Zephaniah 2:1-3
So get yourselves together. Shape up!
You’re a nation without a clue about what it wants.
Do it before you’re blown away
like leaves in a windstorm,
Before God’s Judgment-anger
sweeps down on you,
Before God’s Judgment Day wrath
descends with full force.
Seek God, all you quietly disciplined people
who live by God’s justice.
Seek God’s right ways. Seek a quiet and disciplined life.
Perhaps you’ll be hidden on the Day of God’s anger.
Zephaniah, like some of the other prophets we’ve covered over the last month, warned of coming judgement for Israel in the years preceding the Babylonian invasion and subsequent exile. The poems he wrote concerning his prophecies make up the short book that bears Zephaniah’s name. These poems contain some of the most discomfiting images of the coming judgement of any of the prophets. And like the other prophets of his day, he was largely ignored.
The prophets, especially prophets like Zephaniah, are hard for me to read. They speak of a God who angry and is about to express it in a violent way. One way to downplay that anger is to remind myself that it was actually the Babylonians that did the dirty deed and not God. But the prophets are quite forthcoming about their belief that God, at the very least, approves of the deed being done. I don’t like to think about God that way. I much prefer the much more positive images of God in the hopeful sections of the prophets (like the one from Zephaniah we’ll read tomorrow).
However, if I believe that the prophets were faithful witnesses of God in their day (which I do believe), I can’t just avoid or dismiss the “judgement-anger” of God. More than that, I can’t help but believe that God still gets angry about the same things today – idolatry, exploitation/oppression of the poor, corrupt religious officials, and government leaders that do not protect their people. As soon as I acknowledge that, I am convicted because I am all too often silent about those very things that anger God. As a religious official myself, I realize that my priorities are not always aligned with God’s principles of justice. It is then that I recognize Zephaniah’s call to repentance above is for me.
Seek God, all you quietly disciplined people
who live by God’s justice.
Seek God’s right ways. Seek a quiet and disciplined life.
Perhaps you’ll be hidden on the Day of God’s anger.
Can you hear that call to repentance as a call for you as well? Framed on a wall in her chambers at the Supreme Court, Ruth Bader Ginsburg kept a quote from Deuteronomy, three Hebrew words in beautiful calligraphy: Tzedek, tzedek tirdof – “Justice, justice, you shall pursue” (Deut 16:20). Lately, the divine cry for justice seems to be getting louder in our time and place in the world. Will we hear it and pursue the righteous justice of God?
Prayer: God, We desire to be on your side of the injustice of this world, the side that’s doing something about it. Order our steps. Amen.
Prayer Focus: Pray for our modern day prophets that speak truth to power.
Song: Heal the World 2020 – Michael Jackson
Weekday Word w/ Eric 
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