Sermons from Mission Hills UCC San Diego, California Rev. Dr. David Bahr [email protected] December 12, 2021 “A Home for All” Zephaniah 3:14-20 Common English Bible, with inclusive adaptations Rejoice, Daughter Zion! Shout, Israel! Rejoice and exult with all your heart, Daughter Jerusalem. The Holy One of Israel has removed your judgment; and has turned away your enemy. God, the Sovereign of Israel, is in your midst; you will no longer fear evil. On that day, it will be said to Jerusalem: Don’t fear, Zion. Don’t let your hands fall. The Mighty One is in your midst— a warrior bringing victory. God will create calm with love; God will rejoice over you with singing. I will remove from you those worried about the appointed feasts. They have been a burden, a reproach. Watch what I am about to do to all your oppressors at that time. I will deliver the lame; I will gather the outcast. I will change their shame into praise and fame throughout the earth. At that time, I will bring all of you back. At the time when I gather you. I will give you fame and praise among all the neighboring peoples when I restore your possessions and you can see them— says She Who is Peace. Luke 3:10-16 - Common English Bible 10 The crowds asked him, “What then should we do?” 11 John answered, “Whoever has two shirts must share with the one who has none, and whoever has food must do the same.” 12 Even tax collectors came to be baptized. They said to him, “Teacher, what should we do?” 13 He replied, “Collect no more than you are authorized to collect.” 14 Soldiers asked, “What about us? What should we do?” He answered, “Don’t cheat or harass anyone, and be satisfied with your pay.” 15 The people were filled with expectation, and everyone wondered whether John might be the Christ. 16 John replied to them all, “I baptize you with water, but the one who is more powerful than me is coming. I’m not worthy to loosen the strap of his sandals. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. The prophecy of Zephaniah ends with such beautiful words: Rejoice and exult. You will no longer fear evil God will create calm with God’s love God will rejoice over you singing I will deliver the lame, I will deliver the outcast, I will change their shame into praise and fame. Beautiful. Touching. The rest of Zephaniah? Not so much. From it’s first words at the beginning until these last six verses, the central message of Zephaniah is that the wrath of God will result in the total destruction of the entire earth. But at least the wrath of God that results in the total destruction of the entire earth will be worth it because it’s followed by the establishment of a new world order that guarantees safety, security, and prosperity. Nice! But only for the faithful people of God. The fate of all other nations remains total destruction. South African scholar Dr. Dora Mbuwayesango (mm-boo-way-eh-songo) is an expert on Zephaniah and wrote the commentary for The Africana Bible.[1] She said very clearly, “Zephaniah presents a view of God that is dangerously exclusive and nationalistic. The lack of interest for the well-being of foreign peoples is striking.” Zephaniah is the stereotypical, classic, vengeful God of the Old Testament. To make Zephaniah palatable enough to read in church, outside of those who love the image of a vengeful God, we have to rely on the happily-ever-after ending, which after you have put it into context isn’t so happy for everyone. Does that mean we should just ignore it? Maybe, but let’s try to unpack and understand it first. According to Dr. Judith Sanderson who wrote about Zephaniah in The Women’s Bible Commentary,[2] many of the prophets like Micah, Amos, and Jeremiah expressed solidarity with people who were humble and lowly, the poor and oppressed. They weren’t widows but they knew widows. These prophets spoke to and of the poor because they shared a similar social standing. In contrast, scholarship suggests Zephaniah was a member of the upper class and may have been speaking to and of the people with whom he shared his social standing. And if so, if he’s talking to his fellow upper class neighbors, his words might have indeed been appropriate to his audience. Throughout his prophecy, Zephaniah strongly emphasizes the sin of arrogance. And throughout the Bible, God’s wrath is often in response to arrogance. Dr. Sanderson therefore suggests that God’s response, not necessarily the wrath, but God’s intolerance of arrogance is fitting to his audience. When we interpret it however, sadly, arrogance is often misunderstood or translated as pride. Pride and arrogance are two different things. She said, many people in a dominant position in society need to hear a call from God to give up their arrogance. They need to give up their illusion of [so-called] self-sufficiency. They need to learn the kind of humility that values others as much as self and that will rely on God rather than self for guidance and help. However, that kind of language is often inappropriate to the experiences of women and people of color, people with physical disabilities, people with mental health challenges, LGBTQ people, the list goes on… Rather than a denunciation of pride, some people need to hear a call from God encouraging pride that will value the self as much as others and that will rely on God for empowerment. Got that? Some people need more pride while some people’s pride is really arrogance. And God is intolerant of arrogance. When Mary sang the Magnificat, that was her message too. With the impending birth of her child, she praised God for toppling the powerful from their thrones and lifting the humble high. Dr. Mbuwayesango (mm-boo-way-eh-songo) says something similar, relating that the Bible in Southern Africa has been used both as a book of oppression and a book of liberation. Both themes, she said, run through Zephaniah. As a book of oppression, for example, the Bible was used as a justification by Europeans to colonize Africa. As a book of liberation, the Bible serves as a guide in the search for an ethnically diverse, post-colonial Southern Africa. The same dynamic was and is still true in the US as well. Remember, Zechariah’s message is dangerously exclusive and nationalistic. It plays right into the hands of Christian nationalists in our country who ultimately want a return to whites-only power with a different name. Women without power over their bodies. LGBTQ people locked in closets. Christian nationalists today want the Bible taught in school but not the teachings of Jesus. The Ten Commandments but not the Beatitudes. We cannot allow them to claim the Bible as their property. It has been used for oppression, certain texts have been used to terrorize, but it is indeed a story of liberation that guides us to free one another. One small step is to ensure that we accurately translate biblical denunciations of pride as really God’s intolerance for arrogance, thereby leaving room for a pride that men often take for granted but which many others, especially women, were not taught as children. And so, for people who have been empowered by God: Rejoice and exult. You will no longer fear evil God will create calm with God’s love God will rejoice over you singing I will deliver the lame, I will deliver the outcast, I will change their shame into praise and fame. Beautiful, but alas, yes, the problem still remains. That whole promise of the total destruction of the entire earth by the wrath of God except for the privileged few… is not happily ever after. Nothing is or ever will be until everyone born has a place at the table, not until everyone born has clean water and bread, a shelter, a safe place for growing, for everyone born a star overhead. And so, what shall we do with Zephaniah? Just ignore it? Our search for understanding continues. Let’s look at our other text today. You may recall from last week that Zechariah was the name of John the Baptist’s father, not to be confused with today’s Zephaniah. But if you listen to John, he sounds very much in the tradition of prophetic wrath too. In the verses before our reading today, he called the people who came to be baptized by him “children of snakes” or “broods of vipers.” He asked, “Who warned you to escape from the angry judgment that is coming soon?” He told people “whoever doesn’t produce good fruit will be chopped down with an ax and thrown into the fire.” So much for JOY Sunday! And yet people still flooded to him, coming from the cities into the wilderness – and maybe it was for the entertainment or maybe they sincerely wanted to change their lives. Note, in our reading today, when people had been baptized, afterward they asked, “What should we do now?” They didn’t say, “WOO HOO! I’ve got my golden ticket to heaven.” They didn’t say, “See ya, wouldn’t wanna be ya!” They asked sincerely, OK, now what? They expected baptism to change their lives. And what joy there is in knowing we are not trapped by past mistakes or choices that ended in failure. We can turn our lives around. Amen? When the crowds asked, What should we do now? John gave an answer. A concrete, “I can do that!” answer. To everyone he said, ‘If you have two coats, give one to someone in need.” I can do that! And what joy for the one who gives. What absolute exultation for the one who receives. How sad for anyone who won’t. Ah, but they too can change their lives. The soldiers then stepped up and asked, “What should we do?” John answered, very concretely, “Don’t cheat or harass anyone and be satisfied with your pay.” Now, this isn’t a slogan for low wage workers. This isn’t the proclamation of a CEO making a hundred or a thousand times minimum wage, the Bible says, “Be satisfied with your pay.” No, John was specifically addressing soldiers from the occupying force stationed on their homeland: Be satisfied with your pay means don’t take what isn’t yours. But you know, the soldiers didn’t really have a lot of choices. I doubt Rome had a recruiting strategy other than rounding people up and forcing them to serve the Empire. In fact, they often used other conquered people to conquer and subdue more. John had a simple specific message to soldiers who wished to change their lives: don’t exploit the citizens. Then the tax collectors stepped up, “What should we do!?” John said, take what’s legitimately yours and no more. Many were raping the poor. Others were just trying to make a living too. They were as subject to the whims and brutality of Rome as anyone. But they didn’t have to make it worse by overcharging people trying to survive. Interestingly, all three of John’s answers are economic messages. It seems that the baptism of John leading to repentance of sin is to simply treat each other right. It’s not a golden ticket to heaven or a get out of hell card. John the Baptist’s message starts out very harshly but it’s simple. It’s ultimately a message that repairs the breach of arrogance with equity. To the tax collectors and soldiers, treat others fairly and with dignity even if you work for the empire. To everyone, bear fruit worthy of your baptism: if you have it, clothe the naked, feed the hungry, give voice to the silenced and silence the powerful, give pride to the oppressed and remove the control of the arrogant. On that one point Zephaniah is right. He calls out the arrogant, though I’m not certain they deserve the wrath of God resulting in the total destruction of the entire earth. Although, they too deserve the opportunity to make it right by changing their lives. But, as for the rest of Zephaniah’s message, don’t just ignore it. Reject it. Reject it and all the false religion today of Christian nationalists and their xenophobic white-power immigrant-hating masquerade of “Christianity.” What a sad, sad vision they have. Reject it and rather hold up the vision of joy and exultation of a home for everyone born, wherever they have been born. True joy in heaven for the earth. Today, step up and say, “Hey John, what should we do?!” Whatever he says to each of us individually, I'm sure we can answer, "I can do that!" [1] Dora Mbuwayesango, The Africana Bible: Reading Israel’s Scriptures from Africa and the African Diaspora, Fortress Press, 2010 [2] Judith Sanderson, The Women’s Bible Commentary, Westminster/John Knox, 1992
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