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Taming the Lions
By Parrish W. Jones, Ph.D.
©2006. All rights reserved.

Isaiah 11: 1-9
Daniel 6:1-28

This morning we have read two lessons from the Older Testament of our scriptures. The two texts are separated by hundreds of years of history. The text of Isaiah is from the time after the northern kingdom had come under the control of Assyria, and Judah lived in the shadow of the Assyrian kingdom. The time was perilous and not much time would pass until Judah would also be overthrown and taken into exile.

Daniel takes place during the Exile in Babylon but most believe it was written during a time many years after the Exile. In both times Israel experienced oppressive domination. When Daniel was written, the Seleucan Empire, itself in great jeopardy from Rome, controlled Israel. Empires in great danger tend to become even more repressive. I suggest we live in such an era.

In all three cases, pre-exilic Israel, exiled Israel, and foreign dominated Israel, there were elements of exile. The community of Israel was under threat. Daniel is told as if the events happened in exile. Both messages speak from a context of great anxiety, uncertainty, and displacement, if not of space, of spirit and mind. What we might call disorientation. I suggest that that message is one sorely needed by the church because we live as exiles in our culture in which we are experiencing anxiety, uncertainty, and disorientation.
If we are honest, we are far more comfortable with Isaiah than with Daniel because Daniel simply sounds more subversive. It is clear that faithful living and political demands come in conflict in Daniel.

However, Isaiah represents the prophecy of a new Messiah, a new king, when there is already a king. The king in Isaiah is the king of Judah while the king in Daniel is Darius of Mede. Which is more subversive— a local coup de etat or resistance against a foreign oppressor?

Accepting that Daniel sounds more subversive, two more elements make it seem so. In Isaiah the text implies a future time. In Daniel the events were happening in the present for Daniel while in Isaiah the events are in the future. The text of Isaiah is familiar to us and the language is metaphorical while in Daniel the language is realistic. In Daniel, the anxiety is palpable, the plotting relentless, the power overwhelming, and the outcome apparently certain while in Isaiah the language is prophetic, apparently for the future. If we were reading Daniel for the first time, we would be on the edge wondering what would happen to Daniel and then to Darius. We read Isaiah without anxiety.

We already know that in Daniel two kings have fallen because of arrogance of power that arises out of success and then morphs into insecurity. We also know that the fate of the people of Israel is tied to that of Daniel.

A few things to notice.
1. Tendency to Assimilation: Daniel and his people are exiles in Babylon. As exiles, they have curried favor enough to be working in the government. Daniel’s reputation lands him a cushy job and puts him in jeopardy of assimilation into Babylonian culture whose allure is strong.

Now we do not like to be considered exiles in the U.S. As professionals, most of us are establishment figures. For the most part, we Presbyterians hold cushy jobs with nice benefits and growing retirement portfolios. Many of us have more cars than drivers and more than one home. I have many Presbyterian friends, some of whom are pastors, who own more than one home, a motor home, and vacation spots in the form of time shares. We are pretty well off and clear participants in cultural prosperity.

Yet, we are different. We go to church, which by and large those whom we work and play with do not. Our core values are not those of the culture as made clear from TV, the movies, and magazines. We also know that we find it difficult to live our values because our culture demands we live differently. We may not break the letter of the Ten Commandments, but we know we break their spirit.

2. Cultural Exclusion: So with Daniel. The difference is that Daniel’s culture colludes against him in a direct and not so subtle way. If it cannot assimilate him, it will exclude him.

One wonders what kind of dolt Darius is that he does not see the plot for what it is. However, we forget he is a foreigner to Judaism and does not know the culture. But we must remember that culture is an odd thing. Dominating power is more odd.

Persons in powerful positions often find themselves compromising with the devil when making decisions, and they want us too also. So with Darius. This narrative also shows that when dominating powers make decisions, they are often unable to change their course. What was once a matter of discussion suddenly becomes absolute. Churches and ecclesiastical governments are not immune to such matters either.

The conspiracy against Daniel and the people of Israel was a cultural conspiracy aimed at those who would not assimilate. The Satraps were representatives of the larger culture that does not tolerate the oddity of this small sect of Jews who refuse assimilation. So it strains to expel them for they remind them of their lack.

We experience this cultural exclusion at work, at play, at parties, and in general. The culture is not friendly towards our commitments of faith. Nor are our desires friendly to our faith. We do not think a great deal about our chasing after other gods because our temptations are more subtle than Daniel’s. For us it is a bit by bit, chinking away at us. Many of us grew up already surrendering to the gods and to the addictions that block our commitments of faithfulness. Having grown up with them, we are often blind to them. But as surely as there was the urging of Daniel to forsake God, we have such urgings.

There are those in the churches who wish us to believe that drugs, alcohol and sex are our biggest social challenges and, no doubt, they are challenges. I suggest that focusing on these issues blinds us to the more subtle forces that lead us astray and into drugs, alcohol and sex. Those subtle forces Walter Brueggemann has named “economic promiscuity.”

We think we are not addicted to these other gods of money, material things, technology, and also gods of acceptance, success, fashion, power, prestige and relevance, until we try, as does the alcoholic, to end them. Then we know that, indeed, just as the alcoholic ends his day at the bottom of a bottle, we end our days at the bottom of the barrel emotionally and/or financially.

Too many of us have surrendered gradually to the god of debt until it controls our lives; the god of the stock portfolio to the point that instead of turning to the Bible first thing in the morning, our first glance is to the financial page; or to the god of fashion so that it is to the magazines we turn that tell us what we need next to decorate our bodies or homes or cars; and so forth. More than a few fathers, mothers, politicians, and businesspersons have fallen before the gods of success, prestige, and power and taken their families with them. Nobody choses this route, it happens gradually, almost without notice as does alcohol and drug addiction. How do we overcome this subtle tugging?

3. Faithful Preparation: For Daniel, when the gauntlet was laid down, he was able to navigate for what appears a simple reason—His faithfulness. We see little of it except his consistent attending to his daily religious discipline. Yet, that discipline is the evident manifestation of more. His daily prayers indicate a deep and abiding faith given him by family and community. He did not come by it on his own.

Nor do we. If we are going to live as God’s people; if our children and grandchildren are going to live as God’s people, then we need the same gift of faith that Daniel received from family and community. That is what baptism depicts in its liturgy—promises of family and community to assure that the child or adult will be nurtured in the faith just as she or he is nurtured physically through constant feeding and exercise. Persons of great faith become such persons through constant spiritual feeding and exercise.

We give lip service to spiritual discipline in the church, but few of us, including ministers, actually practice the disciplines. For many of us our spiritual discipline is Sunday worship. However, to grow deep spiritual roots, one needs a disciplined practice of biblical study, daily prayer, spiritual community, mission service, and stewardship of time, talents and finances. We have treated all of these as optional in the Presbyterian churches, however, none more so than mission service. I firmly, believe that nothing will lead us to the deepest spirituality apart from actually serving those who are poor and forming real relationships with them and sharing in those experiences with other persons of faith through study, reflection and prayer.

This is necessary because we simply await anxiously and with uncertainty the moment that we will enter the lion’s den. Daniel knew the political world and knew that once Darius acquiesced and signed the order that there was no going back. The most dangerous lions that Daniel faced were not the ones in the den. They were the ones who put him there. Real lions are often not hungry and if they are not hungry, they will not attack unless provoked. Daniel did not threaten. Evidently, his enemies did.

The challenge to Daniel from this culture of exile did not end when he was freed from the den. It went on. That is part of our problem. With the psalmist we can cry, “How long, O Lord, how long?”

The answer comes back, “Until it is over.” That is little comfort because as long as we live we will face the anxiety, uncertainty and disorientation of being exiles in the land. The greatest danger to our faith and to the church is that we have or will become so assimilated by the culture that we no longer can distinguish being Christian from being “American”, being Cristian from being a consumer, being Crhstian from being a CEO.

That does not mean becoming dogmatic and doctrinaire and intolerant. Persons of mature faith are no threat to other persons of mature faith. So Christians, Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus and so forth who have become mature and strong in their faith traditions have nothing to fear from one another. Few of us fear persons we know are well centered and psychically healthy. We have to watch ourselves around the emotionally insecure.

So Daniel does not lead us to paranoia or to sectarianism of the sort we see on the extremes. Daniel was able to live in the world. The world found him an uncomfortable thorn. He did not have to do anything overt to cause this discomfort to the world around him. He quietly lived his faith and refused to worship its gods.

We wonder about the peaceable kingdom spoken of by Isaiah. That kingdom does not come by passively waiting. It comes by active faith keeping. It comes because persons of faith and communities of faith face the lions that assail us in faithfulness. Then we look for the day God shuts the mouths of the lions.