The Yes and No of the Gospel

Scripture: Daniel 1

Sermon: The Yes and No of the Gospel

Topics: food, faith, empire, resistance, non-conformity

Preached: June 3, 2018

Rev. Mike Abma

In the third year of the reign of King Jehoiakim of Judah, King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon came to Jerusalem and besieged it. ²The Lord let King Jehoiakim of Judah fall into his power, as well as some of the vessels of the house of God. These he brought to the land of Shinar, and placed the vessels in the treasury of his gods.

3 Then the king commanded his palace master Ashpenaz to bring some of the Israelites of the royal family and of the nobility, ⁴young men without physical defect and handsome, versed in every branch of wisdom, endowed with knowledge and insight, and competent to serve in the king’s palace; they were to be taught the literature and language of the Chaldeans. ⁵The king assigned them a daily portion of the royal rations of food and wine. They were to be educated for three years, so that at the end of that time they could be stationed in the king’s court.

 ⁶Among them were Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah, from the tribe of Judah.⁷The palace master gave them other names: Daniel he called Belteshazzar, Hananiah he called Shadrach, Mishael he called Meshach, and Azariah he called Abednego.

8 But Daniel resolved that he would not defile himself with the royal rations of food and wine; so he asked the palace master to allow him not to defile himself. ⁹Now God allowed Daniel to receive favour and compassion from the palace master. 

¹⁰The palace master said to Daniel, ‘I am afraid of my lord the king; he has appointed your food and your drink. If he should see you in poorer condition than the other young men of your own age, you would endanger my head with the king.’ 

¹¹Then Daniel asked the guard whom the palace master had appointed over Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah: ¹²‘Please test your servants for ten days. Let us be given vegetables to eat and water to drink. ¹³You can then compare our appearance with the appearance of the young men who eat the royal rations, and deal with your servants according to what you observe.’ 

¹⁴So he agreed to this proposal and tested them for ten days.¹⁵At the end of ten days it was observed that they appeared better and fatter than all the young men who had been eating the royal rations. ¹⁶So the guard continued to withdraw their royal rations and the wine they were to drink, and gave them vegetables. ¹⁷To these four young men God gave knowledge and skill in every aspect of literature and wisdom; Daniel also had insight into all visions and dreams.

18 At the end of the time that the king had set for them to be brought in, the palace master brought them into the presence of Nebuchadnezzar,¹⁹and the king spoke with them. And among them all, no one was found to compare with Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah; therefore they were stationed in the king’s court. ²⁰In every matter of wisdom and understanding concerning which the king inquired of them, he found them ten times better than all the magicians and enchanters in his whole kingdom. ²¹And Daniel continued there until the first year of King Cyrus.

This is the Word of the Lord

Thanks be to God

INTRODUCTION

Often, when people look at Daniel chapter 1, they focus on two different things: the food, and Daniel’s uncompromising faith.

First the Food. The fact that Daniel and his friends eat a diet of vegetables and water has fascinated our diet-crazy culture. Several doctors in one large church published a diet and health book they entitled The Daniel Plan. The book was all about how to get healthier and thinner, and they rooted it all in Daniel chapter 1.

The irony, of course, is that Daniel and his friends do not get thinner. They get fatter. So there are dangers into reading too much into what Daniel and his friends ate – it was not some kind of magical menu. Besides, the food itself is not the main point of this passage.

Some people think that Daniel’s uncompromising faith is the main point. They point to Daniel as the principled believer who refuses to compromise his faith in any way. Let me call this the Dare-to-be-a-Daniel approach to this passage.

Again, the problem with this reading is that it is not true to the text.

The truth is, Daniel and his friends have to bend their faith.

When they are given new names – all names exalting Babylon – they do not object.

When they have to take classes on all things Babylonian, including divination,

again, they do not object.

And when they are given high-level positions in the King’s court, again, they do not object.

It is clear that Daniel and his friends have to bend their faith, they have to

compromise their beliefs, in order to adapt to their new situation. They were not in Zion anymore. They were in Babylon. That is their brutal reality.

WHY THE FOOD?

So why did they make a fuss about the food?

That has mystified commentators.

There is not a clear answer.

Some have suggested that the Babylonian food must have been “unclean”

according to Jewish law.

But this does not seem to be the case.

We need to remember that the whole class of boys enrolled at Babylon University

were Jewish boys.

It was not 4 Jewish boys in a class of all kinds of other faiths.

No, the picture we are given in chapter 1, is of a whole class of Jewish boys being taught in Babylon. And of this whole class, only 4, Daniel and his friends, asked for a different menu.

The question is why?

Like so much of the Bible, we need to take a bigger view.

Most scholars believe the book of Daniel was written quite late –

in other words, it was written long after Nebuchadnezzar

and the Babylonian Empire.

The end of the Babylonian Empire was not the end of empires.

After the Babylonia Empire, there was the Persian Empire.

After the Persian Empire, there was the Greek Empire.

Most believe that Daniel was actually written during the Greek Empire,

when the Jews were being severely oppressed.

The Greek Empire seemed intent on

defiling the Temple

and stomping out the Jewish faith.

Given the late date it was written,a few details at the beginning of Daniel 1 are telling:

* for one, we are told Nebuchadnezzar brought the Temple vessels of

Jerusalem into the treasury of the Babylonian gods – this was clearly a defilement of what is holy.

* for another, we are told they were brought to the land of Shinar.

“Shinar” – what is that?

Well, it is another old name for the area of Babylon, but the only other place

the word Shinar is used in the Bible is in Genesis 11.

That is where we have the story of

the Tower of Babel and the human defiance of God.

Shinar, then, is the name of the land,

any land really, where people defy God.

So, in a way, Nebuchadnezzar and Babylon

simply represent any empire that is big and strong,

that defies the true God,

and that demands our complete loyalty.

Is it any wonder that Babylon makes a re-appearance in the New Testament in the book of Revelation. There the word Babylon represents Rome and the Roman Empire, and the Roman demand

that anyone belonging to Rome had to do as the Romans.^[1]

MINI-REVOLT

What we have in this first chapter of Daniel

is the mini-revolt of Daniel and his friends against the empire.

They say NO to something.

They say NO to the menu

because doing this symbolized

saying NO to what the empire was feeding them

both in their classes and in their culture.

Because Daniel and his friends had said YES to God,

the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob,

their saying NO to the menu,

was simply their way of saying

that they would NOT conform to Babylon

and the Babylonian way of life.

That they would NOT offer their bodies

as a living sacrifice to Babylon.

When Babylon said

“Eat my bread

Drink my wine

Think my thoughts

Do my will,”

Daniel and his friends said, “NO

We will not eat your bread.

We will not drink your wine.

We will not think your thoughts.

We will not do your will.

We will NOT

because we belong to another King

and we will eat his bread.

We will drink his wine.

We will think his thoughts.

And we will do his will.”

The book of Daniel is resistance literature.

The way God’s people resist the powers and empires of this world

is not with swords and force.

It is with stories and trusting in God’s faithfulness.

Stories that say “NO, we do not belong to the powers of this world

because we have said YES to the true KING.”

II. MOLLIE’S STORIES OF EMPIRE RESISTANCE

Like Daniel and his friends,

we modern Christians live in a land,

an empire really,

that is big and strong and rich.

In the tradition of telling stories of resistance,

stories that say YES to God and NO to the culture around them,

let me tell you some stories about Mollie.

Mollie was raised in Austin Texas.

She and her parents are regular worshippers in their church.

Mollie was raised to Worship God, Love People, and Use Things.^[2]

When Mollie was in the 5^th grade, the United States invaded Iraq.

Mollie was bothered by this.

She had always been taught that violence is not the answer.

So she wrote a letter to her church council asking for permission to put a sign on the church’s front lawn, a sign saying

WAR IS NOT THE ANSWER.

The church council said Yes, and the sign went up.

When Mollie was in the 7^th grade, she was on her school track team.

The coach decided to have practices on Sunday mornings.

Mollie told her coach that she would be going to church on Sunday mornings and not to track practice.

Her coach told her that if she did not go to track practice,

she could not be on the track team.

Mollie said, “That is fine. I am still going to church.”

When Mollie was in High School, she attended a high school football game.

Her school’s cheerleading squad had a peculiar pre-game routine.

Some of their squad dressed in the colors of the opposing team.

The cheerleading squad proceeded to capture them,

tie them up,

and then they staged a mock execution

with toy guns and everything.

It was supposed to show how they were about to “Kill” the other team.

Mollie came home disturbed.

She talked to her parents about it.

Together they wrote a letter to the principal

expressing their deep disappointment in this cheerleading routine

and noting how it was totally inappropriate.

The principal wrote back and said that it was no big deal.

They were over-reacting.

Besides, they were the only ones making a fuss.

So Mollie went to work.

She began to research.

She discovered that her High School’s handbook prohibited all guns from school property, even toy guns.

She gathered a few friends together.

They circulated a petition.

Mollie wrote an article for the High School newspaper.

The principal stopped the article from being printed.

He said that articles in the High School newspaper

were not allowed to call into question

the decisions of the school’s administration.

So Mollie sent her article to the local newspaper.

They printed her article on page 1.

In no time at all, newspapers from around the country were calling Mollie asking if they could interview her.

Eventually the High School principal issued a written apology in the local newspaper.

He admitted that he had been wrong.

He admitted that Mollie and her friends were right.^[3]

CONCLUSION

Stories of resistance.

Stories that show

that when we say YES to the Lord God,

when we say YES to offering our lives to Him as a living sacrifice,

then we must say

NO to some of the things going on around us in the world.

We must say

NO because we refuse to be conformed to this world.

We must say

NO because we desire to be transformed by the renewing of our minds

to know what God’s will is –

His good, perfect, and acceptable will.

May your story

be a story of resistance, faithful resistance, too.

Amen

1. See Revelation chapters 16, 17, and throughout chapter 18. ↑

2. This adage “worship God, love people, use things” was a favorite of Rev. Andy Kuyvenhoven. ↑

3. See Kyle Childress’ articles, “Expect A Call” in Christian Century Jan. 9, 2007 and “Pep-rally Protest: Constructive Non-Conformity” in Christian Century Oct. 6, 2009. ↑