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Fidelity with Lions
Sermon by Andrew Plocher
November 25, 2007, Presbyterian Church of Chestnut Hill

Daniel 6:19-28
Philippians 2:1-13

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. The king gave a command, and those who had accused Daniel were brought and thrown into the den of lions—they, their children, and their wives. Before they reached the bottom of the den the lions overpowered them and broke all their bones in pieces.

For just a moment imagine the last time that you were accused of something, maybe it the last time you actually did something wrong or maybe you were wrongfully accused. Now put yourself in the lions’ den. Maybe it is the feeling of the principal’s office, the boss’ office, getting mugged at gunpoint, or being caught in a lie by a loved one. It’s not a pleasant place to be. The lions are hungry, the pit is dark and dank: death is imminent. Now, devout Presbyterians that we are, we decide to pray. But even more astonishingly, the tattletale, the loved one, the mugger decides to pray, “Please God, I made a mistake, spare them”. And God hears! God sends an angel and closes the mouth of the lion and spares us. God grabs us from the reaches of death. But then, somewhere in the darkness the mugger finds someone else to rob, a new lie is told, and someone dies.

It’s hard to draw a further parallel without getting uncomfortable. We could say that our prayers allowed the fire alarm to go off before the big test, caused a crisis for our boss, …someone else was mugged at gun point, someone else was caught in a lie, someone else was wrongly accused, someone else got sent to the principals office. Someone else. Not me.

This is the untold story of Daniel in the lions’ den. The lions are not in our lectionary. The story of God saving Daniel is told to children and adults, but we never get to hear the last verse. For years we have heard the edited, “television,” version of the story. Someone else died, not Daniel. Not us. True, Daniel was innocent and God was on his side (with a little help from a repentant king), but how many times do we wish harm upon those that have hurt us? We like to think that, “they had it coming to them, “ or that, “it serves them right.” Yet how did we feel in the lions’ den? Why didn’t Daniel say, “gee. Thanks, God. Now could you get Darius to stop throwing people in the pit?”

If the numbers translate correctly, 122 men and their wives and children were thrown into the pit. God saved his faithful Daniel at the loss of hundreds of unfaithful persons. Darius, in the name of God, killed the unfaithful, the infidels, those that tried to hurt Daniel. If this sounds scarily familiar, I think it should. We live in a country with the largest prison system in the world, in a country where our leaders sometimes speak out of faith and what they believe God wants, in a country where those that accuse us for being intolerant and hypocritical are the ones that we try to wall out, filibuster, or send away. We may praise the rehabilitation of prisoners and sex offenders, just as long as they don’t live near us. We verbally condemn poverty and violence, yet come home to suburban houses, safe streets and food on the table. We let others serve us, cleaning, cooking, driving, and breaking a sweat so that we don’t have to. We live in a world with the constant other. A world of those that we might have a grievance against, might never know, might not even care about. The other, the 122, multiplies by the thousands and millions in our world: not as those that try to incriminate us for our faith, but that are placed in our stead. The working poor, the homeless, the service employee, even our peers: we let them climb into the lions’ den that we have made it out of. For Darius’ sins it was Daniel, and for Daniel’s release it was the 122.

I do not mean this as a political statement. All parties, all economic brackets, all peoples can see themselves in this lions’ den mirror. Different ethical models can even validate the loss of one life for the gain of other life. For decades, good and faithful scholars have chosen to speak about the triumph of Daniel’s faith and ignore the exchange of life.

Yet I think that the triumph of Daniel’s faith can only be meaningful in the exchange of life. As the chapters prior to Daniel’s adventure with lions testify, he was a man known for his wisdom and his faith. He prayed three times a day and became a confidant and advisor to the king. He interpreted dreams and by giving the praise to God, directed Darius, the king, to a faith in and praise of Daniel’s God, the God of Israel: our God. His rescue is a miracle. It is an act of faith. It does inspire us to lead a better life of prayer. Yet, I think that it also leads us back to fidelity with God.

For Daniel, faithfulness is centered in prayer. The reason he is thrown into the lions’ den is his faithfulness to prayer: he refuses to spend the next thirty days praying to king Darius rather than to God. And even more so, Daniel has a profound understanding of prayer. One of my favorite theologians, Soren Kierkegaard, wrote this about prayer, and I believe it is what Daniel understands:

“The earthly minded person thinks and imagines that when he prays, the important thing, the thing that he must concentrate upon, is that God should hear what he is praying for. And yet in the true, eternal sense it is just the reverse: the true relation in prayer is not when God hears what is prayed for, but when the person praying continues to pray until he is the one who hears, who hears what God is asking for.”

This time of year we are reminded by turkey and family, and by society and church, of the thanks we give now and throughout the year. We often give thanks for the things in our lives, the people and communities, the comforts and privileges, and for all of creation. Yet in reflection with Daniel, there is prayer beyond asking for help and giving thanks. Daniel’s prayer, the prayer that Kierkegaard wrote about, is a prayer of, “what next, God?” What am I, what are we, as Christians called to be and do in this world. What is God asking of us?

Paul speaks of someone who does this very act, listening in prayer, in his letter to the Philippians. Listening so well, that he becomes the fodder of the lions. Let me read the passage for you again.

“Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited, but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness. And being found in human form, he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death— even death on a cross. Therefore God also highly exalted him and gave him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bend, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.”

Christ Jesus took on the form of the other so that we might be lifted out of the lions’ den. He did so willingly, intentionally, and prayerfully. We are called to be of that same mind. To put ourselves with the other. We are asked to pray so that we might hear what God is asking of us, whether that means we climb out of the lions’ den or into it.

The question of Daniel’s salvation is not really a story about the ethics of putting someone else into the lions’ den. It is about knowing the cost of death and being prepared to go to the lions’ den if that is what is asked of our faith. Daniel lead a life of prayer, and in doing so was able to see what was asked of him. He trusted God with his life, not his choices alone, but God’s choices for him. By this, Daniel was able to go into the lions’ den, holding fast to faith, without protest, believing firmly that his prayers and his trust in God would guide him whether into death or sustained in life. Do we trust God enough to face the knowledge that unless we are prepared to go with the ‘other’ we have not been of one mind with Christ? I do not mean that we are called to be in prison or experience a mugging, to fail on behalf of others or become a martyr. We are, however, called to be with others: to turn the other into a neighbor—a brother and a sister.

In the liturgical calendar today is the day that we celebrate Christ the king. It is hard to see Christ as a king in Paul’s description in Philippians: a king is not usually the one who suffers so much. As Marva Dawn, in a book entitled “Talking the Walk” about recovering the language of Christianity, says,

…Jesus did not suffer only under Pontius Pilate or merely when He died. Jesus’ birth involved the sufferings of poverty, of scandal, of a smelly manger and scratchy hay. Jesus suffered as a refugee from Herod, as a teacher misunderstood by both His family and His closest disciples, as a homeless traveling rabbi constantly worn out by pushy crowds and harassing religious leaders. (p. 144)

Our King is the one, the Son of God, who suffered and died. Our king is the one that became the other for us that we might be glorified. What kind of king is that? One that acts out of love, unconditional and eternal love. God listens to our prayers, but God also wants us to seek God in prayer.

Being faithful in prayer means listening for what God is asking of us and accepting the consequences. The danger of this is many fold. If we dare to be like Daniel we might be inconvenienced by our convictions, feel the embarrassed glances of our peers, be overlooked for promotions and honors, be viewed as an obstacle to progress, be relegated to the attic of the world's house, lose friends and enemies, and even be eliminated when our witness becomes intolerable. Yet we are Christians. Christ is our king, glorified by God. It is in Christ that we are glorified, that we are forgiven, and that we are raised from the lions’ den. In Christ we are given life. In Christ we can call for the lions’ mouths to be closed and the ‘other’ becomes our glorified king.

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