In the name of the father and of the son and of the holy spirit. Through the last three or four mornings, we have had each morning an incident, very dramatic, spectacular, bloody, brutal, today, pleasant, gratifying, and all of these dramas, they're very dramatic, theatrical, have to do with food. We read these reports of how the the Jews in captivity, in one way or another, refused at the supreme sacrifice of their lives not to break the dietary laws of their people. Now this is extremely important to under we don't have to agree with it or disagree, but remember, there's nothing in the 10 commandments about eating pork or not eating pork. There's nothing in the 10 commandments about eating food from the royal table, especially as regards wine and meat.
There's nothing in the 10 commandments about that. When the so that when these, victims, if you wanna call them that, they didn't think themselves of themselves as victims. But when they laid down their lives joyfully for what they called the law, it wasn't anything which had been given as directly to the people as the 10 commandments, as the Decalogue. Nothing like that. These are some of the hundreds and even thousands of additions that in the course of centuries got tied up, got added to the decalogue as its interpretation, and which came to have, as you can see, the utmost force of law.
Today's story, as I say, is a happy one. Everybody comes out winners. Nobody gets slaughtered. There are no murders, no bloodshed, quite the reverse. But there's no change in the resolution on the part of these young Hebrews of what they were prepared to do.
But I think today's story of Daniel and his companions, this story brings out something the others didn't, and that is the utmost confidence that Daniel expresses in God's power. There's no there's no mention here of fear, of repercussions. All that Daniel says is, do what I tell you. And if you see that we have suffered, then do with us as you wish. But God will look after us.
And so the chamberlain feeds them on vegetables. And theoretically they should have weakened and pined away. They should have been become pale in the face. They should have become lackadaisical. Their eyes should have become droopy and blank after a whole after ten days of this lack of royal food and living on nothing but plain vegetables.
And yet after ten days, here they are, blooming, rosy, alert, bright, brilliant, and even more so than the other young men who had partaken of the food from the royal table. And so here today, the thrust of this story is different. This the thrust here is an is an illustration of confidence in God, utter confidence, the kind of faith in the sense of trust that moves mountains. The other three episodes had to do with fidelity to law, to god's law. Today, it's fidelity to god's promise of being with his own, that he will not let us down.
And that's the I think the of course, this comes out of the old testament almost all the time. That is the the trust of the of a people in God and how he vindicates and justifies that trust. Despite all their wanderings, their slippings, their fallings, their blasphemy, their inhumanity, their not their cannibalism, but their human sacrifice, You name it, and they did it. These were the chosen people that god kept bringing back to himself, and they kept pulling away, coming back, pulling away. But today, we have a very beautiful story of Daniel and his companions, and this should mean a lot to us.
There are very few of us for whom life is a picnic. There are very few of us that do not carry our burden of one sort or another. There are all kinds of burdens and crosses. They're not all made of wood. Maybe that's the the lightest kind of a cross.
And if there's anything we need is trust and confidence in god and his son, Jesus Christ. And I mean trust and confidence, not a wobbly thing, not a hesitating sort of attitude, but an utter giving of oneself that my life is in the hands of God. Without him, I can do nothing. With faith in him, I can move mountains. Do you believe that?
Christ said it. In the Washington Post yesterday, which of all our Sunday newspapers, of course, has an absolutely eminent position of veracity and universality, all the news that's fit to print and so forth, It had a whole section yesterday on Washington as the center of psychiatrists. We have the largest collection of psychiatrists probably in the world. Now that's the Washington Post, and there's nobody can challenge it or deny it. I didn't see many heads bow when I said that.
But the thing is that's what we're told, that Washington is a center of psychiatrists. Why? Why? My friends, we have the faith. It's not much good if it isn't operational.
If it's only lip service, forget it. Parrots can do as well. What counts is something in our whole being that we give ourselves. As Newman says, total assent or the word he used was real as opposed to notional. And this is not something that comes easily.
It isn't something we can manufacture. It isn't something I can produce. It's a gift. It's the grace of God. The best I can do is to pray for it with confidence.
In the name of the father, and the son, and holy spirit. Amen.