Tell Me the Story Again: Daniel and The Lion's Den

Sermon manuscript, preached on June 2, 2024 at Royal Lane Baptist Church in Dallas, TX

Today we’re starting a new series - a series I’m actually really excited for. It’s called “Tell Me the Story Again,” and the idea is that over the next six weeks we’ll retell the most popular Bible stories that many of us learned as children but likely never heard again as adults. If you grew up in Vacation Bbile School, these are the stories that were told on felt boards, the stories that were highlighted in your children’s Bibles, the stories that captivated you as a kid but probably held very little relevance to you as an adult. 

Now, as a kid, I loved every single one of these stories were going to be telling over the next several weeks. None of them are short on drama. They’re exciting, entertaining, and in many ways heroic. But, as a grown woman, I must admit, I look back and realize that these stories didn’t really provide me with much in the way of help or guidance. In fact, the telling of them often had a reverse effect - life never seemed to go the way these stories were told which inevitably made me wonder if the Bible could really be trusted at all. 

This last Thursday I had the great privilege of hearing the amazing, inspiring, unmatched poet Andrea Gibson perform live at the Paramount Theatre in Denver, Colorado. In a poem called “Tincture,” which had me weeping, Andrea read a line that’s been stirring in my soul ever since. Amidst lines and stanzas about the brutal and beautiful realities of life, broke the words: “Erase every scripture that doesn’t have a pulse.”

Erase every scripture that doesn’t have a pulse. YES, my soul screamed. Erase every scripture that doesn’t speak to the reality of what it means to be human in a world that is full of so much beauty and pain. Delete, my soul screamed, every trite sermon full of platitudes that offer no real hope. Rip the pages out of the children’s bibles that tell lies about how easy life is if only you’ll be obedient to God. I could have written an entire poem of my own inspired by that one line. 

“Erase every scripture that doesn’t have a pulse.” I’m a pastor, y’all. And that’s the line that spoke to me the most. But it’s so fitting, you see, because it’s my whole hope for this series and for the retelling of these stories. Because you see, I actually do believe that all scripture has a pulse, it’s just that not all telling of scripture has one. Am I right?

Will you pray with me?

God, may the words of my mouth and the meditations of all of our hearts be pleasing and acceptable to you, O God, our rock and our redeemer. Amen.

We’re beginning our series with what I think is the most popular children’s Bible story, at least it’s the one I remember most as a kid. It’s the story of Daniel and the Lion’s Den. Now this is not a short story, which is why it’s not printed in your bulletins, because there’s no way it would have fit. And it’s also why I personally asked Blair Wooten to read the story, because I wanted a reader who could hold your attention for that long, but also one who could read the story with the same level of theatre I remember it being told in. Well done, Blair. 

Now the way this story was told to me is really not that far off from how it reads straight off the page. 

Daniel was an Israelite who was taken into captivity in Babylon where he served several kings, one of whom was King Darius.

Despite being in a foreign land, Daniel remained faithful to God and refused to worship any other gods.

Daniel was good. Righteous. As the scripture says, he had an excellent spirit. He was faithful. “No negligence or corruption could be found in him.”

Naturally, the other rulers became jealous of Daniel. They wanted to get rid of him, but he was so perfect, there wasn’t anything they could criticize him for. So they came up with a plan. “I know,” they said. “We’ll tell the King to make a law that no one can pray to anyone but him. And if they do, they’ll have to be thrown into a den of lions.” Knowing that Daniel was so faithful to his god, they knew that he wouldn’t pray to the king.

So the king signed and enforced the ordinance, and sure enough, Daniel continued to pray to God. So the other rulers came to the king and said, look at Daniel. He’s not obeying the law. You have to throw him into the lion’s den. You signed the ordinance. You made it a law. You cannot go back on your word. 

So reluctantly, the king (who clearly had no backbone) threw Daniel into the lion’s den, but he was so distressed he couldn’t eat or sleep all night. At daybreak, he ran to the lion’s den and called out for Daniel, and Daniel responded, “My God sent his angel and shut the lions’ mouths so they would not hurt me, because I was found blameless before him.” The king rejoiced and then threw every person who had accused Daniel into the lions den, along with their wives and chidlren, and the lions over came them. 

Moral of the story (as it was taught to me and thousands of other children): Be blameless before God. Say your your prayers. And if you do, God will protect you. Even in a den of lions, God will seal their mouths shut. The end. 

You know, I think even at eight years old, I had some questions about this story. I actually remember being at the San Antonio Zoo once and standing infront of the lions, with a pane of glass between us wondering if God would really protect me should I find myself on the other side of the glass. I could feel my heartbeat race just at the thought of it. 

I don’t know if anyone else ever finds themselves morbidly thinking about the worst ways to die, but I’ll tell you, for me, I always think about being eaten by lions, and I blame my Sunday school and VBS teachers for that. Because I think I knew deep down that if thrown into a lions den I would most likely surely die, and then to make matters worse everyone would assume its because I prayed to other gods. 

Why do we tell these stories? They’re not only NOT helpful, they’re also kind of spiritually dangerous, aren’t they? The idea that God will protect you even from wild animals if you pray hard enough, or if you’re faithful enough, or if you’re blameless… that’s just ridiculous. We know that’s not true, don’t we? So why make children think it’s true? Why make them feel responsible for every bad thing that happens to them? Because that’s what happens with the telling of stories like this one, don’t you know? If God will protect me if I’m good enough, then what does that say about me if something bad happens? 

Friends, do you see the damage of these tellings of these stories? What’s our thought process and where’s our sense of responsibility? It’s like showing them bad Disney princess movies with terrible themes. Like Beauty and the Beast, which is clearly a celebration of domestic violence. Even if he imprisons you, refuses to feed you, abuses your family, and forces you to dress up and go on dates with him… you should because under that beastly attire, he might just be a prince. And, don’t even get me started on the Little Mermaid and how women should forfeit their literal voices to be with the man of their dreams. 

These are terrible movies to show our children, and I don’t blame you if your children have seen them. It’s hard to resist Disney, but do me a favor, and please don’t tell them these versions of Bible stories like this one. Because yes, their themes are also bad, but they’re made much worse because these are stories about God. 

So, you may wonder, do we just rip these pages out or is there an alternative telling? A telling that resonates? Is there a telling of this story that’s true - one that has a pulse? ||

Well, since I think there’s always a pulse, you just have to work a little harder sometimes to find it… here’s what I’ve come to hear when I press my ear hard into the story of this text. I think maybe this isn’t a story about protection, but a story about precaution. Here’s what I mean:

Maybe this isn’t a story about how if you’re faithful, God will protect you from dangerous things, but a story about how even if you’re faithful, you will experience dangerous things. I mean, isn’t that true? That you can be blameless, faithful, righteous, good, and still find yourself in life behind a closed door where forces of darkness, evil, and pain surround you. 

I told Harry this week, this story actually reminds me of the song “I Dreamed A Dream” from Les Mis, which is my favorite musical by the way. The song is a haunting one, a heartbreaking one.

I dreamed a dream in time gone by

When hope was high and life worth living

I dreamed that love would never die

I prayed that God would be forgiving

But then I was young and unafraid

And dreams were made and used and wasted

There was no ransom to be paid

No song unsung, no wine untasted

But the tigers come at night

With their voices soft as thunder

As they tear your hopes apart

And they turn your dreams to shame

I may or may not have asked Harry to have the choir sing that song as an anthem, and suggested that he just change tigers to lions. 

The song resonates with me when I read this story of Daniel and not just because of the imagery of a wild cat, but because even for this woman in Les Mis, Fantine, who was good and kind and believing, life was hard on her. Life tore her apart and cast her dreams to shame. 

Friends, that may not sound hopeful, but it sounds true, doesn’t it? Andrea Gibson also once wrote, “Even when the truth isn’t hopeful, the telling of it is.” In fact they say, this is actually what fuels so much of their writing and poetry. That the telling of the truth is always hopeful. 

So what if we told that truth instead? What if we told the story of Daniel and the Lion’s Den as a story about a man who was faithful and good, and even still, could not escape the painful realities of life. How even when one is righteous and nearly blameless, life can entrap them and make them feel alone and afraid. How it is that the lions can come for anyone, even the ones most undeserving of such terrible circumstances? 

If you’re wondering why we should tell that version of the story to our children, well, for starters, it’s true. Isn’t it? And also, I’ll tell you, as a mother, I’m becoming continually more convinced that we need to teach our children an inner resilience so they are not completely undone by the way the world shows up. As much as I may want to prepare the path for my children, I’m learning that all I can do is prepare my children for the path. There’s a famous Buddhist phrase that says “It is easier to put on a pair of shoes than to wrap the earth in leather.” Try as we might, we cannot make the world softer for our children, but we can be honest with them about it and make them stronger for it. 

So maybe we shouldn’t tell Bible stories like we’re trying to wrap the world in leather. Let’s tell them in ways that provide shoes for our children, so they know how to walk on the hard earth. This is, no doubt, a heavy reading of the story, but it’s a heavy that can anchor our children brave. It’s a heavy that can anchor them loving. It’s a heavy that can anchor them honest. That’s what makes the telling of the truth hopeful, even when the truth itself isn’t hopeful. 

You see, maybe those who got overtaken by the lions at the end of the story really are just those who weren’t prepared for them. They were overtaken by life - by its pain and brutality, because they didn’t see it coming. They thought life was supposed to be easy, they thought God would deliver them from harm, and so before they reached the bottom - the bottom of life - they were overcome and their bones were crushed, because they weren’t ready - they had developed no sense of resilience.

Let’s tell that story, right? Life is unfair, painful, and incredibly difficult. But let the reality of that heaviness anchor your brave, strong, willing. 

I put my three year old daughter to bed every night and she always tells me she’s afraid. I tell her God is with her, which I believe God is, but she says I want a human in here, someone I can see. So I tell her instead now, it’s ok to be scared, and also, God has given you all the strength, courage, and peace you need to make it through this night. 

That’s the story of Daniel and the Lion’s Den. 

Hallelujah. Amen.