Sermons from the Pulpit

Preached to the Congregational Church in Exeter, U. C. C., on Ascension Sunday, May 27, 2001, by Michael L. C. Henderson, pastor.

Acts 1:1-11; Ephesians 1:15-21; Daniel 7:1-15

Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking up toward heaven?
   -Acts 1:11

     The whole Book of Daniel is like that: weirder than weird from one end to the other. For that reason it's not chosen very often for reading out loud in churches, except in churches that specialize in the outlandish and the bizarre: the snake handlers and the doomsayers. And we certainly don't belong to that crowd!

     I think it's unfortunate that we don't listen to this sort of thing more often. We let ourselves get weirded out too easily for our own spiritual good.

     Here's Daniel. The only thing most people can remember about Daniel is that he's the guy who was thrown into the lions' den and left there overnight because he would not worship a mere human king, but an angel of God came and shut the lions' mouths so that they would not hurt him and he emerged unscathed and triumphant. Daniel and his few friends, including the well-known trio of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, were servants of the one true God living as exiles and captives in a land where everyone else worshiped and served silly things, false divinities, vain idols. So they kept getting thrown into things such as the lions' den or, in the case of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, a burning fiery furnace, which of course did not even singe their clothes because an angel of God was right there with them to protect them and the four of them just walked around in there like it was a morning in May.

     People who are living in difficult environments need to have a pretty good imagination and a rich inner life, preferably with lots of vivid dreams. The wildest, weirdest apocalyptical literature in the Scriptures, such as the Book of Daniel in the Hebrew Bible and the Book of Revelation in the New Testament - all of it sprang up among people who were persecuted minorities living in continual tension with their surroundings. They depended on their visions and dreams to give them hope and to keep their spirits up. That was how they kept the faith.

     You could say Daniel lived his whole life in the lions' den, surviving and thriving only by the protection of the hand of God. It makes me think of astronauts cavorting on the moon, wonderfully alive in their space suits in spite of being in an environment that would annihilate life in a millisecond.

     We have this wonderful news item in yesterday's paper about the contested publication of a slave's eye view of the same saga that was called Gone With the Wind when it came out as a story of rich white people. The slave's side of it is called The Wind Done Gone, which is just perfect. People like Scarlett O'Hara and her crowd wouldn't have much use for the Book of Daniel and the Book of Revelation, but their African slaves sang spiritual songs about Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego that are still being sung today.

     So where do we fit on the spectrum between Miz Scarlett and her cotton-pickin' slaves? That may sound like a no-brainer to you. We're citizens of the richest country in the history of the world, and our country runs the world. How could we possibly think of ourselves as Daniels in the lions' den?

     But don't let's be too quick about distancing ourselves from Daniel. We do profess to worship and serve the same God as he and his friends did, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego.

     Of course, I hear you thinking, we're not subjects, as they were, of Belshazzar, king of Babylon. Babylon is long gone. This is a Christian country. And that's where I might suggest you give it a little more thought.

     Daniel had a dream and visions of his head: the four winds of heaven were stirring up the great sea, and four great beasts came up out of the sea: one like a lion with eagle's wings and a human mind (- how's that for a horrifying combination?); one like a bear with three tusks; one like a four-headed, four-winged leopard; and the last and best of the bunch, with iron teeth and ten horns and one little additional horn that sprang up among them, a little horn with human eyes and a mouth speaking arrogantly. And all these critters are only the precursors of the baddest one of them all that appears in the Book of Revelation, a scarlet beast with seven heads and ten horns on which rides in her glory the scarlet woman of Babylon, covered with jewels and gold and drunk with the blood of the saints.

     Who are all these beasts, anyway? Isn't it obvious? They're the enemies of God, and therefore the enemies of God's people, unless the people are only pretending to be God's people but are in league with the beasts. The Protestant reformers, including the ones who founded this very church, knew exactly who fit these monstrous descriptions in their own experience: It was the Roman Catholic Church in all its glory and finery and power, and particularly its Pope. When the Pope at Rome excommunicated Martin Luther, Martin Luther's answer was to call Rome Babylon for the rest of his life, and he enjoyed it tremendously and did it with huge relish.

     I do not suggest that we should esteem the Roman Church as Luther did. The twenty-first century features far beastlier beasts than the Catholics, who are now willing to recognize even us, albeit with some serious reservations, as their brothers and sisters in Christ. But I do suggest that Daniel's beasts, and the lions' den, and the burning fiery furnace, and Babylon are not long gone, they are still a reality which faithful people must still either worship or refuse to worship.

     Why worship God? Because we will worship and serve something or someone. It's the way we are. And if we do not worship what is holy, then we will worship what is not. We will worship some beast or other, some weird constantly metamorphosing beast or a whole gang of them. We are surrounded on all sides by beast-worshippers, and I don't necessarily mean people who drive SUV's, although I wouldn't rule them out either.

     That little horn with the human eyes and the mouth that speaks arrogantly comes into our homes daily through the mail slot, the TV, the computer. Listen to the things it tells us to believe about ourselves. It tells us that "exclusive" means "desirable." Do we believe that? It tells us we are "consumers." Is that what we are? It tells us lie after lie after lie, and they all pass for truth.

     To live by faith is to be Daniel among the lions. That hasn't changed. We only think it has. We think the world is safe for people of faith, sometimes we even think they run the world, but it's not so. That's why people of faith need a vision, a vision that recognizes the general beastliness of things and yet relies on God to make things come out right.

     We see these poor disciples gaze vacantly upward at the spot in the clouds into which they watched him rise like a life-size helium-filled balloon, disappearing gradually from the head to the feet. There's nothing left to see, but they don't know where else to look. It's comical and sad. "Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking up toward heaven?" said the two men in white robes. Because we're Daniel in the lions' den, that's why!

     The figures in white robes weren't asking them to stop loving and following Jesus, only telling them they had to find new ways to do it. He was still with them, just not in the way they were used to. This is relevant to us. It's the same thing we're up against.

     The silly story of the Ascension has this very serious message: Whether we can see it or not, whether we can believe it or not, the utterly human Jesus who walked, talked, taught, healed, ministered, suffered and died for people like us is also the one, in Daniel's vision, to whom God gave dominion and glory and kingship and an everlasting dominion that shall not pass away. The present and the future belong to him. We can worship God. The beasts are only with us for a season and a time.

     Amen