In the first two readings today there is a contrast between people who are of little account in this world’s eyes, but who are close to God and to Christ and people who are important in this worlds eyes because of their wealth or their power or their intellectual achievement but who have no place for God in their lives. This is not to say that you cannot be close to God if you have wealth and power and a lot of intelligence, and it does not mean that everyone who is of no account in this world is close to God. But in order to be close to God it is necessary for us to be convinced that we depend on God for our very being as well as for our qualities of body or mind or character. No matter what we have or do not have, we are nothing without God and can do nothing without God to help us and therefore we need him all the time and we cannot try to manage without him. “They are happy people who realise their need of God.” So many live as if they do not need him even Christians.
Zephaniah was working as a prophet (remember a prophet is one who speaks for God) about the year 630 BC. It was in the reign of king Josiah who was king from 640-609. Only Josiah was still too young to govern, and the government was in the hands of the king’s ministers. It seems that Zephaniah was actually a descendant of king Hezekiah, who ruled from 716 to 689, and so he would be a relative of king Josiah. He was very familiar with everything that went on in the king’s court and especially with the political trickery and the injustices: that are practised when the king is weak, as the young Josiah was. By this time the northern tribes had been wiped out by Assyrian in 721. Judah was still there but was subject to Assyria. But the power of Assyria was growing weak. This encouraged the hope of a national recovery. But Babylon was growing in strength, and so Judah had to face a threat from there and Zephaniah saw this as the punishment that was coming to Judah for forsaking the Lord. The two evil kings Manasseh who ruled from 687-642 and Ammon from 642-640 had encouraged all kinds of religious disorders. There was also hope of a religious recovery and religious reform was indeed very necessary.
In chapter 1:2 to chapter 2:3 Zephaniah condemns the infidelities of Judah, especially the idolatry and the social injustice and he foretells the “Day of the Lord”, when God’s punishment will come upon them. (There is in Zephaniah a strong sense of sin as an offence, an insult, against the person of the living God. It is something we need in our own day when so many people seem to have lost their sense of sin and of their need to seek God’s forgiveness for things they are doing and change their way of life.) But there are some who have remained faithful and to them the Lord appeals, in verse 3, to remain faithful. They acknowledge their own weakness and need and their dependence on the love of the Lord. After describing the terrible Day of the Lord who will punish Juda, and the neighbouring nations and Jerusalem itself, in chapter 3 verse 9 and the following verses, the prophet makes a series of promises to the humble and lowly few who take refuge in the name of the Lord, because they know their need of him. They will enjoy his blessings in full measure. They are contrasted with the kings and the court officials and the merchants who had left the way of the Lord. We can see why this reading is chosen to match the Gospel of the Beatitudes.
Paul has made it clear that the story which Christianity tells is a stumbling block to the Jews and foolishness to the Greeks. The Jews thought, he who died on a cross could not be God’s chosen one and one who was meek and lowly and avoided the spectacular was not the Messiah they wanted. The Greeks thought God cannot feel or suffer and a God who suffers is impossible. God is completely detached from all human affairs … the idea that God actually became a human being is also impossible. The Greeks also liked fine words and language and the Christian message was not fine enough for them. So, it seemed that the Christian message had little chance of succeeding with either the Jews or the Greeks. But God in his own wisdom makes use of what is foolish in the eyes of men.
For the most part the early church was made up of the simplest and humblest people, although some people from the highest ranks in society were becoming, Christians. One bitter attack on Christianity in the early church condemned Christianity because it appealed to the common people and the slaves and a slave was treated as a thing not a person and could be thrown away like an old hoe. Christianity says: even if people regard you as a thing, you are a real person even a son or daughter with God for your father; if you do not matter to other men you are very important to God; if people think you are worthless, God thinks you are worth the sending of his Son. The essential first step in religion is that you realise you can do nothing because of your lack of wisdom and strength and you open up to God’s wisdom and strength which make it possible for you to do everything. Paul says in another place very shortly “when I am weak then I am strong because the power of Christ gets its full scape in my weakness.” God has chosen to carry out his plan among people who, according to human standards are of no special account. It is those humble people of Corinth whom God has called and chosen to take their place among the saints. As someone has said somewhere, the acknowledgement of one’s own weakness and need and of one’s dependence on the Lord is the one and only thing that impresses God in a human being. Whether a person is rich or poor, clever or stupid, important or unimportant, if he has a humble heart before God he is the material from which God can fashion a saint for himself. As long as we are full of our own importance God has no chance to work in us; only when we empty ourselves out can God come in and fill us. The second reading on Sundays in the Ordinary time of the year does not normally match the Gospel, but it does today.
Kefa W. MHM
What you’ll find here is my personal wrestling with and reflection on Scripture. I don’t claim to have all the answers, only a sincere desire to seek truth. This reflection is not intended to establish doctrine, theology, or official teaching. Feel free to leave your comments or personal reflections below as we continue to grow deeper together in the Word of God. I’ll see you next Sunday.
