The writer of the Book of Daniel often begins his moral or ethical folktales with a historical marker situating the story in actual human history;  “in the first year of the reign of King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon,” “in the second year of the reign of Cyrus, King of Persia.”  These tales of human courage and faithfulness are set within the clash between the human will for the survival and the human will for self-destruction.  In each story, the interplay between the reigning tyrant and a faithful hero sets-up the narrative’s plot and ultimately the tale’s moral and ethical lesson.
 
Both Chapter 6 and Chapter 11 begin with the historical marker “in the first year of the reign of King Darius the Mede.”  This installation draws on elements from these two chapters – a song in Chapter 6 after Daniel’s trial and deliverance from the lion’s den, and the sweeping 250-year overview of human history found in Chapter 11.
 
The world history outlined in Chapter 11 presents a sweeping drama of armies and kings at war in all corners of the ancient middle east.  A tapestry of blood, anger, greed and self-serving tyrants from the Babylonian Empire, through Egyptian, Persian and Macedonian conquest, all finally culminating in Syrian control under the rule Antiochus IV Epiphanes.  A real-life biblical Game of Thrones describing two and a half centuries of human vanity, greed and sinfulness that brings about an ongoing legacy of death and destruction.
 
Hovering over this global chessboard are the words to a song voicing the central message in the Book of Daniel.  This liturgical canticle in Chapter 6, remarkably, does not come from Daniel but rather comes from the mouth of King Darius after Daniel’s miraculous deliverance from certain death.  The words to this song give the reader an alternative way of thinking about life together in this world, as well as the certainty that God will win in the end over the destructive powers of oppression and violence.  Ultimately the events of history are not ordained by God but are rather the result of free human choices centered in greed and selfishness … humanity’s ever-present sin of desiring more than it needs at the expense of its neighbor’s life and livelihood. 

The various folktales of the Book of Daniel were brought together at one of the lowest points in Jewish religious and cultural history.  The stories served to give direction and hope to a people of faith caught in the middle of extreme cruelty and oppression.  The writer weaves together a rich sampling of hope-filled Jewish stories during a time when religious practices were outlawed, Torah scrolls were being burned, children were torn from their mothers, and the temple was being desecrated with images of foreign gods and the sacrifice of unclean animals. 
The writer gathers stories of faithfulness and interweaves them with the various kingdoms from human history to remind the faithful that the struggle for survival in the time of tyrants is not new.  This is an ongoing struggle within the history of all people seeking to live in covenant with their god and neighbor but find themselves caught up in some seemingly beyond their control.  While the stories highlight the interplay between a faithful hero and the powerful (and often witless) tyrant, the target audience of the writer’s work are the simple people of faith who need a road map for what to do next and how to respond to evil in their midst. 
 
Interestingly, many other unsavory characters emerge in the storytelling.  The legions of sycophants who surround the king and his court plot and manipulate in order to gain favor, protection and prestige from the tyrant.   Likewise, a host of compliant religious leaders who choose to ally with the king for many of the same reasons.  For the writer of Daniel, the tyrant, the sycophant, and the compliant religious leaders put their faith in people or powers or systems that ultimately cannot save.
 
But maybe more interesting, the writer also calls the simple religious folks to accountability.  In a lengthy prayer after his deliverance from the Lion’s den, Daniel first recounts how God has delivered his people in the past and describes a God whose steadfast love is both renowned and dependable.  But then Daniel’s words become penitential and he declares that the faithful have also sinned and done wrong, been wicked, and rebelled.  They too had forgotten how to live in right relationship with god, with each other, and with their world.  The path to wholeness begins with their own confession.
 
Over the past three centuries, the folktales of the Book of Daniel have had an honored place in the shared canon of both Jewish and Christian revelation and imagination because humanity has too often found itself in this same pattern of death and destruction.  Today, many of us find ourselves needing a roadmap for responding to evil in our midst and a world dangerously out of control.  We too live in a world of saber-rattling madmen surrounded by cheering sycophants, evangelical religious leaders that equate their own economic security with god’s blessing, global economic systems that are enthusiastically endorsed but benefit the very few, extreme nationalism disguising itself as patriotism, and an intentional policies of inhospitality directed at those most vulnerable and needy among us. 

The community that Daniel was writing for two and a half centuries ago would have understood our dilemma and responded … God will triumph. 

Sacrifice. Often when we talk about war or conflict, we speak in terms of sacrifice. The soldiers, the families and the communities who sacrificed life, relationship and treasure in pursuit of a “greater good” become the currency a nation spends. When the sacrifice becomes too big, the cost too high to imagine it can become blurry and impossible to comprehend.  Individuals, like the soldiers from Bedford, become surrogates for the millions that died in battle. They become the lens we use to humanize the horror, to grieve and feel gratitude without being immobilized or hardened by the facts. Their sacrifice gives us a path to consider all that was done and all that was lost.
 
On June 6, 1944, 35 men from Bedford came to Omaha beach to take Europe back from Nazi Germany. Nineteen of them did not survive the day. Those 19 men were part of 842 men who died on Omaha Beach who were part of the approximately 10,000 soldiers that died on D-day. The 77-day long battle for Normandy was brutal with a casualty rate of 6,675 people a day. By the end of WWII approximately 4,000 Bedford county citizens, out of a population of 40,000, were in uniform.  Somewhere between 70 – 85 million people died in WWII, approximately 3% of the world’s population, many from war related disease and famine. 
 
This piece honors the story of the men from Bedford specifically, but also pays tribute to those who have fought and sacrificed on foreign soil and at home.  Hopefully, it also speaks to what can come from sacrifice - what can grow in the fields of despair or blossom into better being.
 
In Flanders Field   by John McCrae
 
In Flanders fields the poppies blow
    Between the crosses, row on row,
  That mark our place; and in the sky
  The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
  Loved and were loved, and now we lie
      In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
  The torch; be yours to hold it high.
  If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
      In Flanders fields.*
 
*emphasis added
 
Note – Flanders field is located in the county of Flanders in southern Belgium and north west France which was part of the western front during WW I.  This poem was written by a Canadian doctor Lieutenant Colonel John McCrae, inspired by the poppies growing amongst the graves of those who had died on the battle field.  Poppies were also chosen to honor my Grandfather, George Gill, who fought in WWI and will be forever remembered handing out poppies in support of the Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW).    

The Bedford Boys fought for freedom so that I can now fight for equality and justice for all.
 
“So much is lost when we refuse to cross the “borders” that keep us apart.
 
How much are the people for whom Christ died suffering because we remain paralyzed and divided by our differences when we should be working together as the hands and feet of Jesus in the world?  There must be a better and more efficient way to carry out our roles within the mission of God. Surely, we can do better.” 
 
Christina Cleveland, Disunity in Christ:  Uncovering the Hidden Forces That Keep Us Apart. (InterVarsity Press, 2013)