Skip to main content

Solitude in the pit

Monday – Holy Week

Daniel is one character from the Old Testament that remains predominantly the lore of children’s stories. I remember singing with my kids the catchy children’s songs when the lessons would come home from Sunday School. Daniel as a character for adults though is not often considered. The story is colorful, full of wonderful descriptions and has a clear moral lesson…be true to God and God will rescue the faithful.
In reading today, I have to admit my white point of view, when I never considered (as the book reminds us) how slave spirituals would hold up Daniel as a man of God and hope for their desperate situations.
In our world today (and especially with so much news coming at us 24 hours a day with the most salacious details getting national news) people who live with integrity and follow as God commands are not lifted up at all.
Two quotes from author Havercamp stood out to me today:
“The story of Daniel is about being who God made us to be and knowing that we can be punished for being faithful—punished, in a way, for being our truest selves.” 
and
“In reality, dark nights and lion’s dens rarely have just, simple or happy endings. And yet, when we’re facing down the forces of death and destruction in our lives or communities and feeling trapped in a solitude we did not choose, we like Daniel, can hope to hold onto our identity and our faith in the midst of great threat, to survive with trust in God’s ultimate power and with our integrity intact.”
On this Monday of Holy Week, I am mindful of the drama that swirled around Jesus in Jerusalem. He remained his true self, despite the Hosannas that rang on Palm Sunday, and the temple cleansing that occurred the day after his triumphal entry. Jesus’ integrity remained intact.
Daniel’s integrity remained intact.
As citizens of this country, we are called to have our collective integrity intact.
But perhaps even more importantly, as citizens whose true home is with our creator, our faith in Jesus calls to each of us as Christians to remain faithful to all that God asks of us.
‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ and ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’

Such simple words, but living them fully takes everything we have. We may be thrown in the pit, but God will be with us, and frankly, that is everything.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Holy Saturday

From Rachel Matthews - Today I have been chopping, measuring, mixing, cooking, mixing some more, kneading, baking, waiting, waiting, tasting, arranging, cleaning, preparing.....and preparing....for guests. It is what you do at a funeral. Either you are preparing to serve and comfort the bereaved or, as the bereaved, you are preparing to receive the community, the family, the loved ones to walk with you to the grave and back again. Holy Saturday feels like the days before a funeral. Suspended between death and life, you just carry on. You work, as usual, but not. That's what the women who loved the Rabbi were doing: preparing the spices, arranging the body (Christ's body), wrapping, loving and weeping, and waiting, and waiting and preparing....for guests. I am giddy thinking about the surprise that awaited them - the Guest!! And, I am giddy waiting for our guests to come to our home. My boys won't be here, so there is grief. I miss them so much. But, the new Amer...
Post a Comment
Read more

John the Baptist: a portrait in solitude

John the Baptist and Jesus were so well grounded in their relationships with God that they found they had to withdraw from the world to reconnect with God. Their faith was strengthened when they were alone with God. Yet, I am not sure that this is the case for each of us. If we are not strong in our faith walk, I am not convinced that being alone helps. I know I need the church, the body of believers to keep my faith alive, be it in corporate worship, studying scripture, comforting one another, and supporting one another ("wherever two or three are gathered in my name" rings true for me.) I am sure that author Havercamp is in any was suggesting that being alone with God as an act of resistance that we do not need the body of believers to uphold us. But I do believe that sometimes the body, the Church, does not always help.  There are churches, like those to whom Paul wrote letters in the New Testament, that are toxic to some believers. Sometimes we are called out of the body...
1 comment
Read more

Mary the Theotokos

From Rachel Matthews.... I have had four pregnancies and three deliveries, three sons. Two of these pregnancies were delivered during the week before Christmas. I was preaching in a small church during the first pregnancy. By the time the Advent season was upon us, I could not wear my white alb at all, only the black Geneva robe that is supposed to hide all things human. Except that it did not hide the large bump that unbalanced my five foot two frame. I could not hide the fact that I was pregnant. Mary ended up in a few sermons that year. The Word made flesh was upon us all. It was too much for one man in my congregation to see a pregnant woman in the pulpit. He stopped coming. I was sad that he left and tried not to take it personally. I guess it was too much to see up close and personal how the Christ-bearer was a flesh and blood woman which made Jesus much too real.   I thought it was really neat to experience a different side of Mary. I had heard plenty about the dem...
3 comments
Read more