed that the king should establish an ordinance and enforce an interdict, that whoever prays to anyone, divine or human, for thirty days, except to you, O king, shall be thrown into a den of lions.” And king Darius signed the document.

But Daniel in an act of civil disobedience did what he always did–knelt down and prayed three times a day to Yahweh! He did not hide his behavior–the window was open–anyone could see.

Now, wouldn’t you think that Daniel would be afraid that he would lose his good job, his reputation and all the prestige he had, not just with the lowly people, but with the king himself! Wouldn’t you think that out of fear of losing his good salary and benefits of this important position, that he would at least hide his praying!? Prayer is such an easy thing to hide! But he chooses not to hide.

Therefore, Daniel gets caught between two laws–the law of Moses that says–thou shalt have no other gods and the civic law of the government to pray to no one but king Darius. It was not an issue for Daniel; he followed the law of his faith and trusted God–no question!

*****

Mahatma Gandhi declared Daniel to be on of the greatest passive resisters that ever lived. He was particularly intrigued with this sixth chapter of Daniel, the story of Daniel in the lion’s den. In his earliest article referring to Daniel, Gandhi suggested that Daniel was a model of resistance to South African “pass laws” for Indian South Africans. It is interesting to see how Gandhi used the Daniel theme when he stated that the Indians should “sit with their doors flung wide open and tell those gentlemen (South African authorities) that what ever laws they passed were not for them unless those laws were from God.”

Clearly Gandhi assumed that Daniel had actually flung open the windows in flagrant disregard of Darius’s decree against prayers to any god but the king: “When Daniel disregarded the laws of the Medes and Persians which offended his conscience and meekly suffered the punishment for his disobedience, he illustrates civil disobedience in its purest form.” Gandhi also stressed that Daniel was model citizen. He had no ill will towards his persecutor. Clearly a story can have different understanding depending on where you are reading it. From a South African prison, Daniel 6 made perfect sense to one engaged in nonviolent resistance to unjust laws. Perhaps this is a clue to the reordering of our own reading of this text. Stories of resistance were written by a community of the Diaspora who faced such trials often enough to identify with the fate of the heroes in a story like Daniel. The lion’s den serves as a metaphor of both unjust punishment and imprisonment for a people in exile.

RESISTANCE AND TRUST–there is resistance to the unjust law and trust in God!

Martin Luther King, Jr. read Gandhi in seminary and Gandhi’s non-violent resistance in India to British rule made a deep impression on King.

In one of King’s early speeches he addresses a congregation relating how he became involved in the civil rights movement. He returned home from a steering committee meeting at this church in Montgomery, Alabama, around midnight. The phone rang; an ugly voice said in substance, “Nigger, we are tired of you and your mess now. If you are not out of this town in three days we are gong to blow your brains our and blow up your house.”

“I had received many such phone calls, Dr. King continues, but for some reason that night I couldn’t sleep.  I got up and got a cup of coffee and I started thinking.  I thought of my beautiful little daughter just born.  I thought of my dedicated, devoted, loyal wife – thinking about how they could be taken away from me.  I couldn’t take it any longer.  I became weak.  Something inside me said I couldn’t call on my Daddy up in Atlanta any more.  I had to call on that something in the Person that Daddy taught me about, that Power that can make a way out of no way.  I discovered that religion had to become real to me.  I had to know God for myself.  I bowed down over that cup of coffee and prayed.  I heard the voice of Jesus saying, Lo, I am with you always; I’ll never leave you alone..  I’ll never, no never, leave you alone.”

RESISTANCE AND TRUST! King resisted the unjust laws in our country and trusted in God’s love and mercy and forgiveness.

*****

I recently saw the movie, Invictus about the life of Nelson Mandela at the time of his release from a 27 year prison confinement and his ascent to the office of President of South Africa. Mandela demonstrates no animosity toward his former captors, but he wants to build trust and national unity; he decides that the game of rugby, which was a symbol of all that was white, dominating and exclusive, might be a way to start. He meets with the captain of the rugby team, Pienaar and affirms his leadership style to lead by example. Mandela then astonishes the captain, Pienaar with the idea that his mediocre team could win the World Cup. There is one scene when Pienaar is getting ready for the final rugby game for the World Cup and he is talking or rather thinking out loud with his girl friend–(what you need to know is that Mandela had arranged the week before for the whole team to go to Robben Island Prison where he was imprisoned for the 27 years.) “He (meaning President Mandela) lived in that 7.5 by 7.5 cell for almost thirty years and he forgives us!” He is overwhelmed with this fact.

Mandela’s interest in and encouragement of this captain of the rugby team, who has grown up as a white elite oppressing the likes of Mandela, speaks volumes to this young man. He saw that Mandela trusted in the law of God’s forgiveness, not in the law of revenge or exclusivity that had imprisoned so many. It was this energy of goodness that propelled him and his team in this final game.

RESISTANCE AND TRUST! Resisting the injustice of hate and revenge and trusting in a God of forgiveness!

I don’t think any of us have seen more devastating pictures than those of the earthquake in Haiti two weeks ago. People have loss not only relatives and loved ones, but their homes, their churches, their hospitals their banks and some of them have lost parts of their own bodies. So the image just as amazing is a group of Haitian people raising hands to heaven and praising God! One old woman who had been trapped in the ruins of the cathedral a whole week, was singing when they pulled her out. These Haitians are resisting the depression of all that is wrong and trusting in the power of God to rebuild! RESISTANCE AND TRUST!

Daniel trusted God and continued his prayers of thanksgiving even as he knew the consequences of his behavior–sure death in the lion’s den. BUT–Do you think that Daniel knew what the real consequence of his faithful witness would mean? The conversion of King Darius. The king was already enamored by Daniel’s stellar ethic, but Daniel’s witness to not back down from his God, so impressed the king that after he saw that Daniel’s God even protected him from the jaws of the lions, he made a new decree that people should be in awe, in fear and trembling before the God of Daniel; for “he is the living God, enduring forever!” (v. 26)

Look at the consequence of Daniel’s behavior!–his witness influenced Mahatma Gandhi, who influenced Dr. King, who influenced countless others, Mandela and so many more!!

How about your witness? What does this story say to you about your testimony of faith? about the consequences of your behavior? Is your first allegiance to God, no matter what? Do we trust in the God of our creation and redemption? Or do we have to admit that your trust is in our economic markets, your trust is in your education, your trust is in your own skills, your trust is in others who you rely on? In troubled times who do you trust? Trusting God when all is going well is an easy task. But when things are not going well, in whom do you put your trust?

I had lunch recently with someone who has lost his job and has been job hunting for some time, a gifted talented man. He told me, it’s like the God of four buckets: God won’t, God can’t, God doesn’t care, God is working against me. God won’t help me get a job, God can’t help me get a job, God doesn’t care if I get a job, God is actively working against me to get a job. I think the latter is what he is feeling the most at this time. My guilt is that at the time I did not offer a change of metaphor,

so I offer it here–God is not the bucket. God is the wellspring! God is the wellspring of our thirst for all that is good and whole. Draw from the well; never stop trusting; the living water is there for you! Even let the community of God the living water draw for you when your trust level is low. Trust in the wellspring of a living God that never runs dry! Daniel did! Thanks be to God!