Third Sunday of Advent, Proper 10, Year C, RCL

Third Sunday of Advent, Proper 10, Year C, RCL

Zephaniah 3.14-20 or Canticle 9

Philippians 4.4-7

Luke 3.7-18  

             

The Lord, your God, is in your midst!  Zephaniah asserts this twice in the section from the Hebrew Scriptures that we read today.  Do we believe this?  [Shrug]  And Zephaniah asserts this wild claim after two chapters condemning first Judah and then other nations for complacency, idolatry, corrupt leaders and injustice.  After two chapters of convicting Judah and other nations of deep sin, Zephaniah links judgment with hope.  How does divine judgment and joy come together?

I have scoffed at the notion of divine judgment, the wrath of God, as somehow embarrassing or unworthy of God.  I don’t want a harsh-old-man-on-the-throne God, sort of George C. Scott as General Patton.  And I yearn for the healing and reconciliation for the whole of creation.  In my powerlessness to heal the world, I yearn for someone to stop the meanness, to conquer evil, and to eradicate apathy.  In my powerlessness, I want judgment and not impunity for the oppressors and despoilers of the world.  Along with hope for vindication for the dispossessed that experience the unimaginable horrors of Rwanda and Darfur, I want justice for the little ones, the Anwain, everywhere, even in my hometown.

Major Thomas L. Egan was a retired Oregon National Guard officer.  A passer-by found the 60-year old veteran in mid-December last year frozen to death on a Eugene sidewalk.  His body was partially covered in snow, a bottle of liquor by his side.  At the time, Major Egan had been homeless for several months.  It was a tragic ending.  Egan joined the Army in 1971 and was stationed at the demilitarized zone in Korea for two years.  Assigned to the Oregon National Guard in 1977, he attained the rank of major during his 20-year military career. 

Before he entered the service, Egan earned a bachelor’s degree in history in Connecticut.  In 1983, he gained a master’s degree in journalism from the University of Oregon.

In recent years, several friends who saw Egan’s life spiraling downward tried to get him back on track.  They did not succeed. 

Zephaniah’s prophesies stretch across 25 centuries.  First spoken to and for ancient Israelites in exile, and now speaking to and for Christians, to and for Darfur’s dispossessed Muslims, to and for the homeless in Eugene and all the exploited of the earth who have endured displacement, torture, starvation, rape and death.  Zephaniah prophesies are a message of radical redemption, a day is coming when never again will you fear any harm.  God says at that time I will bring you home.  At that time when I gather you, I will rejoice and exult over you.  I will sing to you and because of you. 

How does divine judgment and joy come together?

We rightly dismiss caricatures of divine judgment that picture God as capricious, arbitrary, vindictive, or sadistic.  God is not the Red Queen shouting “Off with their heads!”  God's judgment is a purifying response to everything that dehumanizes us—violence, oppression, exploitation, exile, disease, famine, addiction, and war.  Does our moral imagination really believe that bad people slaughter with impunity, that evil has no opponent?  Do I really want a God to leave me to my own worst impulses of envy, greed, anger, and addiction or do I want God to judge, rescue and purify me from them. 

How does divine judgment and joy come together?  I want to be purified.  Zephaniah believes that what makes people holy, will make them happy.  The call to repentance in Zephaniah is similar to the call of that first Advent preacher, John, in our gospel lesson.

Zephaniah’s writings emphasize that our covenantal relationship with God is one of deep, committed love.  It is possible for humans to betray God’s love and break God’s heart, and we have done so.  But Zephaniah announces that at God’s coming, Advent, all that will be put behind us. 

We are God’s beloved.  God bursts into song when we, the beloved, have returned.  This is JOY in capital letters; not a small smile, not dignified, but a great jubilation, and mutual joy.  Zephaniah describes God as pardoning judge and king, savior & warrior, rescuer; God as shepherd, gathering the lame and the outcast.

God is for you.  The Lord, your God, is in your midst!  The presence of God, it is transformative, covenantal, radical, destabilizing, scary, and exhilarating!

Zephaniah is the season of Advent calling us to prepare Him a room and let heaven and nature shout for joy.  Zephaniah spends two chapters identifying what needs to change, where we need to turn both as individuals and most importantly as a society, culture, and nation.  Then as the hills are made low and the road is straighten, the Lord is with us, Emmanuel, Christ’s incarnation.  And more joy we can handle now that we are together with God.  We have a home. 

God says at that time I will bring you home.  At that time when I gather you, I will rejoice and exult over you.  I will sing to you and because of you.  And so we sing in response, “I’ll be home for Christmas.”

In Eugene and Springfield, a coalition of nonprofits, faith communities, local governments, and social activists came together and opened the Egan Warming Center with a simple mission:  to ensure that homeless people in Lane County have a place to sleep indoors when temperatures drop to 28 degrees or below.  As you figured out, the Egan Warming Center is named in honor of Major Thomas Egan.  Our community saw our sin and turned in a new direction.  The Lord, our God, was in our midst.

This covenantal relationship with God is one of deep committed love.  According to Luke, during the reign of Caesar Augustus all went to their hometowns to register.  The pilgrims included Joseph and Mary, who were expecting a child.  In the city of David called Bethlehem, the baby was born, and as Zephaniah had promised, the exile was over.  The Lord our God was here to stay.                                Thanks be to God.