Old Testament: Zephaniah 3:14-20; Gospel: Luke 3:7-18
The early chapters of the Book of Genesis are a recounting of creation, bringing order out of chaos and giving form to the “welter and waste” of the universe, in the words of Robert Alter. The journey from Egypt in Exodus was the process of God removing the people from a chaotic existence and leading them to freedom and a new type of order. The words of the prophets were a call and promise that God would, when chaos again appeared in the lives of the people, bring a return to order. It was a promise that the welter and waste of the world would pass away, and the people would experience a return to right relationship with God – one rooted in covenant.
To me these and many other moments in scripture are in their own way seasons of Advent, times when hopeful expectation seized hold and anchored the people even as their lives and world were a swirl of instability. This morning we hear the words of two of those prophets, Zephaniah and John, each speaking of a journey out of chaos into a future hope. Prophets serve an incredibly important role – many roles, in fact. One of the best summaries of the work of a prophet I’ve found was written by Deborah Block in a brief commentary on Zephaniah. As she writes,
Prophets say what no one wants to hear, what no one wants to believe. Prophets point in directions no one wants to look. They hear God when everybody else has concluded God is silent. They see God where nobody else would guess that God is present. They feel God. Prophets feel God’s compassion for us, God’s anger with us, God’s joy in us. They dream God’s dreams and utter wake-up calls; they hope God’s hopes and announce a new future; they will God’s will and live it against all odds. Prophets sing God’s song and sometimes interrupt the program with a change of tune.
How difficult and yet incredibly powerful that is: a vocation in which one spends all their time acknowledging the things we can’t or won’t, and directing us in ways we don’t want to go.
For those seeking good news in what we just heard, the order of the messages seems to be a regression to the bad news – a move from hope to despair. It’s as if we begin standing on the peak with Zephaniah and move quickly into a valley with John. But isn’t that always the way: a falling away from God by the children, a warning that we must change our ways, and a return to God’s loving embrace? Grace. Love. Redemption. Each is a word that follows on our choice of path. Each is an action and gift from God. God extends grace. God extends love. God extends redemption.
First, we have the words of Zephaniah, another of the minor prophets, who was active in the seventh century BCE. Like Malachi last week this is a short book, just three chapters. It’s referred to by my seminary Old Testament professor as a diatribe more than a dialogue. The first two chapters are less than pleasant: chapter one is an outlining of God’s judgment against Judah, a “sweep[ing] away of everything from the face of the earth” and “cut[ting] off humanity from the face of the earth.” Chapter two then describes how God’s judgment will be extended to the enemies of Israel, driving “them away like the drifting chaff.” Even into chapter three we hear words of punishment and God’s consuming anger.
More than two chapters of fear and promised retribution – and then, there it is: the good news. The prophet turns to grace, love, and redemption. Zephaniah calls for rejoicing, for “the Lord has taken away the judgments.” From the chaos of judgment and punishment, from the chaos of exile and separation from God, we now have restoration and an ordering of relationship – and we see hope.
Then we turn to John. In this morning’s passage from Luke there doesn’t appear to be hope – at least on the surface. Certainly people coming to be baptized wouldn’t have expected to have been called a brood of vipers or to hear references to an axe close at hand, ready to cut down the tree … to cut them down … and throw them into the fire. The connection to Abraham as their spiritual ancestor isn’t enough to save them; this wilderness prophet requires more of them. He answers their question “What should we do?” by telling them what they must do. He requires them to share from their abundance with others, to feed and clothe those without. He requires them to be satisfied with what they have, and not to resort to extorting from others to get more.
What on the surface seems to be a beating down is in fact an urging forward. As Fred Craddock writes in his commentary on Luke, John “has a message of social responsibility… These social and economic concerns will be built into the agenda of the common life of the early church.” John repeatedly talks about the fire that is to come and of separating the wheat from the chaff (the same chaff Zephaniah spoke of as drifting away), but he also talks of baptism and the sending of the Holy Spirit (the fire of Pentecost, something which Luke alone adds because of his knowledge of that first Pentecost ). He talks about the responsibility they have … the responsibility we have … that comes with baptism. It’s a commitment to a particular mode of life, to be “the light of the world, the people in whom God’s justice would be seen by all.”
As this passage ends, we also hear those important words: good news. Despite the surface message of John, there is – like Zephaniah before – more to the story. There is good news, for us and any feeling they are living a life of exile in today’s world. Grace, redemption, and love are available to us. Zephaniah says God will rejoice over us, renew us, and gather the outcasts. But as part of that, as John shows, we’re called to do more.
N. T. Wright tells of a cartoon that he saw once, showing “a sceptic shouting up to the heavens, ‘God! If you’re up there, tell us what we should do!’ Back comes a voice: ‘Feed the hungry, house the homeless, establish justice.’ The sceptic looks alarmed. ‘Just testing,’ he says. ‘Me too,’ replies the voice.” Test? Perhaps. Call? Definitely. The call extended by John is one I refer to often. It’s a call we hear in other scriptures such as Matthew 25: feed; clothe; give drink; visit; welcome. It’s a call we hear in our Baptismal Covenant: persevere; proclaim; seek; serve; strive; respect.
The prophets’ call is one unbounded by the limits of a particular time or season, Advent or otherwise. Yes, we’re on a journey through a season of waiting, but we also can and must act. We can and must do. In the doing, perhaps we ourselves can be like the prophets described by Deborah Block.
We can be the voice of God for those for whom God has fallen silent. We can be the vision of God in those places where others have no sight of God – those who feel God is absent from among them, despite the promises of Zephaniah.
We can be the good news.
Amen.