Preparing For Shalom

Malachi 3:1-7

December 10, 2006

Second Sunday of Advent

Scriptures:

Malachi 3:1-7

¹See, I am sending my messenger to prepare the way before me, and the Lord whom you seek will suddenly come to his temple. The messenger of the covenant in whom you delight—indeed, he is coming, says the LORD of hosts. ²But who can endure the day of his coming, and who can stand when he appears?

For he is like a refiner’s fire and like fullers’ soap; ³he will sit as a refiner and purifier of silver, and he will purify the descendants of Levi and refine them like gold and silver, until they present offerings to the LORD in righteousness. ⁴Then the offering of Judah and Jerusalem will be pleasing to the LORD as in the days of old and as in former years.

⁵Then I will draw near to you for judgment; I will be swift to bear witness against the sorcerers, against the adulterers, against those who swear falsely, against those who oppress the hired workers in their wages, the widow and the orphan, against those who thrust aside the alien, and do not fear me, says the LORD of hosts.

⁶For I the LORD do not change; therefore you, O children of Jacob, have not perished. ⁷Ever since the days of your ancestors you have turned aside from my statutes and have not kept them. Return to me, and I will return to you, says the LORD of hosts. But you say, “How shall we return?” (NRSV)

Sermon:

          As I read the book of Malachi in preparation for this Sunday’s message, I tried, as I always do, to find corollaries between the ancient text and our situation today.  I found many but in several areas that Malachi addresses I said, “Malachi is definitely not talking to my Church.  No sir, we just finished our Stewardship Campaign, and we had nearly twenty more pledging units this year than we’ve had in a long time. [I want you to give yourself a big hand.]  We have funded the optimistic expectations of our strategic plans.  Not only that, but the people at Sombra are definitely not cynical or pessimistic, because they are willing to put dollars with their hopes and vision for God’s work in their church.”  Let me tell you about the church of Malachi’s day.

          The passages of scriptures we have heard read today are traditionally read as an Old Testament prediction of the birth of John the Baptist, one like the prophet Elijah, who would be the harbinger of the Lord of Judgment and vindicator of the righteous.  According to many expectations, Elijah or one who would embody the spirit of the prophet would come on the human scene to herald the coming of the great and terrible Day of the Lord--a day when God, the Divine Self, would appear in the Temple and pronounce judgment upon the corrupt priest, the immoral, and the cynicism of God’s people and usher in a divine era of Shalom.  These scriptures we’ve heard today express human kind’s timeless hope in the coming of the great and terrible Day of the Lord.

          The word Malachi simply means “My Messenger” or one who speaks for God.  Whoever wrote Malachi was one of the last, great prophets of the Old Testament.  The words of God’s messenger, regardless of the era, confront his or her generation with God’s assessment of their spiritual and moral condition.  Therefore, the words of Malachi address three major spiritual and moral issues extant at the time of his writing. 

Malachi speaks first to a degenerate and corrupt priesthood that have compromised the integrity and holiness of their duties before God as well as neglected the proper teachings of God’s Laws and Will.  Secondly, Malachi addresses several serious, moral abuses of an interpersonal nature among God’s people.  Finally, Malachi speaks of people neglecting to pay their tithes for the upkeep and maintenance of the Temple. These abuses have prompted The Messenger—Malachi—to condemn in God’s name the sins of the people as well as to give hope to the faithful and righteous.

            Malachi was written after the return of the Israelites from the Babylonian Exile and the rebuilding of the Temple in Jerusalem.  There had been great expectation among the Israelites that when Jerusalem and the Temple were rebuilt God would in some grandiose way, inaugurate God’s rule over all the earth, and exalt the Israelites to places of prosperity and world dominance.  Many of the Israelites had looked forward to a time of supernatural Shalom—peace, prosperity, health, wholeness, and good times for all. 

          It is a truth, that the highest of human hopes in this life and the life to come can be summarized in the concept of Shalom.  The word Shalom and its various Semitic cognates mean completeness, wholeness, fulfillment, and wellbeing.  In our Old Testament, Shalom often refers to conditions that relate to peace, safety, health, and prosperity of individuals and nations.[1] By all accounts, the Day of Lord was to be the time when God would destroy wickedness and evil on the earth and usher in universal Shalom.

At the time of the writing of the book of Malachi, this has not happened.  Jerusalem is still a small city in Judah, a vassal state of the Persians.  In fact, it appears that things have settled back into the way things were before the Exile—Israelites are mistreating and taking advantage of one another, in particular the day laborers, orphans, widows and the transient and resident aliens among the people.  The men are divorcing their Jewish wives, violating their marriage covenants or contracts, to take foreign wives--women who worshipped many gods but primarily the goddess known as the Queen of Heaven.  Worship of the goddess included sexual behaviors deemed aberrant by the Levirate leadership and the prophets.  Yet, even the Levites, the priest, have allowed aspects of the worship of other gods to creep into the daily life of God’s people.  In addition, People are not paying their tithes to support the Temple, which may account to some degree for the priests’ indifference and corruptions.

Many good, faithful people of Malachi’s day have become cynical.  They are feeling hopeless and discouraged by what they see as God’s condonation or indifference to the situation.  Many of the righteous are whining that God doesn’t love them anymore; God isn’t concerned with justice.

          At this point, let me point out that cynics are not born--they are made.  Cynics, I believe, were once idealist, hopeful people, who have become frustrated and disillusion by either their experiences or their unrealistic expectations of others.  Cynics are people, who have come to the point that they believe self-interest is the only motivation for human behavior and they distrust all appearances of human virtue, sincerity, and altruism.

Malachi, however, is talking about more than this kind of cynicism.  He is talking about spiritual cynicism—righteous, good people, who have grown disillusioned with and distrustful of God in the face of the apparent prosperity and proliferation of the corrupt and the immoral.  They doubt God’s justice, love, and presence among them. 

I think most of us can readily understand the damage that corrupt and indifferent clergy can cause.  I think we all acknowledge the sin of victimizing the poor, the powerless, and the helpless.  I think we are all cognizant of the pain and suffering caused by spousal unfaithfulness and divorce.  However, have you ever thought about the damage and the costs of Spiritual cynicism among God’s people?  According to Malachi this is a big, “No, No”, and is by implication extremely offensive to God.  Hear Malachi 2:17:

¹⁷You have wearied the LORD with your words. Yet you say, “How have we wearied him?” By saying, “All who do evil are good in the sight of the LORD, and he delights in them.” Or by asking, “Where is the God of justice?” Malachi 2:17 (NRSV)

          In this setting, the writer of Malachi sets the stage in his imagination of a courtroom scene where God is on trial, accused by the people of being unloving and unconcerned with justice.  God has not established his people according to their grand expectations.  Not only this, God seems to tolerate rampant immorality, social injustice, and corrupt clergy.  God, who is seen as the source of all blessings, even seems to bless the immoral and corrupt and they prosper.  In fact, many such people are touted as the “good people.”  In the minds of many of the righteous cynics of Malachi’s time, the very definition of good and right have been redefined by the corruption of the people. Doesn’t this sound like just about any time in history?

          It is hard for me to believe that in the interests of modernity, compromise, and prosperity many ministers and religious leaders of all faiths today, just as in Malachi’s days, have stopped addressing sin as an eternal issue before God.  I find it amazing that for many sin has been reduced to its psychological or sociological components, and thereby excused, or relegated to humanistic, social solutions.  Society just absorbs the effects of sin and sinners as the cost of doing business in a democracy.  Is it any wonder that the endless repetitions of government and religious corruptions and immorality have bred distrust of our religious and political leadership and their institutions?  In the words of the old hymn, “In times like these you need an anchor” because even the most spiritual among us tend to become a bit cynical and doubt that God is presence, powerful, loving, and interested in human justice.  The spiritually cynical in general retreat from engaging the world morally and spiritually.  Instead, they seek solace in the comfortable notion of God as their personal salvation genii.  Their lives reject the idea of God as the God of justice and love for all life-- the God of universal Shalom.

          It is equally puzzling to many of us today that people who live immoral lives and abuse others seemed to prosper.  Many are the leaders of our communities, state, nation, and the world.   They are the role models for our children in the movies, on TV, and in sports. We admire and do obeisance before them. We even call some of them “good.”  After all, he may be wife beater, adulterer, drug dealing, gun-toting-athletic superstar, but he grew up in the hood so it’s understandable.  Oh, by the way he did give a million dollars to the World Aid Relief Fund—good man.  She did help sponsor and pass legislation that protect the elderly all the while pilfering government coffers—but she cares for people, she’s a good congressional representative.  Well, she grew up poor and now that she is a rock star, you can understand why she is so immoral, decadent, and trashy.  I mean, she doesn’t really know any better.  Besides, she did do the concert to benefit the hungry.  You understand what I am saying, don’t you?

          People pay hundreds or even thousands of dollars for tickets to sporting events, rock concerts, and buy needles luxury indulgences, while the only institution in our country, commissioned by Jesus Christ, empowered by God to teach eternal, moral, spiritual values begs for leftover pocket change or has to compete in the arena of mass entertainment and pop-religious psycho-babble for its support.  Day-in and day-out, we see clergy and religious leaders compromising the integrity of scripture and the Gospel for institutional survival, personal gain, and idolatrous egotism.  Folks, I am talking about supporting the work of God’s Temple here—the church!  However, thank God we don’t have that problem here at Sombra. 

          Things seem to be just as they were in Malachi’s day.  Furthermore, those of us in the church that try to be faithful and live by a higher standard; try to be moral and supportive of God’s work often find ourselves posing the same questions as the people of Malachi’s time.  Where is God’s justice?  Where is God’s love for us?  Where is God’s concern for the victims of the corrupt and the immoral and their life styles?  We are still waiting, God!  John the Baptist came, Jesus came, it doesn’t seem to be getting any better down here, does it?

     We are waiting, God!  We … are … waiting.

⁵ Then I will draw near to you for judgment; I will be swift to bear witness against the sorcerers, against the adulterers, against those who swear falsely, against those who oppress the hired workers in their wages, the widow and the orphan, against those who thrust aside the alien, and do not fear me, says the LORD of hosts.  [I just love this next passage] ⁶ For I the LORD do not change; therefore you, O children of Jacob, have not perished.  ⁷Ever since the days of your ancestors you have turned aside from my statutes and have not kept them.  [Listen very closely to this.]  Return to me, and I will return to you, says the LORD of hosts.  But you say, “How shall we return?”  (Malachi 3:5-7)

          Indeed, how shall we return? 

          I, like you, believe that Jesus is God’s Christ--God’s fullest manifestation in human flesh and the absolute and eternal authority for human living.  Christians, God’s Christ has come—stop waiting and stop whining!  Jesus has come; he has taught us what is right, what is good and acceptable before God.  Just because he didn’t come in power and glory as the world expected doesn’t mean that he isn’t God’s Christ. Just because Jesus hasn’t returned according to our various predictions and expectations to rescue us from the consequences of human corruption, indifference, and ignorance doesn’t give us permission to become cynical. 

Jesus’ teachings and his life are in truth a refining fire of God’s love, not a consuming fire, which condemns and judges our immorality and unethical behaviors in divine, vengeful anger, contrary to John the Baptist’s expectation.  Anyone who takes the Good News of God in Jesus Christ into their lives will immediately come face to face with himself or herself and suffer no illusions about themselves and their need for God’s loving grace.

Jesus’ teachings, his life, his death, and his resurrection lay rout to disillusionment, hopelessness, and cynicism.  And, if we have any hope of seeing the Day of the Lord, characterized by universal Shalom, then we must take the responsibility of  God’s Christ in to our choices and prepare ourselves, our communities, our states, our nation, and hopefully one day the world for God’s coming Kingdom on Earth.  We must embrace the ways of Christ daily in the most mundane and in the most sensational.  We must proclaim and live the ways of Christ and human theologies and vain, self-serving doctrines be damned. We must hold our leaders and one another accountable to the standards of Christ in respectful, caring, and loving ways but broach no compromises with idolatry and sinful behaviors. Love the sinner—reject and condemn the behaviors.

          Let me interject at this point my own theology.  If the cynical see this world as a lousy place, where God seems to be absent, it is because this world and its condition are the product of Godless, immoral, ignorant human choices, and the cynical disengagement of God’s people from the work of Shalom.  If there are injustices in this world, don’t blame supernatural forces, don’t blame the devil, don’t blame God’s absence, look closer to home. Satan gets such bad and erroneous press.  Human evil, decadence, immorality, sin, the occult, the bizarre are a slaps in the face for the Satan and undermine the whole notion of the Satanic.  The Satan’s highest goal is for us to do good for the wrong reasons.  Satan wants to promote human nobility, world peace, and good through human reason and human will independent of God’s will and revelation.

If there is injustice, it is because the voices, the hands, the feet, the hearts, of God’s justice have become cynical.  If there are people dying of diseases, hunger, and poverty it isn’t in God’s scheme of things to warp the laws of cause and effect on an individual basis or globally to save them, heal them, or countermand human choices for evil, when God has empowered us through Jesus Christ to heal and make whole.  So, let’s stop our naive, scattergun prayers for the sick and afflicted or the troubles of the world.  Let the cynical and the timid abandon their cynicism and timidity to become the powerful, hopeful realities of the needy, the power, and presence of justice--the presence of Shalom.

Cynicism is a self-fulfilling, negative prophecy.  If we don’t expect anything good; if we don’t work for the good, then we will not be disappointed. It’s that simple. If this isn’t the best world it can be, it may be in part because God’s people have become cynical—wonder?  Let us not look around at the world’s condition and try to put God on trial, but rather our cynicism.

          As Christians, know that in the words of Malachi our religious and spiritual cynicism is revealed as nothing more than the adolescent, unrealistic, human expectations that God will assume in some grandiose fashion responsibility for our failures as God’s stewards of all life on this planet.

Hear this, we, Christians across the ages, are the “ones”, the Elijahs, the John the Baptists, the ones who are to prepare the way, make ready the hearts of God’s people for the coming of the Day of the Lord.  We are the saviors, the righters-of-wrongs, and the bringers-of-justice through the power of the living Christ in us. 

          Cynicism is often contagious; you can catch it from other cynics.  Optimism and hopefulness are equally contagious.  However, God’s people by their very nature are possessed of the Holy Spirit and therefore are to be positive, life affirming, life giving people not cynics. We are not to be naïve loving and permissive fools, but wise as a serpents and gentle as a lambs.  God’s people by their holy nature are to be the positive life-affirming, life-giving forces; preparing the way for the coming of God’s Shalom for the entire planet.

As a Christian, when people start talking about how bad things are coming out with negative “old folks” talk you start telling them about how good, youthful, and hopeful things are.  You tell them about God’s grace and healing presence in your life, your family, your church, and your community. When people become skeptical, you tell them about the adversities you have over come in life through your faith in God. When people speak about disillusionment, you tell them about your dreams and visions of hope that have come true through your faith in God.  Not only will your attitude, born of the God-truths in your life spread the contagion of hope and optimism, but it will also help you, “… count your many blessings, and see what God has done.”  

          I believe with every fiber of my being that God wants Sombra Del Monte to prosper in its ministry to people in this community and to its members.  I believe that God desires moral and spiritual prosperity for every one of us and has equipped us to realize God’s desires for us through the Holy Spirit.  Moreover, the only thing that can derail God’s desires for us and this Church blessing our lives and the life of this community is cynicism.  I say this because cynicism in the final analysis is nothing more and nothing less than a total lack of faith in God’s abiding goodness in this life.

            As a part of our reenactment of the drama of Christ’s coming this Advent Season, let us—God’s redeemed, Christ empowered, grace-filled people—commit our selves to preparing not only for the coming of the baby Jesus but preparing an entire planet to live in Christ.  Make straight the way of the Lord or get out of the way because God’s people who worship and serve here are going to Prepare for Shalom.  

Shalom!