The Healing Fire

We can find many examples of the importance of balance. Too much of a good thing is a bad thing. Water is great. We need it to drink, to wash, and to water crops and animals. However, no one wants to be knee deep in flood waters in their home. Fire is great. We can use it to cook and heat our homes, and gathering with friends around a bonfire is a fun tradition that goes back to prehistory. However, when you fail to put out your bonfire properly and it turns into an uncontrollable wildfire, that happy experience becomes a nightmare. Money is an excellent medium of exchange. We can use it to buy and sell, and having a financial buffer allows us to meet our basic needs while being prepared for an emergency. However, wealth disparities cause tremendous problems in society. The poor suffer from want, while the rich are hopelessly alienated. Too much of a good thing can be a bad thing.

Sometimes, it is difficult to tell where the line is at which point a good thing becomes bad. For example, while we often think of forest fires as terrible hazards, sometimes controlled burns are the means by which forestry experts reduce the risk of uncontrollable blazes. If some section of a forest is cleared with fire, the dry brush and debris will be burned away, while the fire resistant trees will remain behind in safety. Unfortunately, if controlled burns don’t happen, the dead material on the forest floor can build up and when fire comes it can burn so hot that the healthy and mature trees also catch on fire, with devastating results. A small forest fire that clears dead material without causing all the trees to suffer may be a great victory to a forester, while simultaneously being a major setback to someone who’s vacation property was damaged in the fire. Similarly, floods can be bad, but throughout history, floods have also been an important way for farmland to be restored, as floodwaters deposit nutrient-rich sediments. The same event can be good or bad depending on the perspective of whoever is evaluating it.

This is perhaps the underlying principle of our Old Testament reading for this Sunday, Malachi 4:1-2a. The prophet speaks of a coming day, when the arrogant and evildoers will be burned like stubble. At the same time, those who revere God’s name will see the coming of this day as the sun of righteousness rising “with healing in its wings.” For some, this day is burning. For others, it is a healing warmth. Of course, we know that the sun can do both. The hottest, driest of summer days can scorch some of the plants, dry the ground, and make working outside miserable. It’s like a furnace. At the same time, the warmth of a spring day after winter can be enlivening. After being stuck inside for so long, going outside with just a light jacket and feeling the warmth on your face can feel like healing for the soul. Malachi seems to take both of these images of the sun and stack them upon one single day. The same sun will burn some and comfortably warm others.

Obviously, Malachi isn’t suggesting that some people will just be comfortable in the heat. Rather, Malachi is speaking of the day when God’s kingdom arrives. On that day, something will change in the world, a new sun will arise, resulting in suffering for some and healing for others. We could propose a few possible answers to what this might be, but two stand out: Gospel and justice.

The good news of God revealed in Christ is that we are saved by God’s grace, not by our own works. In fact, our good works would be insufficient for our salvation. With regard to sin, we are all equally lost but also all equally found by God. Of course, this is great news to sinners, but terrible news to those who consider themselves righteous and rely on that status for their own sense of identity or social standing. If the tax collector and pharisee are equally sinful and dependent upon God’s grace, then what has all the pharisee’s work done for him? The Gospel appears to the righteous as a marker of their own wasted time, their own bad investment. Why did I work so hard to be good and follow all the rules if it didn’t do anything special for me? Liberation is good for the multitudes who suffer on the bottom of the hierarchical pyramid, but it is a tragedy for those on the top to see their efforts wasted. We can see how the Gospel message would feel to those who rely on their own righteousness like a dreadful burning of all their accomplishments. Perhaps this is what Malachi meant when he said “the arrogant.” When they see healing coming freely to those they had looked down upon, those they had expected to face burning judgment and wrath, they feel that burning themselves.

Justice works similarly to the Gospel. While the Gospel functions to overturn the spiritual hierarchy, justice seeks to level all the other pyramids we construct to provide social order. The relatively few rich and powerful on the top hold tremendous sway and dominate the lives of those beneath them. Of course, there are people in the middle who have privilege compared to those beneath them but who don’t dominate the world like the exceptionally powerful do. But whenever people find themselves above others in this social ladder, the idea of falling down is horrifying. To lose their hoarded wealth, their superior access to benefits, their numerous comforts, would feel like destructive burning, even if it meant a more even distribution of resources. God’s day of judgment will level the world, both spiritually and socially. Those on the bottom will be healed and brought up, while those on the top will experience this equalizing as suffering on their part. 

There is a danger of spiritualizing and individualizing this passage. We tend to like to believe that some parts of us will experience both the destructive burning and the healing warmth. Unfortunately, the text doesn’t say anything about parts of us being burned, while other parts are healed. It says that “the arrogant and all evildoers” will burn, not all the arrogant parts of our personality or all the sinful bits of us. While I don’t want to suggest that this means all bad people will experience some terrible and ultimate destruction, I don’t think purely spiritualizing this matches the spirit of the text. When we do that we run the risk of equating the rich and poor as equal spiritual individuals, and there is no meaningful distinction remaining between these groups. God takes a stand on behalf of the poor, the marginalized, the outcast. While all people may be equally sinful and equally redeemed, not all people equally suffer from the material conditions of the world. This is something that the church cannot ignore, lest we too are surprised by how much we experience God’s day of judgment as a day of destructive burning for ourselves. Instead, if we align with the poor, suffering with and among them and doing what we can to help them, we will see God’s righteous healing happening here and now among us.