Who pays for a Big Build, and what does it really cost? Or, what you worship changes everything. (Listen to a very bad recording here, or watch here.)
I am delighted to be here at the invitation of your pastor. Trí tells me that you are a group of enthusiastic people who are strong in faith. He also tells me that you love to be with one another, and that you love to meet for worship and for Bible study. This is all wonderful for me to hear, because I am passionate about faith and the Bible and God’s promise of life to those who engage with it all wholeheartedly.
Now, Trí has asked me to introduce you to the last book in the Old Testament, the prophecy of Malachi, so that is what I’m going to do. I hope it’s helpful for you as you think about how to live faithfully in this world, and I hope it gives you lots to talk about at your Thursday night sermon study. So let’s begin.
First up, to understand Malachi, it’s good to have a bit of background. Every biblical book is addressing the urgent questions of its time, for example questions about government, power, economics, land, personal relationships, and so much more; and Malachi is no exception.
So sitting behind the prophecy is one of the big themes in the biblical story. It’s not mentioned explicitly, maybe because it was so obvious to the first audience it didn’t need to be named, or maybe because to name such things explicitly can be dangerous. But it’s right there for those with eyes to see: and this is the theme of empire. The Bible is full of stories about Israel being invaded by empire, being sent into exile by empire, being enslaved by empire, and having its culture, values and economics shaped by empire; and of preachers and prophets urging the people to resist.
How it plays out on the ground, we can imagine. An army invades. Many people are killed or disappeared, and buildings and villages are destroyed. Crops are burned, and the land and waterways are deliberately harmed to make everything less fertile. Then the poorest people are left to farm the damaged land and hand profits over to the invaders.
More powerful people, like political and religious leaders, and thinkers, makers, writers and artists, are treated differently. Some of them are executed. Some of them flee and become refugees. Some are taken into exile, which means they are forced to live in the invader’s home country and serve the empire’s purpose. And some are sent back to their homeland by the empire to strengthen the empire’s hold over a region; they become the emperor’s puppets and tell the empire’s story. And slowly everyone begins to believe that might is right, that God is on the side of the powerful, and that the person who dies with the most toys wins.
All of this lies behind the prophetic words we find in Malachi. So what is the situation with empire for him?
Malachi is set in a time after the events described by the book of Ezra. Israel had been invaded by the Persians, and the political and religious leaders had been taken into exile. But then the Persian king, Cyrus, makes a proclamation. He announces that the Jewish god has made him king over every kingdom of the earth, and this god has told him to build a temple in Jerusalem.
So he orders anyone who is associated with this God to go to Jerusalem and start building, or to support the build financially. He returns the temple treasures stolen by Nebuchadnezzar. And, as described in Ezra chapter 6, he promises financial support from the royal treasury, which means, of course, support from people’s tributes and taxes.
Tributes were the crops and livestock and silver and gold given to the emperor’s governors. It’s what people who don’t use money give as a sign of admiration and respect for the emperor, via his armed regional representatives. In other words, tributes are not exactly voluntary. As for taxes, we all know what they are.
So Cyrus orders a Big Build, and what happens next makes me think of what’s happening in Victoria right now. We’ve got the new housing development in Springvale South, Coomoora, and the Monash Freeway upgrades, and the Suburban Rail Loop, and all the rest. And what we see is that the Big Build takes years, and it’s interrupted by squabbling and corruption, change of government, change of mind, cost blowouts, orders to stop building, and new orders to start again: and this is exactly what happens with the temple in Jerusalem. But eventually, the Big Build is finished, the temple is complete, and all the worship and festivals and offerings and sacrifices which are set down in Leviticus can finally take place.
And you would think, wouldn’t you, that everything would be awesome. The exiles are home, the temple is shiny and new, the priests are properly trained, the right offerings and sacrifices are finally being made, and this is all happening with the blessing of the most powerful man on the planet: the king of Persia. Surely God will be incredibly happy, and everything will be fantastic.
But Malachi? Malachi says no. Malachi is the record-scratch, yanking things to a halt just when we were getting comfortable. And he does this by setting up a series of conversations between God and the people. In Malachi’s vision, God says, ‘This!’ and the people are like, ‘Say what?!’ and then God sets out all the evidence against them.
So what has gone so terribly wrong?
Well, I suggest that what went wrong is similar to what has gone wrong for much of the church in the West. That is, the temple was aligned with the power of empire. It took government grants, tax breaks and other concessions, and became very comfortable. It upheld and even participated in colonisation. It lost its prophetic edge and began to look the same as the wider culture. And as the faith was thinned out and diluted, people and even priests began showing contempt for God.
This contempt breaks Malachi’s heart. His name just means ‘my-messenger,’ and his message is all about God’s grief and anger at being treated so badly. Because, according to Malachi, the preachers had weakened the message. Instead of speaking words of truth and power which challenged empire and gave people an alternative vision for the world, they said, ‘It’s all good.’ Even when they did speak truth, they didn’t practice what they preached. They gave one message to the powerful and another to the vulnerable: and the people saw, and were disgusted, and walked away.
When the people walked away, an enormous gap opened up in their lives, a gap which used to be filled by God. And because we all worship something, whether it’s God or sex or money or power or status or addiction or whatever, the people began filling that gap by worshipping other things. Those other things taught the people to live according to their own desires, not God’s. Where once their lives had been shaped by committed, loving, self-giving relationships, now it was every man for himself. Worse, as Malachi describes in chapter 3, this led the people to cheat on each other, to lie, to exploit workers, and to refuse to care for the poor. God had offered them life, but they were choosing death.
I reckon none of this sounds very strange to us in Australia today. That is, too many people have a gap where God should be, and so they value cheap labour and employer profits more than workers’ safety and wellbeing. Anyone employed on an insecure short term contract, or working as an underpaid outworker or food delivery driver, would be familiar with this attitude, just as anyone on Centrelink knows what it means to be treated with constant suspicion and contempt.
Because this gap where God should be has led to a society which shows a deep, structural unkindness to people who are struggling. It has led to policies which have created a housing crisis, and to the rich getting richer while the poor cannot even pay the bills. It has led to the injury and even death of so many workers, racing to meet impossible targets. It has led to an epidemic of loneliness and depression, of indifference and apathy, of hopelessness, of despair: and all this and more comes down to a failure in worship.
If the people were all worshipping the God of life, love and justice, their lives would overflow with goodness and grace, gentleness and peace, and so would the whole society. But by worshipping the wrong things, the people are making themselves into the image of the emperor. They are choosing domination, extortion, injustice, even death; they are shrivelling up inside.
We see it, and Malachi sees it, and so God’s grief and anger at half-hearted worship runs through Malachi’s prophecy. ‘I have loved you,’ says God through the prophet. ‘I made you for life and well-being and wholeness and peace.’ ‘Where is the honour due me?’ asks God. ‘Where is the respect?’ And the prophet lists the ways that the people’s attitude to worship shows indifference and contempt.
They say worship’s not important: so they go to the footy, let’s say, or stay home and have some me-time. They say serving God is a big waste of time, and serve themselves, instead. They make a big show of giving something big, then at the last minute swap it out for something worthless. They make offerings which cost them nothing: giving only that which they do not value and cannot wait to get rid of. They cheat on their tithes and offerings, then wonder why their lives feel so stingy and mean. They say worship is boring, ‘with a sniff!’ it says in the Bible, and they invest so little of themselves in it, they put so little effort in, that of course it’s utterly tedious.
This is what happens when people become indifferent. They’re basically going, ‘It’s all good, whatever, meh.’ They’ve lost their passion, their fire, and their love for God: because what they really trust and worship is empire.
The most powerful man on the planet, the king of Persia, seems to have their back. He’s sent the exiles home, he’s funded the building of the temple, he’s paying for sacrifices and offerings: so what do they need from God?
And if the most powerful man on the planet is keeping an eye on them, will they push for God’s vision for the world? Will they tell the story of Moses and the exodus, when empire’s hold on them was broken? Will they tell the story of Babel, when the single language of an arrogant empire was shattered? Will they remember the prophet Elijah, who spent his life raining down judgement on a royal house, and who was constantly pursued and persecuted by the king?
Empires are built on horrible things. Invasion, colonisation, violence, genocide, theft, extraction, extortion, injustice. Can priests paid from an empire’s treasury and performing the king’s sacrifices speak a prophetic word? Can they insist that the poor must be cared for, that justice is essential to worship, and that rulers who steal people’s land and force people into poverty will one day be judged by God? Can they even imagine the bigness and goodness of God’s vision for the world? Or have their imaginations been shrivelled up into the smallness and scarcity of empire?
I wonder. And I wonder if this weakening of faith was Persia’s aim all along. Persia styled itself as the friendly empire. As part of keeping the locals subdued, it financed different local religions—at least, until each particular territory was well and truly conquered. And so as we mentioned above, the Persian king claimed to be God’s servant, ordered the rebuild of the temple, and paid for much of it through the money he made from tributes and taxes. Then as long as the locals continued to pour quality offerings back to the emperor, they were mostly left alone.
Why challenge people’s faith directly? Then they’d just rebel. How much better to fund their worship and keep things calm, while quietly ensuring the priests are uncritical, and the people are taking on the empire’s values and turning away from God.
And this is exactly how it plays out. As Malachi observes, the people are giving rubbish to the temple and top quality to the governor: and it shows where their worship and loyalties really lie. So Malachi rudely interrupts: ‘Try presenting that to your governor; will he be pleased with you or show you favour?’ demands God through him. Why do you offer such rubbish to me? What do you really honour with your lives?
This question is not limited to Malachi’s time. In Matthew chapter 17, there is a curious little story about Jesus, Peter, and a fish. The tax men have come, and are demanding to know whether Jesus pays taxes. Peter says, ‘Of course!’—because who wants to get in trouble with those thugs. But later, Jesus asks Peter about it. He reminds Peter that, as children of God, they are free: pay taxes, don’t pay taxes, it’s up to them. ‘But,’ says Jesus, ‘so that we don’t upset them needlessly, go down to the lake, cast a hook, and catch a fish. Open its mouth and you’ll find a coin. Take it and give it to the tax men. It will be enough for both of us.’
Of course, fishing is Peter’s day job, and how he pays the rent. So I suggest that the point of this story is not really about miraculous provision, but about how Jesus approaches the empire’s demands. It’s as if he’s saying, ‘Taxes? We’ve got better things to focus on. But let’s not get side tracked by an unnecessary fight. So catch a fish, find a coin, pay the tax—and then let’s move on.’ In other words, do what’s necessary to survive, while keeping your best stuff for God.
It’s like the story in Matthew 22, only this time it’s not the tax men asking, but religious leaders. Jesus tells them to show him a coin. ‘Whose face is on the coin?’ he asks. They say, ‘Caesar’ –in other words, the emperor. ‘Then give Caesar what is his,’ says Jesus, ‘and give God what is God’s’ – which is, of course, your whole life. Again, it’s do some work, catch a fish, get a coin. Pay your taxes, then get on with the real stuff. I think Malachi would have approved, because what he’s seeing is the reverse. What he’s seeing is that the best stuff is going to the emperor.
So Malachi provides a jolt to people who have placed their deepest trust in empire. He reminds them that God loves them passionately, and longs to use them for something bigger. He’s trying to shock them past their current moment of colonisation, their comfortableness, their, ‘Yeah, whatever’ towards God. And he focuses on worship because he’s trying to disrupt their imaginations away from the emperor’s messaging and back to the god of Jacob, Moses and Elijah, who are all mentioned in the prophecy.
He’s pointing them to the god who wants to use them not for curses, but for blessings. The one who led them out of empire’s slavery. The one who judges a royal house and rejects its authority because of its rapacious greed and violence.
So give the governor a sheep, sure, and a few sacksful of grain: but make sure you keep your best stuff for God. Because your best stuff: your time, your energy, your passion, your imagination, and even your money and other resources? It was all God’s anyway, and it all ultimately belongs to God. And God has a plan that is bigger than empire, and God promises that those who honour God’s name will know full and flourishing life.
So that’s Malachi in a nutshell—but where does that leave us? Well, Malachi is a prophecy for those of us who are culturally comfortable. The messenger interrupts life as usual, and pushes us to question our priorities.
Of course, we don’t live in the same world as Malachi or even Jesus. We don’t live under a single emperor who pays the priests and shapes the culture and has his greedy eye on our best sheep and grain. The emperor’s powers have spread and become largely invisible (though they’re pretty obvious on social media); and we experience them less as external requirements and more as internal pressures.
What do I mean by this? Well, all around you are pressures to pour your time, energy and best stuff into your work, your house, your appearance, and your tech: your phones, your binge watching, your social. All around you are pressures to curate your identity to appear funnier, cuter, smarter, and more authentic, so you can get more ‘friends’, more ‘followers’, more ‘likes’. All around you are messages to get the best boyfriend, the cutest girlfriend—and to swap them out for a newer model when things get a bit meh.
And you can spend a lifetime working harder and curating your appearance and worshipping at the temple of Chadstone Shopping Centre. And you can spend a lifetime trying to get higher status, more followers, more likes. And you can spend a lifetime moving between relationships yet never feeling truly satisfied: and all this striving will leave you dead inside.
But Malachi points you to a different life, a wholehearted life, where you do what you need to satisfy the powers—catch a fish, find a coin, pay the tax—but you keep your best stuff for God. And why?
Because again and again in the history of the world there have been small groups of people like you who have met and prayed and kept the faith. Again and again, such a group has turned its time and attention and intelligence and creativity and resource to the worship of God and the care of the vulnerable (which are inextricably intertwined). And as Malachi observes in chapter 3, again and again God sees and treasures these faithful ones, and their names are written in a book listing the people who are truly, deeply alive.
My friends, life’s too important to throw it away on things that don’t matter to God, and it’s way too short to pour all your time and attention into proving yourself on social. So do what you need to do to get by in this world, but then move on to the important stuff.
That is, keep meeting, keep worshipping, keep praying and wondering about faith together, and keep on offering your lives: because when you join together and bring your best stuff to God, you will find yourselves doing something beautiful for God, something good, something just, something generous, something true, something beyond your wildest imaginations: right here in Springvale South, God’s precious and beloved neighbourhood.
Let us pray.
Loving God,
we say that we praise and worship you.
Help us turn our words into reality.
Help us direct our time and energy and all our best stuff
to your honour and your service.
We pray that, through this powerful witness,
others may also come to know, love and worship you.
In the name of the one who gave his life
for the fullness and flourishing of the world:
Jesus Christ, our Lord: Amen. Ω
An introduction to Malachi given to the Vietnamese Evangelical Church of Australia Springvale (English Language Service) on 5 May 2024 © Alison Sampson 2024. Photo by Bill on Unsplash. This reflection was prepared on the lands of the Wurundjeri Woi Wurrung people of the Kulin Nation.
Alison and the whale 