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Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the great and awesome day of the LORD comes. And he will turn the hearts of fathers to their children and the hearts of children to their fathers, lest I come and strike the land with a decree of utter destruction. —Malachi 4:5-6
In great and small ways, in ways more and less eschatological, our nation reflects the condition of its families. I’d say further that the nature of family in America has always reflected our view of God and his relationship with people—our theology.
Moving from the general to the specific, I’d point out the schizoid attitude our culture has toward children. On one hand kids are an inconvenience that ends one’s dreams, bankrupts families, and endangers the physical and mental health of their parents. At the same time, budgets and policy discussions come to a screeching halt when someone invokes “what is best for the children.” We speak in overblown ways of our legacy represented in our youngest citizens while in nearly the same breath we accept nearly any horror to protect ourselves from paying the price of our legacy.
You might also note that there is very often a generational divide within the political climate of our culture. The older and younger—fathers and sons—mistrust one another as representing contrary perspectives on nearly everything. And of course it is sometimes politically expedient for some to magnify the divide. Over time, it seems that most of the precepts of our ancestors lose authority. In our day, the struggle with racism that characterized earlier generations is mingled with their view of marriage and family. They were wrong about one thing and therefore cannot be trusted on the other. Without a catastrophic reform it’s hard to imagine our culture finding even the desire to sort treasure from trash within the teachings of our fathers.
At the most personal level we know that parents and children have always disappointed one another at times. Whole libraries could be filled with novels and monographs written on this alienation within families. Unforgiveness, bitterness, and eventually distance can keep families out of the most casual contact for years, even when the initial outrage was petty.
These things are “natural” only in the sense that they are not spiritual. They are unnatural because families and communities and cultures were not created with this in mind. What seems to be mundane alienation reaches its logical nadir when religions sacrifice their children to demonic gods, when euthanasia is a serious policy option for dealing with sick and aged parents, when institutional American abortion protects a monster who jokes while murdering babies born alive during abortion procedures.
Our passage in Malachi has layers of meaning as broad or narrow as the term “family.” Luke’s Gospel applies this promised Elijah to the ministry John the Baptizer, and we also expect another prophet like Elijah who will signal a more immanent end of the age. In Malachi I see a call for literal parents to doggedly pursue their role as teachers of the Lord’s way and a call for literal children to earnestly seek the Lord’s way their parents teach. It is a call for the generations to value one another as gifts from a God who is revealing himself through this relationship. Of course Abraham is also our “father,” along with Moses and David and all others who desired a “better country, that is, a heavenly one.” Their examples of faith speak God’s revelation to those who will hear. The turning of our hearts can be seen even as a call to hide the Word of God in our hearts, then.
The “turning” of fathers and children to one another reminds me of repentance. That implies that we have turned away from one another in rebellion against the God who makes and models the parental relationship. We can’t deny this reality. The alienation between loved ones began with Adam and Eve, continued through Cain and Abel and has gained momentum for millennia. At our best we are imperfect parents and sons who fail at leadership and followship. And we can hardly say our culture is currently at its best regarding family.
If we have turned away, then we have turned from something we rejected, the ideal. We hear it in the Ten Commandments, in the Shema (Deuteronomy 6:4-8), in the Proverbs (1:8, 2:1, 4:1, 8:32, 19:26, etc.), Ephesians 6, and scores of other places. The fact that the perfect will not be restored until the return of the Lord does not change the fact that restoration has begun in the redemptive work of Christ. We are part of that work; it is done in us and through us. There is no excuse for our families to be just like everybody else’s. We are empowered and called to a high and challenging task. We have been turned toward one another and are being turned day by day.
So let this healing begin in the household of faith. We do not share the same theology as those who devour their children and disdain their fathers. Even the fathers among us are children ourselves and not merely of earthly parents. The way we treat our earthly parents is a testimony of how we view our heavenly Father. Similarly, our view of children must be expressed by those who have been purchased from hopelessness and adopted as sons and daughters of our most benevolent Creator. We do not have the option to let past outrages (even real ones) define our lives or behavior because we are also forgiven of real outrages against the only one who is truly righteous.
It is difficult and probably wrong-headed to try to extract only one focus from this passage. It’s not merely talking about nuclear families nor is the meaning only eschatological. The Lord teaches us about great things through familiar ones and then shows us the obverse view to help us understand the greatness of the familiar. One writer called the home “the world in miniature.” That picture well conveys what I mean. A nation that gets family right can only do so if its citizens are seeking God. This implies an answer for our nation’s most obvious problems. And yes, that answer is the good news of Christ, but we must not neglect the gospel witness of family done God’s way. In a sense, evangelistic churches made up of languishing marriages and families are preaching points located in burning buildings—they won’t preach long or to growing crowds.
Have you followed the path toward which the Lord has turned you? Are you a godly husband, wife, father, mother? Do you honor your father and mother in any way they would call “honor?” What do the closest observers of your home discern about your God from the way you operate?
It is thankfully not the habit of Clan Ledbetter but I know folks who haven’t seen their kids for years, for no particular reason. The road and phone service run both ways. I know children who never call their parents because of simple disinterest. Not every family is smotheringly close, I know, but let me offer a modest admonition to those whose family relations are coldly distant. Call your folks while you can. Send a nice card to the most cantankerous of your near kin. Reach across the years to family members with whom you have simply lost touch. It happens, I know, but so do a lot of things that shouldn’t. If nothing else, consider this nurture of those that God has placed closest to you a dramatic testimony that he reached out to you when you were hostile to him.
In the broadest and most particular application, the hearts of parents and children have been turned toward one another within the people of God. He has set us on the right path and empowered us to walk. Now, take a step.
