Hidden Gems:
1.
“The
Danger of ‘Normal’ Times”
Malachi
4:1-4
First
Presbyterian Church of Jamestown, New York
The
Reverend Thomas A. Sweet
June
26, 2011
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It was the brief passage from Malachi that we read a few moments ago that served as the inspiration for this summer preaching series. Admittedly, Malachi has not been high on my list of “go-to” books of the Bible as I plan my preaching ministry and probably it is not at the top of your literary bucket list either. But I listened to a talk this spring that referenced Malachi and that was enough to spur me to renew my acquaintance with this prophet/priest of old. The whole book, after all, is only two and a half pages long. I was moved by what I read and particularly was struck by two sentences in chapter 4, the last words of the Old Testament, that say, “But for you who revere my name” (this is the Lord speaking), the sun of righteousness shall rise, with healing in its wings. You shall go out leaping like calves released from the stall.” It was a hidden gem of a passage, one I had not noticed before, and it made me wonder what other jewels might be buried in out-of-the-way places in the Bible. Don liked the idea of mining those jewels and so throughout the summer we shall be offering you a treasure trove of hidden scriptural gem.
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Fortunately, most of life is not lived
in crisis, though we all know people who try their hardest to make it so.
It is a good thing that we do not live in continual calamity.
Not many of us could sustain a life of perpetual pain or loss or
challenge. But crisis does have one
thing to commend it: in times of crisis, everything seems important,
significant, crucial. Life is on the
line. We live with heightened
awareness. No word is casual,
marginal, unimportant, disregarded. In
times of crisis people pay more attention to God than when everything in our
lives is apparently copacetic.
Times of crisis are when the questions
come: Where is God in the midst of
this trouble? What can God do now?
Why do bad things happen to good people?
How can I understand what is happening in the light of God?
When 9/11 happened, churches across
When we get an unfavorable diagnosis
from a doctor, we are more likely to call on God and faith for help and support
than when our health is sunny. When
a relationship is ditched or disrupted or death intrudes into our family circle,
we are more apt to be open to God. Funeral
congregations are pretty attentive and focused.
When a job is lost or income is threatened or things seem to be falling
apart or out of control, our appetite for God increases.
It is not for no reason that Jesus lists as the first of his Beatitudes
– “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the
When things are routine in our life or
when life returns to normal after a season of crisis, our felt need for God has
a way of waning and getting pushed to the periphery of our lives as other
interests take over. We are more
concerned about ourselves than with God. We
do not hold on to God for dear life and assurance.
Rather, religion becomes something akin to a hobby to take up as time and
curiosity permit. Worship attendance
becomes more sporadic, fitting in as crowded schedules and more immediate
activities permit. We manage our
lives toward our own convenience and benefit rather than as a part of any
overarching, divine purpose, going about our lives as if God is not involved in
or has little to contribute to such dailiness.
Malachi is a prophet who warns us of
the danger of “normal” times –
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when we live like those who ridiculed Noah for building the ark that God had
told him to make even though the weather was beautiful and there never had been
a flood before;
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when the good times are rolling;
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when life is a beach and, if not exactly perfect, we are coping well and making
our way.
But normal times, times when there are
neither crises nor calamities in our lives and we are getting along and getting
by and maybe even doing better than that, can also be dangerous times.
Normal times can be treacherous if they distract us from God for in our
season of illusory self-sufficiency our faith can atrophy.
How many times across the years I have been at the side of people who
were unprepared to deal with loss or devastation because they had neglected to
build up their faith muscles in the normal times.
While crisis often increases receptivity to the word and work of God, we
cannot make up in an instant what has gone untended across a lifetime.
Faith reminds us that our lives have
first and last to do with God. Therefore
it behooves us to learn God’s thoughts and to be trained in God’s ways for
Isaiah presents God saying, “As the
heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my
thought than your thoughts.” I
have mentioned several times recently that wonderful sentence in the middle of
Psalm 73 in which, after groaning and grumping about the seeming unfairness of
life and how the unrighteous often seem to prosper while the righteous suffer,
the psalmist said, “It all was so
wearisome to me until I went into the sanctuary of God.
Then I understood.” Faith
is the means by which God develops in us the capacity to see beyond sight.
Faith is the means by which we come to know and experience a peace that
passes by and beyond understanding. But
if we are lethargic about growing up in Christ in the “normal” times,
apathetic, too otherwise involved to pay attention to the Spirit’s work in us,
then we shall never really live into our full humanity and the crisis times may
well undo or unglue us.
I want us to be like the author of
Psalm 46 who said
God is our refuge and our strength,
a very present help in trouble.
Therefore we shall not fear,
though the earth should change,
though the mountains shake in
the heart of the sea;
though its waters roar and foam,
though the mountains tremble
with its tumult.
Hear that psalm metaphorically.
He is talking about the shakings and tremblings that happen soon or late
in our lives, the crises and crosses, no matter if they originate from external
arrows or existential angst we may feel about our lives.
Why do we need not fear the inevitable turmoil and tumult?
Because
There is a river whose streams
make glad the city of
The river is God who offers living
water the kind of which Jesus gave to the woman at the well and offers to all
God’s children. But have you
gotten in the “normal” times to know the currents of the river, its
contours, its character or have you been content just to know in some general
way that there is a river? I can
take comfort in the knowledge that there are fire extinguishers well placed
throughout this building but it really would we wise of me to learn how they
work before there is a fire. Do you
get what I am saying?
In the book of
The prophet continues to speak for God:
“You speak hard, rude words to me
when you say, even if it is only to yourself, ‘It doesn’t pay to serve God.
What do we ever get out of it? Those
who take life into their own hands are the lucky ones.
They break all the rules and the commandments and get ahead anyway.
They turn away from God and get away with it.
In fact, they seem to thrive, their unscrupulousness paying off
profitably for them.’”
But then Malachi introduces others who
honor God, who work at their worship, who pray and study and pay attention to
the moving of the Spirit, who see, in the words of the poet, “the Christ who plays is ten thousand places,” who love and
serve in God’s name. Malachi
pictures them meeting together to talk things over and says that God saw what
they were doing and listened in. A
book, he says, was opened in God’s presence and minutes were taken of the
meeting, with the names of the God-followers written down, all the names of
those who learn and honor God’s name and purpose.
Malachi continues: “See, the day is coming, burning like an oven, when all of the
arrogant and all evildoers will be stubble; the day that comes shall burn them
up…” We do not have to be
literalists here, but Malachi surely is saying that those who do not pay
attention to their relationship with God, who are not steadfast in their
worship, who put more stock in the ways of the world than the ways of God, who
prefer conventional wisdom to divine wisdom are going to have a harder time of
it when crisis comes. They are going
to stumble when in some distant day they wonder what life is really about and
how to make sense of it. They will
fall into regret when they find some day that they treasures they have
accumulated make for an unsatisfying god.
“But,”
God
says, “for you who revere my name the
sun of righteousness shall rise, with healing in its wings.
You shall go out leaping like calves released from the stall.”
That has got to be one of the great images in all of scripture, a
hidden gem in the last chapter of the Old Testament.
“You shall go out leaping like
calves released from the stall.” For
those who in the “normal” times do not neglect to learn of God and God’s
ways, there will come freedom and a measure of understanding even in the hard
times. Consolation and hope will
spring up out of loss and sadness. And
though weeping may tarry for a night, they trust that joy will come in the
morning.
This, too, is true for those who keep
company with God: God is no protection against the natural course of human life.
Illnesses still will strike and there are no guarantees of a cure.
Heartaches still will stalk, losses still will sting.
But the sun of righteousness, the sun of God’s heart, the sun of
Christ’s mind will rise on you, with healing in its wings.
In ancient times, the sun was pictured as a circular disc with wings
extended from both sides of it. Malachi
is using that image to speak of God and God’s encompassing care that can be a
healing balm for us if only we come to know him across the years.
The danger of the “normal” times is that we shall think of God as a
talisman or a token to be called on when needed instead of company to be kept
all along life’s way, learning as we go.
Amen