Sermon Notes:
During our time in Hebrews 11, we have examined the lives of many Old Testament heroes (and some whom we might call anti-heroes). We’ve looked at the faithfulness of Enoch, Abel, and Noah, the boldness of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Moses, the perseverance of Moses’ parents when they hid Moses, and the Israelites’ faith as they walked around Jericho and watched the walls fall. We’ve spent time with the judges of Israel: Gideon, Barak and Deborah, Samson, and Jephthah. We’ve seen the faith of God’s chosen king, David, and the prophets, Samuel, Elijah, and Elisha. We’ve also seen how these many heroes were often known just as much for their awful mistakes and poor choices as for their faith.
After I preached on Samson and Jephthah, I heard someone say, “I’m still not sure how these guys belong to the list of faithful people in Hebrews.” It’s true; I also asked that question as I studied and prepared for each sermon that I preached during this series.
Some of these men and women had tremendous faith, and their faithfulness far outweighs any questionable morals or poor ethical choices they may have made. When we think of Enoch, Abel, or even Noah, we usually think of only good things. But others demonstrate poor choices and bad morals, which, in our eyes, outweigh their faith in the God of Israel: we think of Samson and Jephthah, or sometimes even Moses or David. When we look at the worst of their choices, we wonder how they belong in the great “Hall of Faith” at all.
We often think of good and evil like this, like scales trying to balance one another. We hear of this idea often in popular culture, where people try to ‘do better’ to outweigh their bad choices. However, it occurred to me that the Christian faith is not like this. Good and bad are not equal opposites to one another.Faith is not stacked against evil deeds in the eyes of God.
Jesus says in Matt. 17:20, “If you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you.”
Now, often we read this verse and take it to mean that if we show even the smallest bit of faith, amazing, incredible, and supernatural things will happen in our lives. (And if we can’t do the incredible, supernatural thing, then our faith must not be big enough, or perhaps our evil, corrupt deeds have in fact outweighed our faith).
But what if it means something much simpler? What if it means that if we have even the tiniest bit of faith in God, he can do incredible things in and through us? The emphasis here is not on how big our faith is, but on who our faith is in and what he is capable of.
Who are we placing our faith in? Who did these heroes of faith put their faith in?
Even those who had lived morally questionable lives, who failed to live faithfully more often than not, demonstrated moments of faith in their God – the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the God who created all things and delivered his people from Israel. What did God do with this faith? If we look at Hebrews 11, we read that they
conquered kingdoms, administered justice, and gained what was promised; who shut the mouths of lions, 34 quenched the fury of the flames, and escaped the edge of the sword; whose weakness was turned to strength; and who became powerful in battle and routed foreign armies (Heb. 11:33-34).
These amazing feats of strength and power were not the result of someone having more or less faith. Each of these heroes, had at least a single moment where they chose to place their faith in this God who can do all these things. The question then, is not how much faith do you have? Rather, it is who is your faith in? We all place our faith in something. We trust someone or something for our daily bread. Who deserves your faith?
Our very last case study presented to us from the book of Hebrews is the prophet, Daniel. Daniel is a special man. While most of the characters presented to us through Hebrews and the Old Testament are critically flawed people, Daniel is one of the few about whom we hear only positive things. He was a young man – no older than 20 years old – when he was carted off to Babylon from Jerusalem with the rest of the Jewish nobility in the first wave of captivity. As you can see on the map, this is no short distance. It is about 1,500 km and took about 3-4 months to travel by foot, as Daniel and his companions most likely did.
Like the other heroes mentioned in Hebrews, Daniel is Jewish. This is essential to his identity, as we will see. He rises through the ranks and becomes advisor to the Babylonian king – an unlikely position for a captive foreigner if there ever was one. We know that he prospered through the reigns of several kings, including the changeover of the empire from Babylonians to the Medes and Persians, and likely died at around 85 years old while still in captivity.
I say that all rather quickly. I don’t know if we often pause to consider what this would have meant for Daniel. He was forced to leave his family, land, culture, and religion at spearpoint while his city burned behind him. Some of his family and friends came along; we know of his three friends in particular: Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah (better known by many of us as “Shadrach, Meschah, and Abednego”). But many had not survived the siege of Jerusalem. Daniel had lost everything.
Psychologist William Bridges wrote several books on the difficulty of transitioning through changes in life. He identified three main stages that we all go through when something – big or small – changes in our lives:[1]
1. Ending, losing, or letting go
2. The neutral zone
3. The new beginning
Daniel was, you could say, in the first stage. His relocation to Babylon was a massive life change for him. Literally everything changed in his life. He marches to a foreign land, not knowing what life will be like in Babylon, or even if he’ll make it there at all. There was no temple of God, no priests to intercede in worship to God; by allowing Jerusalem to be sacked and the temple burned, it seemed like God had left Israel finally and completely.
This first stage of transitioning through change is a time of letting go of old ways and old identities.This first phase of transition is an ending.[2] We’ve all experienced this in some way. We know that something needs to end before something new can happen. This is what makes endings bittersweet. High school graduations are exciting because it means new steps into adulthood, but they mark an ending to childhood. Moving somewhere new can be exciting, but it also means letting go of old places and relationships. Having a baby or starting a new job is exciting, but you may realize that this means letting go of old ways of doing things that no longer work for your new circumstances. Sometimes the ending happens before you’re ready for it: you’re fired from a job, a relationship breaks, a loved one passes on, or a pastor leaves a church after many years of service.
Reconciling the end of something takes time. It means working through the stages of grief. It’s hard.
This is where Daniel is when he is forced to leave Jerusalem. The prophet in Lamentations wails,
How deserted lies the city,
once so full of people!
How like a widow is she,
who once was great among the nations!
She who was queen among the provinces
has now become a slave.2 Bitterly she weeps at night,
tears are on her cheeks.
Among all her lovers
there is no one to comfort her.
All her friends have betrayed her;
they have become her enemies.3 After affliction and harsh labor,
Judah has gone into exile.
She dwells among the nations;
she finds no resting place.
All who pursue her have overtaken her
in the midst of her distress. (Lam. 1:1-3)
It is appropriate to grieve what has been lost. It is good to reminisce and remember these things as a community, no matter the nature of the loss. And, as faithful followers of Jesus, this is when we turn to the Scriptures and prayer to make sense of our loss, or at the very least, to find comfort in the God who promises to never leave us or forsake us.
For Daniel, who had been steeped in the Jewish Scriptures from the time he could talk, he would have remembered that this exile was exactly what God had promised if Israel was unfaithful to the treaty that was made between God and Israel. Daniel would have remembered the words of the prophets, who remindedthe people of Israel again and again that they had failed in their promise to follow God alone. Let’s turn briefly to Jeremiah chapter 3 where God speaks to Jeremiah:
11 The Lord said to me, “Faithless Israel is more righteous than unfaithful Judah. 12 Go, proclaim this message toward the north: “‘Return, faithless Israel,’ declares the Lord, ‘I will frown on you no longer,for I am faithful,’ declares the Lord, ‘I will not be angry forever. 13 Only acknowledge your guilt—you have rebelled against the Lord your God, you have scattered your favors to foreign gods under every spreading tree, and have not obeyed me,’” declares the Lord.
God has not given up on his people! They had turned from him, and he was faithful to his own promises toward them to deliver them to the enemy. But all is not lost! God’s judgment on Israel is a plea for them to return to him, to repent from the ways that were not of God, and to love him with all their heart, soul, mind, and strength. Though they rebel against him, God is a merciful God. He makes a way back to him. What comfort this was to those who had lost everything. God had not abandoned them!
It is, however, an Ending to their way of life in Judah and Jerusalem. It is hard. God’s people are told that they are to live in this foreign land for seventy years as a consequence of their rebellion to God. As we read in Lamentations, the people wrestle with their grief, recognizing that many of them would never return home. Eventually, God tells them to quit trying to get back what they’d lost and settle down in the land. They were going to be there for seventy years, so they ought to make the best of it. Let’s turn to Jeremiah 29. Through Jeremiah, God says,
4 This is what the Lord Almighty, the God of Israel, says to all those I carried into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon: 5 “Build houses and settle down; plant gardens and eat what they produce. 6 Marry and have sons and daughters; find wives for your sons and give your daughters in marriage, so that they too may have sons and daughters. Increase in number there; do not decrease. 7 Also, seek the peace and prosperity of the city to which I have carried you into exile. Pray to the Lord for it, because if it prospers, you too will prosper.” (Jer. 29:4-7)
God tells them to move beyond their grief and loss to the next stage of transitioning through change: The Neutral Zone. This is the in-between time when the old is gone but the new isn’t fully operational.[3] It’s a time when what was is no longer – it’s well and truly gone, and you can’t get it back – but what is going to be isn’t there yet. It’s a painful time, an impatient time.
This the context in which we find Daniel and the rest of the exiles. They are displaced, but God tells them to settle down here in the enemy land, to make this their home for the time that they live in it, in this neutral zone.
We heard and saw the story acted out for us this morning (thanks Mark and all the volunteers!). I’ve often heard this story of Daniel told in a way to encourage our boldness of faith while living in a secular world. Daniel was faced with the prospect of death if he disobeyed the Babylonian officials, yet he held faithfully to the Jewish food laws. These laws are the ways in which he knew to express his faith; it was one way that God had told the Israelites to be separate from the nations around them.
But notice how Daniel doesn’t demand to eat food different from the Babylonians. He doesn’t obstinately refuse, saying, “I can’t do that! I’m a Jew. I would rather starve!” Instead, he makes a respectful, yet bold request. He asks the chief official for permission to eat a different diet. The official responds with fear, and rightly so, for if these captives die under his watch, he will be executed by the king. Daniel comes up with a solution:
“Please test your servants for ten days: Give us nothing but vegetables to eat and water to drink. 13 Then compare our appearance with that of the young men who eat the royal food, and treat your servants in accordance with what you see.” (Dan. 1:12-13)
The neutral zone is a period of testing, of trying new things. The old ways are gone, and the new ways have not yet been established. In the meantime, we try new things. We test them, and we respond in accordance with what we see. During our church transition period in which we have lost our lead pastor but don’t yet have a new lead pastor to take up the position, we are in The Neutral Zone. We, as a staff, Council, and congregation, will be trying new things. It’s a time when some old things will be tested. Perhaps some things will be acknowledged for the good they served in their time and set aside for the coming years; perhaps other things will be trialled and fail, while still others will be trialled and succeed.
As Thomas Edison said, “I never once failed at making a light bulb. I just found out 99 ways not to make one.” Just because a new idea doesn’t work out doesn’t mean that it was a bad idea; it sometimes means that it simply wasn’t the right idea for here or for now. Transitions, neutral zones, and change in general requires courage. Things are no longer the same as what they once were, but we don’t know what they will end up looking like in the future.
Notice how large the Neutral Zone is in this diagram. It will take some time to navigate through it toward The New Beginning. This is why our Church Council and Transition Committee have chosen to find a Transition Pastor for us first before even beginning to search for a full-time, permanent lead pastor. We are in the Neutral Zone. It will be uncomfortable at times, but I think it is helpful for us to simply acknowledge that this is where we are right now. We’ve left the old behind, we’re looking toward the new, and in the meantime, we’re figuring out how to navigate the disorientation of an ending, the changes in expectations of staff members and volunteers, and the anticipation of new beginnings.
So, we faithfully take one step at a time. We hold to what we do know – that we love God with all our hearts, souls, minds, and strength, and we love one another as we love ourselves. Keep in mind during this time of transition, that some of us will move more quickly through these stages than others. Some of us will linger in the grief and disorientation of the ending; others will want to rush ahead to the new beginning in anticipation for what’s next. Too often, we want to rush through the Neutral Zone because it’s uncomfortable. Be gentle with one another if you have a conversation with someone who is in a different place than you are. Help one another process these changes and love each other well as you do it.
This is true for other types of transitions as well. I use the example of our church transition period because that is a reality for us now. However, the new school year is starting, and that, too, is a time of transition. There may be other types of transitions in your life. Consider where you are in this continuum and how you might settle into the Neutral Zone well as you navigate the grief of the Ending and the anticipation of the New Beginning.
Now, back to Daniel. He showed tremendous faith, not only as a young man asking for kosher food, but also during the rest of his life in Babylon. He’s probably most well-known for refusing to stop worshipping God when the king decreed that it was against the law and then surviving a night in a den of hungry lions. As we discussed at the beginning, faithfulness isn’t how much we do for God; it’s about who we put our faith in. Daniel chose to put his faith in the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob even when he was faced with the awkwardness of being displaced in enemy lands. He held firm because he knew that God was faithful and trustworthy. This is the faith that carried him through his Neutral Zone. That’s the big lesson from Daniel – that he repeatedly chose faithfulness to God during his time in exile, and that he did so in a quiet, steadfast way that wasn’t abrasive to his captors, but it compelled them to also know this God more.
The writer of Hebrews ends his monologue on the heroes of faith with these words,
39 These were all commended for their faith, yet none of them received what had been promised, 40 since God had planned something better for us so that only together with us would they be made perfect. Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, 2 fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith. For the joy set before him he endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.
Do you hear that? The heroes of faith were all living in a sort of Neutral Zone. They all waited for God’s promise to be fulfilled. None of them received it while they lived on the earth. They are called heroes of faith not because of the greatness of their faith; no, it’s because of the great faithfulness of the God whom they served and eagerly anticipated. It’s about who they put their faith in while they lived in times of transition and uncertainty.
While these heroes of faith looked forward to the coming of Christ, we today also live in a sort of Neutral Zone as we live in between the first and second comings of Christ. We have been living here since the death, resurrection, and ascension of Christ, in which he decisively declared an End to all sin, evil, and death. We are waiting and eagerly anticipating the coming of Christ to restore all things in the New Beginning. In Neutral Zone, we remember those who have gone before us, and we run forward with our eyes fixed on Jesus. Notice again how big the Neutral Zone is. We grow impatient; we grow anxious, wondering whether the New Beginning will ever come. This is what it means to live by faith. We choose to live faithfully in transition, knowing that our faith is in a God who was faithful then, is faithful now, and will forever be faithful.
[1] William Bridges and Susan Bridges. Managing Transitions (25th anniversary edition): Making the Most of Change, (Hatchette Books, 2017), 19. Kindle Edition.
[2] Bridges, 19.
[3] Bridges, 19.
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