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Lava Soap                        Malachi 3: 1-4                   December 6, 2009

Out of all the little "gems of wisdom" my mother once used to try to get me to behave in ways that made her happy, I think her favorite was "cleanliness is next to godliness."

I don't know if mothers still use statements like that in order to get their way, but my childhood would not have been the same without them. They were conversation stoppers. When Mom said "children should be seen and not heard," I knew it was time to be quiet. When she asked if I was "born in a barn," I knew it was time to close the door. And when she told me that "cleanliness is next to godliness," I knew it was time to wash up. No questions asked, and definitely no "back talk."

When I think about it, I have internalized just about all of my mother's little proverbs - except for the "children should be seen and not heard" one - and made them part of who I am. Particularly the one about cleanliness. While no one would confuse me with the TV detective, Monk, I am pretty obsessive about things like hand washing. Particularly before eating.

I'm relatively sure my mother didn't know she was quoting John Wesley, the father of Methodism, when she told me "cleanliness was next to godliness," but, interestingly enough, that is where most agree the proverb originates. "Slovenliness is no part of religion," Wesley wrote in a sermon about the proper way for a Christian to dress, "nor [does] any text of Scripture, condemn neatness of apparel. Certainly this is a duty, not a sin. 'Cleanliness is, indeed, next to godliness. *

While I don't know where my mother got her favorite little proverb, she certainly loved to use it. And she loved, even more, to apply it. The kitchen sink in our house always had an ample supply of soap on its rim, and the supply always included at least one bar of Lava.

Now, Lava, as you may know, is no ordinary soap. Scratchy and powerful, it was the stuff you used if you wanted your really dirty hands to get really clean. Drawing you closer, as my mother and John Wesley evidently believed, to God.

You can still buy Lava soap. I bought some just the other day. As you can see, it now comes in a dispenser with a pump. It smells better than the stuff I remember from my childhood and, according to the label, it contains moisturizers. Still, it is gritty and, if the claims on the back of the bottle are to be believed, it still "cleans away dirt, grime, grease, oil, paint, ink and adhesives." It also still carries this warning: "Lava may be abrasive to sensitive skin." Think of it as the inverse of "Soft Soap."

Lava has been around for a long time - It was originally developed in 1893 - but the use of a really strong soap to do a really good cleaning job is a practice that is much older - centuries older, in fact.

The author of the Old Testament book called Malachi - the last book in the Hebrew Bible - talks about using strong soap in our lesson for this morning.

Allow me to set the stage.

Last week, you'll remember, we set out on our annual Advent journey. We lit the first candle, and we read biblical passages that propelled us into the future to consider the end of time - the apocalypse. Today, our reading sends us in the opposite direction.

On this second Sunday of Advent, we are pulled, by our text, into the distant past - some 450 years before Christ - to hear the words of an ancient prophet. One known only as Malachi - not the name of a person, but a title: "The Messenger."

Our messenger, Malachi, tells of yet another messenger. One who is to come. One who is coming "to prepare the way for the Lord." He speaks of a messenger who will purify people's hearts.

"For he is like a refiner's fire and like fullers' soap," the Prophet writes. "He will sit as a refiner and purifier of silver, and he will purify the descendants of Levi and refine them like gold and silver, until they present offerings to the Lord in righteousness."

Malachi suggests that we add another item to our familiar list of advent images. In addition to the stars and the garlands and the trees; in addition to the candles and the creche with its figures of wise men and shepherds, in addition to the manger; Malachi suggests, this morning, that we add another symbol of Advent - soap.

And not just any soap. The messenger that Malachi predicts will come to prepare the way of the Lord will use fuller's soap - the strong, lye-based soap that was used to bleach the impurities from cloth - the 450 BC version of Lava.

It seems to me that there are two important messages that we can take away from this text from Malachi and the Advent image it suggests: The first is a message for each of us as individuals; and the second calls us to action as a community of faith.

The individual message is straightforward. God wants us, in this season of preparation, to cleanse ourselves of all the gunk and excess baggage that prevents us from truly receiving Christ this year.

Some of you have newborn babies in your families. And whether you are experiencing the joy of a new life in your household right now or whether it's been years - maybe even decades - since the last time that pleasure was personal for you, all of us know - and all of us remind the young children in our homes - that you need to wash your hands before you hold the baby.

We all also know that physical cleanliness is important for our communal health, for our society's well being. I can't remember any flu season in the past that included so many public service announcements about hand washing, and it now seams that every time you walk into a building there's a big bottle of sanitizer sitting beside the door.

Today's text, though, prods us to take this thought a bit further. It suggests that this wisdom also holds true on a spiritual level.

One scholar puts it well: "I wonder," he writes. "Is there a sense in which we need purification for our spirits? Do our souls need a shower before Christmas? Perhaps, as we make our way to Bethlehem and the manger this December, the prophet Malachi is simply reminding us that, "We need to wash before we hold the baby.**

Perhaps the things that we need to cleanse from our spirits are precisely those aspects of our personality that we are most proud of - our type-A, nothing matters but the task at hand, anything that is worth doing is worth doing well aspects; perhaps even those pieces of us that we consider to be our strengths and our virtues are at risk when the purifier of souls comes to town with his bar of soap.

This is the promise of the season for each of us: The gift of Malachi is to picture for us a God who lays out the Lava soap this Advent; to picture a God who wants to cleanse us from everything that would prevent us from standing in awe at the manger. ***

The second message from Malachi - the one directed to us collectively, as a church and as a nation - is a tougher one. It's delivered in the form of a question. "Who will be able to present herself or himself as spotless and clean when the Refiner suddenly comes?" the Prophet asks. "Who can stand when he appears?"

Walter Brueggemann, one of the great theological thinkers of our generation, restates this question: "We need to ask how the church in our culture has been compromised," he writes, "and the way in which it may be brought to a readiness for the Christ-child.

"One may conclude," he continues, "that loss of critical edge, a softening of gospel identity, an excessive accommodation to consumerism, a tacit embrace of U.S. military imperialism, a cynical acceptance of social violence, a casual indifference to the suffering of the poor altogether have led to a dulled faith that cannot well receive the Christmas gift of newness.

The message of Malachi for this Advent, he suggests, "is a wake-up call to Christians to get back to basics in faith, to recover initial resolve, and to be in a mode of hungry receptiveness.****

Has our faith been dulled to the point where our Gospel is soft on our culture? Or are we willing to be messengers who prepare the way for the coming Lord, knowing that doing so may mean that we need not only clean up our own acts but also apply our Lava soap to the institutions that make up the world in which we live?

We pray for the unemployed, the disenfranchised and the weak. Are we prepared to stand up and prophetically demand that our health care system leave none of those individuals without care?

We support the poor with our food pantry, our hospitality breakfast and our code blue shelter. Are we also prepared to stand up and prophetically demand that our tax structure not continue to perpetuate the greatest separation between rich and poor that our nation has ever witnessed?

And we pray for the brave young men and women who voluntarily put on a uniform and travel thousands of miles to battle terrorists and insurgents in a far away place. Are we also prepared to prophetically demand that our energy and climate policies put a stop to our dependence on oil - the primary source of revenue for the countries that hate us most?

In short, are we prepared, in this Advent season, to follow the example of the one called Malachi, The Messenger, and the later messenger called John the Baptizer, and work diligently - prophetically - to clean up every act in which we play a part - even if our part is only a small one.

For change to occur, someone has to stand against the status quo. Where there's injustice, someone has to step forward with a prophetic pronouncement that names the things that are not right. And apply the Lava soap.

The prophet Messenger did it. John the Baptizer did it. Are we prepared to follow their lead? I pray we are.

At the end of our lesson, Malachi suggests that, following their cleansing, the people of God will present offerings to the Lord. "Then the offering of Judah and Jerusalem will be pleasing to the Lord," he writes, "as in the days of old and as in former years."

In other words, this passage closes with an assertion that a return to the old rituals and values is essential to spiritual renewal. That the application of abrasive, gritty Lava soap can be followed by a refreshing rinse with a familiar stream of water.

Advent is a time that we set aside, each year, to give us an opportunity to return to some of our old rituals. For some of us - perhaps for most of us - these traditions are as refreshing and invigorating as a morning shower.

Enjoy the remainder of the Advent season, my friends.

                                                                             AMEN

* From John Wesley's sermon #88, "On Dress."
** Adapted from a sermon by Scott Black Johnson - found on the "Day One" website
*** Ibid
**** Walter Brueggemann, from and article in Sojourners

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