Stephen
Terry, Director
God s
Covenants with Us
Commentary
for the January 14, 2023, Sabbath School Lesson
Ever since the time of your ancestors you have turned away
from my decrees and have not kept them. Return to me, and I will return to
you, says the Lord Almighty.
But you ask, How are we to
return?
Will a mere mortal rob God?
Yet you rob me.
But you ask, How are we
robbing you?
In tithes and offerings. You
are under a curse your whole nation because you are robbing me. Bring the whole
tithe into the storehouse, that there may be food in my house. Test me in
this, says the Lord Almighty, and see if I will not throw open the floodgates
of heaven and pour out so much blessing that there will not be room enough to
store it. I will prevent pests from devouring your crops, and the vines in your
fields will not drop their fruit before it is ripe, says the Lord Almighty.
Malachi
3:7-11, NIV
I spent several decades of my
life working in office buildings with employee lunchrooms. Ubiquitous in those
lunchrooms were vending machines. Upon the deposit of coins or bills they would
dispense salted snacks, candy, soups, ice cream, sandwiches, and other items
for those who failed to bring lunch from home or simply wanted some between
meal treats. It was a straightforward exchange. You give you get. Our passage from
Malachi sounds very similar. Is God a vending machine? Do you put money in to
get something out? Malachi promises it will be more than worth it. It sounds
tempting. But is Malachi s hyperbole true? If it is, then why is theodicy even
an issue? Why do people who follow Malachi s guidance still suffer terribly and
die without seeing the abundance promised?
There is an interesting contrast
between the overflowing abundance Malachi promises and the words of Jesus that
tell us not to desire the abundance of others but instead to trust the Father
to care for our needs.[i]
There is a foundation in Malachi for what we call Prosperity Theology today. As
with so many specious theologies, this tends to rely on proof texting from the early
seventeenth century King James Version of the Bible with verses like Beloved,
I wish above all things that thou mayest prosper and be in health, even as thy
soul prospereth. (3 John 2) To give beauty for ashes. (Isaiah 61:3) Or even
from the New International Version of the Bible, For I know the plans I have
for you, declares the Lord, plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans
to give you hope and a future. (Jeremiah 29:11) It all sounds remarkably
hopeful and sometimes having a hope to cling to in difficult times can see us
through. But what if we cling to those promises and see no fruition? Even if we
decide to tough it out to the very end based on faith that everything will be
alright in the end, what will be the witness to others who do not see that
expected end, but only see suffering that finally ends in death with no present
prosperity or health? Why do good people, trusting in God, die and suffer
miserably? Is it really because they didn t pay enough into the coffers of the
church? If they paid more, would they not have suffered at all?
Job seems to have been an attempt
to answer that question. But it is a very old question that predates even the
patriarchal period of the Bible. It can be found in works of other faith traditions
such as the Babylonian Ludlul-Bel-Nimeqi or the Sumerian Man and His God. [ii] In
the book of Job, we find that despite his offerings and sacrifices, Job loses
his wealth, his family, and his health. In view of this evidence, there is
little left for the author to do except to restore all to Job many fold lest
there be left no reason to continue trusting God. God petulantly asserts that
Job has no right to question him over all that has happened to him and Job repents
of his temerity whereupon God restores all to him over the coming years.
Habakkuk raised similar issues when questioning the justice of God that allowed
the wicked to prosper but the righteous to suffer. He was also forced to bow
before a God he could not challenge although we are not told how he fared in
the end. Jonah became disgusted with God for sparing the wicked city of Nineveh
after he had faithfully predicted its destruction. It is difficult to harmonize
God being a God of love and justice yet seeming at times more favorable toward
the wicked than to his own people. But Malachi tells us that if we only pay
some money, we will be swimming in wealth.
So, what does this mean to the
average believer? I m not talking about those well-off Americans with six
figure annual incomes. I am talking about those who are working minimum wage
jobs, or on fixed retirement stipends or disability payments. I am talking about
single parent households where, due to illness or absence, one parent is left
to carry the financial burden alone. There they sit, in the pew on Sabbath,
wondering how they will stretch their meager paycheck received the day before,
knowing it is not near enough. Someone up front is quoting Malachi and telling
them if they will only give it to the church, they will be blessed beyond
measure. They know that if they do, their family will go hungry this week.
Their children will be ridiculed at school for yet another week for their poor
clothing and little to nothing lunches. They may have to cut someone s med
dosage to get through, but trusting the verse from Malachi, they make a
generous offering. The week unfolds as they expected as a result. No blessing
showers from the heavens. In fact, no one from the church even bothers to see
how they are getting by despite the poverty of their appearance. While others
are feasting on a nice Sabbath meal, the poor family feasts on gall.
So why does this happen? It
happens because those who have experienced blessings others have not believe that
they have a divine right to those blessings. We hear it when people say, The government
has no right to take my hard earned money and give it to the poor and
undeserving. By undeserving, they mean those who are not making contributions.
It is the same attitude expressed toward those who are poor in the church. At
no time is it more apparent than during the holiday season recently past. We annually
bring out A Christmas Carol, by Charles Dickens as an illustration of the true
meaning of Christmas and then promptly ignore the Tiny Tim s that may be
sitting in pew across the aisle from us at church. We may be willing to invite the
entire community to see a re-enactment of the birth of One who came to save us
all, but be unwilling to cross the street to save someone ourselves. Instead,
we thank God for our blessings believing we deserve them because we made the
right choices, served the right God, joined the right denomination, and gave
the right amount of money to earn those blessings.
As a pastor, I have been in many
homes and seen grinding poverty and luxurious wealth. These have been people
who attend the same parish. One comes in a car that barely gets them there,
rides the bus, or walks. They usually attend the closest church for financial reasons.
The other may come in their Sabbath best, driving a fairly new vehicle and
bypassing other parishes closer to their home because they prefer the treatment
they receive at the more distant church. They are more willing to make their offerings
there where the pastor is appreciative of their offerings and other church
leaders endorse their wealth as evidence of their worthiness to have a say in
how the church is run, even offering them a prominent lay position in the
church. He may even have the chance to stand up front and urge the locals to
give more faithfully so they can be like he is, blessed by God.
This was not how the disciples
of Jesus understood his message. We can see this in how they implemented praxis
in the early church of the first century. Luke spells it out in the book of
Acts. All the believers were together and had everything in common. They sold
property and possessions to give to anyone who had need. Every day they
continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their
homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts, praising God and enjoying
the favor of all the people. And the Lord added to their number daily those who
were being saved. (Acts 2:44-47) All the believers were one in heart and
mind. No one claimed that any of their possessions was their own, but they
shared everything they had. With great power the apostles continued to testify
to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus. And God s grace was so powerfully at
work in them all that there were no needy persons among them. For from time to
time those who owned land or houses sold them, brought the money from the sales,
and put it at the apostles feet, and it was distributed to anyone who had
need. (Acts 4:32-35)
Sometimes when someone wanted to
purchase a snack from the vending machines in our lunchroom the snack would not
come, tangled up and held by the machine so it could not come out. When that
happened, the purchaser would kick and hit the machine to get it to release the
treasure. Sometimes that worked. Sometimes it didn t. If we have more blessings
than others, we might be God s means of being the realization of the blessings Malachi
spoke about. Are we gumming up the works and preventing the realization of the
very blessings we are promising others will receive. What will it take to shake
those blessings loose?