Just a few days ago while walking through the North Riverside mall, a woman was passing out flyers, telling everyone to bring their old gold to her, and she would give them money for it. Everyone seems to want you to sell you old rings, jewelry, even the gold fillings in your teeth for money. I have even heard of gold parties – like a Tupperware party – but you bring in all of your gold – a salesman tallies it all up and gives you money on the spot for your gold.
And that don’t care what it is that you are selling, because they are just going to take it and melt it all together into one lump of gold. Gold is a rather malleable metal, so when you put it into the fire – it melts and refines itself pretty easily.
Malachi speaks of we as people being put into the fire and refined ourselves – so that we can come out as pure. Sounds pretty painful. Someone said it is a lot like being put through a carwash without a car – you might get pretty beat up – but at least you have had a really good bath.
Malachi is the last book in the Hebrew bible. We don’t know who Malachi is, or even what he was trying to address. From his language, we can guess that he was probably a priest in the temple, who realized that things needed to change. People were going through the motions of being religious, but no one was sincere. Not the people, not the priest. Something had to change. Malachi is not a proper name, but a generic term for a messenger. People were beginning to ask, where is the god of justice? The message was that God was sending a messenger who would make everything right. The question is not where God is – but where are you? What part do you play in the present situation of injustice? And are you really doing what God calls you to do, or are you going along with the flow? Are you following the path that God made for you, or are you following the path of everyone else.
Story of lady visiting the silversmith
A group of women in a bible study were looking at this verse from Malachi, "He will sit as a refiner and purifier of silver" (Malachi 3:3), and they wondered what on earth it could mean. One of them decided to find out about the process of refining and purifying silver, and promised to report back to the women in the Bible Study at their next meeting.
That week, the woman called a silversmith and made an appointment to watch him at work. She didn't mention anything about the reason for her interest beyond her curiosity about the process of refining silver.
As she watched the silversmith, he held a piece of silver over the fire and let it heat up. He explained that in refining silver, one needed to hold the silver in the middle of the fire where the flames were hottest as to burn away all the impurities.
She asked the silversmith if it was true that he had to sit there in front of the fire the whole time the silver was being refined. The man answered that yes, he not only had to sit there holding the silver, but he had to keep his eyes on the silver the entire time it was in the fire. If the silver was left a moment too long in the flames, it would be destroyed. The woman was silent for a moment. Then she asked the silversmith, "How do you k
Now when the silver is fully refined?" He smiled at her and answered, "Oh, that's easy-when I see my image in it."
The question is not where is God – where are we? We are the silver –being refined to reflect the image of God.
Advent is a time to reflect on how our lives reflect God to others.
I am so excited – this advent the united Methodist news service started a program reminding churches of the importance of prayer and getting back into prayer ministries. Prayer is our way to see how god is working in our lives, and where God is leading us to, what god is calling us to leave behind, and what we are being called to turn away from as we turn to god.
That is the message of Malachi – God is coming the god who promised us salvation is coming- in order to be prepared we have to turn away from whatever we have been doing and be willing to turn to god – to repent and receive god’s forgiveness.
Going through the carwash with a car may indeed by a challenge, it may even be painful but it is not meant to punish us. Saying things that challenge us is not always a bad thing – it is often an act of love. Only those who love us are willing to be perfectly honest with us and tell us that we need to change.
God loves us enough that God is not going to let us get away with being incomplete and not living up to our full potential. If there is something that God sees in us that needs to be worked on, God is not going to leave us alone until it is finished. God’s work in this world is salvation, he began it long ago, and he continues to bring people in the world and in our lives to work with us so that we can be a part of the great work. God made a promise that God would fulfill all of our needs and give us all grace, peace, love and joy. And God will not stop until that promise is fulfilled. That work begins here in our hearts, but it is fulfilled amongst the people. Philippians says that God began a good work in you and will complete it in Jesus Christ.
Advent is the season of hope, peace, love and joy. I still believe that everything starts with joy and is interspersed along the way with joy.
At the thanksgiving service – Rabbi Weiss told three stories of the abiding joy of faith in our lives. My favorite was a question – like that asked of Malachi – where is the god of justice. Why should we praise God in the good times and the bad? Why should we thank god for bad news, just as well as good. Why should we treat god the same when things go our way as well as when things don’t. there was a man who set out to ask that question – he went to all of the rabbis to get understanding, he read all of the books and someone told him to visit a farmer – and ask him – why should we love and honor god in all things – why should we feel the same things about God no matter what happens. The farmer replied – that is a very good question, but I don’t know why someone would ask me – I wouldn’t know the answer to that. Perhaps you should ask someone who gets depressed all of the time – because I don’t know why you I wouldn’t praise and worship God in all things in all times. There is never a time in my life when I don’t love God and long for a relationship with God.
The message in that story for me is that in order to have hope, peace and love – it all has to start with joy. Joy is the condition of our hearts. Joy is the good work that begins in us and gets completed in Jesus Christ.
Philippians is actually called the epistle of joy. Paul is writing to his favorite church and praising them for supporting him while he is in prison. He begins with a prayer of thanksgiving for them. And he encourages them to continue to good work that they started – God will complete it. My prayer is that your love will overflow with knowledge and insight to determine what is best, so that in the day of Christ you may be pure and blameless and produce a harvest of righteousness.
God is about to do a new thing – a terribly new thing. New because it is different, terrible because it is challenging. It will challenge our sense of wellbeing, our understanding of us, and our sense of normalcy in the world. Who can stand and endure the pain of that day.
Those who begin their advent season with joy, and are able to carry it all the way through. Let us pray…… Amen.
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