Daniel
Have you ever felt like you don’t belong, like you’re on the outside looking in? Or perhaps you know what imposter syndrome is… I know some of you definitely do! As a vicar it’s weird because on the one hand I am part of most of church life, but on the other hand I am an outsider. Perhaps you feel the same way with family, or with a group of friends, or at church things?
God’s people are supposed to feel a bit like that in the world: we are in it but we don’t belong to it. That’s why in his first letter Peter calls Christians ‘exiles’ and ‘foreigners’ (1 Peter 1.1 & 17). Like him, some of them had been forced out of their homes, but all Christians are foreigners’ in the world, because we are citizens of God’s kingdom, members of God’s family; we do not belong to the world.
One of the best examples of someone living like this in the Bible is Daniel. His situation was shocking – how could God allow his land to be conquered, his people exiled, his temple defiled?
But what should shock us more than the defeat of God’s people, is the way God called Daniel to live in Babylon, and gave him gifts far beyond his training, so he could work to the benefit of God’s enemies.
Let that sink in for a minute. We tend to look down on collaborators, and praise resistance fighters – yet Daniel collaborated with the Babylonian regime for decades; he even ended up as one of its chief officials! God called Daniel not to bring Babylon down from the inside, but to be a blessing within it.
So the question for Daniel and his fellow exiles was this: How can we live in an alien and hostile culture, without selling out?’Â It’s been a question for God’s people throughout the ages; the issues might change but the temptation remains the same: do we ‘get with the programme’ of society’s values and give in to the pressure to conform – or do we stand out by standing up for God?
Daniel and his friends put everything on the line. In the face of temptation, before the genuine risk of serious harm – even death – they chose to give glory to God, refused to worship idols, and prayed every day: never forgetting their home or their God.
Daniel and his friends served a hostile culture not by becoming like it, but by being faithful to God, even at great personal cost. God used them in ways they couldn’t begin to imagine.
I wonder – are we at Christ Church brave enough to be more Christian not less in a world so in need of God? Can we learn how to serve and bless the world like Daniel did, without being assimilated by it?
And personally: how can you stand up for Jesus this week?