1 See, I am sending my messenger to prepare the way before me, and the Lord whom you seek will suddenly come to his temple. The messenger of the covenant in whom you delight—indeed, he is coming, says the LORD of hosts. 2 But who can endure the day of his coming, and who can stand when he appears? For he is like a refiner’s fire and like washers’ soap; 3 he will sit as a refiner and purifier of silver, and he will purify the descendants of Levi and refine them like gold and silver, until they present offerings to the LORD in righteousness. 4 Then the offering of Judah and Jerusalem will be pleasing to the LORD, as in the days of old and as in former years.
Malachi 3:1–4 (NRSVue)
[This post’s cover image depicts a pair of garden shears that Welling Hall fabricated from bullet shells, using the lost wax method.]
As a feminist academic, lifelong advocate for peace and social justice, and occasional metalsmith, I read Malachi’s words and see his graphic images feeling the full weight of Post Election Traumatic Stress. To quote Jemar Tisby, “I’m still not OK.” It is easy to identify with those who had returned from exile in Babylon and with their prophet who thought the bad times were supposed to be over. They were bewildered by the confusing, disrespectful behavior of their neighbors, and were driven to distraction and despair by the degradation and subversion of norms by unscrupulous officials.
Malachi is the final volume in the canonical collection of books variously known to Christians as the Old Testament or the First Testament. Its pride of place has nothing to do with the date of its composition and everything to do with the redactors’ desire that the book immediately precede the evangelical message of the New (Second) Testament. Scholars believe that the prophet Malachi was speaking to the community of Jews who had returned from a generation-long exile in Babylon in the 6th century BCE, who were questioning why God had not yet finally delivered them from oppression. The overarching theme of the prophet is to condemn the impiety of the people. He criticizes a corrupt priesthood, warning that their shameful behavior will be met by a messenger who will bring the people back to God for cleansing and purification.
The authors of the Common Lectionary most likely selected these verses for the Second Sunday in Advent because they are read as predicting the work of John the Baptist and pointing believers to the necessity of preparing for Christ’s glorious arrival. In the modern Christian imagination, these words are part of the soundtrack of Advent as rendered by Handel’s famous recitative and aria in The Messiah, and its many interpretations.
Into his own confusing—perhaps even despondent—historical context, Malachi offers metaphors of intense aesthetic engagement, the kind of antidote to horror that the archetypal psychologist James Hillman names in A Terrible Love of War. Specifically, Malachi speaks of a new messenger who will purify the people as furiously as refiner’s fire or washers’ soap. The translation of “washers’ soap” in the NRSV misses the force of the original Hebrew, which refers to a harsh cleanser that would be used for fulling, or to abrasive scrubbing and pounding to remove lanolin from wool or stains from cloth. Refining metal and manually removing oil and filth from fabric are hot, dirty, malodorous, labor-intensive processes that demand both force and precision. Building up and sustaining a refiner’s fire requires the heat of a blast furnace. Fulling fiber requires material that can withstand caustic treatment and the concentrated work of large muscles. Silver can, in fact, be ruined if it is subjected to heat far beyond its melting point. Cloth that is wrung and abraded too strongly will lose its structural integrity and be damaged beyond repair.
Who is being subjected to this ordeal by fire and water? On the one hand the text seems to state unequivocally that the new messenger is going to vigorously and systematically remove impurities from the priesthood, here identified as “the descendants of Levi” (Malachi 3:3). Malachi tells his audience that Judah and Jerusalem, the home of the people of Israel, will be right with God after the new messenger has removed impurities from the corrupt priests who are messing things up in the temple. On the other hand, in verse 2, Malachi raises a general question about who will survive the intensity of the purification process, which seems to rhetorically expand the circle of those in need of decontamination beyond the narrow circle of the priesthood.
If it feels like this lectionary reading ends in mid-stream, that is because it does. The following verse foretells a day of judgment and social justice:
Then I will draw near to you for judgment; I will be swift to bear witness against the sorcerers, against the adulterers, against those who swear falsely, against those who oppress the hired workers in their wages, the widow, and the orphan, against those who thrust aside the alien and do not fear me, says the Lord of hosts (Malachi 3:5).
This verse may have been excluded from the lectionary because it doesn’t fit with a particular notion of Advent hope or because of problematic references to witchcraft or sexual ethics. Its omission, however, also breaks a logical and substantive link between lying, thieving officials and the suffering of workers, the underprivileged, and immigrants. The hope of the oppressed for redemption and liberation is marginalized by the way this reading is cropped. Without the social justice focus, the reading is too easily read as calling for a purge of the enemy within.
Where, then, is the Advent hope in this message? Perhaps it does better if we read it in conjunction with a verse from another reading for this Second Sunday in Advent. In his letter to the Philippians, Paul writes, “I thank my God every time I remember you, constantly praying with joy in every one of my prayers for all of you, because of your sharing in the gospel from the first day until now” (1:3–5). These verses from Philippians are exuberant in their reminder that people of faith do not need to be exhausted alone. Horrible and authoritarian governments win and stay in power by stripping people from their solidarity networks and by separating communities.
When, despite Scripture, unscrupulous officials continue to “oppress the hired workers in their wages, the widow, and the orphan” and “thrust aside the alien,” and a plurality of white, evangelical Christian voters endorse this behavior, how might other believers keep up faith and hope in a Gospel order that upholds justice? How do we keep going when we are not OK and are living in dread of an ordeal that is not the painstaking work of a radiant and loving God but the whirlwind of political chaos? Who are the people and where are the communities that we turn to when hope feels distant and justice seems to be receding rather than advancing?
Perhaps the answer lies in recognizing the hope already present in Malachi’s stark metaphors. Corrupt systems and leaders who deceive and harm the vulnerable will not stand forever. Sacrilege will be wiped out. Like the refiner’s fire and fullers’ soap that Malachi describes, hope is not a gentle process but a fierce commitment to justice, sustained not by a single, heroic individual who endures but by the interconnected fabric of community. Paul’s exuberant reminder that we are bound together “from the first day until now” is an invitation to embrace solidarity in our embodied, aesthetic resistance to ugly, antidemocratic moods and movements.
Well done Welljng!! I have sat up and taken notice, in my despair, from advice from several political pundits who remind us that our work must stay and be concentrated in our communities. These persons were not referencing faith communities but neighbor’s to neighbors, small groups of all stripes, etc. the work, in essence, begins at home, one to one.
Immediately after the results were in, I was frozen in despair and horror. But soon I thought I can still relate with compassion, empathy, welcome, and love.
May we have courage to speak. To say no more, to take risks.