TEXT: Zephaniah 3:14-20

Zephaniah 3:14-2014 Sing aloud, O daughter Zion;shout, O Israel!Rejoice and exult with all your heart,O daughter Jerusalem!15 The 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.16 On that day it shall be said to Jerusalem:Do not fear, O Zion;do not let your hands grow weak.17 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 18 as on a day of festival.I will remove disaster from you,so that you will not bear reproach for it.19 I will deal with all your oppressorsat that time.And I will save the lameand gather the outcast,and I will change their shame into praiseand renown in all the earth.20 At that time I will bring you home,at the time when I gather you;for I will make you renowned and praisedamong all the peoples of the earth,when I restore your fortunesbefore your eyes, says the LORD.

"IN GOD'S HOME THERE IS ALWAYS ROOM!"
(service of Las Posadas)

TEXT: Zephaniah 3:14-20

Some of you are heading "home" for Christmas-or at least to annual gatherings of family. For many, this time of the year, turns hearts toward home. Just listening to the old standard songs can do in us sentimental types. "I'll be home for Christmas…if only in my dreams."

Many of those songs were birthed in times when our nation was at war, soldiers were far from home, families were divided, and the songs recalled a time of security, of safety, of peace and comfort which homes ideally afford.

When I first read the text from the prophet Zephaniah in preparation for this morning's message, what first leapt out at me was the phrase "At that time I will bring you home." And immediately I thought, "Isn't it wonderful that God is planning to bring us all home and that She won't have to worry if there are enough beds or enough food?" I had it made. A great theme for a short homily. Warm and fuzzy like Christmas is meant to be. Going home, lots of room, big welcome, plenty of food, all the family there. Great. Then I read the passage in context, the context of the entire prophecy. Didn't take long because it's a very short book.

Zephaniah's sermon was a genuine hell, fire and brimstone sermon. It is about selfishness, greed, idolatry, war, and annihilation. It is about people who have turned from God to such a great degree that God has turned from them, leaving them to the wrath of the gods which they have created. Cities burn, nations crumble, parents die, children die, and everything-absolutely everything-is destroyed. The prophet even goes so far as to say that it is God who is the destroyer. The people would demand justice and indeed, God's justice, hard and cold, wipes them all out. Go home. Hardly, as there would not be any homes left to which to return. Not a text after all upon which to build a short, fuzzy, feel good Christmas sermon. Especially on a Sunday when we have sought to recruit an army of children to be present for the service.

Last December, reporter Heidi Schlumpf, wrote in U.S. Catholic ("Babes in Arms," December 1999, 35-38.):
The army is large and the soldiers are kids - many of them with more than six years of experience.
In the war-ravaged country of Sierra Leone about 3,000 children know nothing about homework and soccer practice but instead are bearing arms for the rebel forces, learning to hunt the enemy and kill.
This is why Guiseppe Berton, an Xaverian priest, opened St. Michael's Lodge. It is a center for "baby soldiers" who have escaped the rebels or have landed in the custody of UNICEF, which turns them over to St. Michael's. At the center, these victims of the war receive counseling, medical assistance, schooling and skills training. Some may eventually find their families. Most will be placed in foster homes.
The lightweight weapons made in the United States make it possible to arm an 8-year-old child. Moreover, children are efficient. They are cheaper to feed and more likely to follow orders.
After the war, these children face a bleak future. Most of them have no skills except killing. There's no quick fix. It will take time to create a world in which children are not fodder for the battlefield.

Or perhaps you recall reading earlier this year in any of a number of newspapers and magazines the story of twelve-year-old Luther Htoo. He and his twin brother, Johnny, are leaders of God's Army - that's the name given to a military rebel organization in Myanmar. They fight the ethnic Karen rebel group in the former Burma. The M16 rifles they carry, if stood end-on-end is taller than either are.
Over the past decade, several thousand children each year have been abducted or drafted by direct force. The most glaring examples today are in Sierra Leone and northern Uganda, where militias systematically kidnap children to increase their ranks and to terrorize communities. Says one 13-year-old Ugandan girl, describing her abduction: "It was tough. Some children who were too weak to walk were just chopped up with pangas [large knives] and left to die on the way. This scared me so much."
The web page of Unicef reminds us that WAR HARMS EVERYONE, ESPECIALLY CHILDREN.
Armed conflicts are a global scourge with devastating effects on children. Estimated numbers of child victims of armed conflicts during the past decade:
¥ Killed: 2 million.
¥ Disabled: 4-5 million.
¥ Left homeless: 12 million.
¥ Orphaned or separated from their families: more than 1 million.
¥ Psychologically traumatized: some 10 million.

REFUGEES AND DISPLACED POPULATIONS
In 1995, 53 million people - one out of every 115 people on Earth - were uprooted from their homes, either displaced within their countries or because refugees across borders.
¥ Women and children usually comprise 80 percent of the refugee and displaced populations.
¥ Up to 5 percent of refugee populations - often more in cases of panic evacuation - are children separated from their families.

CHILDREN'S TRAUMA
A nationwide UNICEF survey of 3,000 children in Rwanda in 1995 found that they had been exposed to "unprecedented levels of exposure to traumatic events" during the genocidal massacres in 1994: over 95 percent of the children witnessed massacres, and over a third had seen the murders of family members; almost all believed they would die; and nearly two-thirds were threatened with death. Over 80 percent had to hide to protect themselves, many for up to eight weeks or longer.

Zephaniah's harsh words to the adults of the world ring true yet today. We are destroying ourselves in the name of false religion and selfishness. We have turned our backs on God of love and embraced the lies of religious and political leaders who stroke our nationalism and our economic self-interests. In attempting to build our own systems of security, we have destroyed our homes, our families, and used the children of the world as our fodder.
While the church celebrates the 2000th birthday of the Christ child, the harsh reality of life in this new millennium is that around the world children by the thousands are dying. Of disease and malnutrition, yes. Of abuse and exploitation, yes. Of almost unimaginable suffering, yes.
Thousands of them, as young as 5 or 6 years of age, are even being armed with rifles and sent into war zones where they die as child soldiers on the battlefield. Today, some 300,000 kids are actively participating in 36 ongoing conflicts in Asia, Europe, Africa, the Americas and the former Soviet Union.
Children used to be merely bit players in a country's total military. Now, however, they comprise significant percentages of the total force. In Sierra Leone some 80 percent of all rebel forces are aged 7 to 14. Military strategy consistently factors in children because they are more impressionable and thus easier to train, and more expendable.
In this season of feel-good sermons, and there may be some of you squirming and thinking, "This is not going to work for Christmas!" And you might be right. That is, if you don't remember that the Christ in the cradle is the hope of the world, including children. "Jesus loves the little children, all the children of the world." This is the joyous news of this season, that while child soldiers are abused and dying on battlefields around the world, Christians with the hope of Bethlehem in their hearts are now equipped to stand up and shout - to do something about it. In today's text, the prophet Zephaniah comes to the end of his prophecy and with almost a complete reversal booms out, "But that's not the end of the story!"
He proclaims that. . . .
Rejoice and exult with all your heart,O daughter Jerusalem!15 The 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.18 as on a day of festival.God will remove disaster from you,so that you will not bear reproach for it. 19 God will deal with all your oppressors at that time.And God will save the lameand gather the outcast,and will change their shame into praise and renown in all the earth.20 God declares, At that time I will bring you home,at the time when I gather you;for I will make you renowned and praisedamong all the peoples of the earth,when I restore your fortunesbefore your eyes, says the LORD.
Christ is our hope and the hope of children, and as Christmas Christians, we have an opportunity to make the hope a reality.
The Christmas-season slaughter of the innocents was not just a historical horror - it continues today. And we should do everything we can to stop it. If we see the Lord God as our strength and our might, and as the one who inspires us to draw water from the wells of salvation, as the one who brings us home to a home which is always big enough, then we should do whatever we can to save the children of the world. If we see as our Lord and Savior the baby Jesus - born in a war zone where children continue to be prodded to be rock throwing targets for other children with guns and live ammo - then we should reach out to these babies in his name and do anything possible to rescue them from danger.
There's no doubt that the Christ child wants to help these child soldiers. To save them, salvage them, deliver them, free them and restore them to fullness of life.
In this season of salvation, let us join our Lord in saying to the world, "Come, children, you have been invited to share God's home." Children of Uganda, Burma, Rwanda, Afghanistan, Sudan, Sierra Leone, Sri Lanka, Liberia, Iraq and Iran ... come and live.
In the words of Kathleen Norris, "The Incarnation is the place ... where hope contends with fear." (cited in Christianity Today, December 6, 1999, 49)

"I'll be home for Christmas, if only in my prayers."

Other Sources not noted earlier:
Boothby, Neil G. and Christine M. Knudsen. "Children of The Gun," Scientific American, June 2000, 60 ff.