Last week we looked at some of the common themes in Jewish humor – especially the theme of irony and outwitting the oppressors. There is a German phrase for what we sometimes feel when we read the stories of what happens to those who made life difficult and even life-threatening for Daniel and his friends.  It is “schadenfreude” or rejoicing over the misfortunes of others – especially those we despise. “They got what was coming to them” is how we put it because most of us believe or hope that is how the world works. People eventually get what is coming to them and there is always a certain amount…

This morning I want to look at three humorous stories in the book of  Daniel. When I use the word story I am not talking about fiction. A story is sometimes fiction but it is also the truth arranged in a certain order and told with a beginning, a middle and an end. When Katherine Hankey wrote, “Tell Me the Old, Old Story” she was not saying tell me the old, old fable or myth. She was saying tell me the stories of Jesus; the facts of Jesus.  When I say we are looking at three humorous stories that is not the same as we are going to tell jokes…

After the death of David the throne went to Solomon, the son of Bathsheba. That was not without controversy and division as one of David’s wives, Haggith, wanted her son Adonijah to be next in the line of succession. Nathan the prophet intervened and Solomon was made king. After David’s death Solomon reigns over the greatest days of Israel. Following the death of Solomon there began the long decline that would last for the entire history of the nation of Israel. There was controversy and division about who would be the one to follow him as ruler of the United Kingdom of Israel.  Rehoboam, his son, was declared his successor…

Three weeks ago we met the young Ezekiel who is called to be a whistleblower and to expose the corruption and degradation of the priests and leaders of those who have been left behind in Jerusalem. Instead of deliverance from Nebuchadnezzar they are going to be overwhelmed by his armies. God has left the Temple and Jerusalem. All that will remain in Jerusalem is what will remain in this world when the Church departs – a world without pity, mercy, justice, hope or pleasure. Only complete delusion. Evil that has been boiling below and ever present in the world will be revealed. What has been hidden will be obvious. In…

We are now into our third week of Ezekiel. Two weeks ago we saw Ezekiel’s first vision of God on his throne and read about Ezekiel’s call to be a prophet – and a whistle blower commanded to expose the sins of the priests of Israel who were his father’s peers and the men to whom he had looked for wisdom and guidance.  “The priests have desecrated the Temple and have not spoken for God. People without leadership from their priests will always begin to follow idols. They will fall into the sins of greed and corruption but it is even worse when the religious leaders join and encourage them…

We left Ezekiel last week bound with ropes and unable to speak while under house arrest as the elders did not want him speaking to the people. That didn’t stop him from acting out God’s message to the leaders in exile. Because they had desecrated the Temple, God’s judgment was upon those remaining in Jerusalem and they would soon be overwhelmed by the Babylonian army. The fast approaching siege would be horrible. “Outside is the sword, inside are plague and famine..Calamity upon calamity will come, and rumor upon rumor. They will try to get a vision from the prophet; the teaching of the law by the priest will be lost,…

There is not a book in the Bible with a more dramatic beginning than Ezekiel. In my thirtieth year, in the fourth month on the fifth day, while I was among the exiles by the Kebar River, the heavens were opened and I saw visions of God. On the fifth of the month—it was the fifth year of the exile of King Jehoiachin— the word of the Lord came to Ezekiel the priest, the son of Buzi, by the Kebar River in the land of the Babylonians. There the hand of the Lord was on him. I looked, and I saw a windstorm coming out of the north—an immense cloud…

For the next several weeks we are going to be in the books of Ezekiel and Daniel. I have never studied or taught either of them. Likely, some of you have spent more time in each of them than I have. So, I am a beginner. What Thomas Merton said is true:  We do not want to be beginners. But let us be convinced of the fact that we will never be anything else but beginners, all our life!  It would be far easier to skip the assignment and tell myself that at this point in my life it makes more sense to go back to what is familiar and work…

Let’s start with a few facts and a little history. This week Americans will eat 365 million pounds of turkey; 250 million pounds of potatoes; 77 million pounds of ham; 17 million pounds of fresh cranberries; spend $42 million on canned cranberries; spend $96 million on bread crumbs for stuffing; and purchase 483,000 pounds of pumpkins for pie. That doesn’t include everything else we have like olives, pickles, pecan pie, and millions of marshmallows for 57 million pounds of sweet potatoes we will eat. That’s a long way from the original Thanksgiving dinner celebrated by the 50 survivors of the original 102 passengers of the Mayflower in 1621. They were…

Here we are at the end of one of the several letters Paul has written from his two year imprisonment in Rome – Colossians, Ephesians, Philippians, Titus and Philemon. As we’ve said before, prison produces different effects in people. For some, they give themselves up to bitterness and resentment. For others, their lives are permanently dulled and slowly destroyed. For some, however, it produces greatness. Victor Frankl wrote of his confinement in the German death camp during WWII: The way in which a man accepts his fate and all the suffering it entails, the way in which he takes up his cross, gives him ample opportunity—even under the most difficult…