Readings: Zephaniah 3:14-20; Philippians 4:4-7; Luke 3:7-18 

The time is about 600 BCE.  The prophet Zephaniah speaks to us.  His fiery message reflects the turbulence of his time, a time of social injustice, a time of secularism.  The leaders of Israel have exploited the people shamelessly.  They in response have turned away from God.  They feel the sting of God’s judgement.  They feel abandoned.  “Sing aloud, O daughter Zion,” he proclaims with passion.  “Rejoice and exult with all your heart.  The Lord has taken away the judgements against you.”  They are words of transforming hope.  His passionate song rings out to the people reminding them of their close relationship to God.  Their hope lies in God, who offers empowerment.  God continues to call them back into covenant, time and time again.  They are God’s people; God continues to walk with them. 

Fast-forward to the time of Christ.  We hear the voice of the last of the prophets of the Old Testament, the one who prepares the way of the Lord! John the Baptist preaches in the wilderness.  He preaches with fire and passion.  People flock to hear him. 

 “You brood of vipers!” he calls them.  And they can’t get enough of it. 

“What should we do?” they ask him. 

“Share what you have with the poor, “ he tells them.  Be honest in your work.  Be satisfied with your wages.  Don’t be chaff or you’ll burn in Hell.”  John is not one to mince words.  These are not the lyrical reminders of Zephaniah.  His words are judgemental and harsh.  Those who are fit for the Lord are those who go beyond lip service and actually produce the fruits of repentance.  “You have to make changes in your lives,” John tells them.  “You need to be transformed.”  Difficult as they may be, these are not earth shattering revelations.  For the world to become a better place these people need to act.  They need to conduct their affairs with integrity and compassion.  It will not eradicate all the pain and injustice that exist in the world, but it will be a starting point. 

Fast-forward again to about 50 A. D.  The Apostle, Paul is under fire!  “Rejoice in the Lord, always,” he says to the Philippians.  “Again I will say, rejoice.”  Now you may think that it is easy for someone like Paul to talk that way.  He hasn’t been unemployed for months.  He doesn’t have to worry about the next mortgage payment.  The crime rate in Philippi is not rising at an alarming rate.  Hold on there! This joyful response is coming from someone who has experienced great personal tragedy.  When is the last time you were beaten, persecuted and thrown in jail for your faith?  Paul’s circumstances did not change; but his ability to rejoice did. 

And then there are the Philippians.  This community to which he is preaching is a community under fire.  First of all, they are under fire from within.  They are bickering amongst themselves about who the leaders of the congregation should be.  They also face opposition from other Christian communities who oppose the inclusivity of Paul’s message.  The Christians in Jerusalem want these new converts from Philippi, a flourishing Greek community, to assume the traditions of the Jewish roots of Christianity.  The Jewish faith means absolutely nothing to them.  Finally they are threatened by danger from a hostile environment.  Simply by becoming Christians they have opened themselves up to persecution.  They live in the Roman Empire where it does not pay to convert. 

Paul’s appeal to joy is not simply encouragement.  He is calling the people back to God.  He knows that faith is their greatest resource.  They trust in a God who walks with them.  They have experienced the great love of God.  God is a part of their lives. 

Fast-forward to the present time! How do we in the twenty-first century receive these prophetic words of fire and passion?  It is one thing for the people of Israel to respond to Zephaniah’s excitement.  And perhaps the people of John’s time would go out into a wilderness place only to be harangued by a mad preacher.  As for Paul, he Is simply too optimistic to be believed.  Perhaps the people of Philippi can see a silver lining in the clouds of opposition that assail them.  Perhaps it is some sort of martyr complex that they share.  But we live in the real world.  We know the reality of modern life, a world where children kill children.  It isn’t safe to walk in our cities at night.  A world where terrorists fly planes into buildings! A world where AIDS kills thousands of people every day! A world fractured by war and poverty and violence!

There are prophets in our world today who speak with fire and passion.  There is Archbishop Desmond Tutu who received a Nobel Peace Prize for his tireless work at bringing the injustice of Apartheid to an end.  “What God is actually seeking,” he said, “is the restoration of the dream that God had at the beginning. So I say lets dream! Dream of a society where they actually do beat their swords into ploughshares. So there are things that we can achieve about which some people say, ‘You are being idealistic’.  Be idealistic! And say: “A world where war is no more”.

Much in society has to do with how we view what is happening.  What can change our drab world for us?  How can we open ourselves to the same spirit that filled the early church?  What will give us the passion and fire that we need to bring about change?   

Can we respond like those who listened to John in the wilderness?  “What then shall we do?”  What is my passion?  That is where transformation takes place.  Change begins with us and then begins to transform society.  We often think that there is nothing we can do to bring about change.  The only thing that stands in the way of change is our own reluctance to act. 

So find out what your passion is, and do something about it.  My passion for the environment led me to become a vegetarian.  It was an ethical decision.  Cattle, I read, are the most wasteful converters of grain to meat.  While millions of people starve we feed almost half of the world’s grain to livestock.  It confounds all logic to me.  People keep telling me I am naïve to think that by being a vegetarian I can bring about any change whatsoever in the world.  They gleefully point out to me that I am, after all, only one person.  But I’ll keep on doing it because it is better than the alternative.  It is a starting point.  And I know that small changes lead to transformation. 

As long as we are on this planet there will be both sorrows and anxieties to deal with.  They may even contribute to who we are and how we live.  Every now and then I look at it and the people in it and say, “Isn’t it wonderful!”  I say it not out of blind optimism, not because I can’t see the flaws of human nature, but because I see and recognize the love of God in it.  Experience assures me that it I continue to do that, then the world will change.  It will be bathed in light.  It will be beautiful.  Hope will be renewed.  Amen.