By Steven Norris
Hotdog was a periodic visitor at our church in North Carolina. I am not talking about the food you grill out, either. “Hotdog” was the moniker of an individual who had visited our church building back when it was a honky-tonk bar. I am not sure that I ever saw him sober, until he was arrested.
I received a message that he was being held and wanted the pastor to come see him. I sat in the uncomfortable metal chair, almost unable to recognize the man sitting on the other side of the glass. After a few days of forced sobriety, “Hotdog” was facing his demons and he clearly did not like what he saw. Although a jovial drunk, he was as mean as a hornet when he was sober.
Many people have misconceptions about addiction. While there are some addicts who seem to be chasing a high, most of the ones I know are trying to escape pain. They are trying to numb out enough from the grief, sorrow, shame, or regret to make it through the day. That is why the first days, weeks, and months of sobriety are so hard: all the junk rises to the surface.
I thought about Hotdog when I turned to the lectionary text for the second Sunday in Advent. It speaks of a messenger of the covenant that will come “like a refiner’s fire” (Malachi 3:1-4). While I don’t know a lot about blacksmithing, I understand that the process of smelting is used to extract pure metals from raw ore. As the ore is heated past its melting point, the impurities rise to the top in the form of dross. They must be cleared away to allow metalworkers to get to the pure form underneath.
Malachi suggests that the spiritual life is like this. We are drawn to God by the gentle, humble, sacrificial love of Christ. That love, however, is also like a white-hot fire. It surfaces all the impurities that are a part of the human condition. Sanctification is the process by which we clear away everything that obscures our true and sacred self — the you and me that God intended from the beginning.
As we were discussing this text among our staff, one of our ministers observed: “What happens if you don’t clear away the dross? All the impurities come to the top, but then act as insulation keeping you even further away from the precious metal beneath.”
What a powerful picture of the spiritual life that many experience! Confronted with the refining fire of God’s love, all of our impurities are revealed. However, to stop there and fail to take the next step of repentance — of turning and going a different direction, of clearing the dross and living from our true purified self — may leave us worse off than we were before.
Salvation without discipleship may be theoretically possible (look at the thief on the cross beside Jesus), but it falls far short of the abundant life that Jesus came to offer. As you prepare your heart this Advent and for the year ahead, don’t run away from the hard inner work of clearing the dross and connecting with the beautiful, priceless, magnificent you God has in store.