December 16th:
To The Outcasts
December 16, 2012
Potsdam
Call and text: Zephaniah 3: 14-20
Read: W&S #1
To The Outcasts
This past week was extremely busy for a lot of people in this congregation.
Those in the cantata for example
Those active in the Holiday Fund for another
In our household Marge spent a great deal of time early in the week
Working with others on putting the cookie mixes together
And then she spent Friday and Saturday at the Holiday Fund.
We waved "Hello" and kissed "good-bye" a lot this week
But we didn't find much time for casual conversation
In her absence, I spent a great deal of time with a new friend
His name is Zephaniah
He lived and prophesized a few years earlier than Jeremiah
And as we spent time together, I came to appreciate more and more
The book containing his prophecies
And in particular, the coherent way in which it is structured.
Today's call to worship was the last several verses of that book
And what a nice, hopeful scripture to call us to worship!
That scripture tells us
That God took away the punishment that God had imposed
That God is in our midst
That God will renew us in God's love
That God will rejoice over us with gladness
And exalt over us with singing
That God will deal with our oppressors
and restore our fortunes.
Isn't that the type of scripture we want to hear
as we prepare to celebrate the birth of Christ?
In fact, isn't that the type of scripture we want to hear
all year long?
God, speaking through Zephaniah in those verses
Makes me think of spoons full of sugar and Mary Poppins.
Life like it should be: magical, and wonderful, and carefree.
But life isn't that way.
Life requires
Responsibility unselfishness, and accountability.
It requires
Tolerance, understanding, and sharing
So does our relationship with God
A relationship that, as we talked last week
Christ came to refine and to strengthen
A relationship that, as we talked two weeks ago,
Is evidenced by justice
And so we must understand that that any resemblance to the Julie Andrews' fictional nanny
Is found only in the book's last seven verses
The book begins very differently.
Not with a message of hope and comfort
But with a message that is harsh and demanding
A message that makes God sound more like Judge Roy Bean
than like Mary Poppins
It begins like this [1: 1-4a, 12, 14-17;]
"I will utterly sweep away everything."
"I will cut off humanity from the face of the earth
"I will punish the people who rest complacently on their dregs"
"The day of the Lord is near" Zephaniah reports
But he describes that day as
A day of wrath, distress, and anguish
A day of ruin and devastation"
A day when people shall walk blind
Because they have sinned against the Lord.
Why would anyone want to celebrate the day of the Lord's coming?
However, after that chastising beginning we are presented with an option
An option to gather together to seek the Lord
to seek righteousness and humility
saying that if we do,
we might be hidden on the day of the Lord's wrath.
And so the book of Zephaniah's prophecies
Begins with warning and chastisement
Which in turn are followed by a possible option
And then the book concludes with our call of joy and hope.
Recognizing that, God starts to sound
Not like Mary Poppins and Not like Judge Roy Bean
But like
A parent who deeply loves an offspring
A parent who will, however, punish that offspring if necessary
A parent who so loves that offspring that he desperately wants to avoid having to punish him/her.
That relationship was previously revealed in God's covenant with David
Where God's promise concerning David's offspring was
"I will be a father to him and he shall be a son to me."
And God promised to establish the throne of that offspring forever.
But also warned that when the offspring committed iniquity,
He would be punished,
but God's love would not be taken from him
That is the God for whom Zephaniah was speaking
The loving, forgiving and yet firm parent
That is how you and I have to understand our relationship with God
God is the deeply loving parent of you and me
But also a parent that has expectations of us
Only if we understand our relationship with God like that
Can we understand God's joy in commuting our sentence
That understanding will also enable us to recognize that God's mercy to Jerusalem
Is an example our parent has set for us to follow
Did you happen to notice that something was missing from our text?
There is no indication that Jerusalem had repented!
God unilaterally commuted the sentence of Jerusalem
God took away the judgment because God chose to do so.
God turned away their enemies because God chose to do so
We would call any commutation of sentence "mercy"
But when it occurs without any defensible idea that we deserved it
We have to call it "grace."
The baby in the Bethlehem manger was given to us
As God's greatest act of grace
We didn't deserve him, but we are grateful we got him
But although given to us, he is not ours alone
He was given to all
People whom we identify as being a lot like us
People whom we consider (in the words of the text) outcasts
If we are to follow our parent's example
We have to share the greatest gift we have received
And we have to share him with those outcasts
And thus if we are really preparing to celebrate Christ's coming
we have to ask ourselves whether we are willing to do that.
Are we?
And before we answer "Yes" too quickly
Let us remember that for someone to be an outcast
Someone else has to have cast him/her out
That someone who did the casting out may well have been one of us.
Perhaps we have cast someone out by refusing to forgive
Perhaps by refusing to talk to someone
Perhaps by believing the worst about someone and jumping to inadequately supported negative conclusions about him/her
Perhaps by making it clear that we think that we are better than he/she
If the Lord surely came not only to us
But also to the ones whom we have cast out.
How can you and I
keep casting others out
Rather than reeling them in?
And if we do, how can we celebrate his birth
Or believe that we have prepared for it?