Saint James UCC of Hamburg, NY

Daniel 6:1-5, 16-28

Preached by Rev. Robert Matlack
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The story is a familiar one. Daniel holds a high office in the Persian Empire and because of his integrity and efficiency Darius the Great is about to appoint him to the post of prime minister. However, as you might expect, this arouses considerable jealousy among Daniel's peers. In addition, Daniel is a good man, and that goodness provokes hatred in those who aren't so good themselves. The third strike against him is that he is a foreigner, a fact which aggravates the resentment among those who plot and scheme in hopes of being appointed prime minister themselves.

So it happens that the other governors set aside their individual rivalries to form an alliance against Daniel, whom they all envy. They search in vain for any fault in his administration, hoping and expecting to find a fault that they might magnify and distort into grounds for a complaint. Finally, they conclude that his belonging to a religious minority is the only chink in his armor, the single weakness for them to try to exploit.

They scheme and plan, and then approach the king together and play on the king's vanity to obtain his assent to an absurd decree, one which they know Daniel will violate. You see, their proposal to the king had the effect of elevating the king to the status of a god to whom all of his subjects must pray. For one month, people of faith like Daniel were required to give up their prayers to God and pray only to the king. Darius was flattered by this proposal and signed it, making this edict an irrevokable law.

When Daniel heard what had been done, he didn't cower in fear. He didn't rant and rave about how unjust it was. His first thoughts were not of protecting himself, rather he did what he had always done, kneeling down at his window and praying to God, making no effort to hide his action. You see, his immediate concern was not for the threat to his own physical safety, rather he was concerned with his own need to pray, to seek strength to help him through this time of temptation, for Daniel's first concern was for the spiritual threat that he faced, not the threat of physical harm.

The next part of the story is predictable. The plotters had been waiting for Daniel to pray at his window. They expected him to do so, and they eagerly reported Daniel to the king. Their trap was sprung! Daniel had clearly violated the king's edict, and the king was trapped as well. While he was the one who had issued the order, by tradition an order like this could not be changed, even by the king. So the king looked and looked for some way to let Daniel off of the hook, but he couldn't find one. Reluctantly he gave the order for Daniel to be taken and thrown into a pit filled with lions where he must spend the night.

Many years ago Arab slaver traders used to go into the interior of Africa and capture Africans who they would then march eastward to the coast. As evening would start to fall and it was time to stop for the night, the Arabs would shout out in Swahili, "Bwaga mizigo" - or "Put down your burdens". For the Africans were forced to carry the loads of the captors as they were being driven to the coast, away from freedom.

The newly captured slaves would finally reach the coast where they would lay down their burdens for the last time on that continent. That place on the coast - the last stop before they boarded the ships - the slaves named "Bagamoyo". It's believed that the name "Bagamoyo" came from two Swahili words, "Bwaga" which means to put down, and "moyo" which means heart. You see Bagamoyo was the place where the slaves put down their hearts - or gave up all hope.

For Daniel this was a time when it would have been easy to give up all hope, to put down his heart. After all, who could survive a night in a pit filled with hungry lions? By our own efforts - none of us could. It's not humanly possible. But by God's efforts, Daniel did. In the morning the king anxiously got up and hurried to the pit to see what had happened. There he found Daniel still alive and Daniel told him, "God sent his angel to shut the mouths of the ions so that they would not hurt me. He did this because he knew that I was innocent and because I have not wronged your majesty.

Daniel remained steadfast in his faith, even when the easiest course would have been to put down his heart - to give up hope. By far the easiest course for Daniel would have been to give in to fear, to plead for his life, to abandon his faith, and to bow down and worship the king. But Daniel's faith was not a faith that could be easily abandoned. It was not something that he put on or took off at will. His faith was a part of who he was, and however difficult times got, however threatening the circumstances, Daniel responded in faith.

You see Daniel trusted that God would give him the strength to face whatever lay ahead. As it turned out, God protected Daniel from the lions, but Daniel even with all of his faith could not know ahead of time that that was going to happen. As we all have experienced, God does not promise us that we will be spared all pain and suffering and that our bodies will never die. Rather, God promises to walk with us, to be there through all that we face. So, all that Daniel could know was that God would be there with him, giving him the strength to face what lay ahead. And that was enough. In faith Daniel entered the pit, knowing that he was not alone, that God was with him, and when morning came Daniel could not wait to share the good news with the king that God had acted to save him.

The king was overjoyed and immediately gave orders for Daniel to be pulled up out of the pit. The plotters were arrested and thrown into the pit themselves - to their death. Their fate immediately answers any questions that the reader might have about the ferocity of the lions. Daniel was saved not because the lions were wimps, rather Daniel was clearly saved by his faith. King Darius was so moved by this experience, by Daniel's faith in the face of extreme adversity and by God's response, that he wrote a letter commanding that everyone in his empire fear and respect Daniel's God.

Now what does this story teach us? Let me respond with another story, one told by Anthony de Mello. This is a story of Buddha being threatened with death by a bandit. "Grant my dying wish" said Buddha. "Cut off the branch of that tree."

The thief brandished his sword, and it was done. "What next?" he asked.

"Put it back again" said Buddha.

"You must be crazy to think that anyone can do that!" said the bandit.

"On the contrary. You are crazy to think that you are mighty because you can wound and destroy. The mighty know how to create and heal."

Those who plotted against Daniel sought to destroy him because of their jealousy. They thought that in their numbers and in their cleverness they would be mighty. But the story reminds us that the one who is truly mighty is God, for it is God who knows how to create and how to heal.

I believe that Darius's letter was not only written to those in his kingdom many years ago, but that it was written to us as well, calling us to hear and believe, for as Darius wrote, "For he is the living God, enduring forever. His kingdom shall never be destroyed, and his dominion has no end. He delivers and rescues, he works signs and wonders in heaven and on earth."

Amen.