TLDR: Thinking about Daniel during Saint Dunstan’s 2023 Vacation Bible School. I hope you enjoy the reflection below.
Daniel tells us a prototypical immigrant story. Away from his birth culture, traditions, food, language, and support systems, he must confront a pluralistic society with a multitude of competing demands and gods. There are many things he doesn’t understand. Even the familiar relics and places of worship have been destroyed, stolen, or left behind in the old country. Those relics and temples provided a space where the history of the nation dwelled. His own personal story was closely associated with these spaces. There was a time when he could answer the questions, “What makes a Jew special? What is at the center of his identity?” by pointing the finger to the Temple or by narrating the stories of Israel’s famous festivals. He could say, “At the heart of Israel’s identity is our relationship with I AM. Yahweh has chosen us as his own nation. The God of the universe has entered into covenants with our ancestors, and he physically dwells in our tabernacle. We are his people, and he is our God. We celebrate this special relationship through Temple worship and sacrifices, and through our national festivals.” But there is no longer a Temple to look up to. There are no festivals to celebrate the nation’s rescue from Egypt (Pesach or Passover), the penitential feast of Unleavened Bread (Chag HaMatzot), the ingathering of first fruits (Bikkurim), the Spring festival of Seven Sabbaths (Shavuot or Pentecost), the feast of trumpets (Rosh HaShanah), the Day of Atonement (Yom Kippur), or the feast of Tabernacles in remembrance of the 40 years in the wilderness (Sukkot).
In the absence of those spaces and festivals his memories have become internalized and decontextualized. Everything that rooted his experience as a Jew has been left behind. Now the Temple dwells only in his memories, as does the God whose presence was found in the Holy of Holies or Tabernacle, in the inner most holy space in the Temple. His heart is filled with absence and he is at times overwhelmed by the newness of it all. To make matters worse, the pressure to enculturate threatens his strong faith in the monotheistic God of his people group. With so many competing local deities and national gods, Daniel and his friends find it extremely hard to remain faithful to their special relationship with God. Compromise would have made their lives easier, but they placed their trust in the God of their ancestors. With Yahweh’s help they could remain strong at a time of great upheaval and danger.
We all know the rest of the story, as our children are learning it during this weeks’ Vacation Bible School. Daniel becomes a close adviser to the king, God saves him and his friends from danger, he grows to occupy a very important position within the empire, and his leadership makes the lives of the Jews easier while they are in captivity. In a way, the book of Daniel answers the same question the Wisdom of Ben Sira and other intertestamental works try to answer: “How does a righteous Jew remain firmly planted in his faith in Yahweh within a hostile, pluralistic society?” His answer could be summarized in a few concepts: Endurance (courage), prayer, faithfulness, authenticity, and a constant appeal to memory.
Endurance means courageously adhering to what you believe to be central to your identity, regardless of societal pressures, threats to your own life, temptations to seek easy answers that don’t fit within your value system, or the possible loss of societal benefits. Prayer means to appeal to a benevolent and merciful God who loves you and who is always willing to give you the strength and wisdom you need to persevere. Faithfulness means steadfastness and loyalty to what you believe God wants from you; to see God as central to your life, both in the public and private spheres; to pursue wisdom daily, seeking to understand your faith at a much deeper level; to remain true to what you believe. Authenticity requires that you be truly yourself, without pretenses that might make you more likable to those in power, without the duplicity common in politics, and without the aloofness and ethereal superficiality promoted by social media. A constant appeal to memory is a radical and revolutionary belief that your experience matters, that God has carefully molded you to be the person you are, that you are enough and valuable, that you have lived and occupied many spaces successfully, that God has always been with you and will always be with you. Christians are remembrance people. We gather every Sunday to remember. We call our primary service an “act of remembrance.” We follow one who said, “Do this in remembrance of me!”
These same principles that helped Daniel in Babylon can help us now. We too are confronted with a multiplicity of conflicting demands and a wide range of ideas and people who claim for themselves “god-like” powers. We too deal daily with numerous changes and temptations, and it is often easier to compromise than to risk being ostracized. We too live in a hostile age. Daniel’s story is our own story, especially if you are a transplant to this country or state.
The good news is that God is with us, just one prayer away. Please remember that God delights in you!
May his blessings be with you always,
Fr. Roman+
