Day 34, March 31, 2007
Malachi 2:1-9
Malachi is called a ‘post-exilic’ prophet because his word came to Israel later, after their return from exile, and setting up in the promise land. One would think that after a thorough thrashing, after sever discipline, a humbled and rebuked people wouldn’t be quick to revert back to the patterns of complacency that led to their previous problems.
But that’s just the point of this passage. There’s a phrase from a hymn that addresses this tendency of ours: “prone to wander Lord I feel it, prone to leave the God I love.” The wandering is in every heart, but the hearts that are held most severely accountable in this passage are ‘the priests.’ Since 1st Peter tells us that we’re all priests, we can’t be dismissive of these warnings, as if they only apply to pastors. The words apply to all of us.
And yet, there’s this phrase that continues to ring true for pastors today, as it did for priests in the previous generations: ‘the lips of a priest should preserve knowledge, and people should seek instruction from his mouth.’ And then Malachi continues with his assessment that the priests of Israel have turned away from the Lord, and as a result, are stumbling.
Can I let you in on a little secret? It’s tricky being a pastor these days. There are dozens of different ways of looking at the Bible, and the world in which we live is continually inviting we (who are in spiritual authority) to give our stamp of approval to everything – from taking public transit to driving hummers, from protesting the war to recruiting soldiers, from opposing abortion to opposing reductions in early childhood education funding. We’re tempted, if only subtly, to be shaped more by cultural forces (whether our culture be evangelical, emergent, Republican, Seattle-left, or the theology of our fathers) than by fidelity to hearing God speak.
And that, God says, is the problem. Pray for those who are charged with studying and declaring the truth, because I assure you, it’s no small task. Ask that our hearts would be malleable before God, and that God would have the liberty and freedom to teach us, correct us, and shape us. Of course, it’s not just a prayer for the pastors, but it begins there, because, as we’ve seen through the books of Ezra and Nehemiah, leadership matters.
posted by Richard Dahlstrom @ 9:12 AM
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