Today's Scripture Reading (November 24, 2023): Malachi 2
As a kid, I remember occasionally
driving by the city stockyards of my hometown. Stockyards were traditionally
built by railroad tracks and were places for livestock purchase, selling,
slaughtering, and transportation. Because of its purpose, it is a place that
casts its very own unique aroma over the surrounding area. And to be blunt,
even if I wasn't watching where my Dad might be driving, that aroma alerted me
to where we were.
I assume they were on the edge of
town when the stockyards were built. Still, by the time I became aware of them,
they were part of the downtown industrial complex, sharing the area with a
Brewery and a few other warehouses and factories. The city had grown around the
stockyards. At some point, there must have been a public outcry against having
the smelly stockyards so close to the center of the city, and so the stockyards
closed, with those in control of the stockyards choosing to move them about a
half hour outside the city limits.
God is speaking to the priests of
the Temple, and he is not happy with their behavior. As a result, he makes this
statement: I am going to smear on your faces the dung from the animals you have
sacrificed at your festivals, and you will be carried off with the carcasses of
the animals that you have sacrificed. The intention is that the law specifies
that the unburned parts of the sacrificed animal must be carried outside the
camp and burned, partially because there is still dung hidden within the
animal. God says that because of their sin, he will take that dung and smear it
on their faces, where it is not hidden, and then command them to be carried
outside of the city. The priests were putting on grand festivals and parties
for the people, but like the stockyard of my youth, they couldn't hide the
aroma. And God informs the religious elite that he will make the aroma visible.
It is a message that I think the
contemporary church needs to hear and take seriously. In the last few years, I
have become uncomfortable with some of the common language we use to describe
ourselves. Terms like "born-again," "evangelical," and even
"Christian" have become political terms rather than spiritual ones. All
of which increases my discomfort. I was in a discussion recently with some
pastor friends about the "evil evangelicals." My problem is that I would
self-describe myself as an "evangelical," but I didn't see a
description of my beliefs in my friends' essentially political portrayal of "Evangelical
Christianity." I am an evangelical who believes in the power of the Bible
and the sacrifice that Jesus made on my behalf. And, by the way, Jesus is the
first and the last thing I believe we need to know. He is the Messiah who came
to do what we could not: make atonement for us. The problem is that the aroma
of our politics threatens to overwhelm the presence of Jesus in his church. That
is a problem. And I am afraid that the day is coming when God will smear the
dung of our festival sacrifices on our faces and throw us out with the garbage
because we forgot to major in Jesus and minor in everything else.
Tomorrow's Scripture Reading: Malachi
3 & 4
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