Who was Zephaniah? Zephaniah is one of the so-called minor prophets. According to Bible scholars, he is a contemporary of Jeremiah. We are talking about a little over six centuries before the coming of Christ. The text we heard today has a very beautiful message. The story is always the same: Israel, the chosen people, neglects the covenant with God. The religious and political leaders are primarily responsible for this situation. Zephaniah, like all prophets, must make God’s message known by admonishing this hard-headed people. This passage is particular: Zephaniah makes it clear to the Israelites that the chosen people is not “the only one”: all peoples will invoke the Lord, even “from beyond the banks of the rivers of Ethiopia”, when the day comes. On this day the Lord will do a very specific thing: instead of punishing the Israelites, as is often said in other passages of the Old Testament, he “will remove your proud boasters”, leaving only “a humble and lowly people”. Humility and lowliness indicate the absence of human guarantees; the strength of this new people lies in trust in God.

This passage helps us to enter the spirit of Advent: welcoming the Emmanuel into our life, the God with us, Jesus Christ, means becoming part of this new people, a people of the lowly and humble who trust only in God, who are aware that only he can help them in their condition, who have understood that only in him can we find hope and the sense of life.

Another important aspect of the passage from Zephaniah is the concept of people. Being a Christian does not only mean an individual relationship between God and me. Being a Christian does not mean becoming saints only for oneself. Biblical faith, Christian faith, is the faith of a people who walk together towards Christ. The Church of God is a community of communities where brothers and sisters help each other, support each other. Sometimes it is also necessary to push, to drag someone. In short, God saves us together, religious, priests, laypeople.

A question arises: What do I have to do as a religious, as a priest, what do you have to do as a father or mother of a family, as a young student, as a worker to make my, your community similar to the people God wants?

Today’s Gospel gives us some answer. It begins exactly like the parable of the prodigal son: “A man had two sons”. According to Bible scholars, the evangelist Luke would have taken this parable from Matthew, expanding it and making it one of the most beautiful passages in the Bible.

The story is simple: the son who seems lazy goes to work, the son who obeys in words, actually refuses to work. Jesus’ listeners agree that the first did the will of his father and the other did not. And then Jesus throws a punch in the stomach: “Tax collectors and prostitutes are making their way into the kingdom of God before you.”

How is it possible? Tax collectors? Thieves, misers, servants of Roman power! The prostitutes! Women lacking of morality, public sinners! Jesus was a little bit agitator: he meant and now means that these people, impure, to be avoided, to be abandoned without any mercy, cursed, not belonging to the religious community, were and are more open to the faith than many others who felt and feel righteous, good, faithful, blessed by God. He meant and now means that these wretched persons listen better than me, convert before me and give better fruit than those I produce. Yet I am a religious and a priest, I studied theology, I celebrate Mass everyday.

Faced with this word, I feel deeply challenged and I hope each of you is. This word tells me: Fortunato, convert, change your life, listen, act according to the Gospel! What a strong message today for us as we prepare for Christmas. “Have among yourselves the same attitude that is also yours in Christ Jesus “says St. Paul (Phil 2:5). This is the one of the steps of the process of conversion.

What kind of attitude? The Master chose to approach the most discriminated: he ate with sinners, he let himself be touched by a prostitute, he was not afraid to approach lepers, so much so that he deserved the title (little mentioned among the various Christological titles we have given him) of “a friend of tax collectors and sinners. (Mt 11:19). Provoking, he keeps repeating to us that “the last will be first” (Mt 20:16) and that, as we have just heard, “Tax collectors and prostitutes are making their way into the kingdom of God before you.”

Then another question arises: Is my community welcoming, inclusive? Or is it exclusive, discriminating?

A community according to the heart of Christ does not discriminate, it does not judge, it get sits hands dirty with the poor and with the least, with sinners and those who are distant from the faith. Those who belong to a community according to the heart of Christ are not only concerned with making a good impression before the Father by participating in beautiful Masses and then making themselves their own, not caring about others.

And just to remember the example of our founder Saint Jerome: “How nice it was to see in times so corrupted by vice a Venetian noble man garbed as a peasant, accompanied by many mendicants, or better, by reformed Christians and noble men according to the holy Gospel, go through the country side hoeing, cutting grain, and doing similar works, always singing psalms and hymns to the Lord. They would teach the poor peasants the principles of Christian life, and eat sorghum bread and other such food of the country side. I think we must pity the great men who, idle and fat, give themselves up to games and feasts in their haughty palaces and gilded rooms and never think of the happy, future immortal life full of every delight. Suddenly, they leave their pomp and wealth, and, poor and alone, stripped of everything, they are borne to the grave.” (Anonymous 13:3-4)