4th Week in Ordinary Time - Zephaniah 2:3, 3:12-13
Seek the LORD, all you humble of the earth,
who have observed his law;
seek justice, seek humility;
perhaps you may be sheltered
on the day of the LORD's anger.
But I will leave as a remnant in your midst
a people humble and lowly,
who shall take refuge in the name of the LORD:
the remnant of Israel.
They shall do no wrong
and speak no lies;
nor shall there be found in their mouths
a deceitful tongue;
they shall pasture and couch their flocks
with none to disturb them.
Zephaniah is one of the twelve minor prophets, so called because their writings are much shorter than those of the four major prophets. He was the great-great grandson of King Hezekiah, and his career as a prophet coincided with the reign of his third cousin, King Josiah, in the late seventh century B.C. (see Zephaniah 1:1). This is the only Sunday in the three-year cycle of readings that we read from Zephaniah during Mass, and this selection comes mainly from the third and final section of his short book where he presents oracles of restoration.
Zephaniah has a lot to say about the Day of the Lord, a phrase referring to a new intervention by God in the world during which wickedness is punished and righteousness is rewarded. Historically, he is pointing ahead to the destruction of Jerusalem at the hands of the Neo-Babylonian Empire in the 580’s B.C., the subsequent seventy-year exile in Babylon, and finally the return of a small and humbled number of Jews to rebuild the Temple. Though the people have been humbled for their sins and the sins of their nation, they also experienced the blessing of being poor in spirit, of mourning, of meekness, and of total reliance on the Lord who promises to be their refuge.
As a Church throughout western culture, we have been humbled and brought low. For decades, the Church’s cultural influence has waned significantly. Our own Diocese has reorganized again, and some church buildings have closed. In the face of such a humbling, the Spirit tells us today through the Prophet Zephaniah to “seek the Lord [...] seek justice, seek humility.” He promises that there will be a remnant at the core of the restoration. This remnant will be “humble and lowly,” which does not refer to social status as much as it does to an interior attitude toward God. It is the meekness and humility of heart that Jesus models (see Matthew 11:29) and calls us to in the Beatitudes.
We can look around our parish or the Church at large and see plenty of things we wish were different. We can even fall into the trap, as I do too often, of thinking we know what needs to happen to “fix” the Lord’s Church. Yet it is humility and holiness that will serve the restoration more than high ideals. The Church, our parish, needs saints, not CEOs. This week the Spirit is challenging us to consider whether we are part of the remnant at the core of the restoration or if we are standing in its way.