Sermon Tone Analysis

Richard Davenport

November 13, 2022 - Proper 28

Malachi 4:1-6

As a history buff, I'll occasionally watch the documentaries and such of past wars and see the old war footage they have.

WWII, Korea, and Vietnam in particular.

You see the images and videos of life out on the frontlines.

Sometimes you see a few soldiers laughing about something, sharing a meal together, or walking in formation to someplace or other.

More often in these documentaries you see the devastation.

You see the B-17s of WWII dropping endless lines of bombs.

You see napalm and the effects it has on the land and the people.

You see the aftermath as the images ask you to ponder their significance.

The images are important for all of us who haven't been there and seen them.

War may be necessary, but it never something done lightly.

The stories told by those who have seen the ruined cities, the ruined lives firsthand, whether that's the soldiers themselves, the journalists, the doctors and nurses at the field hospitals, or the victims who survive, they all remind us of the cost of war.

They serve as a warning, to make sure the war is truly worth that cost, both to our enemies and to ourselves.

It's no surprise at all those individuals have nightmares about what they've seen.

It's also no surprise when those people start talking about what led to those situations and who now work to help prevent them from happening again.

Their experiences, their firsthand accounts are there for the military and for the rest of us to not let the same atrocities continue.

When those atrocities occur again, as they inevitably do, those men and women are the first to shake their heads and wonder why anyone would put themselves right back in the same situation, knowing exactly what will happen when they do.

They know the hurt, the pain, the terror, the grief.

They know because they've been there, right in the thick of it.

The Old Testament reading from Malachi today echoes some of the same kind of imagery.

People blasted down like stubble in a field, everything ablaze with nothing left standing.

Certainly nothing any sane person would want to be caught up in.

If you see this kind of thing coming, you get out.

Just like folks in a warzone, if you see the bombers on the horizon heading your way, time to leave, time to find shelter.

Time to find safety from the destruction that's coming.

The prophet Malachi comes at the end of the Old Testament canon.

We know next to nothing about him other than that he's a prophet whose name means, "My Messenger," an appropriate name for a prophet.

Based on the content of his message, it's believed he's writing after the Israelites have come back from exile in Babylon and have set about rebuilding Jerusalem, though the exact date of his writing is impossible to determine.

Put into the context of the Israelites returning from exile, the message he brings is a powerful one.

"We've seen what happens when the bombs fall.

We know what happens to people who are caught out in that.

Don't risk it!

Don't go out there and just think you'll be fine.

You won't.

If you're out there when the time comes, it'll be too late.

There won't be anything left."

It seems obvious enough.

I mean, they saw it happen.

They knew exactly what to expect.

God had warned them over and over again that it was coming, sounding the air raid sirens, but so many didn't listen.

So many thought they were perfectly safe, that even if something terrible was coming, it wouldn't hit them.

The warnings were ignored and the devastation came.

Now the warnings come again.

It happened once.

You saw it yourself.

You saw how many were lost.

Don't make that mistake.

It's not worth the cost.

If you're someone who has seen this happen, then you have to wonder why anyone would risk being in the line of fire.

What could possibly make that worth it?

The thrill of the danger maybe, or just the simple belief that even if the danger is coming, you've got things figured out.

You'll be safe in spite of whatever the threat may be.

You're confident you'll be fine.

It doesn't make a lot of sense that any would think this way.

After all, the risks would seem to completely outweigh any possible benefits.

If you're standing right in the path of the firestorm and you somehow survive, what does that get you?

Some validation that you could do it, that you weren't fazed by the danger and so the consequences don't matter.

Some people get excited about the prospect of proving themselves right, of showing the world they didn't need your warnings, didn't need you.

Who thinks like this?

Who would do something so irrational?

Well, basically everyone.

How many children get their hands burned after specifically being told not to touch the hot stove?

As an adult, a parent, you can give yourself an aneurysm trying to figure out why kids do this kind of thing.

There's no payout here.

There's no benefit.

The absolute best thing that can happen is nothing at all, you somehow avoided the danger this time.

Every other scenario is bad.

Scalded, burned, ruined food, hospital visits, the list goes on.

Yet, we all do it.

We all forge ahead despite the warnings, despite the fact that there really is nothing to be gained by it.

We forge ahead just to do it, to prove that we knew better that we didn't need the warnings that everyone else needed.

We did it and we did it all by ourselves.

As adults watching kids do it, all you can do is wonder why.

You shake your head in confusion and you try to keep them from making a similar mistake next time.

The Israelites, watching the world around them make the same mistakes, even many of their own people.

Those who rejected the warnings found themselves in the same boat and perished.

Now those who survived the exile have the task of warning the younger generation, as well as continuing to warn the world around them, to not make the same mistake.

Don't think you can do it on your own.

Don't think you'll just somehow make it through unscathed.

But, of course, all of this overlooks one important point.

Malachi isn't preaching to the world.

He's preaching to Israelites, all of them, even those who returned from exile and had seen for themselves the horrors of what could happen if you were caught out in the open.

The people had been expecting everything to change once Jerusalem was rebuilt, as if the province of Judea would suddenly enter a golden age of prosperity once more.

When it didn't happen, they started to think maybe God wasn't really around and they started to get lax.

They didn't pay much attention to God's commands and ordinances, which were there to keep them safe.

They were already neglecting to care for the less fortunate around them.

They were neglecting their marriages.

They were neglecting the worship of God and the care and operation of his temple.

In short, they were already well on their way to doing all of the same sorts of things that got them into trouble in the first place.

You'd think they'd know better, but they haven't really learned.

I wish we outgrew that tendency to seek out self-destructive risks, but we don't.

We never shed that desire to prove we're better, smarter, more capable, to prove we can do it on our own.

We find ourselves standing out in the open, bombs falling all around and we come to the mistaken idea that we're safe, but Malachi warns us that the day is coming.

The bomb just hasn't come for you yet.

We grow lax and self-confident.

We trust that we'll be fine when we neglect the suffering of those around us, when we neglect to care for those whom God has specifically put into our lives to care for, when we neglect to listen to him at all.

Instead, Malachi directs our attention to something else, the "sun of righteousness," the who John calls in his gospel, "the light that shines in the darkness."

Here is the only place of safety, the only place that's protected.