Your Salvation Story [Advent 3C - Zephaniah 3:14-20]

 The Rt. Rev. Jeremiah Williamson

Zephaniah 3:14-20

 

Your Salvation Story

St. Stephen’s, Schenectady, NY

 

The salvation story is long, rooted in a remote, distant past, as ancient as the first mysterious sparks of creation.  We encounter this old story in the waters of the Exodus, in the courage of Esther, on the road out of exile.  We encounter the story in the manger of Bethlehem and, especially, in the empty tomb of Easter.  They are stories transmitted in our holy book and proclaimed from countless pulpits; tales told and passed down through time and through families – all chapters of the greatest story ever told. 

 

But that story is not confined to the past.  Though ancient it still calls us into the future.  The salvation story is also a vision, alive and active in the dynamic mind of God; it is a promise – a promise fulfilled somewhere in the fullness of time, a promise that fuels this season of Advent.  We listen and we wait.  Because we live in between: heirs of ancient miracles, hoping still that the promises will, one day, come true.

 

But this timeless story almost didn’t make it to us.  Once upon a time, long ago, the people lost the plot.  They forgot the old story and their place in salvation history.  Little by little, as the days of Moses receded into the past, the people of Judah became entranced by the modern world and thought less and less on the old days.  They were set on becoming refined, cosmopolitan people, no longer wandering in the dusty desert.  They were settled and ready to prosper.  And so instead of studying Torah, they busied their brains thinking up ways to maximize profits and expand their territory.  They replace the Law of God with creative loopholes.  Their leaders became taken by the allure of global politics.  Kings started to rub elbows, and in some cases, share beds, with exotic royals. These dalliances offered the nation access to a pantheon of foreign gods, each with special talents and powers, that promised the prosperity they desired.  And with the new gods came exciting new mythologies.  And those deities and their stories gradually displaced devotion to their God and the salvation story God had long been writing in their lives and on their hearts.

 

Eventually, the salvation story was lost – quite literally.  Until the scrolls were found, in the midst of a Temple building project, during the reign of King Josiah.  And during the work and ministry of the prophet Zephaniah.  We heard from him this morning.

 

We heard the good parts this morning.  This is the end, the final verses, of the small, three-chapter prophetic book.  The beginning, the first five-sixths of the book, is notably absent of the word, “Rejoice!”  It is much more focused on judgment and disaster.

 

Zephaniah was a prophet during a very important time in the life of Judah.  He lived in the last days before the disaster occurred: the destruction of the Temple and the city.  But while surrounded by terrible times, Zephaniah was also there for a brief period of religious reform in the nation of Judah.  Not only was the book of the Law recovered, not only was the salvation story once again sounded in the streets, many of the people, including King Josiah, took it seriously.  They were actually putting it into practice.  It was a time of revival after an especially immoral chapter in the people’s history.

 

The immoral chapter was overseen by Josiah’s predecessor: the infamous King Manasseh.  You can read all about King Manasseh in the book of 2 Kings.  But for now, I’ll give you the summary: “Manasseh did what was evil in the sight of the Lord” – including filling the Temple with idols and promoting the practice of child sacrifice.  It was a particularly bad time in the life of the nation; God was pushed into the forgotten shadows and the salvation story became little more than a whisper.  And so while the reforms of Zephaniah’s time were significant, it was not easy for the nation to wake from its long slumber.  Zephaniah understands this and becomes their alarm clock.

The central indictment of the book of Zephaniah is that the nation has become a people who “rest complacently on their dregs.”  That is a strange phrase, but a familiar idea.  They have become spiritually indifferent.  In today’s parlance we might say, “the people are agnostic.”  They do not doubt the existence of God (because that wasn’t a thing in the ancient world).  But they are convinced God has checked out, is ineffective.  They are quoted as saying, “The Lord will not do good, nor will the Lord do harm.”    

They are convinced God is up to nothing; Zephaniah warns them that God is about to be very much up to something – and that something is judgment.  Like a Jonah, the prophet desperately warns the people to repent, to turn from their greed and their cruelty, from their apathy and their pride.   

But they don’t.  Despite the prophetic plea, the people never quite get out of bed, never complete wake from their spiritual slumber.  Our reading this morning begins with the happy singing of chapter three verse fourteen.  But there are, obviously, thirteen verses of chapter three that that we did not hear today. This final chapter of his book is very likely delivered during the final years of Zephaniah’s ministry.  And it begins not with salvation but with more judgment – and a healthy dose of prophetic disillusionment.  Some scholars suggest this is what the prophet says when it becomes clear that the reform that started under King Josiah does not bear lasting fruit in the nation.  We thought it would make a difference, but it didn’t.

And the prophet cannot get his head around that.  The people rediscovered the salvation story.  They should have changed, should have repented, should have lived lives of obedience and righteousness.  They should have dedicated their lives to love and mercy.  But they didn’t. 

 

And it’s not because they didn’t know; they knew what they were supposed to do.  God gave them the blueprint.  They had the prophets, like Zephaniah.  They had the law – remember the scrolls of the Law were rediscovered during Zephaniah’s time.  They had creation, with its rhythms and cycles – God’s unfailing care written in the skies, and seas, and fields, and hills, in the stars and the sun.  And they had a history with God – all of the old stories in which God saved them from their enemies – most notably the Exodus, which was a salvation story they rehearsed annually at Passover.  God was with them, always with them – even when their minds wandered.  But for some reason that just didn’t move the needle.

 

And this rejection of God, it ran through the entire population – starting with those in leadership.  The princes let the people down.  The judges were corrupt.  The prophets – not Zephaniah – but other prophets were basically nothing more than daft motivational speakers.  The priests could no longer distinguish the holy from the profane.   They had failed as leaders, as a nation, as a people.

 

And so of course Zephaniah is disillusioned and frustrated and sad.  But somehow, and this is what we heard this morning, still hopeful.  Because while the prophet understands the stubborn foibles of the human condition, he also understands something stunning about the nature of God.

 

God doesn’t give up on us.  We mess up and God loves us.  We wander and God stays with us.  We fall apart and God puts us back together.  Shame stalks us but God changes that shame into praise.  Life deals in consequences but God shows us mercy.

 

Today we renew our baptismal promises, with sincere hearts and good intentions.  But, the truth is, we will all bend, or even break, those promises somewhere along the line.  It’s just that nothing we do, or fail to do, can ever separate us from the love of God.  Nothing you do, or fail to do, can ever separate you from the love of God.

 

And that is why we rejoice.  So rejoice!  This is your story.  You are written into the salvation story.  The story of the Exodus is your story.  The story of Christmas is your story.  The story of Easter is your story.  Yours to tell and yours to live.  The salvation story is long, rooted in a remote, distant past, as ancient as the first mysterious sparks of creation.  And it is now: etched into your heart, marked on your soul.  And it is your future: salvation is a promise that is coming true, a love letter from the God who writes in permanent marker.