August 2, 2026 - Images of God: Refiner’s Fire
As I sat with this scripture this week, I struggled to find common ground between what I want to think about this passage and what I so often do think about it. So I sat with it, just as we've invited you to do today, and this is where my reflections led.
I wanted to clean up for God.
I took a shower. I put on clean clothes straight from the dryer. I spent extra time on my hair. I adjusted the tie on my dress.
This was after I cleaned the house, took out the trash, and scrubbed the cats' food dishes. I even made my bed. I really went all out, I tell you.
God showed up right on time, smiled at me, and said,
"But the inside you?"
Then God continued:
*"I brought some soap—
Not for your pimples,
not for your body odor,
not for your itchy skin.
I've brought a fire—
Controlled, yet hot,
ready to change you."*
"Does it hurt?" I asked.
"Sometimes," God said.
"Like combing tangles out of your hair.
Or saying, 'I'm sorry.'
Or telling—or hearing—the truth.
Or sharing a freshly picked tomato."
"Okay," I said, unsure whether I really meant it.
Okay.
Refresh the world.
Decontaminate this place.
Scrub the religiosity out of me and out of the church.
Like dirty sheets, wash me clean.
Spray enough Windex on the mirrors of my life, O God, that people see You more clearly than they see me.
I learned the song Refiner's Fire in the late 1990s. It was written by Brian Doerksen in 1990. Doerksen recently died, and when I saw the headline, I realized I still remembered every word.
Maybe it was the perfect Christian college song. The lyrics speak about wanting to be refined like gold and silver. "I want to be holy" is the heart of the chorus. The song is about personal accountability and surrendering ourselves to God.
Those are important lessons.
But prophets often speak more communally than personally.
Malachi is speaking to a society that has missed the mark, to religious institutions that have missed the mark. I want to think about that communal nature of this passage. Yet, somewhere in the back of my mind, I worry that I'm not taking the scripture seriously if I don't also think about how I need to be purified.
Take that for what it's worth.
The refining fire is coming to change society because our holy God has seen some profoundly unholy things.
Wages withheld.
Contracts denied.
Workers dismissed unfairly.
A widow counting pennies for her medication.
A forgotten child.
A stranger waiting while someone checks their papers.
God has seen truth sold, lies purchased, and power disguised as righteousness.
God shows up as powerful soap—think bleach with the power to change the world.
God shows up as fire to remove impurities.
God is the Refiner's Fire.
Question: What are ways you want our society to be cleansed? What does a Refiner's Fire look like for that?
For some of you, that may be an easy question to answer. For others, it may be much harder.
When I spent my days working in gun violence prevention, I realized that fear might be one of the primary reasons people believed they needed guns in the first place. I spoke with people who had never experienced violence themselves, whose communities hadn't seen a gun incident since the 1940s, and yet they were deeply afraid. Afraid of what might happen. Afraid of people they didn't know. Guns felt like a solid answer to fear.
That experience led me to study fear more deeply. With the help of others, I helped write a curriculum called FEAR NOT, which helped congregations create safety plans that reflected their values.
I know fear pushes us to do things we wouldn't otherwise do.
And I know fear is a normal human emotion.
Still, I long for our society to be cleansed of the kind of fear that convinces us there isn't enough, that strangers are threats, and that power matters more than compassion.
I long for us to be refined of racism, Christian nationalism, greed, violence, and the temptation to value efficiency over people.
A Refiner's Fire looks like refusing to let injustice have the final word.
It looks like truth-telling.
Repentance.
A society willing to pursue the common good rather than financial gain for a few.
So yes, God is showing up to refine a society.
And Malachi is speaking these words to religious people.
Which means we also need to ask how God wants to cleanse today's religious institutions.
Marvin McMickle reminds us that Malachi suggests the "purging and purifying" of the Refiner's Fire is directed toward the very people complaining about injustice—including the people of Israel and, especially, the priests.
The priests—the deeply religious people, perhaps people like us—were accustomed to asking God to punish everyone else.
Instead, God turns the fire toward them.
McMickle writes,
"God's harshest judgment will be reserved not for the sinners out in the world but the sinners right here inside the church. We are the ones whom God will treat with soap and fire."
It's true.
The Church can wield power that desperately needs cleansing.
Dana Arcuri writes,
"A sacred place - the church - meant to be safe and holy has become a breeding ground for violence and evil."
As Anabaptists, I think we instinctively understand something important about this passage.
We believe faith is lived in community.
We believe community lovingly holds one another accountable.
We believe we have permission to speak truth into one another's lives—not to shame one another, but to help one another grow.
Of course, that communal accountability can be abused.
But at its best, it helps us understand Malachi almost instinctively.
We understand what it means to be refined together.
And yet...
It is still difficult to ask hard questions of our own religious institutions.
Question: What traditions or habits help us reflect God's love, and which ones might God be inviting us to refine?
In my mind, the traditions worth preserving are those that help us show up for one another in everyday life—praying together, singing together, reading Scripture together, laughing together, and living out Jesus' care for our neighbors.
The Anabaptist tradition of living our faith every day—not just during worship—is something I hope we never lose.
But perhaps the refining fire comes when we choose comfort over mission.
Certainty over curiosity.
Preserving institutions over serving people.
Perhaps God wants to cleanse our assumptions about what counts as church—and what doesn't.
And, after thinking communally, I find myself returning to the personal need for refinement.
Fire is frightening.
But it is also necessary.
Think of controlled burns that allow seeds to germinate.
Think of blacksmiths, glassblowers, potters, and bakers who all use fire to create things the world needs.
Personally, this image of God as a refiner can be difficult to embrace.
We would much rather believe that person is the problem.
Not me.
Not us.
While this passage certainly has communal implications, it also invites us to look inward.
Question: What do you hope God would burn away if God's refining fire is an act of love?
I hope God would burn away whatever keeps me from being fully present to my life and fully filled with love.
Burn away my need to be right instead of simply walking the right path.
Burn away my fear that I won't be enough for those I love.
Ignite anything I measure myself against other than faithfulness.
Question: How would your life look different if God's refining work was complete?
I picked these questions, had time to think about them and I struggled not to list all the "right" answers.
The expected answers.
Rest more than strive.
Forgive more quickly.
Love without calculating the cost.
Those are beautiful goals. They may indeed be the next refinement for some of you, and if so, may God bless you on that journey.
As for me...
My current refinement would be learning to settle fully into the present moment, looking for God here and now.
When the fire feels hot,
remember that it is the fire of love.
When life scrubs away what is false,
remember that God longs to restore,
our society, our church and each of us as individuals.
Amen.