This blog provides a meditation on the Episcopal daily readings along with a headline from world news:
CHRISTIAN AID WEEK UK BEGINS “FOR ALL OF GOD’S CHILDREN A PLACE AT THE TABLE”
Daniel 6:16-28
16 Then the king gave the command, and Daniel was brought and thrown into the den of lions. The king said to Daniel, ‘May your God, whom you faithfully serve, deliver you!’ 17A stone was brought and laid on the mouth of the den, and the king sealed it with his own signet and with the signet of his lords, so that nothing might be changed concerning Daniel. 18Then the king went to his palace and spent the night fasting; no food was brought to him, and sleep fled from him.
19 Then, at break of day, the king got up and hurried to the den of lions. 20When he came near the den where Daniel was, he cried out anxiously to Daniel, ‘O Daniel, servant of the living God, has your God whom you faithfully serve been able to deliver you from the lions?’ 21Daniel then said to the king, ‘O king, live for ever! 22My God sent his angel and shut the lions’ mouths so that they would not hurt me, because I was found blameless before him; and also before you, O king, I have done no wrong.’ 23Then the king was exceedingly glad and commanded that Daniel be taken up out of the den. So Daniel was taken up out of the den, and no kind of harm was found on him, because he had trusted in his God. 24The king gave a command, and those who had accused Daniel were brought and thrown into the den of lions—they, their children, and their wives. Before they reached the bottom of the den the lions overpowered them and broke all their bones in pieces.
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Tony Benn the socialist politician often speaks of learning an evangelical chorus as a child “Dare to be a Daniel/ Dare to stand alone” which inspired him to stand up for his own principles. (Some might add, “and to take no account of anyone else’s”)
The Daniel author is writing for a people menaced by the superior power and culture of Greece. The story has a happy ending (for Daniel but not his accusers) as the King upholds his innocence. It seems almost too simple yet it has comforted and inspired many who unlike Mr. Benn have actually suffered for their faith-people like Archbishop Romero who looked the lions in the eye and didn’t back down. Praise for them and this scripture!

Luke 5:27-39

27 After this he went out and saw a tax-collector named Levi, sitting at the tax booth; and he said to him, ‘Follow me.’ 28And he got up, left everything, and followed him.
29 Then Levi gave a great banquet for him in his house; and there was a large crowd of tax-collectors and others sitting at the table with them. 30The Pharisees and their scribes were complaining to his disciples, saying, ‘Why do you eat and drink with tax-collectors and sinners?’ 31Jesus answered, ‘Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick; 32I have come to call not the righteous but sinners to repentance.’
33 Then they said to him, ‘John’s disciples, like the disciples of the Pharisees, frequently fast and pray, but your disciples eat and drink.’ 34Jesus said to them, ‘You cannot make wedding-guests fast while the bridegroom is with them, can you? 35The days will come when the bridegroom will be taken away from them, and then they will fast in those days.’ 36He also told them a parable: ‘No one tears a piece from a new garment and sews it on an old garment; otherwise the new will be torn, and the piece from the new will not match the old. 37And no one puts new wine into old wineskins; otherwise the new wine will burst the skins and will be spilled, and the skins will be destroyed. 38But new wine must be put into fresh wineskins. 39And no one after drinking old wine desires new wine, but says, “The old is good.”
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In Mark’s version which Luke is using as the basis for his own, Jesus says, “I have not come to call the righteous but sinners.” Luke adds, “To repentance” just in case the reader thinks, God forbid, that Jesus called unrepentant sinners. This misses Mark’s point, that Jesus calls only sinners, there are no righteous in his eyes. It also fails to note that the calling is to a changed life rather than to a higher religious status. Still Luke does convey an image of the robust friendship-at-table of Jesus and his followers. This is itself the subject of criticism from the upholders of old-time religion. Religious people should be decently miserable as they’ve always been (a proposition dearly cherished by the Scottish Calvinist tradition). Jesus’ parables say that the zesty gospel can’t be contained in the old forms of piety. New ways are needed, although Jesus notes that actually “old wine” is usually the preferred tipple of the cognoscenti. His remedy? Keep people away from the old stuff-once they’ve sipped the Chateau Lafite they’ll not go for the Beaujolais Nouveau! He means that if you get accustomed to the easy pleasures of legalistic faith you’re unlikely to savour the rough and tumble of the gospel. The strained righteousness of many churhes is a million miles away from the community of sinners (yes, repentant sinners!) that Jesus created.