“ADVENT 2”

“ADVENT 2”

Malachi 3:1-4      Luke 3:1-6

December 8, 2024, Second Sunday of Advent Year C

Andy Kennaly, Pastor

First Presbyterian Church, Sandpoint, Idaho

We don’t often read from Malachi, one of the minor prophets, a book, for Protestants, placed as the last one in the Hebrew Scriptures. This morning, we read of images, such as a refiner’s fire and fullers’ soap. A refiner is someone who melts down metal to get purity. The impurities are removed so you’re left with good silver, in this case. Fullers are laundry people, cleaning cloth to make it white. Their soap is very intense and able to clean and whiten cloth.

These images, of a refiner and a fuller, mix with the word ‘until,’ which implies purifying is a process. As Malachi uses these images, the reference is directed toward people rather than silver or cloth. Purifying is done to people, the “descendants of Levi.” Until when? “Until they present offerings to the LORD in righteousness.”

I like that word, righteousness, not in a churchy sense or arrogant way, but as it’s intended – to convey that something works as it is created and meant to work, that everything is as it should be. Righteousness.

That these images and purification processes are appointed to people would imply that we all have issues we need to deal with, layers of complexity that complicate faith’s simplicity, and delusions that need removed to see more clearly an accurate image, like silver with tarnish removed so it now has a polished shine, like a mirror that shows reflection without distortion.

One aspect of this refining that we can appreciate is that it is a process. I’ve polished silver before, and again, and again; it’s not enough to polish once. Shiny items set out to use and enjoy cannot take exposure. Whether it’s the air and some kind of oxidation, or if it has to do with light, I’m not sure. But shiny silver tarnishes and before you know it, a new round of polishing is needed.

Of course, you could wrap up the items and store them away in a dark closet and that would delay some of the fading, but then you can’t enjoy or use the items to their potential. Their purpose is not being realized. Ongoing care, maintenance, and updating are helpful, but it is a process with specific steps of washing, polishing, re-washing, drying, and these need repeated with intention to keep that shine.

This is like Centering Prayer or other contemplative spiritual disciplines. James Finley calls it our “daily rendezvous with God.” Once isn’t enough, but something about an ongoing process is needed to help us center in Christ and discover our True Self.

Another aspect of Malachi jumps out in that last phrase about being pleasing to the LORD. Once the shine is there, once the refining and washing is done and purification of the descendants of Levi has been completed to where they present offerings to the LORD in righteousness, that’s when the offerings are described as pleasing.

This is kind of troubling. Like, do we have to earn purity before what we offer, or even who we are, is pleasing to God? Does God really demand this? What kind of God would need this to be pleased?

That was one of the critiques directed at Mr. Rogers. Fred Rogers, who was a Presbyterian Pastor with that ministry to children through Public Television for so many years, Mr. Roger’s Neighborhood. He’d often look right into the camera and tell the viewer that they are special, just the way they are. There were many people that didn’t like that and they publicly criticized him. They said this makes children develop an attitude of entitlement, and they didn’t like Public Television creating a culture of elitism. But he didn’t cave in to the criticism, he kept insisting that people are special. At one point in his life someone asked him what it means that everyone is special. He said something to affect that being special means you don’t have to do anything extraordinary or spectacular for someone to love you. You are special in your ordinary life, and you are worthy of love just as you are.

So are we worthy, loved as we are with an inherent dignity, or do we need purified in order for God to be pleased? What image of God directs the answer to this question shapes what kind of people we grow into as adults. As Richard Rohr has said, your image of God creates you.

Malachi also mentions that God will be pleased as in the days of old and as in former years. Is there some idealized past that we need to measure up to in order to find favor with God? Make God’s people great again? That word, again, has the most sway in that phrase as it catapults us into past in an attempt to transform the present, based on some perceived ideal, so we may be presentable, present-able, for the future. All that is a strange dynamic and has the potential to mislead us into a false allure of the past. The past can be weaponized to manipulate people in the present by offering false hope for the future. All of this tarnishes the inherent beauty that is already there.

At the same time, there are aspects of the past that need to be claimed and embraced and, as Malichi may suggest, purified. This helps us now in ways that we may not even know we need. We cannot ignore the past; it is too engrained in us. If we ignore the past, we deny part of ourselves.

How we view who God is and what God is like is foundational to who we become, how and what we think, and how we live. The past, present, and future, are all in dynamic relationship as our view, our image of God is shaped. These two scripture readings, Malachi chapter 3, and Luke chapter 3, both talk about the “sending of my messenger…” the “voice of one crying out in the wilderness: ‘Prepare the way of the LORD, make his paths straight’.” Luke adds about hills getting made low, valleys lifted up, crooked made straight, rough ways smooth. In other words, everyone is in on this with unrestricted views: “all flesh shall see the salvation of God.”

All creation has access to this connection, this relationship. Everyone has an image of God that creates them. Each created thing reflects that inner image out into the world. These stories intend to help us clarify that image, and become aware, with intention, to nurture that image.

These scriptures take us deep in Advent preparation to open our hearts to the Living God as Christ is born in us; in us, over and over; in us, again and again; in us, shared with the world, day after day after day.

To prepare the way of the Lord is God’s invitation into new thinking. Not just having different thoughts, but a new mind, a transformed, renewed, mind.  This process is not easy, but one that involves giving over to, dying to the self, letting go. That’s the repentance part, the turning, which has more to do with putting on a new mind, literally to “change your mind!” But this isn’t a will power thing, not driven by the ego, not even something we oversee. But we do invite it, and we allow God to direct this as a process we trust because God directs it.

The Incarnation of Christ points out that creation is blessed, God’s Presence is imminent, and it’s good to human because God deems humanity worthy enough to take on flesh and blood in the life of Jesus. “All flesh shall see the salvation of God” because the Living Christ is in all flesh, every created being; otherwise, things would not exist. To allow an image of the Living God to create us in healthy ways, God moves our awareness deeper into love; unconditional, present, active.

Love sometimes involves struggle, or pain, and growth rarely happens if everything is smooth and easy. Great suffering is often a catalyst, needed to open doors we didn’t even know were closed. That’s the center of the fire part, the heat used by the refiner.

This transformational process leads to “Presenting offerings to God in righteousness” which is biblical language, “Bible-speak,” to express the importance of having a new mind and an open, sincere heart that are receptive to God on God’s terms, which we can trust as always loving and just.

Next Saturday I will lead a workshop as part of the Advent Journey, a labyrinth walk. In the season of Advent, we focus during the weeks that lead to Christmas. We prepare, we wait, but it’s an active waiting, because inner work is important. Labyrinth walks on a meandering path remind us that life is not a straight line. Like those hills and valleys our scriptures mention, those rough ways; they’re inside us. Labyrinths become metaphors for life. An Advent workshop reminds us God’s presence is coming, and it’s God’s presence inside us that helps us prepare. We all need the ongoing process of becoming truer to ourselves, to one another, the Earth, and God.

Only the infinite can satisfy the depths of our soul, and our soul is held in the depths of the Infinite. As we journey through Advent, may we take each step in prayer, to trust God, the Source of voices crying out in places that help us connect. Christ, who was, and is, and shall be; Christ is our Advent hope and love. As we carry our questions, our imperfections, and trust the journey of refining and cleansing, may our soul shine forth the image of God we are created to be in Christ. And with righteousness, may God be glorified, now, even as always. Amen.