“Gather together. Come and gather yourselves, shameless people, before these things have come to pass. The days pass like dry grass in the wind. But the fiery anger of the Holy One has not come upon you, yet. The day of the Holy One has yet to fall upon you” (Zephaniah 2.1-2).
I believe I’ve mentioned before that I love a good time travel story, particularly ones that wrestle with the impacts one small change can make. In the Ray Bradbury story “The Sound of Thunder” it is the crushing of one butterfly that alters the future the protagonist has always known. And one sports almanac causes all manner of chaos in the Back to the Future movies. At their heart, stories of this type are reminders how the smallest of decisions, the tiniest of changes can alter the trajectory of our future.
Prophecy is the daring act of looking at the world and declaring, in love, where it’s current path is leading. The nation whose economy is top-heavy, whose wealth continues to be concentrated in a smaller and smaller number of people is headed for a fall. We see this warning over and over in Scripture not just because it shows a lack of compassion but because it is an unsustainable system. Prophecy declares that continuing down this path is courting disaster.
In early August of this year, the United Nations published its latest report on the changing climate of our planet. It is a work of prophecy, one that looks at the world today as it is and extrapolates where it could be in thirty, fifty, eighty years. Its warnings sound like Zephaniah’s. Unlike his audience, though, we are already seeing the prophecies of previous years coming to pass. However, in that report is the caveat that the outcome is not inevitable.
The future, time travel stories remind us, isn’t set. It can be changed, rerouted, given hope if only one person acts in a new or, even, uncharacteristic way. If the scientist abandons his artificial intelligence research, the lover chooses not to pursue the beloved, the selfish chooses to act selflessly, then the years to come can be different.
Even though, as Zephaniah says, the days pass like dry grass blowing in the wind, like the wildfire sparks flying in the drought-dry breeze there is still hope. The outcome is not yet history. It can still be changed, the vision rendered a warning and we are thankful it did not come to pass. But it requires action.
Zephaniah, I imagine, would have been unable to imagine the impacts humanity could have upon the world, the ones we are seeing today. However, he would have understood the character behind it—greed, selfishness, ignorance. And, I think, he would have understood the prophetic words inside the latest climate report: danger is coming, but it isn’t fully here, yet. There is still time.
Of course, as it is in some time travel stories, that time is short. The clock continues to run. The history report is still due in under twelve hours, the wave of changes racing toward the present. Someone has to act, to make the choices necessary to alter the outcome of the prophesied future.
No matter how small they are.
There is still time. Christ, help us make the most of it.