Day 39 – Friday -- The Book of Malachi

Day 39 – Friday

The Book of Malachi

Here is the time line:

• Exiles return from Babylon.
• The temple has been rebuilt.
• Malachi speaks his message.
• Ezra and Nehemiah return.


Love
Bible is a love letter from our Creator. There is romance in the air. And Malachi will address some of the issues of romance in the last chapter.

Clergy
Malachi has harsh words for the clergy. They aren’t doing their job. They don’t have a sense of the Sacred. They tell people what they want to hear. God says, “You are insulting me.”

Offenses
Malachi points out other sins. The people practice witchcraft; they cheat their spouses; they tell lies in court; they mistreat windows and orphans (the helpless); they steal the property of foreigners. Men are divorcing their wives. (Where did the romance go?) This reminds me of the Covenant/Marriage theme throughout Scripture—referring to the union and partnership of God and God’s people.

Percentage
They are robbing God by not bringing their tithes (ten percent of their harvest, flocks, and herds) to the storehouse. God challenges them to put Him to the test. Bring your tithes and God will “open the windows of heaven” and pour out blessings. (The Christian Scriptures do not mandate tithing.)

Empty Seat
Malachi (his name means “messenger”) says that God will send a messenger to “prepare the way” for his coming (3.1). In the penultimate verse he names him: Elijah. (This is why at the Seder Meal, Jews leave an empty seat for Elijah.) The New Testament writers see John the Baptizer as this “Elijah.”


Consistency
There is a verse that is quoted a lot: Malachi 3.6: I am the Lord; I do not change. Perhaps the hint is in the next phrase: That’s why you haven’t been wiped out.

I think the meaning is not some philosophical idea of an “immutable Being.” Rather, the verse is declaring that God is faithful to Her promises; that He keeps His covenant agreement; She does not go back on Her word. Her character is one of consistency and faithfulness.

The Hebrew Scriptures do not portray God in philosophical terms. God is not an idea or static Being. God is personal and “emotionally” responsive. Everyone should read Abraham Joshua Heschel’s two volume work titled, The Prophets. Heschel takes the reader through dozens of passages and shows the Hebraic understanding of God as a passionate, personal being. The Hebrew Scripture’s use of anthropomorphic language in regard to God is partly out of human limitations; but also says something about the very nature of Israel’s God.


Family
The family theme is important in Malachi. God says He hates divorce. God criticizes men who are unfaithful to their wives. At the end of the book the prophets says that when Elijah comes he will turn the hearts of parents to their children and the hearts of children to their parents. And God reminds the Jewish community of the extended family of Israel—their ancestors—who made a covenant with God.

Have we not all one father? Has not one God created us? Why then are we faithless to one another, profaning the covenant of our ancestors? (2.10)

“Our Father who art in heaven” is not just a Christian prayer, it is a Jewish prayer too. The Oneness of God—monotheism—is one of the main affirmations of Jewish theology. This verse only encompasses the Jewish context. But in the Book of Acts Paul extends it to all humanity:

From one ancestor God made all nations to inhabit the whole earth…we are God’s offspring (Acts 17.25-29).

One Creator. One race: the human race. We are all sisters and brothers. There is still a strain of Evangelicalism that teaches people to believe that only Christians can claim God as their Father. This traditional exclusive framework for the Gospel is gradually disappearing, thank God.

By the term “father” the Bible means “source.” God is also our Mother. It’s true that the phrase God our Mother never appears in Scripture, but God is imagined as a mother figure in Isaiah, Exodus, and the Psalms. When some Christian brother or sister insists to me that God is actually our Father and not our Mother, I am always tempted to ask, “You mean God has a penis?” Very few people will admit to such crude literalism. We use human analogies when speaking about God, who is beyond the limits of our human language. Our analogical language for God contains some truth, but not complete, perfect truth.

“Our Father who art in heaven, Thou art our Mother too.”



Finish this: When I think of my relationship with God as a romance, I…