Homily for Evensong, 16th November
Texts: Daniel 8:1-14
Matthew 13:1-9, 18-23
A contemporary theologian[1] has said that, “What you believe about Daniel 8 will largely determine what you believe about the rest of Scripture, and about what God actually promises over your life”.
That’s a lot to hang on one chapter, and perhaps especially one replete with quite so many horns – little horns, enormous horns, multiplying and broken horns. If you’re feeling a little dazed by them all, I won’t judge!
This vision of Daniel’s is one where the interpretation is given (perhaps that’s just as well) – rather like the parable of the sower, where Jesus helpfully steps in, only here it’s the Angel Gabriel who lends an interpreting hand.
All these rams & goats and their various horns represent what’s coming in the future, and specifically what’s coming to Daniel’s people, the Jews.[2] (It’s fair to say that some scholars dispute the interpretation; but it’s fairly widely accepted.)
At the time of the vision, the Jews are still captive to the Babylonians. The Media-Persia invasion is coming, but they too will be defeated in time by the Greeks, led by Alexander the Great but all culminating with Antiochus Epiphanes, the “little horn which grew”, and his various abominations – the throwing down of stars is a reference to slaughtering Abraham’s descendants; he stopped the daily sacrifices and yes, he defiled the sanctuary, sacrificing a pig on the altar and putting a statue of Zeus in the temple, and destroying the sacred scrolls.
Eventually of course, the might of the Roman Empire comes along in its turn.
But all these earthly empires will, in the end, fall to the King of all Kings.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, Gabriel’s translation didn’t make Daniel much happier. We’re told he was “overcome, and lay sick for some days”. Even after he got up, he continued to be dismayed and confused by the vision. It’s hard to blame him!
But how does all this go from being a bit of an interesting history lesson, to something so fundamental to our Christianity that a theologian can feel justified in saying that how we approach this chapter will determine how we feel about Scripture and about God?
**
In Old Testament times there was a prevailing belief that if bad things happened, they were sent by God as punishment for wrongdoing. We see that a lot in Scripture, perhaps especially in Job, where his not-very-comforting friends tried to work out where he’d gone so terribly wrong. But we also see it in our reading tonight from Daniel – “because of wickedness” all this desolation takes place.
We still see it today, in the “prosperity doctrine” and various other doctrines which assure us that God desires earthly riches for us. If we don’t receive them, it’s all down to a lack of faith. It also comes through in the belief that hard work is always rewarded; if the poor would only stop being quite so lazy, they’d be fine.
The problem with these comfortable doctrines is that they tend to clash with real life. There would certainly have been non-wicked people caught up in the Babylonian captivity, in the desolation of the Temple. Most of us know some sick people who have done nothing to invite their illness; poor people who work as hard as they can, but aren’t able to get ahead; abuse survivors who most certainly didn’t deserve their abuse.
Many of us are those people.
The message that the Angel Gabriel was giving Daniel was that evil would have its day – not once, but over and over again. This happens on a global scale and in individual human lives. No wonder Daniel felt sick.
Acknowledging, and even accepting, that evil is often going to flourish in this world we live in, doesn’t mean we shouldn’t fight it. In acknowledging the nature of evil, we should fight it all the harder. We fight poverty with generosity, sickness with medicine, abuse with kindness. We fight all of it by working for better laws and by supporting different organisations.
And still we see evil flourish, because that’s the reality of a fallen world. This was Gabriel’s message to Daniel.
But Gabriel’s message carries on… Yes, this is all wretched, but it isn’t beyond God. The power of evil that we see, isn’t because God has lost interest in us. It isn’t because it’s all too much for God and he’s had to turn away.
God has evil’s measure. God knows its end.
**
Our Matthew reading also shows people who encounter pain.
It’s often been said that we are all, at different times, the different soil. There are times when our lives reflect hardened paths, or rock, or thorns. The seed has nowhere to embed, and it is quickly overcome.
But even in our own lives, God has evil’s measure, and God knows its end.
You see, if this weren’t the case, people whose life had rocky or thorny places, would never be able to flourish in their faith; yet so often the exact opposite is true. Even the rocks and the thorns become tools of God, enriching the soil. Yes, God uses even those.
Just as Daniel’s vision ends in the restoration of the Sanctuary, our own lives will, as with God’s help we persevere, culminate in God’s triumph.
**
Evil has its day… but God knows the end of the story.
Juli Meiklejohn
[1] Dr Bryan Chapell, in his book “The Gospel of Daniel”
[2] Daniel 8:19-end