Sermon Transcript: August 4, 2024
Today, we are beginning a new sermon series on the book of Daniel, focusing on the topic of “holy imagination.” This series will explore the gifts that God has given us, even when our circumstances may not be the best. We think of, remember, and imagine the goodness of God to us. We’ll be doing this throughout August.
I’m really excited about this series. I’m excited to dive deeply into the book of Daniel with you. Let’s be honest, August can be a tough month here in Baltimore. We’re a little tired of the heat, and, at least for me, maybe not for you, but at least for me, it can drag on a little. It’s good to have something to be excited about and look forward to in August.
The Book of Daniel has inspired and intrigued readers for centuries. The stories of Daniel and his friends have inspired great works of art from artists such as Rembrandt and Michelangelo. Musicians like Benjamin Britten and Louis Armstrong have been inspired by its pages. Many of us first encountered Daniel and his friends in children’s Bibles and books with their colorful images and stories, or maybe on the screen with VeggieTales. Many of us first encountered these stories that way.
New Testament writers also draw heavily from the book of Daniel as they theologize about Jesus’ life and ministry, his death and resurrection. The book of Revelation follows suit in Daniel’s use of apocalyptic storytelling. I’m going to talk a little bit more about what exactly that is. It’s not as scary as the movies and TV make it out to be. Trust me, it’s really not. But the imagery used in Daniel is reflected and amplified upon as well.
The main concern of the book of Daniel is religious oppression and persecution. Daniel’s message promises that God will deliver those who trust in God, refrain from worshiping foreign deities, and hold to the Jewish traditions even in the face of persecution. Daniel himself was a young, noble Jewish person of Jerusalem who was taken into captivity by Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon. He served in the king’s court with loyalty and ability, all while remaining true to the God of Israel—a very tight rope to walk at some points.
While some believe that Daniel actually existed, most scholars agree that he is not a historical figure. Although the setting of the book is the Babylonian exile, the book is actually concerned with events a couple of centuries later, particularly with the Hellenistic king Antiochus IV. This is very typical of apocalyptic literature—it’s a very coded way of talking about the current political situation by discussing things metaphorically, through stories, or by reporting history from years ago. But what they’re actually talking about is what’s going on right now. They just can’t do it plainly because that would put them in the crosshairs. So, they use this symbolic and coded language to discuss these issues.
In the passage we’re about to read today, we’re introduced to Daniel, whose Babylonian name is Belteshazzar. He is given a chance to prove himself to King Nebuchadnezzar by interpreting the king’s cryptic dream. Daniel does so, making sure that the king understands that it is the God of Israel, not he, who gives the interpretation. With his success, Daniel secures a spot for himself and his three friends—Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego—in the king’s court.
Let us pray. Spirit of the living God, fall afresh on us. Melt us, mold us, fill us, use us. Spirit of the living God, fall afresh on each and every one of us. Amen.
Daniel 2:24-49
Daniel went to Arioch, whom the king had appointed to destroy the wise men of Babylon. He said to him, “Do not destroy the wise men of Babylon; bring me before the king, and I will give the king the interpretation.”
Then Arioch quickly brought Daniel before the king and said to him, “I have found among the exiles from Judah a man who can tell the king the interpretation.”
The king said to Daniel, whose name was Belteshazzar, “Are you able to tell me the dream that I have seen and its interpretation?”
Daniel answered the king, “No wise men, enchanters, magicians, or diviners can show to the king the mystery that the king is asking. But there is a God in heaven who reveals mysteries, and he has disclosed to King Nebuchadnezzar what will happen at the end of days. Your dreams and the visions of your head as you lay in bed were these: To you, O king, as you lay in bed came thoughts of what would be hereafter, and the revealer of mysteries disclosed to you what is to be. But as for me, this mystery has not been revealed to me because of any wisdom that I have more than any other living being, but in order that the interpretation may be made known to the king, and that you may understand the thoughts of your mind.
“You were looking, O king, and there appeared a great statue. That statue was huge; its brilliance extraordinary; it was standing before you, and its appearance was frightening. The head of that statue was of fine gold, its chest and arms of silver, its midsection and thighs of bronze, its legs of iron, its feet partly of iron and partly of clay. As you looked on, a stone was cut out, not by human hands, and it struck the statue on its feet of iron and clay and broke them into pieces. Then the iron, the clay, the bronze, the silver, and the gold were all broken into pieces and became like the chaff of the summer threshing floors; the wind carried them away, so that not a trace of them could be found. But the stone that struck the statue became a great mountain and filled the whole earth.
“This was the dream; now we will tell the king its interpretation. You, O king, the king of kings, to whom the God of heaven has given the kingdom, the power, the might, and the glory, into whose hand he has given human beings, wherever they live, the wild animals, and the birds of the air, and whom he has established as ruler over them all—you are the head of gold. After you shall arise another kingdom, inferior to yours, and yet a third kingdom of bronze, which shall rule over the whole earth. And there shall be a fourth kingdom, strong as iron; just as iron crushes and smashes everything, it shall crush and shatter all these. As you saw the feet and toes, partly of potter’s clay and partly of iron, it shall be a divided kingdom; but some of the strength of iron shall be in it, as you saw the iron mixed with the clay. As the toes of the feet were partly iron and partly clay, so the kingdom shall be partly strong and partly brittle. As you saw the iron mixed with clay, so they will mix with one another in marriage, but they will not hold together, just as iron does not mix with clay.
“And in the days of those kings, the God of heaven will set up a kingdom that shall never be destroyed, nor shall this kingdom be left to another people. It shall crush all these kingdoms and bring them to an end, and it shall stand forever, just as you saw that a stone was cut from the mountain, not by hands, and that it crushed the iron, the bronze, the clay, the silver, and the gold. The great God has informed the king what shall be hereafter. The dream is certain, and its interpretation trustworthy.”
Then King Nebuchadnezzar fell on his face, worshiped Daniel, and commanded that a grain offering and incense be offered to him. The king said to Daniel, “Truly, your God is God of gods and Lord of kings and a revealer of mysteries, for you have been able to reveal this mystery.” Then the king promoted Daniel, gave him many great gifts, made him ruler over the whole province of Babylon, and chief prefect over all the wise men of Babylon. Daniel made a request of the king, and he appointed Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego over the affairs of the province of Babylon. But Daniel remained at the king’s court.
For the word of God in scripture, for the word of God among us, for the word of God within us, thanks be to God.
I’m trying really hard not to take it personally that the power is out on my first day back from vacation, that the sirens started going as I started reading, and my voice was already straining. But I’m trying to take your advice and remember the good. I had a wonderful vacation. I had a lovely vacation. Thank you all. This is actually reminding me of it. You know, it’s very rustic. There is electricity there, but we only got it about 15 years ago. It’s a wonderful, wonderful place. It was a wonderful time to be together with family. I just wanted to give you a brief kind of vignette into what it is for me and for my family—this place, this vacation, this time together that you all afforded me.
One of the things is, you don’t get cell service there. So, now we have these conversations, and you come up to this point where you’re uncertain of something, and what do you do? Google, right? But we couldn’t do that. We just had to live with the mystery of not knowing this thing until we could get a signal again.
At one point, my sister and I were describing to our kids a rock formation that’s kind of out in front of the lake. We were reminiscing about when we were kids and what we would do there and how we would play. It’s a really neat rock formation. She was describing how it used to be a kitchen, saying, “This was the countertop here, and over here was the refrigerator.” I was like, “No, no, it was a spaceship, and this was the cockpit. You know, you’re standing right now in the cockpit, and you drive it this way.” Our kids just kind of looked at us like, “What are you even talking about?” But our memories were so vivid, and our imaginations so active when we were young, that we could spend hours playing on these rock formations, bringing them to life as a kitchen or as a spaceship.
This series is about holy imaginations inspired by the tales and visions we encounter in the book of Daniel. We will reconsider what it means to be people of faith in a time such as this. We live in a world torn apart by political and religious divisions. Often, the church is a place of blessings, or worse, it kowtows to power, selling its soul for the chance to rub shoulders with the rich and famous, or even to force its beliefs on others through legislation.
In such an ethos, sometimes it feels like just enough not to be close-minded bigots. But is that all there is? Is that the best that we can do? Or can we imagine the church being something more? That word is key: imagine.
Have we lost, collectively, our sense of imagination as the church has lost its power and influence? Have we been so focused on whether or not we can survive as an institution that we have ceased to believe that God can use us for a mighty purpose?
Walter Brueggemann says, “The world does not need the church to talk about what is already possible. The work of the church is to battle the world’s definition of what is believable and unbelievable.”
How are we doing with that? We have to begin by imagining a different world—a world of kindness and compassion, a world of love and justice. A world where each person is honored as a child of God, created in the image of the Divine. Imagine a world where we can have different opinions without demonizing each other. Can you imagine that? Could such a world be possible?
It begins with imagination, with a dream. With us, these incredible brains, this gift of creativity, of imagination that we find as children. What do we too often do as adults? We set it aside for practicality, respectability, and rationality. But imagination is a gift, just like those others, and not just for children but for us too.
In our text today, Daniel is very, very clear. He states that he has no special knowledge, power, or gifts of divination. It is God who gives the interpretation of the dream, and it is God who warns Nebuchadnezzar that his grasp on power is tenuous and will not last. That’s the draw of power, right? We think that it will last forever and ever, but it doesn’t. It never, ever does.
So, what does it mean for us as Christians, as people of faith, to seek not our own power and status, but to be implementers of God’s dream? What is God’s dream? I think our first ending summed it up pretty nicely.
When we come to this table—today, it’s this table because it’s so dark up there, okay?—when we come to this table, we glimpse, we get a peek. That’s what apocalypse means, by the way. You realize I didn’t, I said I was going to explain that, and then I didn’t. But that’s exactly what apocalypse means. Apocalypse, the Greek word, means “pulling back.” In the images, there’s a curtain that’s being pulled back. You know, movies and TV shows love to show fire and destruction and the end of the world. That’s what we think of as the end of the world, right?
No, in a way of speaking, it’s the pulling back of the curtain. Imagine that everything we see is like a veil, a curtain. Our reality, the way that we think things are—apocalypse is this idea that every once in a while, we get a glimpse, a peek behind the curtain of our reality. God pulls it back just a little bit to show us a deeper reality, a wider reality, God’s reality. That’s what apocalypse means. It’s the pulling back of that curtain. It’s the peek. And what we see is not destruction and fire and all of those things; it’s transformation.
And we heard it in the dream, right? These kingdoms that have been built up in Babylon and other places, they’re going to fall. That’s the peek behind the curtain. So, it looks like destruction, but what it’s being replaced with is the kingdom of God.
So, it’s this idea of this pulling back of the curtain, this peek, and what we get is a glimpse—a glimpse of the pulling back of the curtain. Every time we come to this table, we see just a little bit of God’s dream, where everyone is welcome and where all are free, where power and status give way to concerns and tensions, and where God and God alone is the host and we all are guests invited to a table of grace. So, let us come.
Let’s get a peek at this dream that God may feed our imaginations so that together we may catch God’s dream of a world transformed by love and grace.
Amen.
