“House cleaning”

By Rev. Michael Stonhouse

Meditation – Sunday, December 5, 2021

Malachi 3:1-4 (Forward, p. 37) CEV p. 976

Spring cleaning was often a well-grained habit among many Prairie housekeepers, and for good reason. Given the problems of inefficient wood or coal burning stoves and furnaces and the resulting dust, and the lack of proper and effective insulation of walls, it was simply not reasonable to try to air out the place during the winter months. But, with the advent of warmer weather come spring, it was an excellent time to do so.

In some ways, the pre-Christmas season was also an opportunity for this, albeit without the open windows and fresh air. It was a time to brush up things a bit, clearing out the litter and junk, and rejuvenate things a bit with Christmas themed decorations.

Today’s passage from Malachi also envisions a ‘kind’ of ‘spring cleaning’, a kind of house cleaning, but of a more spiritual sort. He is talking about the cleansing of our hearts and lives and uses two very graphic illustrations to describe this. A post that I found on the internet describes this process in some detail:

a) Firstly, the refiner’s fire

Silver was extracted from ores containing lead (such as lead sulfide, or galena). The ore was heated in a fire and the lead sifted out of the ashes. The lead was placed in a dish known as a cupel, which was made of bone ash or clay containing calcium carbonate and heated in a furnace to 1,600–1,800˚F (900–1,000˚C). When the metal reached the right temperature, the refiner introduced oxygen by blowing air over it through a bellows.

Litharge, or silver dross, would form on the surface of the molten metal, and the refiner would blow or scrape it off, leaving pure silver. Litharge was also absorbed into the cupel as the lead reacted with the calcium carbonate. A refiner would usually apply this process twice, reintroducing lead to the silver so that newly formed litharge could remove any remaining impurities.

The process was delicate, requiring just the right temperature and just the right amount of lead. The refiner would often know he had achieved pure silver by seeing its unmistakably pure glowing light.

b) The fuller’s soap

A fuller’s job was to cleanse and whiten cloth. In Jerusalem, the cleansing process took place in a fullers’ field outside the city because of the smell. Dirt and oils were removed from the wool so that it would be pure white and ready to be dyed, if desired.

Soap contained alkaline substances such as sodium carbonate or potassium carbonate (the word alkali comes from kali, the Arabic word for the saltwort or glasswort plant, whose ashes were used for soap). These chemicals remove oil (and the dirt that clings to it) by combining with the oil molecules to make them water soluble. For many centuries, the process for making soap was a closely guarded secret among select Jewish families.

With the cloth soaking in soap and water, the fullers beat or stamped it to remove the impurities (the Hebrew word for fuller comes from a root meaning “to tread”).

Several things need to be noted about these two processes. Firstly, the raw material was anything but amenable to change. The silver/ lead ore was knarly and the silver was difficult to extract. Besides, inherent in the process was the danger—one that the ancients may or may not have been aware of—of working with lead. Lead is suspected to be a powerful carcinogenic substance and may well have contributed to the demise of the Roman upper classes through the lead ingested through the use of pewter plates and cups. Certainly, we know for certain that lead poisoning can have very detrimental effects on humans.

And the raw fabric raw material, especially if it was wool, was often anything but white to begin with. We often think of sheep’s wool as being fluffy and white in its natural state, but often, in reality, it was usually matted with dirt and manure and full of ticks and burrs. It was often quite dirty and off-colour.

Secondly, both processes took some time and were quite onerous and demanding. The necessary purification did not come easily.

And thirdly, the hard and tedious work was considered to be worth it, because of the end result. Both products were especially esteemed and valued.

Each of these three things also pertain to us humans. We are inevitably stained and bedraggled and ‘infested’ as is sheep’s wool, and we are likewise in situated in seriously compromised and impure states, joined in as it were with less suitable metals. Just being in the world, in society, does these things to us.

And then, the purification process, overseen and managed by a loving yet diligent Lord and Master (that is, Jesus Christ) takes the time and effort, and much time and effort it is, to see us through the process. And why is that? It is because we too are valued and precious to Himself.

There is one last thing to take note of with regards to both processes. With the laundering process His intent is for our lives to be pure and white, as if to mirror His own likeness and character. And with the silver refining, He keeps at it until He can see His own face and likeness reflected in the surface of the vat of refined and purified silver. Nothing less than His own likeness will do.

So, to the crowds attending the preaching and baptism of John the Baptist, it was evident that John—and God—meant business. Being prepared for the coming of the Messiah was to be no light thing. And, neither should it be so for us. We think of the Messiah as coming three times. He came first as a babe in the manger in Bethlehem. He comes again, into our hearts and lives, as we accept Him as our Lord and Saviour. And, He will come again, in glory and majesty, when He returns to rule the world and establish peace and justice. And regardless of which coming we focus on during this Advent season, we need to be ready, to prepare ourselves, and to submit to His loving and thorough care as He performs in us those things that we could never hope, or presume, to achieve in and of ourselves. We need to let Him do this ‘spring cleaning’, this house cleaning, in our lives. Amen.

Forward notes: “See, I am sending my messenger to prepare the way before me, and the Lord whom you seek will suddenly come to his temple. The messenger of the covenant in whom you delight—indeed, he is coming, says the LORD of hosts” (verse 1).

“Almost fifteen years ago, I traveled to Costa Rica with a couple of girlfriends. At one point, we stayed in a tiny, one-room cabana off the Caribbean, with spiders the size of Mason jars in the shower and toucans outside the rust-paned window serving as alarm clocks.

“However, because we arrived right after the rainy season ended, the nearby path to the water was completely covered by overgrown tropical vegetation. Privileged though we were, we were desperate for someone to prepare the way for us and giddily overjoyed when the landowner took a machete and chopped a path through the jungle.

“In a way, I laugh at the memory, but I also can’t help but think of John the Baptist, the messenger who was sent to ‘prepare the way’ before Jesus. For us, great delight is on the other side. After all, ‘indeed, he is coming,’ he is coming, indeed.”

Moving Forward: “Do you have a story of great anticipation? Write it down, then mail it to someone who might need some encouragement today.”