Hope Incarnate
Advent 1 – Narrative Lectionary 3
November 27, 2016
Grace, Mankato, MN
Daniel 6.6-27
This past Monday I met with our Eucharistic Ministers, a silent almost invisible ministry of the congregation. Eucharistic Ministers visit and bring Communion to our members who are shut in and can’t get to church otherwise. During the meeting, we shared some of our experiences almost all of them positive and uplifting. We also talked through some of the challenges we meet. As in many ministries, I got the sense that they were blessed as much as being a blessing to those they visit. I think that’s true for most ministries of the church. Because I was thinking about Daniel and the theme of hope, I asked the Eucharistic Ministers to help me define it. We toss around a lot of loaded words in the church, but we rarely take the time to unpack them. So, I asked for their help.
Daniel seems to be in a hopeless situation, the targeted victim of political intrigue and insider bullying. To understand the book of Daniel, we need to know its context. Daniel is set in the period of the exile when Jews were conquered and moved to Babylon. The temple was destroyed and everyone who was anyone was expatriated. They are in a foreign land with enormous pressure to assimilate into the local culture, especially religiously. So, at heart the book of Daniel is “resistance literature,” much like the book of Revelation. The book claims that God is sovereign, not empire. Furthermore, to interpret Daniel correctly, we must engage in a mildly willingly suspension of disbelief at some of the aspects of the story. As one observer notes, it is easier to believe Daniel escaped from the lions than such a law was passed in the first place. Even so, the book of Daniel speaks to us in the Advent themes of expectation, hope and the coming of a savior.
The Eucharistic Ministers gave me rich feedback about hope, only some of which I’m able to share with you this morning. One person described hope as “trembling anticipation” and I pictured a dog at the dinner table looking for any scrap that might fall or be tossed its way. But they all said that hope is not just wishful thinking; hope has a foundation or anchor in which it is based. Yet, in the next breath they said something counterintuitive, that hope is not set in stone. Rather, hope is dynamic, and other words were offered: flexible, malleable, and fluid came to mind. I was reminded of theologian Rob Bell’s metaphor for the life of faith. Faith is not a wall made up of bricks such that when one is removed the wall crumbles. Faith is more like the springs on a trampoline that allows us to jump. Finally, the Eucharistic Ministers indicated that hope has to be real; in my words, I said that hope has to be incarnate. It has to have flesh and bones.
The story of Daniel seems to embody this multi-faceted understanding of hope. King Darius, for all his spinelessness, is like that dog at the dinner table in trembling anticipation, hoping against hope that Daniel’s God can save him. He rushes to the lions’ den knowing it’s over but not knowing what has happened. It’s like going to bed while your favorite sports team is playing and waking up the next day not know who won. Or, for a more recent analogy, it’s like going to bed while the presidential election was raging and waking up wondering the same thing. An interesting side note: the king didn’t spend the night with Daniel, preferring to stay away. However, hope still became incarnate later as he arrived at the lion’s den. It would be easy to mock Darius’ version of hope against Daniel’s steadfast one, yet most of us would probably admit that we hope more like Darius than we do like Daniel.
Many of us are facing lions of one sort or another that are threatening to overwhelm us. The season of Advent is a reminder that the God we claim continues to claim us. This God became Incarnate Hope in Jesus Christ: Darkness-Shattering Light and Lion Tamer in the flesh. The really marvelous result of the coming of Jesus is that we are made Incarnate Hope for others. The Eucharistic Ministers, you all by your subversive act of worship and presence with one another, are concrete, tangible signs of hope to a world beset by lions. Thank you for embodying hope and may God bless you as you serve as incarnate hope in a hurting world that needs to know God loves them and cares for them. Amen.
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