EXILE
Daniel 1:1-21
In a very real sense, we Christians are living in exile. We have escaped from the wrath of God and have become citizens of God’s Kingdom but we are not living in that Kingdom. We are in Babylon, a biblical metaphor for the World. God’s Kingdom is our future hope, when Jesus our Lord returns as the conquering King.
It is instructive that God told the Jews to put down roots in Babylon and seek the welfare of the city. They are not going anywhere anytime soon and the good that Babylon enjoys they will enjoy too. Babylon was not the enemy to be opposed at all cost. The exile is his will and they do well to embrace it.
Jesus, in his prayer in John 17 also tells us that it is his will that we remain in the World: “As you sent me into the world, I have sent them into the world,” he prays. Clearly he wants us to be in the World and he wants us to bless the World with our presence: As he was sent, so he sends us.
But he also prays that as we remain in the World we will be protected from the evil one, we will continue to be sanctified, and we will remain citizens of God’s Kingdom and not of Babylon.
Daniel (with God’s resources) responded to his situation as a Jew in Babylon by blessing Babylon with his gifts and intelligence, yet drawing clear lines to underline the fact that he remains very much a worshipper of God. He expressed his faith through the simple discipline of refusing the rich food of the King and limiting himself to vegetables and water. I’m sure in doing so he also found solidarity with his people who are suffering. And he found that God responded to his simple act of faith. God surprises us when we reach out to him in simple faith.
As God’s people living in the World, we are called to serve the community and be a blessing. Daniel had to learn the language and literature of Babylon; we too have to be educated in the World and serve it with our skills and intelligence. Yet we are called to separate ourselves from the values and principles of the world (the rich food of the King’s table?) and adhere to the values and principles of God’s Kingdom (simple vegetables and water). And in the midst of all these, we trust that God will protect us from evil and will continue to sanctify us by his truth.
This is Jesus’ prayer for us, his will for us, as he sends us into the World.“I am coming to you now, but I say these things while I am still in the world, so that they may have the full measure of my joy within them. I have given them your word and the world has hated them, for they are not of the world any more than I am of the world. My prayer is not that you take them out of the world but that you protect them from the evil one. They are not of the world, even as I am not of it. Sanctify them by the truth; your word is truth. As you sent me into the world, I have sent them into the world. For them I sanctify myself, that they too may be truly sanctified.” (John 17:13-19)