Daniel 4:19-27
Daniel Explains the Dream
19 “Upon hearing this, Daniel (also known as Belteshazzar) was overcome for a time, frightened by the meaning of the dream. Then the king said to him, ‘Belteshazzar, don’t be alarmed by the dream and what it means.’
“Belteshazzar replied, ‘I wish the events foreshadowed in this dream would happen to your enemies, my lord, and not to you! 20 The tree you saw was growing very tall and strong, reaching high into the heavens for all the world to see. 21 It had fresh green leaves and was loaded with fruit for all to eat. Wild animals lived in its shade, and birds nested in its branches. 22 That tree, Your Majesty, is you. For you have grown strong and great; your greatness reaches up to heaven, and your rule to the ends of the earth.
23 “‘Then you saw a messenger, a holy one, coming down from heaven and saying, “Cut down the tree and destroy it. But leave the stump and the roots in the ground, bound with a band of iron and bronze and surrounded by tender grass. Let him be drenched with the dew of heaven. Let him live with the animals of the field for seven periods of time.”
24 “‘This is what the dream means, Your Majesty, and what the Most High has declared will happen to my lord the king. 25 You will be driven from human society, and you will live in the fields with the wild animals. You will eat grass like a cow, and you will be drenched with the dew of heaven. Seven periods of time will pass while you live this way, until you learn that the Most High rules over the kingdoms of the world and gives them to anyone he chooses. 26 But the stump and roots of the tree were left in the ground. This means that you will receive your kingdom back again when you have learned that heaven rules.
27 “‘King Nebuchadnezzar, please accept my advice. Stop sinning and do what is right. Break from your wicked past and be merciful to the poor. Perhaps then you will continue to prosper.’
Stop sinning, do what is right. Break from your wicked past and be merciful to the poor.
God’s heart is for the poor. All the way through scriptures, whenever God is angry with a people, it is almost always because of the way that they treat the poor, vulnerable and the marginalised. In the New Testament, Paul wanted to work with Gentiles and the one condition that they placed on him was that he would not forget the poor.
However, we so often do. Poverty is incredibly complex. We don’t want to perpetuate addiction or systems of abuse and so we feel conflicted when we see the homeless. We don’t want to patronise or humiliate people in their needs, so we turn a blind eye. We are also incredibly busy and poverty feels like a lot of work. So, we focus on other things.
However, God’s heart is for the poor.
I was chatting to a friend at Tearfund last week and he said to me that poverty is all about choices. It is the inability to make choices in any area of your life. So, when you have no money, you can not choose how you live or what you eat. When you have a disability or physical illness, it removes choice from your life and restricts your lifestyle. Poverty is incredibly holistic. It is social, political, financial, spiritual and emotional.
It is the gap between God’s creation plan in Genesis and where we are today. We were created to rule creation, to be close to God, united as communities and healthy in ourselves. Wherever there is a gap, it reveals poverty.
God wants us to close the gap, wherever we have the ability to do so.
Amen.
