Sermon for January 12 Daniel: into the fire

So…

Here we are, a New Year has begun, the Wisemen have gone home another way, and we need to get started with whatever God has put our hands to.

So, what has God put your hands to?

Or putting it another way, what are you and I supposed to be doing, both as individual follows of Jesus, and as a community of followers of Jesus?

Sometimes it’s hard to tell. We want to be faithful. We want to be growing. We want to be putting our time and energy into things that matters. So, what are they?

Things are for the most part pretty good for most of us. So we have choices, options, and opportunities.

We could focus on our work, or on our family, or on our personal spiritual growth, or all of them at the same time, although sometimes that just makes the focus unfocused.

Or we could focus on making a difference in this particular congregation, by helping lead the youth group, or singing in the choir, or starting a church rock band.

Or helping us fix our weird computer system, or running new video and internet wiring, or laying a bed of grave by the stable, or helping get new concrete walkways.

Or teaching EMPOWER classes or offering to lead an adult bible study or small group, or maybe giving in to God incessant call to become the curch secretary, just saying.

Or maybe your focus should be outside the church, going on a mission trip with Allison and the crew, or with the youth, or maybe helping start a new crew that just works local, like at one of the Habitat houses in Newburgh.

Or maybe, it should be to just sit down and listen.

Listen for God to speak to you, give you direction, point out the way ahead.

To focus on getting your relationship with the God of the universe, and his son Jesus, and the empowering presence of the spirit straight; getting God’s power and direction into your life in a way that allows you to respond to choices, options, and opportunities like Daniel.

Now Daniel circumstances were a bit different than ours.

Daniel was a refugee, not by choice, but rather as a captive. He and his friends were forced to march from Jerusalem where they had been part of the royal family or administration and brought at gunpoint - as it were - to Babylon.

There, they were conscripted by King Nebuchadnezzar to be trained to become - in three years’ time - court officials in the government of the people who had captured their homeland, destroyed their capital city of Jerusalem, looted and destroyed the Temple, and who had carried off most of the leadership and intelligentsia of the Israelite nation.

And you think you have some hard choices to make.

They are hard. All choices to be faithful are hard. But sometimes, as Daniel reminds us, you just have to do what you know is the right thing and let the chips fall where they may.

And God will lead you, be in front of you, prepare you as you go, and test you, to see if you are ready for the next step of faith.

I grew up in a church right near a fairly large college. The church had a good-sized college ministry with students there on Sunday morning, often looking quite hungry!

So, in addition to a rousing discussion of all things biblical and faith challenging, there was food at the college and careers Sunday School class, since the college didn’t offer breakfast. It was at times a bit of a free for all, as the pastor often offered up bite sized bits of wisdom about spiritual life for students during the class.

Like this one, that to begin a life of giving, or stewardship, he suggested that all college students look at what they were spending on pizza and soda each week (he didn’t mention beer, but the principle was the same) and once a month give that amount to the Lord.

He noted it wouldn’t be a lot of money, but that wasn’t the point. The revelation was that God wants us to be faithful with what we have, not with what we don’t, and that in that small act of faithfulness a lifetime of stewardship could grow, using what we have been given by God, for God.

For Daniel, the choice was really hard: to serve Babylon or God. But Daniel decided he was to do both. That somehow, someway, God was calling Daniel and his friends to serve the overlord wisely and well, while serving Yahweh, the God of Israel, at the same time.

For Daniel the sticking point was the call upon God’s people to remain Kosher, to eat only what God had prescribed for them. Daniel knew that Kosher was the only choice.

He wasn’t being asked, at least not now, to give up his faith. He was being asked to learn and to serve, which he believed he could do. But only if he could eat right.

God had given Daniel great wisdom, and so he asked a friendly official “if” he and his friends could eat Kosher for a time, just to see what the result would be, and they did, and God blessed Daniel and his friends for their faithfulness.

So, what is your calling? What is it you are to do? What might you have to give up? What blessing might you gain in return?

Can you, like Daniel, find a way to remain faithful and even grow in faith as God uses you to grow his kingdom?

Be like Daniel, and boldly step into the presence of God.

Daniel: into the fire.

Amen!