Motivated by Joy

Motivated by Joy
Zeph 3: 14-20
(after reading the scripture)
That’s nice isn’t it?
Just a couple of random little details on verse 17: 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.
In Hebrew, the word that is translated ‘exult’ literally means shine… so God is shining, beaming as God sings over Israel… and perhaps even more vivid an image, ‘rejoice’ comes from a Hebrew word that means spin or twirl… so God is glad that God is spinning with delight. Honestly that hasn’t got anything to do with the sermon… but I just enjoyed imaging God singing and shining and spinning with delight over ‘His’ children Israel… and by extension, all of us here…

What struck me about this reading is the lectionary decision-makers, those who chose this particular reading, skipped over the first two chapters of Zephaniah and I don’t think we get the full force of God’s delight unless we look at the first two chapters.
Perhaps this is why:

Zephaniah 1:
2I will utterly sweep away everything from the face of the earth, says the Lord. 3I 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, says the Lord.
And then
14The great day of the Lord is near, near and hastening fast; the sound of the day of the Lord is bitter, the warrior cries aloud there. 15That day will be a day of wrath, a day of distress and anguish, a day of ruin and devastation, a day of darkness and gloom, a day of clouds and thick darkness, 16a day of trumpet blast and battle cry against the fortified cities and against the lofty battlements. 17I will bring such distress upon people that they shall walk like the blind; because they have sinned against the Lord, their blood shall be poured out like dust, and their flesh like dung.

You can see why this is skipped over this right? How do we make sense of this? Chapters 1 &2 all about God’s wrath… and this abrupt shift at the end of chapter 3 where God spins with Joy.


I started thinking about Joy. How could Zephaniah be so confident both in God’s wrath and in God’s joy? What does joy mean? Is it pleasure, is it happiness?
Pleasure to me suggests an instant gratification. Instant gratification makes me think of chocolate. Nothing makes me feel good, like chocolate. You ask my wife. No matter how long, tiring, or stressful my day has been, all that goes away with a Hershey Bar, a big jar of Peanut Butter and a tall glass of milk. Now I’m not trying to preach against pleasure, although a life lived in pursuit of pleasure alone becomes a pretty empty and meaningless life. One is never satisfied or at peace, because some new experience, some new pleasure has to be found the instant after the last pleasure is experience.

Happiness is different. Happiness is an emotion that last longer. But even happiness doesn’t last forever, and often happiness is connected, like pleasure to immediate circumstance and the things, or the people that surround us.
I do think that our society is overly focused on both pleasure and happiness. The advertising message that we are bombarded with on television and radio promise us pleasure and happiness with every new thing that we buy; a TV, cell-phone, video games, car, etc. etc. Again, I’m not preaching against happiness… I’m just saying that the way our culture defines happiness isn’t that different from pleasure… and when we focus simply or solely on these pleasure and/or happiness, I think we find ourselves wandering away from the path that leads to God.
Zephaniah’s warnings, as far as I can tell, come because he feels that Israel, having returned from exile to their homeland, are seeking pleasure and happiness, instead of pursuing joy. Zephaniah is upset because he see’s Israel dressing like ‘foreigners’ worshiping their gods, treating the poor with disdain. In other words, they are seeking the quick and easy comfort of other gods, other cultural practices, and of material gain and wealth. And what Zephaniah wants them to focus on is joy.
Joy operates on a different level because joy, biblically, according to Zephaniah, is a gift of God. God is faithful, compassionate, and aware of ‘His’ people. God’s people experience joy when they are faithful, compassion and aware of others and God… which may not be easy, and which may not offer instant pleasure. Sometimes remaining faithful requires sacrifice and creates a sting. Joy isn’t measured, according to Zephaniah, in the immediate moment. Joy accumulated over time, it is a goal, not an instant pleasure or an emotion. It is the peace that comes when one has focused faithfully on one’s faithful relationship to God. When one can look back over time and know that no matter what the distraction, regardless of the temptations or the hardships, one has remained faithful to God and God’s people. Joy is an imaginative event, in which, we choose our actions and behaviors, not based on immediate circumstances, but upon a vision of who God has created us to be. That may not be easy or simple here and now, and it may call for sacrifice immediately… but we sacrifice now for a gain in the future, which is to know, to joyfully acknowledge that we were faithful, and nothing could persuade us, or control us, or sway us from faithfulness to God’s way.

I’m not sure I’m making this clear enough so let me share personally, if you don’t mind.
This past week there was a bit of a dust-up in my family…. Not immediate and not my wife’s side… I’m not going to embarrass anyone sitting here. This was my side. Some extended family members on my side, said some unkind things about relatives whom I care about and I’ve been very upset. It may sound silly since I rarely get home and see extended family. But I have been really upset about this. And my first response is to cut those folks off; no phone calls, no emails, no visits. If you want to act that way, I’m not going to deal with you. You are cut off, dead to me.
That is me. But I’ve been thinking about Zephaniah too, for this sermon. And I couldn’t square my natural reaction to this with what Zephaniah is saying. Joy comes from being faithful to God. Being faithful to God requires me to be patient and kind and loving and forgiving… and doesn’t give me excuses not to be. You see what I mean? Faithfulness isn’t always easy… sometimes it really stings.
And I started thinking about the future. One day, Berean will be remembering me, like you do Rev. Hall now. Do I want you to say; Pastor Darin was really nice as long as you didn’t cross him. But once you got on his bad side, you stayed there forever. No, I don’t want that. I don’t my boys to remember their father, one day, as holding grudges and cutting people off when they were human? No, I want them to remember me, as I said, as kind and forgiving. Being patient and forgiving right now, will not bring me pleasure. What would bring me pleasure would be calling that certain someone on the phone and telling them just what I think of them. Being loving and kind, won’t necessarily make me happy right now. Cutting them off and never speaking to them again, would make me happy. But these things won’t bring me joy. What will bring me joy is knowing, one day, that no one and nothing could dissuade me from my faithfulness to God, which taught me how to be merciful and loving. Does that make sense.
And I’ve been surprised at how even now, I find joy in the midst of this personal struggle and the anger and pain of it. I feel joy that I have resources to draw on that keep me from spreading anger and hurt, and that help me to create peace, even when Im not feeling peaceful.
If we just read Zephaniah 3, without chapters 1 and 2, Joy seems so easy. And Joy is not easy in Zephaniah. It requires something of us. It costs us something. But it also promises us something. It promises us a clear path through difficult, stressful times. It doesn’t promise us immediate pleasure, but it does promise us a sure guidance and a steady course when the world around is us confusing and our own feelings are muddled. Joy becomes a North Star to guide us in our darkness. That is why Zephaniah begins with wrath. To give us the surprising gift of joy in every circumstance… so that joy is something we can carry within ourselves, no matter what happens around us. To give us a gift of God’s presence that lasts, so that we can stop pursuing empty pleasure endlessly and find security in the Joy that only God’s faithfulness can bring.