Zero Shades of Grey

The message given in the United Methodist churches of the Wheatland Parish.  The Bible verses used are Malachi 4:1-6.

            I said last week that judging people is not our job.  It’s God’s job.  And I still believe that. 

            But in saying that, we need to remember that it makes two true statements.  It’s true that it is not our job to judge people.  But it’s also true that it is God’s job to judge people.  And if there’s one thing we can be confident about, it’s that God is going to do God’s job.  God’s truly does judge people.  God’s judgment is real, and if you and I ignore that fact we will come to regret it.

            We read this morning from the book of Malachi.  Malachi is one of the Old Testament prophets.  He is sometimes referred to as one of the Minor Prophets, but that does not mean his words are less important than those of other prophets.  The term “minor prophet” only means that his book is shorter\ than those of the Major Prophets.  But his words are just as true, just as important, and just as inspired by God.

            Malachi is writing about God’s judgment.  And what he says, basically, is that each of us has a choice.  We can follow God and be saved, or we can refuse to follow God and be destroyed.  Malachi does not allow for a third way.  He does not allow for any compromise or any grey area.  We’re either with God or we’re not.  We’re either in or we’re out.  Period.

            God, speaking through Malachi says that twice in just these six verses.  Here’s how the passage puts it:  “All the arrogant and every evildoer will be stubble, and that day that is coming will set them on fire…Not a root or a branch will be left to them.  But for you who revere my name, the sun of righteousness will rise with healing in its rays.  And you will go out and frolic like well-fed calves.”  And later, God says, “I will send the prophet Elijah to you before that great and dreadful day comes.  He will turn the hearts of the parents to their children, and the hearts of the children to their parents, or else I will come and strike the land with total destruction.”

            It’s a pretty clear distinction God makes.  That can make us kind of uncomfortable, really.  You know, a lot of times we don’t like things to be that clear cut, to be that black and white.  We’re more comfortable with grey areas.  We like to think the answer always lies in the middle, that the answer always lies in compromise.  And in some situations it does, of course.  I’m not saying compromise is always a bad thing.  Many times it’s a good thing.  But when it comes to following God, there’s not a lot of room for compromise.  The way Malachi is written, we either follow God or we don’t.  That’s it.

            Now, I do want to point out a couple of things.  First, Malachi was written for the people of Israel.  The first words of the book are “A prophecy:  The word of the Lord to Israel through Malachi.”  The reason I point that out is that this means this book was written, this prophecy was made, to people who had heard the Word, who knew who God was.  That means this prophecy applies to people who have the ability to make a clear choice whether to follow God or not.  It does not necessarily apply to people who don’t know God and are not able to make that choice.  Now, I still believe there will be a Day of Judgment for those people, too, but how that’s going to work is something for another day.  It’s not something that Malachi explicitly addresses, because again, Malachi was written for the people of Israel.

            And the other thing I want to point is that saying we either follow God or we don’t does not mean we’re required to be perfect.  We’ve talked before about the fact that we’re not capable of perfection and that God understands that. We are to revere God’s name and remember God’s laws and decrees.  If we revere God’s name and do our best to obey God, God will forgive our flaws and our flubs and our mistakes.

            So let’s look at that word “revere”.  It’s not a word we use a lot these days.  We remember Paul Revere, some of us remember the musical group Paul Revere and the Raiders, and some of us might even remember when the Twins had an outfielder named Ben Revere.  Other than that, though, “revere” is not a word we hear much.  What does it mean to “revere” God’s name?

            Well, if you look in the dictionary, you find that the word “revere” means “to treat with respect tinged with awe”.  And “awe” means an overwhelming feeling of reverence, admiration, or fear.

            Dowe feel that way about God?  I think we should.  I think most of usknow we should.  But do we?

            How many of us think we have the right to tell God what to do?  I suspect a lot of us do.  Now, we’d never say it that way.  None of us would ever say we have the right to tell God what to do.  But how many times has something happened, and we think or even say, “God, why did you do that?  Why did you make that happen?  And if you did not make it happen, why did you let it happen?  How can a loving God let such terrible things happen to so many people?

            I suspect a lot of us have said that.  Many people have said that about COVID--why would God allow this to happen?  Why does God not stop this?  People said it after the 9/11 attacks.  People say it after a disaster like a tornado or an earthquake or a flood.  After a young person dies in an accident or gets cancer or some other terrible disease.  After we lose a job.  When things like that happen, we say, “God, why did you let that happen?  Why don’t you do something about it?”  And sometimes we get upset with God when it looks to us like God is not doing anything about it.

            Now, I’m not saying it’s a sin to ask questions like that.  Some of the great heroes of the Bible asked similar questions, and God did not punish them for it.  God did not even get angry with them for it.  But still, that’s not exactly revering God, is it?  That’s not exactly holding God in awe, when we ask questions like that.

            But I suspect God understands when we do it.  That does not make it right, but I think God understands why, when we’re grieving, or when we’re scared, or when we’re stressed, or when we just plain cannot understand what’s going on, why we start trying to tell God what to do.  And I think God will forgive us for that.

            But I think there’s a subtler, more dangerous way that we don’t revere God.  It sneaks up on us.  It can happen without us even noticing it, which is why it’s dangerous.  It happens when we believe in God, and we believe in Jesus as our Savior, but we just kind of put that belief in a little box, a little compartment of our life.  We keep our belief locked away and don’t let it affect the rest of our lives.

            It seems to me that’s the tricky one.  We don’t flat out reject God.  We say we still believe.  We go to church, at least sometimes.  We even pray, at least once in a while.  Maybe we even read the Bible on occasion.  It’s just that we keep that church time, that prayer time, that Bible time, separate from the rest of our lives.  We leave church, we say Amen, we close the Bible, and then we go on about our business as if nothing had happened.  And in fact, for us, nothing really has.

            We talk sometimes about how we need to pray for God to put God’s Spirit into our hearts, into our souls, into our minds, into every aspect of our lives.  I think that’s how we get that feeling of reverence for God.  I’m not saying it’s the only way, but it’s the best way I know.  When we pray for God to put God’s spirit into our hearts and souls and minds and lives, and when we do it sincerely and consistently, we start to get an idea of just how incredible, how great, how awesome in every sense of the word that God is.  And when we start to get an idea of just who God is, we start to feel that reverence for God.  In fact, when we get an idea of who God is, we really will not be able to do anything but feel reverence for God.

            Malachi sets this up as a pretty clear choice.  We can be among the people who revere God and be saved.  Or, we can be among the arrogant and the evildoers and be stubble that gets set on fire.  That’s pretty much it.  

Frankly, it’s not the way I’d like it to be set up.  I’d like there to be more grey areas.  Things would be a lot easier if just a half-way commitment to God was enough.  But God did not ask me how to set this up.  God does things God’s way, not my way.  And the way this is written, a half-way commitment is not enough.  It’s not enough to just sort of follow God part of the time.  We either follow God—not perfectly, because we’re not capable of that, but the best we can, asking for God’s Spirit to be in our hearts and souls and minds and lives—or we don’t.  Period.

            As the saying goes, we are free to choose, but we are not free from the consequences of our choices.  The consequences here are pretty big.  In fact, they’re eternal.

            We each have to make that choice.  And none of us knows how long we’ll have to make it.  None of us is ever promised tomorrow.  We need to make this choice now, today.  And we need to keep making it every day.  We need to choose to ask for God’s Spirit to be in us, so we can truly follow God and feel reverence and awe for God.

The choice we face is real, because God’s judgment is real.  How we feel about that does not matter.  Each of us has to make our choice, and the choice we make will have eternal consequences.  So let’s make the right choice.  Let’s make our commitment today.  Let’s choose to revere God.