The vapor rose in the air, speaking to me. 

I’d bought a humidifier. At the cabin, we only have baseboard heat. With an average temperature while I was there in the low 20s, it ran quite a bit, drying out the air. Dry air is hard on my recovering sinuses and lungs, so I bought a humidifier. 

Sitting on the couch, I watched vapor from the humidifier rise in the air, effervescent and then suddenly gone. My thoughts turned to Ecclesiastes, where the author frequently uses the word havel to describe life. In Hebrew, havel can mean vapor, a wisp of wind; something that’s here for a just a moment and gone. Life is that way; our lives are but a bit of vapor, effervescent and then gone. And that’s not bad news; it’s a call to attention to say in our short lives, what we do and how we spend our infinitesimal allotment of time matters. 

My computer’s name, in fact, is Havel; a reminder that what I do with my tiny allotment of time matters: that what will ring in eternity is how I raise my children, the way my life impacts the lives of others; ultimately, how I live out God’s love. 

So as I watched the vapor rise from the humidifier, my thoughts turned there. Then, I returned to my book, a book that I thought was about the history of a storied brand of bourbon, but turned out to be so much more. And I thought, as I read this profound book about whiskey, yes, but also about living a life focused on the things that matter, I thought, “I need to make some changes. I’ve lost focus on what matters.”

God had a refining message for me.

Our scripture is about just that. It comes from the prophet Malachi, and we’ll start with the very last verse of chapter 2.

Scripture

Refining is hard. 

Malachi is a Hebrew word that means “messenger.” It’s an apt title for a prophet. He’s come to deliver a message to the people of Israel; a message delivered late in the Old Testament’s history. After Malachi and Esther, scripture becomes silent for nearly four hundred years. That’s the time period between the end of the Old Testament’s writings and the earliest writing in the New Testament: 1 Thessalonians. 

So this is a message that stays with the people for quite a while. This messenger, Malachi, is bringing a message that another messenger is coming. We know that messenger is first John the Baptist and then Jesus, but for the people at the time, they just know that God will come and send them a message. 

Why is God sending them a message?

Because they’ve been making accusations against God and God is weary. 

They’ve been asking God: “Where is the God of justice?” rhetorically saying that he’s not to be found. And then they’ve been accusing God saying, “All who do evil are good in the sight of the LORD; and he delights in them.” They’re making accusations against God, saying that God is not living up to God’s promises. They feel that there is no justice, that God is rewarding evildoers, and they are very frustrated that God would do so. And in making these accusations, they’re praying with emotional honesty, just like I often recommend to you. They’re doing what we should do: tell God exactly how they feel. 

But, when we do choose to pray that way, being emotionally honest with God, keeping it real, we must be mindful that we may not like the message we receive back; a message like this one:

Refining is hard. 

That’s the message Malachi brings. And, indeed, it was the message eventually brought by John the Baptist and Jesus. The messenger is coming to deliver God’s word that a period of refinement is coming; a period of difficulty, challenge, and hardship. So, Malachi rightly asks, “who can stand his coming?” For who can stand when God comes and refines.

Note the examples Malachi uses: refining soap, which if you’ve ever seen it done is tremendously hard work and hard on the soap itself. Or the purification of metals in forges: full of fire and heat that burns away imperfections. These images convey a hard truth about refining: it’s not a pleasant experience. 

And yet, refining is coming. And so the message remains: refining is hard.

God will render judgment. That’s the word here, against the ways they’ve been living their lives, against those who are doing the wrong thing, against the people for having lost their way. That’s a tough message, but that’s what God has to say in response to their accusations; to their emotionally honest prayer lives. God says, “you think I’m the problem. Really, it’s your failure to be in right relationship with me. I find you wanting and so I will refine you.”

None of us want someone to render judgment over us. Even less so God, whose judgment is always correct. But, sometimes, rendering judgment brings about a necessary and good period of refinement. 

Such was true at the start of my professional career. I came to Mercer, my first full-time job after going to graduate school for student affairs, with a head full of answers, a know-it-all sensibility, and a desire to demonstrate my greatness. I was, to a fault, full of myself. My boss, the one who had hired me with great expectation, was very quickly disappointed. 

When I had the gall to come in and ask for a raise after only being on the job for five months, she lost it. I later learned this was a rare moment for her: she always kept her composure. But not that day. She let me have it. And in letting me have it, what she was really doing was reflecting back to me my egotism, my self-centeredness, my grandiosity, and calling it out. 

She rendered judgment over me. And that was exactly what I needed. 

I was sufficiently humbled. And I have not been the same since; in a good way. It started a refining process for me. It deepened my self-awareness. Having judgment rendered over me wasn’t easy, but it was good. I was refined.

I think many of us have had bosses or parents or mentors in our lives who have humbled us in the past. We have had others who have spoken truth into our lives that was hard to hear, but necessary to hear; a truth that allowed us to grow, to flourish, to become better; a truth that refined.

Refining is hard, indeed, but it is good. 

And that’s the point Malachi wants us to hear today. It’s the point that John the Baptist was making from the wilderness as he “prepared the way for the Lord” and “made straight his paths.” It was a point Jesus made often. We can be full of religiosity but we all stand in need of refining.

We stand in need of having our imperfections worked out. We stand in need of having our rough edges hewn. We all stand in need of growing in our faith through the refining work God is doing in our lives. 

In the United Methodist Church, we call that refining process sanctification. It’s a way of describing the journey of growing in faith, of falling deeper in love with God. It’s a journey of becoming more and more a representative of God’s Kingdom on this earth; the peaceable kingdom that brings hope and justice to the world. Another way to say that is this: God means to make tremendous things of us; not just for our own benefit but for the benefit of the world as we live out the love of God that grows within us.

Sanctification, this refining, comes through what we do beyond worship on Sunday to engage with God. Sunday School classes, small groups, personal times of prayer or scripture reading, serving through the church; all of these and more are ways we are sanctified, refined. In fact, just such an opportunity is coming up this Wednesday. Come and eat, but then come and pray together, learning more deeply how to pray and be in love with God.

God refines us. But we have a choice of whether or not we will participate in that refinement. God will come to us with messages, just like here in Malachi, out of God’s love for us and desire to realize the tremendous things God means to make of us. But, we have a choice of whether or not we will participate. 

We can opt out of participation, but God will keep coming. The refining God brings will sometimes be like a fire: it will burn, it will be hard, like that day in my boss’s office. Judgment will sometimes be rendered. Refining is very hard, indeed. 

But refining is good. For when we submit to be refined, we become ever greater forces for justice and righteousness, for good, in this world. We become the tremendous thing God means to make of us; a powerful witness to the love of God that transforms lives, families, and our world.

Refining is hard, but it is good. 

Watching that vapor rise at the cabin while reading that book, I thought to myself, “I need to make some changes. I’ve lost focus on what matters.” God was speaking a refining message to me. I’d been praying with emotional honesty and here, in this moment, came a messenger in a strange form: the mist of a humidifier and a profound book by a sports writer named Wright Thompson; a book called Pappyland.

Reading this book I initially thought was about bourbon, the author began to quote one of my favorite contemplative theologians, Thomas Merton. Turns out, Pappyland really lived into the second part of its subtitle by talking about “things that last.” 

So reading Thomas Merton and watching the vapor rise, I found myself thinking about my life, thinking about what I’m doing with my time, considering the stressors I felt both before I got so sick and from being so sick. There’s tremendous opportunity in recovering from long illness. There’s time to reflect. Time to ask hard questions and consider the answers. Time to evaluate. 

Merton says, as quoted in this book, “Why, then, do we continue to pursue joys without substance…Because the pursuit itself has become our only substitute for joy. Unable to rest in anything we achieve, we determine to forget our discontent in a ceaseless quest for new satisfaction. In this pursuit, desire itself becomes our chief satisfaction.” (p. 167, as quoted by Thompson in Pappyland).

In that moment of reading, those words resonated deeply. I knew I was unable to rest in anything I achieved. Too often, the pursuit itself was my joy; in other words, I stayed busy without questioning whether I needed to be busy because being busy was where I went looking for much of my joy. The desire to build, create, foster influence and reputation, had become my chief satisfaction. 

For example, I thought about how, when I was appointed here, I had reached the top of the appointment ladder. We clergy have a bad habit of ranking churches and I had reached the top of the ranks, and done so at a young age. I figured I would find contentment, no longer striving for greater things. I was wrong. I could not rest in that achievement or any others. Desire itself, the need to stay busy, the need to keep achieving, had replaced true sources of joy. 

That was the refining message. I was ceaselessly striving because I was trying to strive for joy in this life. When, in fact, the striving itself was what kept me from experiencing joy. That’s a hard message for a go-getter like me to hear. 

Indeed, refining is hard.

Throughout the chapter where he quotes Thomas Merton, the author frequently uses the word strive. The striving for things becomes the chief focus of life, sometimes even to the point that we don’t know why we’re striving anymore. We seek to build things, like careers or reputations or influence, not even sure at some point why we’re still building, still striving, still pursuing. At that point, as Merton says, the act of striving, pursuing, working so hard, has become “our only substitute for joy…our chief satisfaction.” We keep moving and stay busy, always doing more, because it’s all we know to do and the only way we know to find joy. But in reality, the striving crushes and distracts from true joy in this life. The striving is havel, and like Ecclesiastes says, living such a life of striving is unsatisfying, unhappy, a chasing after the wind. 

He goes on to say that, in his experience from interviewing and getting to know many sports celebrities through his writing, he has found that success is just another form of currency. He says you can spend success on trying to get more success; trying to become rich, famous, and powerful; or on having the life you’ve always wanted. 

Sitting there, watching the mist rise, thinking about havel, the short span of my life, and about things that last, I realized that I already have the life I’ve always wanted. In fact, I thought back to high school and realized I have a life today far beyond my imaginings then. There’s no need to strive for more. 

I realized in that moment I needed to stop pursuing, desiring, striving. I needed to start simply being: being myself, being who God made me to be. Rest in God’s image inside of me. Simply be, and let God work through me, was the refining message I got from God. And it’s a message that’s proven to be incredibly freeing: free from much of the stress I put on myself, free from a drive for work that was somewhere past overdrive, free from the need to achieve, free from the need to constantly be proving myself.

I am a better pastor, a better human, because of this process of refining. In fact, I am still drawing lessons, still experiencing that refining, although it has gotten easier. God had a message for me because God means to make something tremendous of me so that God’s love is better known through me.

Refining is hard. But, indeed, it is good.

We all lose our way from time to time. Whether it’s though a book, an experience, or someone we know, God comes and speaks to us to let us know that we’ve lost our way. God still sends messengers like Malachi; such as when my boss at Mercer put me in my place. I’m sure we can all think of people who spoke hard truths in our lives; Malachis for us. We need those messages; we need to get called back to basics and deeper into relationship with God. 

Losing our way is part of the natural course of life. And it’s why we need to consistently be engaged in the process of sanctification: spending time with God, making coming to church and engaging beyond worship a priority, opening our hearts by praying with emotional honesty, and being willing to hear the hard messages that will free us from what binds.

God means to make something tremendous of all of us; something tremendous that will change the world for good through the power of God’s love lived out through us. But we have to know that love to live it out. We have to be refined by that love, hewn at our rough edges, sometimes dipped in the fire, to live out that love. 

That’s why we need to be refined. And in fact, that is the work, the journey, of adulthood, if we will choose it. It’s a journey that allows our faith, made stronger by the Malachis, the messengers, in our lives, to “help us unlock the best of ourselves that hides in places we can’t otherwise find.” (Pappyland, p. 164) 

Refining is hard, but it is good.

C.S. Lewis perhaps put it best. The times of refinement are hard, he notes; they can feel like times of trouble and anguish, and he wonders aloud why we would need, as Christians, to go through these things. But then, he answers his own question this way, “It seems to us all unnecessary [the hardship of being refined]: but that is because we have not yet had the slightest notion of the tremendous things God means to make of us.” 

The tremendous things God means to make of us. God makes something tremendous of us, if only we will submit to being refined. 

Our lives are but vapor: here for a minute and then gone. In that infinitesimal span of time, God sends us messages: to Malachi, to the people of God, to you, to me; messages that call on us to grow in faith, to grow in love, to be refined. Do you have ears to hear? Will you submit to being refined?  

Go then, submit to being refined, and become the tremendous thing God means to make of you. 

In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit; Amen.