The Gift That Is Returned

Why is it that every spring, the clutter we have lived with day-in and day-out for months suddenly becomes impossible to deal with any longer?  Why is it that, when the days become longer and the sun seem to shine brighter, that it just seems to highlight all of the things in our lives that weigh us down?  For some reason, each spring, we get the urge to clean house and to dump things that just a few months earlier we were claiming that we could not live without?  So, we begin to sort through things… to move the rejected items to a special corner of our house… and to discuss the possibility of a garage sale.  It’s all got to go.  We cannot live with the clutter any longer.

In our text today, the Prophet Malachi is preaching to a people about the need for a garage sale in their hearts. The people of God had lost their passion. They were bored with religion. They were taking shortcuts in worship… offering “sick” cows as sacrifices… and as today’s text reveals… they were withholding their tithes and offerings... in essence, robbing God of that which rightfully belonged to God.  This problem was not new.  Through the Prophet Malachi, God reminds the people in verse seven that “ever since the time of your forefathers you have turned away from my decrees and have not kept them.”  Of course, the people had not been listening before.  The question is, “Would they listen now?”

When the Prophet Malachi emerged onto the world stage, times were bad. The economy was in a slump.  There was a bad drought.  Crops were failing.  People were suffering.   They were asking where God was in all of this pain. If there was a God and if this God truly loved them, why were they suffering?  Why wasn’t God showing his love to them?  If God was good and righteous, then why weren’t the rewards of life more equitably distributed?    Does any of this sound familiar?

For all of these questions, the Prophet Malachi posed three answers.  First of all, the people had taken their eye off of the ball.  God was no longer the center of their lives.  Morality was at an all time low.  The divorce rate was high.  Men were putting aside their wives and turning to younger women.  The gifts that people were bringing to the Temple were second-rate… and revealed the low priority God had in their lives.  Instead of the first fruits of their labors, people were bringing their “leftovers” to God… and God had noticed the difference.

Secondly, Malachi pointed out that God was still in charge.  God had destroyed the Edomites, after all… the lifelong enemies of the children of Israel.  Just as we might point out examples in history that people have used to illustrate the ultimate triumph of good over evil… such as the collapse of Nazi Germany… the fall of the Berlin Wall… the end of apartheid in South Africa… the Prophet Malachi used just such an example to assure the children of Israel that God was still in charge.

Finally, the Prophet announced that the day of the Lord’s judgment was not far in the future.  And, when that day came, rewards and punishment (Yes, Malachi was a good Calvinist) would be distributed in accordance with the justice that had been practiced by the people and their faithfulness to God.  In his prophecy, that justice and faithfulness could be found in the true worship of God… both in the hearts of the people and in their daily lives.  It could also be found in their willingness to keep their covenant vows… both to God, as evidenced in their faithfulness in worship and in tithing… and to their fellowman, as evidence by their faithfulness in marriage and the practice of justice toward others.  It could also be found in their unity.  The Prophet Malachi talked about the brotherhood of man… that all are children of God and they should learn to live together in love.

As our text says, the day of the Lord is coming soon.  When that day comes, the one whom God sends will be like a refiner’s fire.  Just as the jeweler burns the impurities from silver with fire… just as the blacksmith tempers steel with fire… the one whom God will send will present challenges… opportunities to test the strength of God’s people and their faith.  To prepare for that day, we need to return to the fold… to turn our hearts to God and make God the center of our lives.  But we’ve heard this before, haven’t we?   Did we listen the last time?   Are we listening now?   It has often been said that a homeowner doesn’t need hail insurance unless there’s a hailstorm.  We often put off getting what we need… and rolling the dice against the odds of such an event happening.  What the Prophet is saying here that the children of Israel have put it off for too long.  The question is have we?

The season of Lent is a time to do some spring cleaning.  This period of time leading up to Easter is a time when we can clean our own house… clean our own hearts.  We can get rid of the clutter that exists between us and God… that interferes with our relationship with God.  It is a time to discover where God truly is in our lives… and to move God back to the center of our world.   In the day-to-day business of life, it is easy to get distracted… and to wander away.  Now is the time to change that… to turn back… to renew our relationship with God… and to clear away the clutter.

What is unique in our text today are two things that do not appear anywhere else in scripture.  The first is the call of the prophet for the people to test God.   Now, the children of Israel got into trouble in the dessert for testing God (Ex. 17) and they were warned never to do it again (Deut. 6).  Even Jesus quoted this warning to the devil in the wilderness.  But here, the prophet is actually encouraging the people to test God when it comes to their obedience.  He wants them to put God to the test.

What follows is a promise… a wildly extravagant promise.  If the people of God will be obedient, then the blessings of God will not just be returned to them in full… the gift will be returned in such a way that it overflows the bounds of the expected.  As the text says, God will open up the windows of heaven and pour out a blessing that surpasses all expectations.  In the Gospel of Luke, Jesus tells the people that the measure they give will be the measure they get back, but here Malachi says, “Oh, no.  What is returned to you will be far beyond what you gave… the gift that is returned far surpasses the gift that is given.”

The problem is that most of us want to see the outcome before we make the investment … but, in the realm of faith, it just flat does not work that way.  We have to take the step toward God first.  When we do, that is when we discover that God has always been moving toward us… we just couldn’t see it for all the clutter in our lives.

Let me use a personal example.  There have been times in my life when I have not tithed… mostly because I believed that I could not afford to tithe.  I thought that I needed that money to pay bills… or put something into savings… or give gifts to others.  What I discovered is that… when I did tithe… somehow the bills still got paid… I still had something to put into savings… and I could still give gifts to others, but that, somehow, my life was different.  I discovered that that little saying from the Sermon on the Mount in the gospel of Matthew was very true: “Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.”  When I made the deliberate decision to give a tithe to God, I discovered that my heart followed.  God became a conscious part of every day… a conscious part of each decision to spend or not to spend… and I found that the frivolous things disappeared… and all that was truly worthwhile in life increased.  Was it easy?   No, it wasn’t.  But it was do-able.  And the rewards that came into my life after I did it far surpassed the challenge of doing it.   Does that make me a saint?  Far from it.  It just means that in this one way, I am trying to focus my attention on God… and that, where money is involved, I tend to pay more attention to the decision than I would otherwise.

Part of what helps the decision to tithe is the recognition that all that we have belongs to God… and that all we have are gifts of God’s bounty.  We do not own it… we are stewards of it… holding those gifts in trust for God… and sharing of the gifts that God has given to us in recognition of the fact that those gifts were given to us for the common good.   Where we often get into trouble is with the idea of ownership.  With ownership comes possessiveness. Possessiveness is a self-centered, self-reinforcing claim.    If we come to realize that what we have is not ours to possess, but ours to share… to invest for the common good, then the dynamics of the discussion change and our attitude about our giving is different.

There is funny story that has circulated in email messages for quite a while that might help us understand this.  The story involves a group of men in the locker room of a club after a round of golf.  A cell phone rings and, after several rings, one of the men answers the phone and engages the hands-free speaker option to take the call.  And the following conversation unfolds:

The man says: "Hello"
A woman’s voice says: "Hi, honey, it's me. Are you at the club?"
"Yes"
"I am at the mall now and found this beautiful leather coat. It's only $1,000. Is it OK if I buy it?"
"Sure, go ahead, if you like it that much."
"I also stopped by the Mercedes dealership and saw the new 2009 models. I saw one I really liked."
"How much is it?"
"$95,000"
"OK, but for that price, you should get all the options."
"OK, honey. I'll see you later! I love you! Bye."
"Bye."

The man hangs up. The other men in the locker room are looking at him in amazement. Then the man asks: "Does anyone know who this phone belongs to?"   It is a funny story, but it makes the point that our perspective changes when our sense of ownership changes.  How much easier is it for us to be generous when we believe that the money is not ours.  How would our decisions about tithing change if we truly believed that all that we have comes from God… that it does not belong to us… and that we are merely stewards of it… keeping it for God… and looking to the day when God will ask us for an accounting of it.

For the Prophet Malachi, the test of stewardship is a test of loyalty. But it is only one test of our relationship with God.  The worship of God… the practice of justice… and the tithing of our time… our talents… and our treasures are all measures of where our heart lies.  Where is your heart during this season of Lent?   Is it time for us to renew our relationship with God?  “Return to me, says the Lord, and I will return to you.”  Perhaps it is time for us to take up the challenge to test our God… to see what happens when our gift is returned.  Amen.

Malachi 3:1-12