You have wearied the Lord with your words. “How have we wearied him?” you ask. By saying, “All who do evil are good in the eyes of the Lord, and he is pleased with them” or “Where is the God of justice?”
3 “I will send my messenger, who will prepare the way before me. Then suddenly the Lord you are seeking will come to his temple; the messenger of the covenant, whom you desire, will come,” says the Lord Almighty. 2 But who can endure the day of his coming? Who can stand when he appears? For he will be like a refiner’s fire or a launderer’s soap. 3 He will sit as a refiner and purifier of silver; he will purify the Levites and refine them like gold and silver. Then the Lord will have men who will bring offerings in righteousness, 4 and the offerings of Judah and Jerusalem will be acceptable to the Lord, as in days gone by, as in former years. 5 “So I will come to put you on trial. I will be quick to testify against sorcerers, adulterers and perjurers, against those who defraud laborers of their wages, who oppress the widows and the fatherless, and deprive the foreigners among you of justice, but do not fear me,” says the Lord Almighty.6 “I the Lord do not change. So you, the descendants of Jacob, are not destroyed. 7 Ever since the time of your ancestors you have turned away from my decrees and have not kept them. Return to me, and I will return to you,” says the Lord Almighty.
“But you ask, ‘How are we to return?’
8 “Will a mere mortal rob God? Yet you rob me.
“But you ask, ‘How are we robbing you?’
“In tithes and offerings. 9 You are under a curse—your whole nation—because you are robbing me. 10 Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse, that there may be food in my house. Test me in this,” says the Lord Almighty, “and see if I will not throw open the floodgates of heaven and pour out so much blessing that there will not be room enough to store it. 11 I will prevent pests from devouring your crops, and the vines in your fields will not drop their fruit before it is ripe,” saysthe Lord Almighty. 12 “Then all the nations will call you blessed, for yours will be a delightful land,” says the Lord Almighty.
I remember some time ago, a fella who was upset about something the elders had decided, not a theological issue, just a disagreement about what should and shouldn’t be done in a given situation and he thought to show them by not giving to the church any more.
Now, who is this man really hurting? Even if his giving was substantial, which in this case it really wasn’t, is he really showing the elders a thing or two, or…is he shooting himself in the foot?
The Lord says to these exiles in Malachi, return to Him and whereas I am sure there are many illustrations of wandering that He could have used, he chose this one…You are robbing Me, because you are not giving to the Church in faith, as I have told you to. This is evidence of a problem…a spiritual problem that is bigger than you might think.
He, not that He needed to, even gives promises for us if we will but obey him by giving our tithe with joy: He says in verse 10, do this and watch me provide for you…in fact I will give you more than you need. Then in verse 11, He says, do this, give as I have said and I will make sure that he who seeks to destroy the work of your hands will himself be destroyed. And then in verse 12, that your faithfulness in this will see the Lord giving you a reputation as one who loves and fears the Lord.
I don’t speak often about tithing, and/or money, perhaps that is a mistake. But I will say that in a day like ours, where our faith costs us so very little, although I am becoming more and more convinced that the winds are blowing in a different direction…faithfulness to the Lord in this is paradigmatic, illustrative of where one’s faith, trust and hope lies.
I plead with you to discipline your life so as to give to the Lord as He has said…why? Because the Lord needs you to give? No. YOU need you to give…The Lord says, and it’s the only time in all the Bible that he says this, test me in this…Go ahead…do this…and see what I will do for you.
But let’s return to the opening salvo of this, Malachi’s fourth homily.
We read the first verses of chapter 3 and we can hear the setting of this text in our minds from Handel’s Messiah; and yet, Malachi’s questions seem laced with dismay.
“Who may abide?” “Who shall stand”…before the One who “is like a refiner’s fire,” the One who comes to “purge” and “purify” all that is unworthy?
We quickly recognize that these are rhetorical questions; no one, in their right mind and earthly body, can bear the glorious, penetrating, blinding light of divine Presence without coming undone.
We rightly desire purity, but we also recognize that purification requires pain…He will purify…with fire, and it is quite sobering, something I never paid attention to, until a few Christmas’ ago…Did you notice who it is that are first to be purified by this coming Messiah? It is the sons of Levi…that is…the ministers. We are the ones who must be purified…first. As representative of the people, if the ministers are not purified how will the people be?
This is sobering. Refining, as I have and continue to learn, is deeply painful…but mysteriously it is gloriously painful. The true burning away of impurity, cannot be a walk in the park, or something that just happens naturally. No. It is the Lord’s intentional and purposed assault on the sin that has wrapped itself around our hearts so that He might remove it, and this is as the tearing of flesh.
I am not a poet nor very educated in the beauty of this art form…I wish I had been. But there is something about a poem by Denise Levertov’s that ties into all of this but as a contrast of sorts. For her, the darkness offers a kind of rest, “In this dark I rest, unready for the light which dawns…I need more of the night before I open my eyes…”
It is as though she knows that the light brings the fire of purity…and she knows this is nothing to be glib about. And so as one person commented on her poem: It is a tenuous, temporary reprieve…from the work “not ready” to complete. The darkness holds for her a tension, underscored in the poem’s short, two-word hinge “I need,” she says, not a flash of fire but time in the dark, to retreat, to repair, and to reach down “like a root / not [yet] ready” to support the full weight of the branches above.
So, the purification that is necessary for us to stand in the presence of God as Malachi invites us to do, is not just a purging, not just the painful blasts of fire and light but will come to us in the sanctifying everyday moments of our lives. Perhaps some of this work is done and must be done…in the darkness…the preparation…for the fire to come.
Roots grow in the dark like bodies repair during sleep. Indeed, the moments in the dark behind the “eye mask” offer her a chance to admit the deep and desperate need that drives her plea: “shelter me.”
We are being reminded as one put it, “…that even and especially in our daily rhythms—of teaching, or parenting, or forgiving yet again, or hoping still in the face of grief, in these things, these everyday things—we can see God’s sanctifying presence at work in us, drawing us to disciplines of faithfulness and gratitude at grace.”
The offering we desire to bring is that of our lives purified as gold and silver. This is done in the fire, but the fire need not be the extraordinary events that make life…life…the fire comes also, in the everyday will, to put sin to death, and to live pure before the face of our God.
God’s gift to you was and continues to be Christ Jesus. And your gift to Him…is you…your life, your thoughts, desires, wants, wishes, actions and reactions…purified…made holy…as a righteous offering.
Malachi invites this work, because inviting this work is to invite into our lives, the messenger of the covenant…the Savior of the World.
Prayer: Father of all things, we confess that our affections and desires often wander, taking us into desolate places. Forgive us and give us a measure of your Spirit that we might rightly order our thinking, feeling, wants and desires to be in submission to You and the path that grace has set before us. May we love what you love and hate what you hate, and want for nothing but to do Your will and seek the ways of your holy Word, through Jesus Christ our Lord, Amen.
Hymn: Be Thou My Vision
