First Reading: Zephaniah 3:14-20
14Sing aloud, O daughter Zion;
shout, O Israel!
Rejoice and exult with all your heart,
O daughter Jerusalem!
15The Lord has taken away the judgments against you,
he has turned away your enemies.
The king of Israel, the Lord, is in your midst;
you shall fear disaster no more.
16On that day it shall be said to Jerusalem:
Do not fear, O Zion;
do not let your hands grow weak.
17The Lord, your God, is in your midst,
a warrior who gives victory;
he will rejoice over you with gladness,
he will renew you in his love;
he will exult over you with loud singing
18as on a day of festival.
I will remove disaster from you,
so that you will not bear reproach for it.
19I will deal with all your oppressors
at that time.
And I will save the lame
and gather the outcast,
and I will change their shame into praise
and renown in all the earth.
20At that time I will bring you home,
at the time when I gather you;
for I will make you renowned and praised
among all the peoples of the earth,
when I restore your fortunes
before your eyes, says the Lord.
Gospel: Luke 3:7-18
7John said to the crowds that came out to be baptized by him, “You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? 8Bear fruits worthy of repentance. Do not begin to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our ancestor’; for I tell you, God is able from these stones to raise up children to Abraham. 9Even now the ax is lying at the root of the trees; every tree therefore that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.”
10And the crowds asked him, “What then should we do?” 11In reply he said to them, “Whoever has two coats must share with anyone who has none; and whoever has food must do likewise.” 12Even tax collectors came to be baptized, and they asked him, “Teacher, what should we do?” 13He said to them, “Collect no more than the amount prescribed for you.” 14Soldiers also asked him, “And we, what should we do?” He said to them, “Do not extort money from anyone by threats or false accusation, and be satisfied with your wages.”
15As the people were filled with expectation, and all were questioning in their hearts concerning John, whether he might be the Messiah, 16John answered all of them by saying, “I baptize you with water; but one who is more powerful than I is coming; I am not worthy to untie the thong of his sandals. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. 17His winnowing fork is in his hand, to clear his threshing floor and to gather the wheat into his granary; but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.”
18So, with many other exhortations, he proclaimed the good news to the people.
Spirit of the living God, we’re here. And that in itself is a miracle. We’re here. And we’re waiting. Waiting for what feels like another miracle – that we would see you. Open our eyes and ears to your work among us and within us this day. Amen.
This morning, I want to talk about judgment and mercy. To do that, I want to begin by telling you a story.
For the past 57 years, the country of Columbia has been experiencing one of the longest existing civil wars, or guerilla wars. Meaning there have been smaller, independent armies and soldiers hiding in the jungle and fighting the government. As a result of this conflict, over 5.7 million people have been displaced, over 260,000 have died. In 2006, the Columbian government tried to increase their efforts in ending the war. They had a political strategy, a military strategy, a legal strategy, but they had no communication strategy.
So, the Columbian government hired an advertising firm – to try to communicate with the rebel guerilla soldiers. As an advertising firm, they had to get to know their audience. Who they would be communicating to. So, they asked the government if they could speak with some of these guerilla soldiers who had left – or demobilized from – the fighting.
In speaking with these ex-fighters, the advertising team asked them why they joined the fight, why they left, what their dreams were. From that, the first thing they learned is that the soldiers were just as much prisoners of the very war they were perpetuating. They were caught in-between wanting to fight and not-wanting to fight. That they actually longed for freedom from themselves.
So, the advertising firm took that compassionate insight and decided to get the ex-guerilla soldiers talk to current guerilla soldiers. The advertising firm recorded stories of ex-fighters and how and why they left the war, and they broadcast them all across the jungle – hoping that soldiers would hear the stories of those who had left, stories similar to their own, and they might have the courage to leave too.
It’s powerful when you hear someone risk telling their story, and it sounds like your story – it can give you courage. To know you aren’t the only one. I see it all the time. Someone risks vulnerability – and admits that their life or their relationships or their hope is falling apart. And suddenly others are in tears, whispering “Me too. I had no idea I wasn’t the only one…”
So, it worked for some of the soldiers to hear the stories of others. But then someone from the advertising team noticed something – that the time of year when guerilla soldiers were most likely to leave the war…was Christmas time. For 57 years, Christmas time was when soldiers would leave the war.
And there was something so humanizing about that.
And so they tried something completely different.
They tried Christmas lights.
On 9 different pathways in the jungle, the advertising firms covered large, large trees in Christmas lights. Think of the tree covered in lights on south I-35 near Owatonna, if you’ve seen it. At the bottom of the trees, there was a message. “If Christmas can come to the jungle…you can come home. For anything is possible at Christmas time.”
Because of those trees, 331 guerilla soldiers (nearly 5%) stopped fighting and left the war.
But then they learned that the soldiers weren’t using the walking pathways very much anymore – they were using the rivers.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Fi83BHQsMA
And so, instead of Christmas lights in trees, they sent thousands and thousands of glowing, floating orbs down the rivers of the jungle at night. Inside there was candy and toys and jewelry and notes from loved one. Little Christmas gift sent down the river to the guerilla soldiers. Speaking to the inner child of all of them. A friend likes to say, “It doesn’t matter how old we are – all of us are about 8 years old at Christmas time.”
But then they learned one more thing – the guerilla soldiers fear was no longer “Am I going to be killed in this war?” but rather, “Will I be rejected if I come home?” They were not worried about the risk of being a soldier, they were worried about the shame of being an ex-soldier. And so at Christmas time 2013, they asked the mothers of 27 soldiers, to give them pictures of their child when they were young – so only they would recognize themselves. They posted them around the jungle, and on the posters of their pictures, it said, “Before you were a soldier, you were my child. So come home, I’m waiting for you.”
Finally, they included the whole community. During the 2014 World Cup, they ran ads of community members giving one message. A woman at a bar, sitting next to an empty bar stool. She taps it, looks at the camera, and says, “There’s space for you here. Come home.” Soccer players tapping the bench, saying, “There’s space for you. Come home.”
In 8 years, 17,000 guerilla soldiers have left the war.[1]
“If Christmas can come to the jungle, you can come home.”
I marvel at this story and at that message. Because it is a powerful story that contains within it both judgment and mercy. We flinch at the word judgment and don’t like to talk about it, but it is there. The judgment to the soldiers is this – stop. You have to stop what you are doing. The war needs to stop. What you are doing cannot continue. You have to come home.
The mercy is that you can come home. There is a spot for you.
Judgment and mercy. We have to have both. As it has been said, mercy without judgment is sentimentality, and judgment without mercy is cruelty. As people of faith – the road to mercy always goes through judgment. And the road of judgment always must lead to mercy.[2]
This morning we heard from a rather unknown prophet Zephaniah. The book of Zephaniah is a book of judgment But it is judgment that leads to mercy.
We don’t know a lot about Zephaniah. Zephaniah is a short book, just three chapters, and the first two and a half are rather hard to read. The prophet Zephaniah begins with a hard word of judgment. The people of God have been living either in rebellion against God or indifferent to God. As one scholar said, Zephaniah depicts a society in turmoil, with an emphasis on the failures of political and religious leaders.[3]
And God’s response is quite drastic. “I will utterly sweep everything away from the face of the earth,” says the Lord. “I will sweep away humans and animals; I will sweep away the birds of the air and the fish of the sea. I will make the wicked stumble. I will cut off humanity from the face of the earth.” It’s almost an undoing of the creation story. Zephaniah goes on to say, “That Day of the Lord is near…and it will be a day of wrath.”
For many of us the word judgment is a very negative and scary word. But if someone has done something terrible to you – you want there to be judgment. You want there to be justice. You want it to stop. What the word of judgment from Zephaniah seems to be saying is that these destructive actions from God’s people have ramifications on the whole world. One might think about the ways we are living that are and will have ramifications on the whole world. “You have to stop what you’re doing,” God is saying. Or put another way, “I will not let you do this any longer.”
But then…equally startling and unexpected is the turn around that happens in chapter 3, our reading for today.
In the first two and a half chapters, God – through the voice of Zephaniah – says “I will wipe away the earth”, but then, on a dime, God turns and proclaims in verse 14, “Sing, aloud, O daughter Zion! Rejoice, O Israel!…Lord has taken away the judgments against you.”
Can you feel the jaw drop? Can you feel the relief? Can you feel the rescue?
It is almost as if God had said “Stop!” to God’s self.
It is actually believed that these verses were reshaped or added when the Israelites were living in exile in Babylon. We’ve talked about exile a lot but remember what it means to live in exile. Your community is destroyed, you’ve been taken as prisoners and hauled off and forced to live in a land far from home. And you feel like it’s all your fault – and maybe part of it is. In the Bible, exile is imagined as the very location of judgment. To think of it from a place of parenting, it is the proverbial, “Go sit on the stairs” moment of parental judgment from God. Exile is the stairs.
And yet, it is into the experience of exile that Zephaniah speaks these words – “The king of Israel, the Lord, is in your midst; you shall fear disaster no more.” God joins us on the stairs.
Zephaniah says, “So do not be afraid. And do not let your hands grow weak.” That phrase, “Do not let your hands go weak,” is an amazing line. At first glance, it can have a sort of American – toughen up – flavor to it. “Don’t grow weak, be strong.” But that’s not what this is about. This translation loses all the beauty that is there. As I learned this week from my professor Maggie Odell, it’s better translated “Do not let your hands drop…” which she calls a physiological response to panic.[4] When that image is used in the Old Testament – of letting your hands drop – it’s a sign of paralyzing fear. It’s the sign of a panic attack.
I wonder – how many of us have ever experienced a panic attack. If you have, then you know a taste of what God is speaking into when God says, “Do not be afraid. Do not panic. I am with you, even in exile.”
God continues the great reversal – through Zephaniah, God says, “I will renew my love for you. I will remove disaster from you, I will change your shame into praise… I will bring you home.
I will change your shame into praise. Shame is the voice that says, “I’m useless to the world. I’ll be rejected for who I am.” The voice of praise says, “God delights in you. You are precious to God.” Think of the guerilla soldiers and their shame. Think about the shame that lurks in your own life. Either shame over something you’ve done or shame over how others might see you. Think about that which you fear could or already does lead to your rejection from others.
And now hear these words, “Do not panic – I will change your shame into praise…I will bring you home.”
That’s the voice of mercy. That’s an act of salvation.
Judgment and mercy. You cannot have one without the other. As we heard from John the Baptist this morning, there is no escape from the judgment of God. We need someone to say, “I’m not going to let you do that anymore. You have to stop.” There is a sort of pruning that needs to happen in all of our lives – that’s the judgment. But it is pruning so that life may flourish. So that we might become fully alive once again. That’s the mercy.
The mercy doesn’t erase the judgment. It empowers it to create change.
Judgment and mercy. If Christmas can come to the jungle, you can come home.
Or put another way, “If God can find you in exile – in the place of judgment – there is no place God won’t be with you.” There’s a space for you. You can come home.”
I wonder what honest word of judgment needs to be spoken into your life right now. Where is God whispering, “Stop.” What’s unfruitful in your life that needs to be pruned away? What land of exile are you living in that you need to be brought home from?
If Christmas can come to the jungle, you can come home. Those soldiers in Columbia weren’t prepared for Christmas. Some might even say that they didn’t deserve Christmas – they were killers. But Christmas came for them anyways. Christmas came to the jungle. Christmas came to them. So they could come home.
If shame can be turned into praise then nothing is beyond the transformative power of God. If a word of hope can find Israel in exile, then nothing will stop God from finding us now. If God can be born in stable, without Christmas lights or the warmest of welcomes, then God will be born in your life too – with or without the fanfare.
I’m not sure where you are on this third Sunday of Advent. But what I do know is that we’ll never fully be ready for Christmas and for some of us – our lives are kind of a mess. But here’s the promise – wherever or whomever you are…Christmas is coming to you anyways. Amen
[1] Jose Miguel Sokoloff, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Fi83BHQsMA
[2] I got this insight/phrasing from the Rev. Sam Wells, from the HeartEdge weekly text study.
[3] Richard Nysse, https://enterthebible.org/courses/zephaniah/lessons/background-of-zephaniah
[4] https://www.workingpreacher.org/commentaries/revised-common-lectionary/third-sunday-of-advent-3/commentary-on-zephaniah-314-20-5
Untying the Cerebral Knot 