Au In the beginning was the Word
 

1.- Malachi is not a proper name, but a common one. It is the name of a function. It means my messenger (Mal 3,1), that who prepares the way before God. We are in Jerusalem, about year 460. Fifty years before, the temple has been rebuilt, but what the prophets dreamed does not arrive. Religious indifference grows. The cult is and empty and external rite. Conjugal fidelity is a forgotten word, and social justice too. In this context a prophet emerges, denouncing the situation and announcing a future God´s messenger.

 

2.- The prophet denounces the religious indifference and his contemporaries’ actual paganism. They consider themselves believers, but they do not feel God´s love: I love you, says the Lord, but you reply: How do you show that love? (Mal 1,2). They are missing the experience of the living God, a personal experience of faith.

 

3.- The priests (Levites, Levi´s sons) do not carry out his function seriously, they do not introduce the true sense to the cult, accommodating themselves to a mean formalism, despising the name of the Lord and asking themselves: How have we despised your name? (Mal 1,6). Well then, says the Lord: I am not pleased with your offerings (1,10); if you do not listen to it or concern yourself to glorify my name, I will send the curse on you and curse even your blessings; and I have already cursed it for none of you takes his ministry seriously (Mal 2,2).

 

4.- Covenant with Levi was another matter (Num 18, 21). He was God´s messenger, what everybody was missing: His mouth taught the true doctrine and nothing evil came from his lips; he walked in accordance with me, being peaceful and upright, and brought back many people from their wickedness. The lips of the priest speak of knowledge, and the Law must be found in his mouth, since he is the messenger of Yahweh of hosts. But you, says Yahweh of hosts, have strayed from my way, and moreover caused many to stumble because of your teaching. You have broken my covenant with Levi. Therefore I let all the people despise you (Mal 2,6-9).

 

5.- Conjugal fidelity is a forgotten word. They confess themselves believers and they repudiate his youth woman to marry another one: Yahweh has seen how you dealt with your first wife, the wife of your youth. You betrayed her although she was your companion with whom you made a covenant. Has not God made a single being and given him breath? And what does he seek but a family given by God? Do no betray then the wife of your youth. I hate divorce, says Yahweh, the God of Israel (Mal 2,13-16).

 

6.- These believers tire God and do not observe it: You annoy Yahweh with your discourses and you dare say: How did we annoy him? You annoy him whenever you say that Yahweh looks favourably on those who do evil, and lets everything go well with them, or when you ask: Where is the God who does justice? (Mal 2,17). These believers do not perceive God´s judgment and they envy the impious´ happiness: You say very harsh things about me, says Yahweh, and yet you say: What harsh things did we say against you? You say: It is useless to serve God. There is no benefit in observing his commandments or in leading an austere life for his sake. Those who do evil succeed in everything; though they provoke God, they remain unharmed (Mal 3, 13-15; Ps 73).

 

7.- In a living tradition frame, Malachi refers himself to the expected prophet, God´s messenger. Really, it had been expected in Israel from Moses´ time: Yahweh, your God, will provide you and your brothers, a prophet like myself from among the people, to whom you shall listen (Dt 18,15). It is remembered that God´s messenger drove the people to the Promised Land: See, I am sending and Angel before you to keep you safe on the way and bring you to the place I have made ready (Ex 23,20).

 

8.- Which signals will have the expected prophet? According to the Scripture, he will be God´s servant, his preferred, called by God from his mother´s womb (Is 49, 1-3). He will be anointed with God´s spirit (the messiah, the Christ), the spirit will come over him, he will announce the good news to the poor, he will bandage the broken heart, he will proclaim to the captives the liberation and freedom to the prisoners (Is 61,1-3). All this is accomplished in Nazaret´s synagogue: To day these prophetic words come true, says Jesus (Lk 4, 16-21).

 

9.- Seeing Jesus´ life, many have the perception that he is a prophet (Mk 6,15). Jesus accepts himself like such (Mk 6,4). The people was expectant (Lk 3,15), John sends two disciples to ask Jesus: Are you the one who is to come or should we expect someone else?. (Mt 11,2). Jesus answers with the language of the facts: The blind see, the lame walk, the lepers are made clean, the deaf hear, the dead are brought back to life and good news is reaching the poor (Mt 11,5). Emmaus´ disciples consider Jesus like a prophet powerful in works and words (Lk 24,19).

 

10.- Malachi refers to the future God´s messenger: Now I am sending my messenger ahead of me to clear the way (Mal 3,1). He will recall God´s covenant. He will come with the spirit and with Elijah’s power: Remember the law of my servant Moses… I am going to send you the prophet Elijah before the day of Yahweh comes, for it will be a great and terrible day. He will reconcile parents with their children , and the children with their parents (3,23-24)

 

11.- The messenger will judge in the name of God, fact that now is not taken into account: Who can bear the day of his coming and remain standing when he appears?…  He will purify the sons of Levi and refine them like gold and silver (Mal 3, 2-3), I will dwell among you to do justice and demand the immediate punishment of the sorcerers and the adulterers, of those who swear false oaths, who oppress the wage-earner, the widow and the orphan, who do not respect the rights of the foreigner. They do all this and have no fear of me (Mal 3,5), all the proud and evildoers will be burned like straw in the fire… But for you, those who are afraid of my name, the sun of justice will shine with the health in its rays (Mal 3, 19-20)

 

12.- Jesus identifies God´s messenger to John the Baptist: He is the man of whom the scripture says: I send my messenger ahead of you to prepare the way before you (Mt 11,10). Elijah already came in the person of John: Elijah has come and they did not recognize him, but treated him as they pleased. And they will also make the Son of Man suffer. Then the disciples understood that Jesus was referring to John the Baptist (Mt 17, 12-13).

 

13.- On his part, John the Baptist refers to Jesus: I baptize you in water for conversion, but the one who is coming after me is to do much more; indeed I am not worthy to carry his sandals. He will baptize you in the Holy Spirit and fire. He has the winnowing fan in his hand to thresh out all the grain; he will gather his wheat into the barn, bur the chaff he will burn in everlasting fire (Mt 3, 11-12)

 

14.- Jerusalem, the one that kills the prophets (Lk 13, 34), prepares the same end to Jesus. This is the parable of the homicide vineyard tenants (Mt 21, 33-46): There was a landowner who planted a vineyard, he put a fence around it, dug a hole for the wine press, built a watchtower, leased the vineyard to tenants and then went to a far country. What the landowner makes with the vineyard shows his love, his care, his prudence. The fence protects the vineyard from the outside. The tower provides vigilance. The wine press is dug, ready to press the grape. The owner leases the vineyard to some tenants.

 

15.- The tenants must give account to the landowner. Nevertheless, they reject to do it and they are able to perform anything: When harvest time came, the landowner sent his servants to collect his share of the harvest. But the tenants seized his servants, beat one, killed another and stoned another. Again he sent more servants, but they treated them in the same way. (Mt 21, 34-36).

 

16.- The landowner decides then to play with all his authority sending to his son: Finally, he sent his son, thinking: “They will respect my son”. But the tenants saw the son, they thought: “This is the heir. Let us kill him and his inheritance will be ours”. So, they seized him, threw him out of the vineyard and killed him. Now, what will the owner of the vineyard do with the tenants when he comes?.  They said to him: “He will have no mercy on those wicked men and will kill them, and lease the vineyard to others who will pay him in due time”. And Jesus replied, “Have you never read what the Scripture say?: The stone which the builders rejected has become the keystone. This was the Lord´s doing; and we marvel at it. Therefore I say to you: the kingdom of heaven will be taken from you and given to a people who will bear its fruits.

 

* Dialogue: Is the messenger´s word a present one?

-                     Religious indifference is growing

-                     Cult is an empty and exterior rite

-                     Conjugal fidelity is forgotten

-                     Social justice is forgotten

-                     The messenger is killed