Malachi 3:1-4, Luke 1:68-79, Philippians 1:3-11, Luke 3:1-6
Year C
All our lectionary texts this week revolve, to varying degrees, around the idea of God’s work in the world — that God intends to put right what has gone wrong. The metaphor from Luke 3, with John the Baptist promising the leveling of the valleys and straightening of the roads, may be most familiar to your faithful churchgoers. But the metaphor the prophet Malachi employs – of a messenger who comes like a holy housecleaner to polish the silver and scrub the laundry – may have more personal resonance.
I have a few childhood memories of helping my mom polish the family silver, of lying everything out on towels and rubbing with silver polish until the tarnish was gone and they shone again. I remember thinking it was very nearly magical that something could go from so repulsive (no one wants to put tarnished silver in their mouths) to something so beautiful. I loved the transformation of what looked like a bunch of old junk to a table full of treasure. It wasn’t the easiest task – it takes a bit of patience and elbow grease to really make silver shine – but it always felt worth it.
I couldn’t help but think of those polishing afternoons when I read Malachi’s prophecy to the people of Israel in chapter 3. Of course, he doesn’t just leave it at polishing; he also talks about refining silver and gold with fire, burning away the impurities. Still, the process is the same: purifying what has been made ugly so that it is beautiful and useful again.
Malachi spoke to a people who were losing faith. Perhaps that’s too generous. They were throwing away their faith. They thought that once they returned to their beloved Jerusalem from exile and rebuilt their magnificent temple everything would be solved, bright and shiny again. But it didn’t turn out that way, and so they grew lax with their faith, giving God their leftovers and rolling their eyes at words like peace and justice and covenant. Their respect for God, and God’s ways, was growing tarnished from disuse.
The opening line of the Book of Malachi is heartbreaking: “I have loved you,” says the Lord. “But you ask, ‘How have you loved us?’” (Malachi 1:2)
The people don’t see God’s love for them. They only see that the world is not as it should be, not as they want it to be, and so they give up. They give up on God. They give into what they can control — money, power, people beneath them on life’s ladder. The verses after our lection spell out some of their specific sins: disloyalty to God and to each other, lying, exploiting day laborers, oppressing widows and orphans, and brushing off immigrants. Still, God reminds them that God does not change and they have not perished. Therefore, there is still hope.
The people may have given up on God, but God has not given up on them, and in our passage this second week of Advent, Malachi promises that God will send “a messenger of the covenant,” someone like “refining fire and washer’s soap.” Someone who will clean them up, polish away the tarnish, melt away the imperfections, scrub out the stains. Someone who will put elbow grease into making them shine again. Into helping them see God’s love again and show God’s love again.
The beautiful thing about this prophecy, I think, is that God does not give up on these people. God does not toss them away because they have gotten all messed up, all stained and soiled and bent out of shape. God commits to putting in the work, to loving them until they are as beautiful as the day God made them.
God does not promise that it will be a pleasant, comfortable experience. Sometimes God’s work in our lives will feel like being scrubbed at with a polishing cloth. Sometimes it will feel like being put through the spin cycle in the laundry machine. Sometimes it will feel like being dragged through fire.
These Scriptures call us to a deeper faithfulness; the kind of faithfulness that welcomes discomfort, if it brings us closer to God and to the neighbors God give us. It can be painful, to let go of our anger and apathy, our greed and our self-deceptions. We can be tempted to hold onto our tarnish, like a protective layer from the world.
And yet the good news is that, despite our every objection and rejection, God will and does scrub away all faithlessness until our lives reflect the goodness of the Lord.
Questions for reflection
- How familiar are you with this prophecy of Malachi’s? What in it surprises, concerns, or delights you?
- Malachi promises God will send “a messenger of the covenant.” Since the lectionary puts this prophecy in Advent, we are clearly prodded to see Jesus as that messenger. What does your own theology and biblical hermeneutic say about naming Jesus as the fulfillment of this prophecy?
- What would you name as the “tarnish” on your own faith that you desire God to scrub away? How can you lead your congregation in similar self-reflection?
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