Preached by Brother Luke
Holy Wisdom Church
Holy Wisdom Church
We may all have our
own experiences of being on the hot seat, but we must admit that these three
youths turn in the marquee performance. To get the whole story of Daniel and
the three youths you need to read all of the book of Daniel. In there you would
notice that when the king questions the three about their god and what help
they might expect from him they reply, either he will help them or he won’t,
but either way they will praise the name of the Lord their God. Now that is a
challenge to us and it is what I believe is a very important lesson of this
story. When faced with a crisis in our
lives, can we praise God without regard to the outcome? Certainly, these three
asked for God’s help, but they also sang his praises as the fires burned all
around them.
At final exam time
I’m sure God’s message board lights up with an overload of requests for help to
get through the exams. But of course, we can list many examples of our own
trials and tribulations and look at how we approached God in each circumstance.
An IRS tax audit, a major presentation in a court case, getting through a
whelping with all the puppies alive, preparing a meal for special guests and
hoping it will all go well, going to the doctor for an important check-up and
hoping that whatever problem we might be facing will be solved without
something worse happening, getting safely to the bottom of our road on an icy
day, surviving a plane trip in the midst of a storm, etc. Can I praise God for
my life and all the glories and graces I have enjoyed even when things seem to
be going wrong? That is a challenge.
Let’s take it one
step further. The early Fathers and Mothers of the church often counseled their
petitioners to guard against the passions of the world. To set one’s focus on
God’s Kingdom. If we are to live truly in the peace of the Lord, how can we do
that if we are always or frequently angry, depressed, disturbed, upset,
anxious, irritable, annoyed, rattled, sullen, and the list is endless. These
feelings are telling us that we have allowed the “passions” of the world to
hook us into the world’s maelstrom of distress. So, I believe, more pertinent
for us today than the hot seat image, is the image captured by the quote from
Rudyard Kipling’s poem “If”: “if you can keep your head when all about you are losing
theirs.”
Richard Rohr, in one
of our recent morning matins readings was saying much the same thing but using
the images of light and darkness. We wish we could stop all the darkness in our
world, “But at a certain point, we have to surrender to the fact that the
darkness has always been here, and the only real question is how to receive the
light and spread the light.” He goes on to say: “What we need to do is
recognize what is, in fact, darkness and then learn to live in creative and courageous
relationship to it.” [1]This
does not mean we don’t care about the cares of the world, it means we don’t let
the world rule our lives, especially when we realize that we are not really in
a position to change the world. This is the world Jesus is telling us to leave
behind. Point to the light and keep going in that direction rather than be
drawn into the darkness that can seem all pervasive around us. If we don’t, we
may find ourselves contributing to the problem rather than making it better.
The Battenkill
Chorale this January will be singing James Whitburn’s Annelies which is based on the Diaries of Anne Frank who in the midst
of her trials wrote: “If you become part of the suffering, you’d be entirely
lost.” The outcome for her did not change, but this teenage girl faced it with
courage. Not unlike our three youths in the fiery furnace. Truly a lesson for
us in our times.
Glory be to Jesus
Christ!
[1]
Richard Rohr, Preparing for
Christmas: Daily Meditations for Advent. Cincinnati: Franciscan Media,
2008, p. 27.
