The time gap between last week’s study of Haggai and this week is not seven days. It is closer to 100 years. The situation in Israel has changed. Not only have the people rebuilt the Temple but there was a time of spiritual recommitment under Ezra and Nehemiah. But, as almost always happened, when the leadership changed the nation changed. The people have become careless and neglectful. While there was once a sense of anticipation for the imminent day of the Lord there is now only skepticism, indifference and a loss of hope. There is a mild cynicism about the value of serving God and some have even said, “It is futile to serve God. What did we gain?” Others are discouraged by the amount of injustice that is overlooked – defrauding laborers of their wages, the oppression of widows and the fatherless, aliens being deprived of justice and calling the arrogant blessed. The people have not run after other gods. They are not consumed by evil practices. They are simply disinterested in religion, disconnected from God, discouraged by the behavior of the professional clergy and drifting. Life has become routine and petty. They were tired of waiting so they found other things to occupy them.

1.  So Malachi speaks. He speaks to the priests and the people both but he seems to have a special burden for the priests as the spiritual leaders in the nation. It was a heavy responsibility to speak to priests and convict them – not just to accuse them or pick them apart. Malachi is not a bomb thrower but one who is genuinely committed to them. I have always thought that Jesus had high expectations for the Pharisees and that is why he was the hardest on them. He was disappointed in them but always held them accountable.

There is a special kind of coldness and exclusivity that comes with professional ministry. Your loyalties are to fellow priests and the institution and not as much to the people. Someone once said that the word “ology” means the study of something – biology, archeology, geology – and theology is the study of God. It tends to make God subject matter to be studied and not someone to be obeyed and honored. Becoming an authority on God distorts people in different ways. Alcoholics Anonymous says pastors and teachers are the hardest to reach because they cannot easily admit their weakness. They are authorities.

2.  This is, in some ways, a private letter to the priests. When I was in the Navy I was responsible to type up fitness reports for officers that were written by the commanding officer. It is amazing how subtle those comments can be that make or break the career of an officer. This is not subtle. It is honest and cuts to the heart of the issues. But, it begins with “I have loved you.” God’s discipline always begins with that and it is that alone that allows us to bear what follows when we know we have disappointed Him.

But, what is their response? “How have you loved us?” That tells you how deep the problem is. They no longer believe they are loved by God. They are still priests but they have lost their way. I am not saying that clergy who question God’s love are not fit for ministry. I suspect in almost every pastor’s heart there have been questions about God’s love for them more than once. Ministry is a burden. It is sometimes dark and depressing. The work has at times become dry and meaningless. In the front cover of my Bible I have this quote. “He who has learned in order to teach others, while his own soul loathes instruction and wisdom, will find that his lessons will be but mists of empty wind, and showers of dust upon the ground.” I have heard pastors say that they have become professional pretenders. They have to keep up appearances for the church but they stopped believing God loved them years ago. In fact, we’ve read how deep the darkness can be in Mother Teresa’s journals. Soon after she started her work in Calcutta she wrote in her journal: “Darkness is such that I really do not see—neither with my mind nor with my reason—the place of God in my soul is blank—There is no God in me—when the pain of longing is so great—I just long & long for God. … The torture and pain I can’t explain.” This lasted practically her whole ministry. But, she never lost her sense that God loved the people she served. Unlike Mother Teresa, the priests in Malachi have lost all sense of the love of God in their lives. If the priests no longer believed in the love of God then what would be the effect on the people?

What is even worse is what we read in 1:13: “And you say, ‘What a burden!’ And you sniff at it contemptuously.” They are not only doubtful of the love of God but embarrassed by their work and the people they are with. When they go to pastor conferences they talk about what is lacking in the people they serve. They complain about the quality of the facilities or the lack of appreciation for their talents. They want to move up to better people, a better position, better food and more influence. They are cynical and jaded but trapped so they figure out ways to work the system to their advantage. A calling has become a career.

3.  And then God says, “It is you, O priests, who despise my name.” And they respond, “How have we defiled you?” I think one of the greatest marks of weak leaders is having low expectations for people. It is a way of despising them and excusing themselves. These priests have long ago given up on demanding the best from their people. They have become accustomed to low expectations, shortcuts, cheating and hypocrisy for themselves and the people. They are never surprised by their shallowness and superficiality because they never expect anything else. It’s a vicious circle – they disappoint you and you disappoint them in return.

But God has no hesitation in asking for our best. Why? Is God greedy? Is God selfish? Why should he want only our best and deprive us the use of it. Why take what is most valuable and just burn it up on the altar?

Have you ever been in a situation where only your best was accepted? It was probably your most demanding teacher, a coach, a project team or the leader of an organization. If you are fortunate, it happened early in your life and gave you a taste of what it means to give it everything you have – and then some.

What was the effect on you and the others? How do you remember it? It was hard but exhilarating. There were times in the middle when you thought you would fail but then you overcame the obstacles. But, had you not been challenged by someone or some situation you would have lost an opportunity that is rare. It was not enough to be good enough. It was only your best that would do.

Every time I read Winston Churchill’s speech of June 4, 1940 I get chills:

“We shall not flag nor fail. We shall go on to the end. We shall fight in France and on the seas and oceans; we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air. We shall defend our island whatever the cost may be; we shall fight on beaches, landing grounds, in fields, in streets and on the hills. We shall never surrender and even if, which I do not for the moment believe, this island or a large part of it were subjugated and starving, then our empire beyond the seas, armed and guarded by the British Fleet, will carry on the struggle until in God’s good time the New World with all its power and might, sets forth to the liberation and rescue of the Old.”

On the other hand, what is it like to work in an environment of low expectations? How do we remember the times we did the minimum to get by and no one complained or wanted anything different? It was awful. It killed the spirit. It attacked our ambition and enthusiasm.

Alexander Pope puts it this way, “Blessed is he who expects nothing, for he shall never be disappointed.”

Bad leadership always robs people of the joy of sacrifice and accomplishment. Demanding the best of people IS a weight. It IS a burden. It IS a heavy responsibility and it would be far easier to give in and be contemptuous of them and give up on them. The pressure to be average and good enough is enormous in every field and the resistance to excellence is normal – until people experience the rewards of giving the best they have.

There are times when the church robs them of that by low expectations. We ask them to attend but we have to make the experience compelling for them to come back week after week. We give services for free and ask hardly anything in return. The more programs we offer the less commitment we experience. We have stopped asking people for sacrifice and the church is in a constant search for more ways to attract people who are always wanting more for less.

But, this is not all the fault of the priests, is it? We are often the ones who are demanding more but only on our terms. We want on demand, user friendly, spiritual apps that allow us more freedom for other things. We want more but with less responsibility. Too often we want membership privileges without paying the dues. I think it would not be too much for us to think about what God says through Malachi. “Oh, that one of you would shut the temple doors, so that you would not light useless fires on my altar.” What might we do if all the free services, inspiring music, teaching and conveniences went away for a year? What would we do? Would we find ourselves fading spiritually or might we actually grow? The power of the church is not arrays of options for customers. The power of the church has always been sacrifice. That is why the extraordinary growth of the church is in the global south and other places that are hard. In spite of persecution, repression, opposition, no money, no facilities, very little professional training, high demands and few rewards the church is growing. But this is not new. People and organizations with high demands always grow and the temptations for those who are successful is to relax, find more ways to serve themselves and decline. Malachi 2:2 says, “If you do not listen, and if you do not set your heart to honor my name, says the Lord Almighty, I will send a curse upon you, and I will curse your blessings,”. That is a serious warning. What has been a blessing will become a curse. What has been given will be taken away.

The people of Israel had grown disinterested in religion unless it served them. They wanted God to do something more to prove He loved them. They had become impatient and tired of waiting for God to do more special things for them. They had settled for mediocrity and low expectations as a result. They had fallen asleep spiritually and lost their zeal for God. Life was not turning out the way they thought it would and God had become distant. Life was easy and empty. They had settled down and let their souls become dry.

I’ve been thinking this week about the challenge of the long wait. How do we stay faithful when things are not exciting? How much more do we need to believe God loves us? How do we persevere when it is not persecution that threatens us but the need to stay entertained or constantly blessed in new ways? It is not so much suffering that kills our spirit as it is the mundane. I made a note of the times Jesus uses the image of waiting in his parables. In Luke 19 the people thought the kingdom was coming soon and Jesus tells them the story of the man who went away to a distant country but did not say when he would be back. Some did well and some did not. Or in Luke 20 he tells the story of the man who planted a vineyard and went away for a long time. While he was gone the tenants revolted. In Matthew 25 Jesus uses the parable of the ten virgins when the bridegroom was a long time in coming and they all fell asleep. Or, finally, the disciples in Gethsemane who fall asleep three times while waiting for Jesus to pray. Our life is measured by how well we wait. What do we do while we wait? How do we live with expectancy and not fall into unfaithfulness or sleep? How do we manage to fulfill that “long obedience in the same direction” while we wait? How do we, as Paul said, live in hope of the not yet seen but keep our eyes focused on what will be even though it is not yet? I think that is the mark of maturity that is so difficult to master – to wait and not lose heart or fall asleep.

And that may be our burden: learning to wait. But we don’t do that on our own. Look at 3:16: “Then those who feared the Lord talked with each other, and the Lord listened and heard.”

What did they talk about? They talked about how to encourage each other in a time when it seemed futile to serve God and arrogance was blessed more than humility. They talked about a day that is coming when patient righteousness and those who have served while waiting will be rewarded. Let’s do the same for each other. Let’s not be discouraged or think it is futile to serve God. Let’s not drift or disconnect. Let’s not doubt God’s love or his return so we together may be found faithful.