“Give Thanks”

Daniel said:
“Blessed be the name of the Lord from age to age,
for wisdom and power are the Lord’s.
God changes times and seasons,
deposes kings and sets up kings;
God gives wisdom to the wise
and knowledge to those who have understanding.
God reveals deep and hidden things;
God knows what is in the darkness,
and light dwells with the Lord.
To you, O God of my ancestors,
I give thanks and praise,
for you have given me wisdom and power,
and have now revealed to me what we asked of you,
for you have revealed to us what the king ordered.”

On a normal year, the Sunday before Thanksgiving has all sorts of informal rituals and traditions. Preparing the home for relatives and adult children to fly home, googling, “how long does it take to brine a 25-pound turkey?” and writing unbelievably long grocery lists. Normally, you’d probably be hosting or attending a Friendsgiving or a large gathering with three turkeys and practically every member of your family. Normally, we'd have a food drive today and the communion table would be filled with food that would make its way to families who wouldn’t otherwise be able to afford a Thanksgiving meal. Normally, we’d shake hands during the passing of the peace and linger extra-long in the Narthex after worship. But this isn’t a normal year, is it? This year, I both hope and lament that you will be at small tables this Thanksgiving. As the virus reaches a new, terrifying peak every day and spreads uncontrollably throughout our country, this holiday, I hope there are temporarily empty chairs at your table lest next year, there be permanently empty ones. Better a Zoom Thanksgiving than an ICU Christmas. 

It’s a bittersweet season. Thanksgiving is typically a time focused on gratitude to God, but this pandemic, and its ramifications for gathering with our loved ones, makes it hard to be grateful in the way that we are used to. When I chose our scripture passage for today, I wasn’t sure if it really fit. It’s not a passage usually read for Thanksgiving. But as I have sat with text this past month, I’ve started to see parallels between Daniel’s world and ours. You see, the book of Daniel is about the people of Israel in exile in Babylon. Daniel 1:2 says the Lord allowed King Nebuchadnezzar to ransack Jerusalem and take the people into exile. Daniel and his friends were taken from a world they knew to one that was entirely different. A world that was unlike anything they knew before. I suspect that they missed the life they'd known before. I suspect that they wanted things to go back to the way things used to be, even if not everything was good before. 

I don't want to go too far in the comparison, because most of us in the congregation have not been forced out of our homes. Our house of worship has not been ransacked, and we are not exiles in a hostile empire that wants us only for our labor. We are not the 80 million forcibly displaced people in the world today. But we do live in a world that feels unrecognizable to what we’ve known all our lives. We are in a time that makes it hard to trust that God is good and wants good for all people. Did God not want goodness and flourishing for 250,000 Americans who have died from this virus? I suspect Daniel, along with all the Israelites in exile, asked similar questions. 

And yet, our world is not entirely different than it was a year ago, and we still can choose what our response will be to all that life throws at us. Today can still be a day to reflect on not just what we have to be thankful for, but what thankfulness means. When are we thankful? And to whom is that thankfulness directed?  

Today’s scripture reading isn’t in the lectionary, so it’s rarely read in churches. Daniel is a strange and apocryphal book, but you’re probably familiar with the Greatest Hits from an illustrated Children’s Bible—the fiery furnace with Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, the invisible hand writing on the wall, and night in the lion’s den. Those famous events take place over decades and under the authority of three different kings, but the whole book is about the time while the Jews are in exile in Babylon. These are dark years for the people of God. Daniel’s life is constantly near peril and today’s story occurs during the second year of the reign of King Nebuchadnezzar. If that name sounds familiar, then pay close attention.

            In the second year of his reign, King Nebuchadnezzar was having bad dreams. One especially bad dream. Such a terrible dream that he knew it had to mean something. So he called up all his advisors—magicians, enchanters, sorcerers, and astrologers to tell him what this dream meant. But, either because he was stubborn or because he knew that kings were often told what they wanted to hear rather than the truth, he refused to tell anyone what the dream was. He wanted them to tell him what his dream was and then interpret it. Of course, all the magicians and astrologers and wise men tried to persuade him otherwise. “There is no one on earth who can do what the king asks! No one can reveal it to the king except the gods, and they do not live among humans.” The king was furious with this response and so he ordered the execution of all the wise men in Babylon, which included Daniel and his friends. 

            But Daniel was wise, and he convinced the king to give him more time. He went back to his friends, the ones we know by their Babylonian names as Shadrack, Meshack, and Abednego, and urged them to pray to God for mercy. They prayed all night and then   Daniel received a vision revealing the mystery of the king’s dream. Overcome with gratitude and joy and relief, the bible says that Daniel “blessed the God of heaven.” It’s a strange phrase, “to bless God.” Isn’t God the one who blesses us? Theologian C.L. Seow says that to bless God is to reciprocate the blessings that one receives from God by returning a gift of praise. The prayer, or doxology, takes the form of a psalm of praise and thanksgiving. It is both to God and about God. It’s so good, I’d like to read it again. Daniel said, 

“Blessed be the name of the Lord from age to age,
for wisdom and power are the Lord’s.
God changes times and seasons,
deposes kings and sets up kings;
God gives wisdom to the wise
and knowledge to those who have understanding.
God reveals deep and hidden things;
God knows what is in the darkness,
and light dwells with the Lord.
To you, O God of my ancestors,
I give thanks and praise,
for you have given me wisdom and power,
and have now revealed to me what we asked of you,
for you have revealed to us what the king ordered.”

            It’s quite a prayer, isn’t it? Daniel attributes everything from the changing of the seasons to which man is in the seat of power to God. Imagine this setting—Daniel is in exile and the king has ordered the death of him and his companions and yet, when God answers his prayers, he turns to God with absolute thanksgiving and gratitude. His prayer doesn’t dwell on his adverse circumstances. It doesn’t ask for more. It is an affirmation of God’s good character and abundant thanksgiving for God’s answer to his prayer.

            The chapter continues as Daniel is taken to King Nebuchadnezzar. The king asks if he can interpret the dream and Daniel replies honestly—no he can’t. No man can do that. But the God of heaven can. He says, “This mystery has not been revealed to me because of any wisdom that I have more than any other living being, but so that the interpretation may be known to the king and that you may understand the thoughts of your mind." And so Daniel not only tells the king what his dream was, but what it meant. The dream itself is not the point here, but the gist of it is that God is telling the king that there will be a kingdom that comes after him. And another after that, and another, and finally a fourth kingdom that will never end. Nebuchadnezzar’s reign may end, but this one never will. The king has dreamt about the future. 

            When the king heard the interpretation, he fell prostrate in front of Daniel, a sign of honor that a king would never make to another man. He said, “Truly, your God is God of gods and Lord of kings and a revealer of mysteries, for you have been able to reveal this mystery!” Daniel is placed in a high position of authority over the province and gifts are lavished upon him and his friends. They too are given positions of power and authority. It sounds like a happy ending, doesn’t it? And it is… if you don’t read to chapter three. Because if the name Nebuchadnezzar sounded familiar to you, it’s because King Nebuchadnezzar was also the king who built the giant gold statue and demanded that everyone in the kingdom worship it. But when Daniel’s friends, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, refused to worship it, he had them thrown into the fiery furnace. Apparently, his gratitude and worship of God were more fleeting than we first thought.

            Much of the rest of the book of Daniel follows a similar pattern—he finds favor from a king by interpreting a dream and then his loyalty to God puts himself in a perilous situation. Quite simply, Daniel’s worship of the Lord and his loyalty to the God of his ancestors does not mean that things will always go his way. In Daniel’s case, it is his right and faithful worship that leads him straight into trouble. 

            There are pastors who will tell you that all you need to do to have a happy life filled with God’s blessings is do what you’re told—give your money to the church and follow all the right rules. If you do that, God will bless you with health, and wealth, and prosperity. If your heart is in the right place when you pray, God will reward you. 

            But when we look at Daniel's life, we know that isn’t true. Daniel doesn’t thank and praise God because he thinks it is part of a strategy to have a good life. Daniel knows that while he has reason to thank God today, he may have reason to plead for God’s mercy tomorrow. That’s the thing about this world—there are no guarantees. And despite what certain preachers may want you to believe, Christianity doesn’t offer them either. 

            I think there two main things we can take away from this story. The first is to pray big prayers. Daniel prayed for an extraordinary thing—to be able to know and interpret a king’s dream with the consequence of failure being death. When the last time you prayed a big, bold prayer? Not the kind of, “God, please help me find a parking spot!” kind of prayer. A prayer that takes real faith to pray because what if God doesn’t answer in the way we want God to? A kind of prayer that asks, in hope, but what if God does? 

            The second thing we can learn from Daniel is to thank God for God’s blessings even in the midst of hard times. Daniel's doxology prayer is one borne out a time of deep sadness and a longing for the home and life of his ancestors. He does not ignore that sorrow, but he gives thanks for the blessings that his in front of him—God has answered his prayer and God answers ours today. Not always in the way we want, and not in a way that always prevents us from harm or heartbreak. You may have reasons to grieve this season—premature deaths of loved ones, loneliness from isolation, disappointment at the cancellation of gatherings and vacations, and the list goes on. Those reasons to grieve, both big and small, are real and valid. And, in the midst of it all, still, we can praise God when God answers our prayers. When we recognize God's blessings amid hard times, we can choose to give thanks for them. God is worthy of our thanksgiving, our gratitude, and our blessing. Let us not miss out on God's blessings. Let our hearts not be so hardened or numb by anger, disappointment, or sorrow that we miss out on seeing God answer our prayers. Let us not miss the opportunity to say, “thanks be to God, for God has heard our prayers.”