Foundry United Methodist Church

Rev. Dean Snyder, Senior Minister

“Life in the Lion’s Den: Sermons about Daniel”

Sunday, January 23, 2011

Rev. Dean Snyder

“Daniel: Telling the King Bad News”
Daniel 4:19-27

When I was reading through the Book of Daniel last summer, this is the scene that caused me to decide to spend a month of my life this year in this book of the Bible.

Daniel has become King Nebuchadnezzar's closest advisor and chaplain. Nebuchadnezzar calls Daniel Belteshazzar, which was the name of a Chaldean god. Daniel is like a chaplain in a religion different from his personal religion. It is a very interesting situation, but Daniel rolls with it. He is loose.

In this scene from the Book of Daniel, King Nebuchadnezzar has a dream and he asks Daniel to interpret his dream for him. The meaning of the dream is this: Because the king has become so powerful, because he has conquered the world, and because he has become arrogant, God is going to teach him a lesson. The king is going to go mad. He is going to go mad and live in the wilderness like an animal. He is going to eat grass like an ox. He is going to bathe by rolling naked in the dew in the morning. Because he has been brutal and driven by his appetites and lusts, he is going to experience what it is like to be an animal. He will go mad and live like an animal for seven years.

This is the interpretation of the king's dream that Daniel has to tell the king.

What touches me is the way Daniel does it.

Daniel says to the king, "My Lord, I wish this dream was for those who hate you, and not for you. I wish what this dream says is going to happen to you would happen to your enemies instead."

At the end of his interpretation of the dream, Daniel says to the king, "O king, please change what you've done wrong, please do compassionate and merciful acts to those whom you have oppressed, and maybe God won 't make you go through this."

This is what particularly moves me in this passage and this story. King Nebuchadnezzar has conquered Daniel's nation, has had him relocated to the palace, and has persecuted his friends Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. Nebuchadnezzar is obviously a ruthless power-hungry man who rules with an iron fist. He's oppressed lots of people.

But it is obvious in this passage that Daniel cares about him. Daniel does not consider himself the king’s enemy. Daniel does not consider himself one of those who hate the king. Daniel wishes only the best for the king. Daniel loves the king.

Here's the question - Can we be honest and truthful and realistic about the wrong that is done by those who exercise power and still love them? Can we be honest and truthful about the institutions we are part of and that we serve and that oppress people and still love them?

Can we love the king without worshipping his idols? Is this, in fact, what God is calling us to do? To love the king without worshipping his idols.

I spend a lot of time with clergy, especially United Methodist clergy. I like clergy. They tend to be idealistic, caring, committed. It is my observation that clergy, as we age, tend to get sort of cynical and disappointed with the church. Not all of us, but it is a tendency. We tend to be resistant to the leadership of our leaders. We tend to complain about people in positions of authority and try to undermine them. We stop loving the church.

I am on the board of ordained ministry. It takes a long time to get ordained; three or four years of seminary; three or four or five years of probation. You can sometimes see people begin the process happy and idealistic and eager, and even by the time they get ordained, you see the disillusionment begin.

And, of course, who knows better how imperfect the church is than its clergy? Who knows better how much damage the institution of the church has done and does than its clergy? Who knows better how much idolatry and compromise and selling out there is in the church than its clergy? We are the ones who are selling out.

So is it possible to be honest and truthful and realistic about what the institution of the church has done and does to people? To love the people the church has oppressed? To maybe be one of the people the church has oppressed, and still love the church? To want the church to repent not because we hate the institution, but because we love the church and we do not want it to have to suffer the humiliation of living like an animal?

I like people who are part of government service. People who go into government service tend to be idealistic, concerned, caring. They want to make a difference.

I notice that some people who go into government service can become sort of disillusioned. They can become sort of a little cynical. Or maybe it is resignation.

Critics within the larger society complain about taxes and bureaucracy. There are those who want to do away with as much government as possible.

People in government service know the short-coming and failures and unhealthy politics and protectionism that happen in government better than anybody else.

But government is critically important. Without government there would be no dependable regulation, and the profit motive would never be held accountable to ethics and standards of decency and fairness. Without government there would be no meaningful civil liberties. Without government there would be no real access to education for excluded groups of people. There would be no redistribution of wealth and economic justice. The list goes on and on.

Here's the question: Is it possible to be honest and truthful and realistic about the shortcomings of governmental structures and offices and still love government and the people who hold authority in government?

What about patriotism? If your country fights wars that you believe are wrong, maybe even sinful, can you still love your country? If your country practices racism or sexism or homophobia, can you still love your country?

If it is 1940 in America and you are African-American and you live in a segregated America, is it a betrayal of your people and yourself to be patriotic?

If it is 1933 and Hitler has just been elected chancellor of Germany and you are Jewish in Germany, is it a betrayal of yourself and your people to love your nation?

I'm just asking.

Can I love my gay friends and an institution that oppresses them at the same time? Can I be gay, or a woman, or an immigrant, and love an institution that participates in the oppression of gays, women, and immigrants?

These kinds of questions are why I find the Book of Daniel so disturbing.

One of the disturbing questions I've been asking myself in the privacy of my study all month is whether Daniel suffered from the Stockholm Syndrome.

The clinical psychologist Dr. Joseph Carver has written about the Stockholm Syndrome:

In 1973 two criminals with machine guns entered a bank in Stockholm, Sweden. They held four hostages, three women and one man, for the next 131 hours. The hostages were strapped with dynamite and held in a bank vault for 5 ½ days. It was terror.

After their rescue, the hostages exhibited an attitude that shocked people. They had been threatened, abused, and feared for their lives for over five days. In their media interviews, it was clear that they supported their captors and feared the law enforcement officers who came to their rescue. The hostages had begun to feel the captors were actually protecting them from the police. One woman later became engaged to one of the criminals and another developed a legal defense fund to aid in their criminal defense fees. The hostages had "bonded" emotionally with their captors.

Stockholm Syndrome became the new name for the psychological condition in which a victim emotionally bonds with a victimizer. It can happen with:
• Abused children
• Battered/Abused Women
• Prisoners of War
• Cult Members
• Incest Victims
• Criminal Hostage Situations
• Concentration Camp Prisoners
• Controlling/Intimidating Relationships

We don't want to baptize the Stockholm Syndrome. We do not want to encourage people to stay in abusive relationships...not ever. Let me say this again. We do not want to ever encourage people to stay in abusive situations.

Did Daniel suffer from the Stockholm Syndrome?

I think the difference between Daniel and the Stockholm Syndrome is that Daniel did not idealize the king in order to love him. Daniel did not pretend the king was anything other than what he was. And Daniel did not buy into the king's assumptions and values to love him. Daniel did not worship the king's idols in order to love him.

I think Daniel was an agent of change because he managed to love the king without giving up truth. Or the other way of saying this is that he managed to hold on to truth without giving up love.

In retrospect, we see and understand how deeply Martin Luther King Jr. loved America. We celebrate Dr. King today as a patriot. During the time he lived, lots of people were convinced that Dr. King was a capitol “C” Communist. J. Edgar Hover believed Dr. King was a capital “C” Communist who wanted to overthrow the American government. J. Edgar Hoover believed this.

They had to believe it to reject the truth King spoke.

Most of us have to idealize people to love them, and we have to demonize people to hate them. We have to idealize institutions to love them, and we have to demonize institutions to hate them.

Lots of people believe that those of us who want to change the Christian Church's attitudes and policies toward LGBT people don't love the Bible. Maybe they have to believe that.

For those of us who want to change the church, everything we believe in and stand for and want to see happen comes from the Bible that teaches liberation and inclusion. But they need to not believe or understand that we love the Bible.

Most of us need to demonize people and institutions to hate them and idealize people and institutions to love them.

Daniel managed to see the king the way he was and still love him. Or the other way of saying this is that Daniel managed to love the king and still see him the way he was.

There are people who hate the Church for understandable reasons. There are people who hate religion for understandable reasons. Atheism is a protest movement and it is often justified.

There are people who hate America for understandable reasons. There are people who hate government for understandable reasons. I don't want to judge this at all.

But I think there is great power in Daniel, who saw the oppression that the king had done and was doing, who did not deny the oppression, did not condone the oppression, did not make excuses for the oppression, but still loved the king.

We used to have a sex therapist who did a workshop as part of our pre-Cana weekend. She said that most relationships come with a stage she called infatuation.

When you are in infatuation you idealize the other person, become blind to their faults and limitations in order to merge with them and to convince yourself they fulfill your every need and desire.

But, she said, infatuation can only last a year, a year and a half, maybe two years. Somewhere within that time, we begin to see the real person with all their strengths and weakness and assets and liabilities.

At that point, we will either move on to a more mature expression of love or we may actually come to hate the person we were infatuated with when we can no longer idealize them to meet our own needs and desires. I think she used to suggest that it may not be the best idea to get married to someone while you were still in infatuation.

Let me be blunt. There are those, maybe some of us, who are in infatuation with America rather than in love with America. There are those, maybe some of us, who are in infatuation with the Bible rather than in love with the Bible. There are those, maybe some of us, who are in infatuation with the church rather than in love with the church. There are those, maybe some of us, who are in infatuation with Jesus rather than in love with Jesus. There are those, maybe some of us, who are in infatuation with God rather than in love with God.

We turn country, church, Jesus, and God into whatever it is we need to fill the hole within ourselves instead of encountering them as who they really are. We can even do that with God.

There are those who used to be in infatuation with country, church, Bible, Jesus, and God, who come to hate them when the infatuation wears off.

Daniel's greatest usefulness to God, I think, was that he was not in infatuation; he did not idealize the king. He loved the king. He loved the king and he loved truth at the same time.

Boy, oh boy. I'd really, really like to have the grace to be able to do that too with the kings in my life.

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