I just got back from the most marvelous conference. I almost didn’t go... I’d spent all my Continuing Ed allowance already, and the hotels in Baltimore are EXPENSIVE. But the organizer of the conference arranged for me to share a hotel room with one of the speakers, whose room was already being paid for by the conference, so I went. It was called The Consultation on The Church and Issues at the End of Life, and it wasn’t the usual sort of event where you sit in a large room with a couple of hundred folk you’ve never met before and listen to people talk at you. It was a planning conference for leaders of the Pro-Life movement from all the mainline churches - not just Presbyterians, but Methodists and Lutherans and Catholics and even a Syro-Chaldean from Israel. There weren’t more than thirty-five people there; half of them were speakers and all of us got to participate in the discussions that followed. We covered theology, medicine, law, ethics, pastoral care, and worship. I met big-name, cutting edge theologians like Gilbert Meilander, academic luminaries like James Edwards, political theorists like Jay Budziszewski, journalists like Ken Myers. One of the speakers was late for his presentation because his Senate hearings lasted longer than expected.
Wow. It was great. I still don’t know how I got lucky enough to be invited.
And, to be honest with you, after such an intense and intellectually demanding couple of days, I was not looking forward to switching gears and writing my sermon. One of the other pastors asked if I was going to preach on the issues we’d been discussing at the conference, and I said no, I was preaching on Malachi 3. But as I was driving home thinking about it all, I realized that no passage of Scripture has more to say about end-of-life issues than Malachi 3.
Because the third chapter of Malachi challenges us to consider whether we are ready to appear before God. "See, I am sending my messenger to prepare the way before me, and YHWH whom you seek will suddenly come to his temple. The messenger of the covenant in whom you delight-- indeed, he is coming, says YHWH of hosts." [v.1]
Now, this was written four hundred and fifty years before the coming of Christ. And we usually preach this at the beginning of Advent, and point to John the Baptist, who prepared the people of Israel for the coming of Christ. But just as last week’s passage from Zechariah is as relevant now as it is for Palm Sunday, this warning from Malachi is also relevant today, and indeed every day, because God is still in the business of preparing his people for the coming of the Lord.
I’m not going to allegorize the second coming of Christ. The day will come when he returns as promised, and history will end. The dead will rise and we will all stand before God at his judgment seat. And those who are in Christ will receive the gift of eternal life. That is why we can say with the apostle John, even sinners as we still are, “Come, Lord Jesus.” [Rev 22:20b] But that is - no matter how often we say we believe in it - something far off and kind of fuzzy in its outline, and I’m afraid it doesn’t always have a great deal to do with how we make the decisions which impact our lives.
But there’s another reality which each one of us will have to face, and will have to face within our own timeline. And that is the fact of our own mortality. Each one of us has his or her own death to die. Each one of us will have our own personal one-on-one encounter with the living God. Whether he comes to us, or we come to him, we will not be able to escape it. "But who can endure the day of his coming, and who can stand when he appears? For he is like a refiner’s fire." [v.2]
The question before us at the conference was, "Is the church doing its job of preparing its people for death?" Or, to put a slightly different twist on it another way, "How well is the church doing its job of preparing its people for death?"
And the answer was, I am afraid, “Not very well.” Our culture has infected the church enough so that death is now surrounded by the same kinds of taboos that surrounded sex in Victorian times. We turn our heads, we cover our eyes, we rush our children past reminders of our mortality as if we could put it off by denying its reality.
That is why the issues of assisted suicide and euthanasia have gotten such a hold on our culture, because both - believe it or not - are attempts to deny the reality of death. Woody Allen said that he “wasn’t afraid of death, he just didn’t want to be there when it happened.” We like to think that the worst thing about death is the act of dying, and if somehow we can avoid it, or get it under our control, or sleep through it, or at the very least make it quick and painless we have conquered it.
But we have not conquered death. All the technology in the world cannot conquer death. Ignoring death does not conquer it. Making friends with death does not conquer it, no matter what Dr. Kevorkian may think. The only victory over death is the one won by Jesus Christ. And, as I said before, if we have embraced him we will share in that victory. That gives as a very real and very important security; he is indeed "the messenger of the covenant whom we delight in;" enjoying God in Christ is the very reason we have come here to worship. But embracing Jesus Christ is not enough. We also have to obey him.
The Apostle Paul said in his letter to the church at Corinth,
"....No one can lay any foundation other than the one that has been laid; that foundation is Jesus Christ. Now if anyone builds on the foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, straw - the work of each builder will become visible, for the Day will disclose it, because it will be revealed with fire, and the fire will test what sort of work each has done. If what has been built on the foundation survives, the builder will receive a reward. If the work is burned up, the builder will suffer loss; the builder will be saved, but only as through fire." [1 Cor 3:11- 15]
So, you see, even we who know Christ will be faced with the refiner’s fire, and must consider whether or not we can endure that fire on the day of his coming, and can stand when he appears.
Malachi does more than warn God’s people, though. He gives them a preview of the test, an opportunity to cram for the final.
The first thing Malachi does is call the priests to account. That is what preacher William Willimon focuses on. “God’s coming for those who make their living at the temple, the clergy,” he says. “He will purify the descendants of Levi and refine them....until they present offerings to YHWH in righteousness.” [v3] The descendants of Levi, the tribe of Levi, were priests, Israel’s clergy, the ones who lived off of religion, praying, prophesying, preaching, making offerings to God on behalf of the people. Willimon says that Malachi is mostly meant for ministers, “...priests, who despise my name. You say, ‘How have we despised your name?'...By thinking that the Lord’s table may be despised....'I have no pleasure in you,' says YHWH. 'I will not accept an offering from your hands....'” [Mal 1:6 7, 10]. God says to the clergy, “You wear me out.” [1:13].
And I agree that the ministers, pastors, are first on that list. My colleagues and I will be held to a higher standard because we are not only accountable for our own actions, we are also accountable for those we teach. But as I have said before, and will no doubt say many times again, we are all priests. And even if you are not teaching Sunday School, you are teaching the rest of the world who Christ is, what being a Christian is all about. None of us can escape this call to self-examination.
What is it that God is going to examine us on?
Malachi mentions a lot of areas of concern to God in the course of this book. It contains the most often quoted passage on divorce, for instance. “'I hate divorce,' says YHWH.” [Mal 2:16] He also condemns the priests for distorting the meaning of the law. “For the lips of a priest should guard knowledge, and people should seek instruction from his mouth.... But you have turned aside from the way; you have caused many to stumble by your instruction; you have corrupted the covenant." [Mal 2:7-8]
There is a long list of offences against God in this passage we just read: "Sorcerers, adulterers, those who swear falsely, those who oppress the hired workers, the widow and the orphan, those who thrust aside the alien." [Mal 3:5] Anyone, in fact, who does not fear and obey the law of YHWH, is included in this list.
But of all the behaviors that are criticized in this book, the one the prophet returns to again and again as grounds for God’s judgment, is the people’s failure to tithe. "The Lord says, 'you are robbing me!' But you say, 'How are we robbing you?' 'In your tithes and offerings! You are cursed with a curse, for you are robbing me - the whole nation of you!'" [3:8-9]
Why is this so important? Why is Malachi spending so much time focusing on giving, on money, with just glancing references to studying Scripture and caring for the widow and orphan?
In one way, it is easier to be obedient about giving money than in the other areas of our lives, because God only asks for 10%. It’s easier to write a check than to love an unlovable neighbor or forgive an injustice. It’s easier to write a check than to meditate on God’s word, because once you’ve dropped the check in the plate you’re done, whereas the Word works in your mind and heart and spirit even when you’re not looking.
But if it’s so easy to give money, then why do so few American Christians do it? In the mainline churches the average giving is somewhere under 2%. Even in this congregation, with our history of comparatively generous giving, don’t do much better than 3%. Some explain it by saying the taxes they pay are equivalent to the tithe, but unless you think government is God, that excuse really doesn’t hold water.
I think that there are two main reasons for our failure to give.
The first reason is that we don’t really think that everything we have belongs to God, and that God has the first claim on it. In some hidden - or maybe not so hidden - part of our minds we don’t really think that God has the right to ask us for that small piece as a token acknowledgment of who the rightful owner really is. Don Horban thinks it goes back to Adam and Eve, who were given the whole garden to care for and delight in, but couldn’t keep their hands off the one piece that God had reserved for himself. They wanted it all. And I think there’s a lot of truth to that argument.
And the second reason people don’t tithe is that they don’t really trust God. They say to themselves, “If I give one tenth to God, I won’t have enough to pay the (pick one) mortgage, car payment, medical bills, whatever. I’ll pay for the necessities, and then God can get what’s left over.” Do you hear that? They may not put it that bluntly, but what they’re saying is that honoring God is not a necessity. Or perhaps, to be more charitable, maybe they’re saying that God will understand that they can’t afford it.
Well, God does understand that you need to be fed and clothed and housed. But what Malachi is trying to tell you is that if you will only trust God he will take care of you. Bring the full tithe into the storehouse, so that there may be food in my house, and thus put me to the test, says YHWH of hosts; see if I will not open the windows of heaven for you and pour down for you an overflowing blessing. [v. 10]
But seeing that God is fully capable of taking care of your material needs is not the only blessing you will receive, or even the most important one. Because the minute you loosen your death grip on your wallet, you shift your spiritual center of gravity from yourself onto God - and all the other steps of your pilgrimage become easier, become more natural, and more fruitful.
There’s a lot of talk these days about social security, and retirement accounts, and what a reasonable rate of return on your investment is. What Malachi is reminding you - and the church needs to do a better job of doing - is to make sure you focus even more on your post-retirement account.
What have you built that will not burn up when you stand before Christ the refiner? Take a moment to audit your own spiritual account... and then make an appointment with Malachi to go over your investments.
