I was 17, a freshman in college…and a friend gave me a paper with Zephaniah 3:17 printed on it. I had a crush on him at the time…so that’s probably why I still remember it. But he gave it to me to encourage me when I was going through a tough time — The 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.
To think God rejoices over me…to think God loves me completely….to think God fights for me and sings love songs for me. That is the gospel, my friends. That is the good news that we need to hear when we feel like giving up on ourselves. When we feel hopeless…and our self hatred and depression and shame and guilt feel like they are closing in and we can no longer breathe. Friends…God delights in you. God adores you. There is nothing you could possibly do to make God love you more. God is crazy about you. And there is nothing you could do to make God love you less…God sees you and knows you…God created you…and will never give up on you…never stop loving you…never abandon you.
Oh yes..We need that word…that gospel …that good news.
So…that said…I put this sermon series together back in May…and chose these Scriptures months ago to go along with the Jesus Storyteller Bible for this summer and fall. Needless to say, I did not know that this Zephaniah text would suddenly be read in the context of the Israeli War on thePalestinians. And I must say, I’m reading it very differently this week than I did when I was 17.
I’m reading it now, thinking about how the Jewish community heard these words from Scripture as they responded to the attacks of Hamas. As those attacks resonate deeply within a people that has known generations of hate and violence…they would hear God justifying their war…God promising to give them victory…God with them in the midst of this horrific reality…in the midst of their pain and fear and anger . And indeed…God’s love and care for them is absolute. God will never abandon God’s children. But hearing these words as a war cry now makes me more than a little uncomfortable.
Because I also know that these same words from Zephaniah for the past century have been used to justify the Zionist movement, displacing Palestinians, removing them from their homes and land…taking away their freedoms, believing this is how God ‘will change their shame into praise and renown in all the earth….will bring them home, gather them together and restore their fortunes.”
And all I could think is how easy it is for all of us to use Scripture to justify “our side” in the midst of the world’s painful realities…how easy it is for us to use Scripture to paint easy answers in black and white in a world where people and all their complex stories and histories make simplistic solutions impossible.
War and conquest and occupation and violence are always about simplistic solutions…if we eradicate the enemy…the problem will be gone. Right? And yet we know that war has not yet in the history of humankind solved anything. Because the abuse of power does not stop, no matter who the winner at that time may be. Violence and oppression continue generation after generation… and in the same way, the desperation of those who are violated erupts in retaliation generation after generation. It is a cycle that never ends. And the heartbreaking reality is that so often….SO OFTEN…people justify it all as “God’s will”.
It is dangerous, my friends…to EVER use a Holy book — The Torah, the Koran, the Bible…to justify “our side” …to justify hate and violence. To justify the dehumanization of any person that God created. It is not just dangerous…it is evil. Evil posing as good. This is actually what it means to take the name of God in vain, in case you were wondering. Misusing God’s name is not about swearing…it’s about justifying our prejudice and oppression and cruelty as “God’s will”.
I use a handout from Dan Erlander in my New Members class — “It’s all about Love”. Some of you remember it…It’s kind of laid out like a game board. So what does it mean to be the church…to be God’s holy people? It’s all about love. Love that sees every single person as holy, as precious, as beloved. Not just Christians. Not just Americans. Or white people. Or straight people. Or whatever group of people look and act and think like me. No…to be God’s holy people …to follow Jesus in this world…it is to embrace the fullness of that baptismal identity that calls us, now and forever, children of God. It is to embrace the good news of Jesus…that God delights in you…sings love songs for you…each one of you individually….but it is also to understand that every person on this planet is just as beloved…Every single person…from every nation and tribe and corner of this planet…is beloved of God. And it is to resist anyone who would call you to simplistic black and white solutions that dehumanize and devalue another person that God so loves.
Some of you are familiar with the Pale Blue Dot photo that was taken by NASA’s Voyager 1 spacecraft on February 14, 1990. At the time, Voyager 1 was about 3.7 billion miles from Earth. That’s us…all of us…on that pale little blue dot up there. Carl Sagan wrote an essay about that pale blue dot. He wrote…
Look again at that dot. That’s here. That’s home. That’s us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every “superstar,” every “supreme leader,” every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there–on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.
The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that, in glory and triumph, they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of this pixel on the scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner, how frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds.
To my mind, there is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly and compassionately with one another and to preserve and cherish that pale blue dot, the only home we’ve ever known.
Our human conceit…that instead of finding ways to see one another, help one another, heal our planet…instead, we battle endlessly over territory smaller than anthills in the scope of the universe. Our human evil…thinking that God cares more about us than them…that my life matters more than yours.
We live on a pale blue dot. And if we get closer…and we may see the territories of the globe…continents and oceans take shape on the blue dot…
But when we get even closer…all we can see are children of God. Every single person. Child of God. And if we get even closer…we can Kari’s host family in Bet shallah…children of God. And all of us together…make up that pale blue dot.
Dear ones…may we never use our God our faith to justify dehumanizing people. May we never be quick to be sure who is good and who is bad. May we always listen for the stories…for the pain..for the voices of those who are hurting. And may join in God’s love songs to sing for one another. You are beloved. You are exactly what God had in mind when God made you.. You…and the Nassar family….are God’s miraculous creation, breathing and living on this pale blue dot. Thanks be to God. Amen.
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