"10" Songs of Joy (Zephaniah)

On the TENTH day of Christmas Zephaniah gave to us 10 songs of joy! Well, I’m giving you 10 songs of joy, cause Zephaniah only anticipated one. Zephaniah lived during the final decades of the Southern Kingdom during King Josiah’s reformations. And his orientation to the world and God’s action within it was one of anticipation of the joy to come. Prior to the exile to Babylon, Zephaniah gives us a judgment on Jerusalem. This pronouncement is a reversal of Genesis 1, the creation poem where God brings goodness out of chaos, this is chaos from goodness. Jerusalem’s world is going to “end”. 

Zephaniah gives us some of the stronger images of God’s judgement on the nations and Jerusalem, calling it a consuming fire to devour evil form the land. This fire is supposed to burn up the corruption, violence, and arrogance. But Zephaniah is clear that this fire is refining, not destroying. This fire brings hope because, Zephaniah says, it will unite all the nations into one big family. Not just “God’s People”, but all people. It is universal in scope and universal in success. 

And so Zephaniah portrays God as a poet. God is a poet who writes and sings a song of joy. This future song of joy invites us to imagine a new rhythm to dance to. A new hymn to sing. It’s a song that gathers the poor, the outcasts, the refugee, the marginalized, those the people of God refuse to give dignity and respect to, all people - it gathers them into one family known by joy. 

Gustavo Guttierez, a father in the liberation theology movement of Latin and South America, wrote, “But the poor person does not exist as an inescapable fact of destiny. His or her existence is not politically neutral, and it is not ethically innocent. The poor are a by-product of the system in which we live and for which we are responsible. They are marginalized by our social and cultural world. They are the oppressed, exploited proletariat, robbed of the fruit of their labor and despoiled  of their humanity. hence the poverty of the poor is not a call to generous relief action, but a demand that we go and build a different social order.” 

Zephaniah wants us to see a new song of joy that is bolstered by a commitment to justice and love. Justice is our passion to protect the world from human evil and violence and love is the energy with which we do it. Let us sing a new song in anticipation of God’s action in the world. 

Let us challenge the status quo of empire and seek to liberate all from the exiles we have made for ourselves and others. 

10 Songs of Joy (a Playlist)

1. Unending Bliss - Rosie Tucker

2. God is Just the Universe - Cory Kilgannon

3.  What If It All Works Out In The End - Theo Kandel

4.  Questions, Chaos, and Faith - Joy Oladokun

5.  Starting Over at the End - Joseph

6.  Dreams - Cranberries

7.  Heaven - Melt

8.  Heartache - Relient K

9.  Modelo - Natalie Schepman

10. It is What it Is - Judah and the Lion