Proper 28
Sermon
GOOD GOD, WHERE In The WORLD Are YOU?
Sermons for the Last Third of the Pentecost Season
Confusion Over a Questioned Book; the Beasts of War and Pollution and How They Can't Win; and Our Faithful Witnessing (Keeping Kosher, and Being Humane.)
Were you confused by that passage read from the Book of Daniel? Don't feel bad. You are in good company. Daniel has been confusing people ever since it was written.
It confused those rabbis who in the year 90 met in the coastal town of Jamnia to cast their votes on which of the historical writings were to be designated "sacred scripture." Daniel made it into the Bible by a majority vote, but many of those rabbis felt it should not have.
It confused early Christians, many of whom were as unsure of its value as were the rabbis.
Luther, who translated the Bible so that it would be read, knew it was going to be confusing to people and so felt compelled to write by far his longest introduction - longer even than the one for Romans.
Over the centuries, confusion has been compounded as Daniel became a happy hunting ground for all varieties of Christians trying to figure out the meaning of the struggles of their time. Every villain in history, from Attila the Hun to Ghengis Khan, from Napoleon to the Kaiser, to Hitler and Stalin, at some point has been connected to one or another of those Godzilla-like beasts that Daniel describes.
So if you found it confusing as you heard it read, don't feel bad. You are in good company.
Actually, in our time, we are in a better position to understand Daniel than Christians have been for centuries. We used to think that books such as Daniel and Revelation were rare and unique. But not so. The famous Dead Sea Scrolls gave us a large amount of material, very similar to Daniel. The Persians wrote similarly. It turns out that writing such as Daniel was a highly popular, widespread form of literature around the first century. All kinds of writers were cranking out descriptions of these wild visions, of beasts and battles; as a form of literature, it was very common.
So also were the major themes. The basic message of these visionary writings tends to be quite the same and has three major emphases. Books such as Daniel were usually written in a time of persecution and struggle. They thus have a deeply pessimistic view of the present world order. That's first. Second, they assure that things are nevertheless in the hands of a God who will finally bring things to victory. Third, that being the case, we are called upon to be strong and faithful. The passage before us contains all three of these emphases.
Pessimism about the present world order. The empires, the governments, kings and rulers of the world are described as beasts, beasts which wreak havoc upon and destroy God's people, and as enemies of God must be slain.
That sort of goes against the American grain, doesn't it? We do not think of our government in those terms. We live secure lives. We do not feel we need to be afraid of the police breaking in at night and hauling us off to some basement room somewhere, where we will be beaten by interrogators. Not that it has not occasionally happened. And, if you were a slave or black in the post-slavery days, especially in the South, it happened a lot. We have waste and corruption in our governments, but nowhere near on the massive and systemic scale that exists elsewhere. We Americans have a Bill of Rights and it does a tolerable job of protecting us.
But that privileged status that happens to be ours should not blind us to the fact that most of the people who have lived and now live, have done and do so under governments that have been and are either oppressive, incompetent or both. The rights and freedoms we enjoy we might call "inalienable," but as realities down through history, they have been rare.
Nor should this blessed security of ours cause us to lose sight of the fact that we live in a world where the push of one button could blow us all up and render the entire planet as dead as the moon. It wouldn't take an evil person, just a normal, quite sincere, patriotic, well-meaning fool. And both sides are well supplied with those.
I still cannot believe the foolishness that was seriously proposed by certain of our government officials, who came to our city a year ago to advise us on civil defense measures should buttons be pushed, advising us on how the city could be evacuated with odd number license plates on one day and even the next, thus avoiding traffic jams, apparently unaware that we'd have at best one hour's warning and that one flat tire or blown radiator hose could stop up the tunnel and entire beltway. They asked us, in addition to our own, to be prepared to receive some 600,000 severe burn cases from Washington, apparently unaware that our severe burn unit - the envy of the entire medical world has six beds. They advised us that our radio stations after attack should maintain normal programming as much as possible so as to prevent excessive panic, apparently unaware that broadcast antennae do not survive atomic attack and once antennae are down, you broadcast nothing. After giving us the benefit of such thinking, all those people went back to their offices in Washington. I don't know what they are doing there now.
Add to this all of those warnings issued by environmentalists as to the long-range effects of what we are doing to our water and land, and that vision of Daniel that our world lives in the shadow of and under the feet of some monstrous beast that could crush and destroy us all, even for us in America, the secure, that vision of Daniel is not entirely inappropriate. There are such beasts standing over us, glowering and threatening, beasts possessing more than enough power to destroy us.
Before such terrifying and powerful beasts, it is rather amazing that Daniel speaks with such confidence. Pessimistic about the present world order, Daniel is still not pessimistic. Victory over the beasts is assured; that victory is assured through the appearance of the figure of the Son of Man. This Son of Man who appears is one of the mystery figures of Scripture. Is he an earthly king or an angelic figure? Is it Jesus? Is it Jesus at first coming or at the second? The picture is vague and ambiguous enough that you can make it any one of those. The picture has enough details so that, if you want to be a stickler for those details, you can also disprove any one of them. And that combination of ambiguity and detail is precisely why the passage has been the happy hunting ground it has been down the centuries and is so today. Sometimes the interpretations have been more bizarre than the original imagery.
We'll not hunt in that happy hunting ground. Because the real point is that very basic one of the assurance that, regardless of how powerful all the forces of evil appear, the power of God is greater. Though it may appear that the powers of destruction and death are about to tear God's creation from his hands, such a thing cannot happen.
God did not create this world in order for the world to destroy his will. He created the world to fulfill his will, and so this God who has displayed such power and intelligence in bringing forth this world around us with all its wonders, this God surely has the power and intelligence to finish the job and bring all things to their completion.
To me, the logic here is rather clear and quite overwhelming. I cannot conceive of this world bringing itself forth. Somehow the one we call God brought it forth. Everywhere I touch and examine this world I am overwhelmed by its complexity. I cannot conceive of how a God of such power and complexity can be incapable of completing what he has started. It is by his will that things came to be. It is by his will that they are sustained each moment and at this moment. And, whatever the future is for anything, it will be in that same creating and sustaining will of his.
Will that mean nuclear Armageddon? Is it possible that that is the way the curtain will be closed on this particular act? I don't know and I don't feel the need to know. Will that mean a golden age? I don't know and I don't feel the need to know.
Is that not precisely what Jesus is saying to his disciples as they sat there on the Mount of Olives overlooking the Kidron Valley and the walls of the temple? "You don't need to know these things and don't bother about them. Your concerns will be much more immediate - your discipleship and your witnessing."
What is the nature of that discipleship and witnessing? For Daniel, as you read the book, the answer would seem to be "keep Kosher." Maintain the food laws, observe the Sabbath. That's what Daniel says. When dealing with these huge beasts which glower over and trample the earth that sounds pathetically small and ridiculously simple.
They asked Luther once what he would do if he knew the world was to end tomorrow. His answer was that he had planned to plant his garden, and so he would. Plant a garden that would not even sprout, much less bear fruit? That seems even smaller and more foolish than Daniel's answer.
But you see, we are not called upon to seize the beasts by the seven horns and bulldog them to the ground and crack their necks. Oh, I write to my congressmen, senators, Secretary of State and Defense and the President, and yes, on occasion, to presidents of other countries; I am a contributing member of Amnesty International and I've done my share of demonstrating. All that I see as both my right and my responsibility, a part of my discipleship. I hope it does have some small influence in diverting the beasts of this world, some small degree off their courses of destruction.
But as for my witnessing and my discipleship, that path Jesus defined for us. At this point, of course, it is not possible to separate Jesus from that mysterious Son of Man figure. As soon as we begin speaking of our witness and discipleship, it is Jesus who gives that its definition.
And that definition is for us to be as humane and loving and faithful to the will and ways of God as we can be in the place he has placed us, and with the people he has placed us with.
As for the great beasts of the world, their power is never more than temporary, and God's is eternal. He will deal with them. Ultimately his creation will not be destroyed - it will be fulfilled. How much leeway they will have between now and that final time, I don't know, I don't need to. In that meantime, in between time. He has shown us his way - the way that he is. It's our call simply to follow it as faithfully as we can see.
Were you confused by that passage read from the Book of Daniel? Don't feel bad. You are in good company. Daniel has been confusing people ever since it was written.
It confused those rabbis who in the year 90 met in the coastal town of Jamnia to cast their votes on which of the historical writings were to be designated "sacred scripture." Daniel made it into the Bible by a majority vote, but many of those rabbis felt it should not have.
It confused early Christians, many of whom were as unsure of its value as were the rabbis.
Luther, who translated the Bible so that it would be read, knew it was going to be confusing to people and so felt compelled to write by far his longest introduction - longer even than the one for Romans.
Over the centuries, confusion has been compounded as Daniel became a happy hunting ground for all varieties of Christians trying to figure out the meaning of the struggles of their time. Every villain in history, from Attila the Hun to Ghengis Khan, from Napoleon to the Kaiser, to Hitler and Stalin, at some point has been connected to one or another of those Godzilla-like beasts that Daniel describes.
So if you found it confusing as you heard it read, don't feel bad. You are in good company.
Actually, in our time, we are in a better position to understand Daniel than Christians have been for centuries. We used to think that books such as Daniel and Revelation were rare and unique. But not so. The famous Dead Sea Scrolls gave us a large amount of material, very similar to Daniel. The Persians wrote similarly. It turns out that writing such as Daniel was a highly popular, widespread form of literature around the first century. All kinds of writers were cranking out descriptions of these wild visions, of beasts and battles; as a form of literature, it was very common.
So also were the major themes. The basic message of these visionary writings tends to be quite the same and has three major emphases. Books such as Daniel were usually written in a time of persecution and struggle. They thus have a deeply pessimistic view of the present world order. That's first. Second, they assure that things are nevertheless in the hands of a God who will finally bring things to victory. Third, that being the case, we are called upon to be strong and faithful. The passage before us contains all three of these emphases.
Pessimism about the present world order. The empires, the governments, kings and rulers of the world are described as beasts, beasts which wreak havoc upon and destroy God's people, and as enemies of God must be slain.
That sort of goes against the American grain, doesn't it? We do not think of our government in those terms. We live secure lives. We do not feel we need to be afraid of the police breaking in at night and hauling us off to some basement room somewhere, where we will be beaten by interrogators. Not that it has not occasionally happened. And, if you were a slave or black in the post-slavery days, especially in the South, it happened a lot. We have waste and corruption in our governments, but nowhere near on the massive and systemic scale that exists elsewhere. We Americans have a Bill of Rights and it does a tolerable job of protecting us.
But that privileged status that happens to be ours should not blind us to the fact that most of the people who have lived and now live, have done and do so under governments that have been and are either oppressive, incompetent or both. The rights and freedoms we enjoy we might call "inalienable," but as realities down through history, they have been rare.
Nor should this blessed security of ours cause us to lose sight of the fact that we live in a world where the push of one button could blow us all up and render the entire planet as dead as the moon. It wouldn't take an evil person, just a normal, quite sincere, patriotic, well-meaning fool. And both sides are well supplied with those.
I still cannot believe the foolishness that was seriously proposed by certain of our government officials, who came to our city a year ago to advise us on civil defense measures should buttons be pushed, advising us on how the city could be evacuated with odd number license plates on one day and even the next, thus avoiding traffic jams, apparently unaware that we'd have at best one hour's warning and that one flat tire or blown radiator hose could stop up the tunnel and entire beltway. They asked us, in addition to our own, to be prepared to receive some 600,000 severe burn cases from Washington, apparently unaware that our severe burn unit - the envy of the entire medical world has six beds. They advised us that our radio stations after attack should maintain normal programming as much as possible so as to prevent excessive panic, apparently unaware that broadcast antennae do not survive atomic attack and once antennae are down, you broadcast nothing. After giving us the benefit of such thinking, all those people went back to their offices in Washington. I don't know what they are doing there now.
Add to this all of those warnings issued by environmentalists as to the long-range effects of what we are doing to our water and land, and that vision of Daniel that our world lives in the shadow of and under the feet of some monstrous beast that could crush and destroy us all, even for us in America, the secure, that vision of Daniel is not entirely inappropriate. There are such beasts standing over us, glowering and threatening, beasts possessing more than enough power to destroy us.
Before such terrifying and powerful beasts, it is rather amazing that Daniel speaks with such confidence. Pessimistic about the present world order, Daniel is still not pessimistic. Victory over the beasts is assured; that victory is assured through the appearance of the figure of the Son of Man. This Son of Man who appears is one of the mystery figures of Scripture. Is he an earthly king or an angelic figure? Is it Jesus? Is it Jesus at first coming or at the second? The picture is vague and ambiguous enough that you can make it any one of those. The picture has enough details so that, if you want to be a stickler for those details, you can also disprove any one of them. And that combination of ambiguity and detail is precisely why the passage has been the happy hunting ground it has been down the centuries and is so today. Sometimes the interpretations have been more bizarre than the original imagery.
We'll not hunt in that happy hunting ground. Because the real point is that very basic one of the assurance that, regardless of how powerful all the forces of evil appear, the power of God is greater. Though it may appear that the powers of destruction and death are about to tear God's creation from his hands, such a thing cannot happen.
God did not create this world in order for the world to destroy his will. He created the world to fulfill his will, and so this God who has displayed such power and intelligence in bringing forth this world around us with all its wonders, this God surely has the power and intelligence to finish the job and bring all things to their completion.
To me, the logic here is rather clear and quite overwhelming. I cannot conceive of this world bringing itself forth. Somehow the one we call God brought it forth. Everywhere I touch and examine this world I am overwhelmed by its complexity. I cannot conceive of how a God of such power and complexity can be incapable of completing what he has started. It is by his will that things came to be. It is by his will that they are sustained each moment and at this moment. And, whatever the future is for anything, it will be in that same creating and sustaining will of his.
Will that mean nuclear Armageddon? Is it possible that that is the way the curtain will be closed on this particular act? I don't know and I don't feel the need to know. Will that mean a golden age? I don't know and I don't feel the need to know.
Is that not precisely what Jesus is saying to his disciples as they sat there on the Mount of Olives overlooking the Kidron Valley and the walls of the temple? "You don't need to know these things and don't bother about them. Your concerns will be much more immediate - your discipleship and your witnessing."
What is the nature of that discipleship and witnessing? For Daniel, as you read the book, the answer would seem to be "keep Kosher." Maintain the food laws, observe the Sabbath. That's what Daniel says. When dealing with these huge beasts which glower over and trample the earth that sounds pathetically small and ridiculously simple.
They asked Luther once what he would do if he knew the world was to end tomorrow. His answer was that he had planned to plant his garden, and so he would. Plant a garden that would not even sprout, much less bear fruit? That seems even smaller and more foolish than Daniel's answer.
But you see, we are not called upon to seize the beasts by the seven horns and bulldog them to the ground and crack their necks. Oh, I write to my congressmen, senators, Secretary of State and Defense and the President, and yes, on occasion, to presidents of other countries; I am a contributing member of Amnesty International and I've done my share of demonstrating. All that I see as both my right and my responsibility, a part of my discipleship. I hope it does have some small influence in diverting the beasts of this world, some small degree off their courses of destruction.
But as for my witnessing and my discipleship, that path Jesus defined for us. At this point, of course, it is not possible to separate Jesus from that mysterious Son of Man figure. As soon as we begin speaking of our witness and discipleship, it is Jesus who gives that its definition.
And that definition is for us to be as humane and loving and faithful to the will and ways of God as we can be in the place he has placed us, and with the people he has placed us with.
As for the great beasts of the world, their power is never more than temporary, and God's is eternal. He will deal with them. Ultimately his creation will not be destroyed - it will be fulfilled. How much leeway they will have between now and that final time, I don't know, I don't need to. In that meantime, in between time. He has shown us his way - the way that he is. It's our call simply to follow it as faithfully as we can see.
