The Song That Goes On (Zephaniah 3:14-20)

Zephaniah.  It is not one of the more popular baby names nowadays.   It makes me think of those relatives in family pictures from many years ago.  A man named Zephaniah conjures this image of  a great-great-great grandfather staring at you in an old 19^th century family photo, a man who looks like he bit nails for fun (and by nails, we mean “ten penny”).  He’s surrounded by the requisite 19^th century family of near a dozen children and a wife who looks even tougher than him, able to send the kids off to the one-room school house and then plow the back forty before heading to the kitchen to peel a gunny sack of potatoes to get supper going.  (For the record, I have no relatives named Zephaniah, though I do have an aunt Zelda.)

            The prophet Zephaniah serves as one of the “minor” prophets, the prophets whose writings are shorter in length compared to the “major” prophets like Isaiah or Jeremiah, but by no means are the minor prophets to be considered “lesser” than the others.   They may have written less, but these “minor” prophets still carry the edgy vocation of prophet, bring a word that challenges and a life that moves against the grain of the world.  Just as last week’s readings from Malachi, the readings from Zephaniah appear in the midst of our anticipation of Christmas, the grumpy street preacher out in the cold on the corner as people bustle by, in search of presents, his message sounding an odd note.

            Zephaniah spends much of its time railing against the excesses of the nation.  The king Josiah reigned, yet Zephaniah’s prophetic work happened in the years before Josiah enacted religious reforms as one of Israel’s last “good” kings.  At this point, no one, from crown on down, had faced up to its breach of covenant loyalty with God.  Zephaniah’s critique of the politics, society, and religion of the day would have been vindicated only after the fact.

            The book of Zephaniah is structured around nine long teachings, or oracles.   Eight of the nine oracles are laden with talk of divine judgment for the people’s neglect of covenant commitments to God and the excesses of the day.  The book offers a fairly firm word that such behavior has not gone unnoticed by the Divine, and quite frankly, there will be a reckoning that no one will be escape, from the guy on the street all the way up to the royal court. 

            The ninth oracle is astonishing in its content.  During the last section the prophet’s tone changes.  He speaks of God saving those who listen to the prophet and take it to heart.  I find it quite remarkable to find this section at the end of the prophetic roar, this tender appeal to join voices together and sing of the great hope that God has in store for the faithful.  Suddenly fierce Zephaniah softens, just like a “tough as nails” old Vermonter getting to hold that first grandchild.

The dominant image of the prophetic utterances moves from the earth under divine judgment to a gathering of the faithful, singing of their faith at the top of their voices.   The people are called to sing of a faith that shall endure the world’s hardships and foresee the future as God brings about a reign of justice and peace, not just for some or a chosen few, but for all peoples of the world.

At first glance, you might be skeptical:  what good does this call to song really do?  The world is no less fractured as it was in the day of Zephaniah’s prophetic work.  One of the college students taking the comparative religions course I helped instruct this fall noted the disparity.  At the final class session this past week, the question was asked:  After learning of various religious traditions this semester (beliefs, rituals, theological reflection on contemporary issues), what questions do you still have?  The student earnestly shared, “Each week, people go to religious places of worship, yet the headlines really never change.”  He noted wars, disasters, economic and social disparities still abound.  I appreciate the student’s observations.  It can seem a bit impossible.  The bright visions of a better world seem a bit detached from reality.  What good can a bunch of people at worship really do in this messed up world?

The song of Zephaniah is yet another reflection of how the season of Advent helps us live in the “now” and the “now yet”.   The Advent texts tell of people living faithfully in times of great challenge, not as those who believe in some sort of wishy-washy “pie in the sky” but rather as those who know you have got to keep your eye on the prize.  To sing Zephaniah’s song, you do not find the imagery of a life lived in pursuit of the afterlife.  Instead, this song imagines a different take on the world, where the nations shall be gathered together, where all persons will be given dignity, where the lost shall be found. 

Such a song, invoked in the midst of the praise of God, maps out a different way of looking at the world.  We hear the disparities of a people who claim to be the chosen, the exceptional, yet they kept some folks invisible or at the margins.  Zephaniah is the counter witness to the official script of the day:  the nation was getting a little stronger under Josiah, regaining some international alliances, making a few strides toward new economic stability, yet some folks were kept second class citizens.  The vision of the prophets (major or minor) imagines a people not separated by status or privilege.  (A people holy and devout do not leave anyone out.)

Reading the full text of Zephaniah, you experience the full and necessary indictment of a society that tried its best to be the city set on a hill yet never gave full account for its misdeeds and myopias.  Yet, and I love that word “yet”, as it seems to be the necessary word for describing the prophets:  The people have sinned mightily against God, yet God shall bring about a different End, one of love, justice, and peace.  Accordingly, Zephaniah moves from indignant to tender in his prophecies.  The last section claims you can indeed sing a different tune and become the beloved community of God.  This song of Zephaniah presents where God will bring all things in the end, and singing this song inspires you to be part of the effort to bring the world more into line closer to what God intends.

A few months ago, Baptists from around the world gathered for the 400^th anniversary celebration of the first “Baptist” congregation forming in Amsterdam in 1609.  The service ended with the gathered people singing “We Are Marching in the Light of God”.   The song is also known as “Siyahamba”, reflecting the song’s origins in South Africa.  Originally, the song arose among Christians living in the long entrenched apartheid era.  The tune is quite easy to pick up, the words easy to remember.  Getting a few hundred Baptists singing it at the end of a celebratory worship service, well, that church was rocking.  Better said, when the rest of the world joins in the song, even us relatively staid U.S. Baptists, who have mixed feelings about even clapping in church, find ourselves dancing.

The song “Siyahamba/We Are Marching in the Light of God” is not just “idle words” set to a catchy tune. The song mirrors the faith of a people who look to God for their strength and encouragement.  For people living under an oppressive government, dealing with hunger, poverty, and other forms of blatant disregard for people based on the color of their skin, this song pointed to a path through this world. Michael Hawn, a leading proponent of sacred global music, notes the power of this hymn, “Singing "Siyahamba" says that liturgy is not hermetically sealed from daily life, but is a place to mend the wounds of oppression, and to receive a blessing to return to the streets in hope for freedom.” (C. Michael Hawn, http://www.yale.edu/ism/colloq_journal/vol2/hawn4.html )  Not only for Sunday, this song provided a vision for the lives of people working to change a society. 

The band came to a stop, as the BWA president came to the pulpit to give the benediction.  The crowd at the Baptist World Alliance meetings could not stop singing.  The president smiled and just waved his hand, conducting the crowd as we sang the song one more time. 

I thought back to that summer day in Amsterdam as I read Zephaniah.  The BWA singing together reminded me of the prophet’s vision of the nations of the world being gathered together, with no partiality given, gathered to sing of God’s just future coming about.  Siyahamba brought the people to worship and prepared them to return home to places where difficulties abound.  I stood alongside persons who would return to countries where poverty abounds and clean water is in short supply, where human trafficking (the 21^st century version of slavery) is a critical problem, where the world’s resources are scarce because the West, particularly this country, over consumes.  These folks sang “We Are Marching in the Light of God” with the same conviction as those who composed it while living in difficult times.  Admittedly, I have sang “We Are Marching in the Light of God” at a few church services and ecumenical gatherings over the years, but this is the first time I felt the words and the tune work down into my soul.

            What did that song say to me?  How does a Baptist serving in Vermont, serving in a country of veritable privilege, feel able to join in that song?   I sang with conviction, as I thought of where we are going as a congregation seeking the missional pathway.  We are moving into God’s future, admittedly knowing the next leg of our journey will look decidedly less like where we have been before.   We are making some bold “next steps” in our journey, moving our building into missional service, providing needed services to those in our community who need help, advocacy, and access to services, and becoming a people willing to be “hands on” with the missional service needs right here in our own community. 

In response to the student’s pondering whether or not worshipping people can make a difference in the world, I would say we are becoming the best answer to that question, as First Baptist is investing its energies in discipleship far beyond just what happens on a Sunday morning.  We are learning to sing a new song that harkens back to the prophets of God, who saw the dysfunctional present yet could foresee the bright future God alone holds for the world.

Learning to Wait (Luke 21:25-36)

Learning to Wait

      As a child, I took the teacher’s word very seriously.  “Now remember,” the music teacher would say. “You must be here by 6:30 PM sharp!  You cannot be late.”

      It was time for the grade school winter concert.  All of the children in the school would put on a two hour program, class by class.  It was a big year, I believe it was fourth grade, and my class had a big presentation of songs from around the world for the holiday season.  We had to be at the school music room by 6:30 PM….sharp!

      Telling my parents was another story.  My dad shook his head.  He asked, “You said 6:30 PM?”

      “Sharp!” I said.

      With a sigh, dad said, “Now, son, you know what will happen.  We live way out here in the countryside.  We’ll get there at 6:30 PM, and all of the town kids won’t be there until later.”

      “But the teacher said, 6:30 PM…sharp!”

      “It will be just like it was when I was a kid.  Hurry up so you can wait.”

      My father’s perspective didn’t sit well with me. “But, the teacher will be mad at me.  He said, 6:30 PM, shar--”

      “We’ll get there when we get there,” my dad said.

      For the rest of the afternoon and evening, I twitched and stewed.  At 6:10 PM, the very last second that it would take to leave that moment and make the journey into town from the farm, I started to shiver.  We’re going to be late!

      Sweating, I stewed about the predicament.  Six thirty PM was getting closer.  I frittered.  I contemplated hailing down a passing semi to get a lift into town.  I thought about hopping on the Snapper lawn mower.  It was the only thing I was allowed to drive.

      I frittered.  Tick tock.  Tick tock.

      I danced around my parents, as they put on their jackets.  I ran ahead and open all the car doors so they wouldn’t lose time getting in the car. My mother said to take it easy. 

      I frittered.  Tick tock.  Tick tock.  My entire life was riding on 6:30 PM, sharp!, and my sister wanted to pet a cat! Arrgh!  It’s nearly 6:30 PM, and she’s petting a cat!  It’s the end of the world, and my little sister is petting a cat!

 As the family left the house for the car, they moved as if in “slow mo”.   I wailed, “We’re going to be laaaaaate!” 

      After getting in the car, my father did the unthinkable.  He stopped short of turning on the car ignition and just sat there in the driver’s seat, looking back at me in the rearview mirror.  “Son, trust me.  We’ll hurry up so we can wait.”

      The next few minutes of travel were tense.  I was quietly willing the car to move faster, for the state trooper to be taking a nap on the other end of the county.  The tick tock sound in my head kept getting louder as I peeked up front at the clock in the dashboard.  Six thirty PM (sharp!) was nearing!

      We arrived at the school.  It was 6:29 and thirty seconds.  I leapt out of the car, racing through the school to the music room.  Being that I was a husky child, racing through the school did not happen even remotely at Olympic qualifying speeds.  Gravity and doughnuts, the bane of the husky child!  Aaah!

      At the entrance to the music room, I stood in the doorway, wheezing from the race and the anxiety, and then I noticed it.  The clock said, “6:31 PM”.  Funnily enough, I realized that I was the only person in the room.  The music teacher also had yet to arrive.

      A few moments later my father arrived.  “See, son? Hurry up, so you can wait.”

      (Out of full disclosure, I am required by pre-nuptial agreements to note this story sounds very much like Kerry’s experience of the last ten years of going to church with me each and every Sunday morning.  Pray for her….)

      The moral of the story, you ask?  It is this:   waiting is an art.

      Christianity has spent much of its time waiting.  Two thousand years ago, Christ said he would return.  We have been waiting ever since.  The New Testament bears witness to the all too human habits that developed soon after the Ascension of Christ.  Part of the New Testament predicts that the return of Christ shall come very soon, in the lifetime of the eyewitnesses and early believers. These sort of texts are bold assertions, overzealous or somewhat discrediting to the New Testament’s claims of divine truth.  Look for the signs!, the gospels and certain other passages claim.  Two thousand years later, these texts and their predictions seem a bit off.  Still no sign?   Does this sort of text lose its authority?

      Some readers have thought so, reading the texts with a grain of salt, believing in the gospel, yet finding such passages a little less of importance.  Hence, there is an uneasiness underneath with some readers, taking the fruit of Jesus’ teachings seriously, yet having little room for the “eschatology” of the New Testament.

      Eschatology is a theological word, meaning “the study of the End”.  Some call this “the End Times”, and I personally refrain from this term altogether, as I know a strain of Christianity much too obsessed with predictions of the “end times”.  I have read some of the “classic” best-selling books of this movement and recall during seminary the height of the “Left Behind” series (including the merchandising empire built around it, including a film or two and even the “board game”).   That is the sort of eschatology I do not go near. I believe Christianity has an eschatology, a vision of “the End” that is well worth keeping, as our faith has a word for how humanity should understand its past, present, and future.   I understand the Bible’s teachings on eschatology are complex, and often a reflection of the era in which a particular text was written.  Early Christians lived under very difficult circumstances, in contention with the Judaism of the day, and persecuted often by the Roman Empire.  As I read these first century texts that speak of Jesus coming soon as a twenty-first century Christian, I understand them as words of faith that may not have come true as the first century believers thought it might in their lifetimes, but I do not discount the belief motivating the words being written.  To believe God alone holds the final word is a deep core belief of the faith.  I go through these texts in the Bible with a sense of reverence, though markedly different than certain parts of the Church more in the conservative, evangelical, and fundamentalist movements.  The early Church lived in the same tension that modern day Christians live in:  somewhere between expectation and hope.  We believe Christ died, rose again, and ascended into heaven.  We believe Christ shall come again.  The creeds said more regularly in other Christian worship traditions affirm this belief each and every week.  Like the story that I began with, there is an art to waiting, and the sacred text offers us some very fruitful ways to live “in the meantime”.  

      Reading this text from Luke, we are told to look for the signs.  Some readers will focus on the spectacle of the text (earthquakes, chaotic seas).  Luke focuses on how to wait.  Do not cower.  Stand up with heads raised.  Be alert and prayerful.  These are not habits that are formed instantaneously.  You have to practice waiting, learning the ways of living faithfully for the long haul.  It is the same faith that sustained Christians through times of great challenge throughout the centuries.  A well-attuned eschatology becomes a spiritual lifeline for people living in difficult circumstances.  Take for instance, the recent story shared by our American Baptist General Secretary (and recent pulpit guest), the Rev. Roy Medley.  The General Secretary traveled to Malasyia “to see first-hand the situation of Burmese refugees in that country.”  He writes,

Throughout that week we heard heart-wrenching stories.  Some focused on the ordeal of slipping out of Burma and the dangers involved in fleeing to Malaysia.  Others focused on the constant state of fear they experienced as unrecognized refugees who were subject to raids by bounty hunters and deportation back to Burma.  Others reminded us of their poverty and the daily struggle to exist.

Yet, Sunday morning as this rag-tag band of Baptist refugees gathered to worship, they began their service with a gospel song, long-familiar to me:  “Count Your Blessings, name them one by one . . . count your many blessings see what God has done.”  Tears filled my eyes.

The General Secretary shares this memory with the denominational family as part of a letter celebrating the civic holiday of Thanksgiving, yet I cannot help but hear the Luke reading resonating with this reflection as well.  Luke’s first audience would have taken strength from the language of the Son of Man coming to bring the decisive word to a violent world that they knew all too well.  Eschatology is like the refugees, a people able to sing of a faith that empowers and strengthens them, a people who live with patience and certainty that no matter what, God will be with them.

The Bible’s teachings on eschatology are quite simply a message of radical hope and abiding trust.  I keep thinking back to the experience of friends who live in the South, or the southern U.S. states.  Talk about life long enough, and you will hear complaints of kudzu, a weed vine infamous for its ability to grow anywhere, and most often, in the oddest places.  Eschatology, in its truest, and I would say, most biblical of senses, is like kudzu: so tenacious, so full of life that you cannot keep it under control.

On this first Sunday of Advent, we remember that Christ came as the little babe of Bethlehem, yet the gospel text is always eschatological.  You cannot escape the other meaning of “Advent” for the Church.  We proclaim that Christ shall come again.  The texts call us to remember our faith has a remarkable strength, found not in obsessing about the future, but in the quiet strength of waiting.