Refined for God’s Purposes RTF

Fred Unruh Lethbridge Mennonite Church November 11, 2007

Malachi 3:1-3; Hebrews 2:14-18; Psalm 66: 8-20

Today we’re considering the words of the prophet Malachi.

His writings are found in the last book in the Old Testament.

Malachi lived in Jerusalem around 450 years before Christ.

He was passionate in his call for spiritual renewal.

He was disgusted with the religious leaders of his day,

declaring that they didn’t care about their people,

they didn’t care about authentic worship,

they didn’t really even care about God!

They just cared about themselves.

Malachi directs his message at their religious leaders

calling for commitment to God and to lives of integrity.

His message embraces all of us seeking to be God’s people.

Malachi uses a powerful metaphor to announce the coming of God’s messenger:

“…who can endure the day of his coming,

and who can stand when he appears?

For he is like a refiner’s fire and like fuller’s soap.” Mal 3:2-3 NRSV

You may recognize these words from one of the arias in Handel’s “Messiah”.

His allusion to “fuller’s soap” refers to someone

who thoroughly washes newly woven cloth.

Like a goldsmith refines silver or gold

with white hot flames in the smelter’s furnace,

removing all impurities and impediments to beauty,

so God will surely touch our lives!

The physical process of changing solid metal to a liquid,

using tremendous heat,

removing the impurities in the metal,

is extremely demanding!

Have you ever toured a smelter or a foundry?

Maybe IBSCO on the northern edge of Regina,

or DOFASCO on the black water’s shore in Hamilton, Ontario?

Maybe you remember the Neufeldt blacksmith shop in Coaldale

where they cranked up a forge to shape the glowing metal?

If so, you can still recall the blazing furnace,

hot as proverbial hell,

smoke pouring out of the stacks,

the bitter sweet smell of molten steel,

workmen covered in soot and grime and sweat.

Refining solid metal is a metaphor for an extreme encounter!

Greensburg, Kansas tornado

How can we apply Malachi’s metaphor to our lives?

Last Spring Virleen and I made our annual pilgrimage to Kansas

where we grew up, and where our brothers and sisters live today.

After spending time visiting there,

we left on Friday, May 4^th, headed north - back to Alberta.

That evening on the television news

we first heard of the devastating tornado

that wiped out most of Greensburg, Kansas.

Greensburg was only 180 kilometres where we had been visiting.

While this wasn’t “a close call” for us,

it certainly dug deeply into our thoughts.

I want to read a news story that appeared 6 months later,

in the October 29^th issue of the Mennonite Weekly Review,

an inter-Mennonite newspaper published in Kansas:

Pastor reflects on trauma, aftermath of tornado By Robert Rhodes Mennonite Weekly Review

HESSTON, Kan. — Violent forks of lightning on the southern horizon caused Jeff Blackburn to halt his evening jog on May 4. Leaving his family’s parsonage next to Greensburg Mennonite Church, which he pastors, Blackburn had covered only a couple of blocks when he saw yet another spring storm looming and decided to turn back.

Besides, May 4 was his wife Lori’s birthday, and Blackburn and his 17-year-old daughter, Cassie, planned to enjoy a pumpkin pie one of Lori’s co-workers had made for the occasion.

Blackburn had just made some popcorn when Greensburg’s notoriously raucous tornado siren went off, and the three made their umpteenth trip to the parsonage basement, figuring they would be back upstairs in a few minutes as soon as the all-clear sounded.

Within half an hour, though, there wouldn’t be an upstairs anymore, and Blackburn’s house, church and most of Greensburg would be virtually leveled by a tornado nearly two miles wide.

Speaking to a group of Hesston College students at Hesston Mennonite Church on Oct. 26, Blackburn said the next emotion he remembers experiencing was total shock, which he said in hindsight was probably a blessing.

“I think shock is God’s Paxil or Lexapro,” Blackburn said, comparing the sense of surreal disconnection he felt after the storm to the comforting effects of two popular antidepressants. “I can’t describe for you what it’s like to walk up into your house, and there’s no house.”

Ten people died in the tornado, which packed winds of more than 200 mph and was rated an EF-5, the most catastrophic level of severity. Though no one in Blackburn’s 80-member congregation was seriously hurt, many lost their homes or other property.

“God covered us with his wings that night,” Blackburn said. “God took care of us. . . . This was serious. We living in it had no idea how serious, but [in the hours after the storm] we began to realize how widespread this was.”

The day after the tornado — in which Greensburg and nearby Haviland would be menaced by even more twisters — Mennonite Disaster Service’s director Kevin King and local coordinator Paul Unruh came looking for Blackburn and his family, finding them in the first emergency shelter they visited.

From that point on, Blackburn said, MDS has been a regular presence in his life and in the recovery efforts in Greensburg.

“We couldn’t have gotten through the last five months without MDS,” Blackburn said.

Following the storm, Blackburn said, he almost immediately went into survival mode, focusing more at first on his family and their safety than on his congregation.

“There were times I felt guilty I did not behave enough like a pastor in those first weeks,” he said.

But as days and weeks passed, Blackburn found himself reaching out more to his flock and looking for ways to guide the church’s ministry in new directions.

First, however, he had to come to terms with how his own identity had been changed by the storm, and by the loss of virtually everything the family had.

“I was a victim, [but] I didn’t want to be known as a victim,” he said. “I wanted to be known as a survivor. . . . ‘Survivor’ means ‘I’m taking the reins again.’ ”

One area of Blackburn’s life that has undergone scrutiny since the storm has been his desire for control over his own destiny and circumstances. In this, he has received help from John Murray, pastor of Hesston Mennonite Church, who has helped mentor Blackburn through the trauma of the storm’s aftermath.

“We lost control that night, but [then] we lost control over and over again” as cleanup and relief work began in the community, Blackburn said. “I’m still struggling with that.”

Blackburn said losing virtually all of their possessions also has forced his family to drastically simplify their lives.

“Stuff isn’t very important when you don’t have much stuff left, when you’re just grateful to be alive,” Blackburn said. “I learned how materialistic I was when I had to list everything in my closet [for an insurance claim]. No man needs 40 dress shirts. No man needs 20 pairs of dress slacks. You can only wear one pair at a time.”

Now that his parsonage is being rebuilt, soon to be followed by the congregation’s meetingplace, Blackburn said Greensburg Mennonite has a chance to seize a new lease on life.

“God has given us a whole new opportunity to be his witnesses,” he said. “I want to be one of those who’s praising God for bringing us through this. . . . Disasters don’t make us who we are. Disasters reveal who we are.”

Reflections

We may not have lived through the devastation of a category 5 tornado,

but life brings us all times of testing.

Excruciating experiences blast their way into our ordinary lives:

the death of a spouse, our child, a lover, a close friend,

the end of a marriage or the sudden collapse of a career,

perhaps an illness or an accident that abruptly smashes everything.

These painful experiences push us to the brink.

When my mother died at age 49 when I was fourteen,

I was mad at God for years, and refused to pray

to this God who killed my mother!

I blamed God for the cancer that took her life,

and left me “a motherless child”.

The death of my mother messed me up pretty bad.

It took me a long time to work through the grief and anger

that filled my soul.

It took me a long time to stop blaming God for her early death.

Eventually I began to see that her death

wasn’t a part of God’s plan for us,

but one of the ways life unfolds.

Stuff happens in life.

Good stuff happens and bad stuff happens.

None of us are immune from hard times.

How do we respond when bad stuff happens?

We’re sorely tempted to blame God for our losses.

“I can’t make any sense of this at all.

Maybe this is God’s plan, but ….. I hate it!”

Many of the tests that come are not God’s doing.

Stuff just happens to us all.

The Greensburg tornado was not ordered by God.

But I think the love of God inspired the response of hundreds

of people concerned about the victims of this vicious storm.

Some of the bad stuff that happens is our own doing.

We were not paying enough attention and an accident happens.

People are hurt and die because we are not careful enough

or concerned enough about others.

Then it’s our fault, not God’s doing.

We struggle to accept responsibility for our actions.

My faith in a loving, just God invites me

to accept the freedom God has given us,

and respond to the tests that come,

believing God wants us to find healing and hope.

There are no answers to “Why?” - but there are possibilities of hope.

I prefer to say “I don’t know why this happened to us!”

rather than saying “I guess God has some reason for it,

although for the life of me, I can’t imagine what it may be.”

I don’t see a divine plan at work in my mother’s early death.

But I have experienced wonderful gifts of love and healing

walking with us through our loss.

Back to Jeff Blackburn

In the white hot terror of the Greensburg tornado

Jeff Blackburn understood himself as a victim.

He lost virtually everything he had.

That’s what happens to us when we are engulfed by disaster.

We lose our identity as capable, confident, self-directed people.

We experience melt-down.

We may remain in this chaotic, upside-down condition for some time.

But we have not been abandoned by God.

In amazing ways, someone enters our world,

and leaves us with a small, small glimmer of hope.

Someone comes to stand with us,

often quietly,

patiently standing with us in our losses.

And a seed of hope is planted.

The hope that we will not remain victims forever.

I think each person who offers a small gift of hope,

a hug when hugs are hard to find,

or maybe a casserole

or a helping hand

is very close to being an angel.

Those small gifts of hope enable us to take the first steps

from being a victim to becoming a survivor.

“I wanted to be known as a survivor.

Survivor means I’m take the reins again,” said Jeff Blackburn.

Being a survivor moves us from blaming others

(including God) for our misfortunes,

and taking responsibility again for our ordinary lives.

Jeff Blackburn understood something as a person of faith,

something the priests in Malachi’s day had lost.

We’re in this adventure called life,

together with others, our neighbours.

Our healing and hope is tightly linked to our neighbours.

If you are consumed with yourself and your misfortunes as a victim,

you will not find healing and hope.

Jeff Blackburn responded to the prompting of God’s Spirit,

when he asked himself,

“How might I stand with my devastated neighbours

in this crazy crisis that has enveloped us all?”

With that identification with his neighbours,

Blackburn began the journey from victim - to survivor - to healer.

He discovered that the pain and losses in his life,

equipped him for helping his neighbours.

A “fellowship of suffering” empowered him

to reflect God’s love in their crisis.

God did not send the suffering to teach Blackburn to love.

God lit a spark of concern for others,

and Jeff Blackburn allowed the spark to move his life

from victim - to survivor - to healer.

What can we do?

There are times when I want to shout at God,

“Why did this happen to me; to us?”

God listens to my anger with patient understanding.

God doesn’t slam shut the door, or walk out on me.

Often, it seems, God points someone in my direction

and suggests they try to listen to what my heart is saying.

And when I share my pain with someone

we often wind up pondering the way

God is working in heart of the storm,

to initiate healing and hope.

Like Jeff Blackburn, we can connect with others

who are facing the searing flames with us.

I find support and hope with those who have also experienced

what I am going through,

Ÿ grieving our losses together so our grief slowly diminishes,

Ÿ finding new friends at Tim Hortons who offer a smile and a story,

Ÿ reaching out to us, assuring us we will survive the difficulties

that now engulf us.

Howling at God, demanding revenge for undeserved suffering,

boycotting those who tried to help me,

wallowing in victim status

offers no healing, no hope.

Seeing my hurting neighbour as my closest ally,

God’s angel is disguise,

becomes my hope of coping with the flames.

Conclusion Psalm 66:8-12; 15 from “The Message // Remix

The words of Psalm 66 in a modern paraphrase,

celebrate God’s caring love in times of testing:

Bless our God, O peoples!

Give him a thunderous welcome!

Didn’t he set us on the road to life?

Didn’t he keep us out of the ditch?

He trained us first,

passed us like silver through refining fires,

Brought us into hardscrabble country,

pushed us to our very limit,

Road-tested us inside and out,

took us to hell and back;

Finally, he brought us

to this well watered place. …..

Blessed be God, he didn’t turn a deaf ear,

He stayed with us, loyal in his love.

Thanks be to God.