Acting Out--March 15, 2009

Sermon for March 15, 2009 The 3rd Sunday of Lent John 2:13-22 A.   Do you have a "pet peeve?"   You know, those bothersome things that raise our ire, as well as our blood pressure, every time we see them or hear them.  Your pet peeve could be squeezing the toothpaste tube on the wrong end, or people who constantly tailgate as they go down the highway, or having to eat certain foods.  I'm sure I have a lot of pet peeves, but one that is particularly irritating is the fact that people oftentimes "feel" when they should "think."  You know:  someone says "I feel that I am right in this matter," or "I feel that I am the best qualified for the job."  No you don't – you "think", you don't "feel".  I think that I am the best qualified for this job.  Too many people are feeling when they should be thinking.  OK, it's a stupid pet peeve, but it's my pet peeve and I think I will stick with it!   But now there are other events and other issues that reach out and wrench our souls.   These are not little irritations or pet peeves.  These are what we call "hot button" issues; the ones that stir us into a change or drive us to action.  Just like pet peeves, I'm sure you could name your own hot button issues.  Perhaps it is seeing an adult berate and then strike a whiny child in the grocery store.  Or perhaps it is overhearing or being party to a cruel, gossipy conversation aimed at hurting a friend.  Or perhaps it is seeing an elderly woman being bullied by a gang of bored street kids.  Pet peeves simply get under your skin.  Hot button issues get under your soul.   B.   In this morning's passage of Scripture, Jesus clearly illustrates one of his hot button issues.  Entering the Temple courts in Jerusalem, He became enraged at what He saw! Any portrait of a "gentle Jesus, meek and mild" just doesn't fit in here!  He was outraged; He overturning tables, scattered the coins of the moneychangers, and chased out the cattle, sheep, and doves that were sold as animal sacrifices to God.  Yielding a whip, He tore up the place!    Now I'm sure you've heard that the reason Jesus was so mad was because money was changing hands and goods were being sold in the Temple.   I've had wonderful, God-fearing people take this passage and interpret it as saying that the church sponsored youth group couldn't sell stuff in the social hall to raise money for mission trips.  From their perspective, I can see their point.  Jesus was opposed to commerce being conducted in the Temple.  But we must be clear that it wasn't the commerce of money and goods that bothered Him nearly so much as the system that created the need for the commerce to be conducted.  Let me explain.   John tells us that this incident occurred at the time of the Passover Festival.  John places it early in Jesus' ministry.  The other Gospels place it much later, at the time of His Crucifixion.  Why the difference?  Because the Gospel of John is a missionary document; John picks and chooses the historical material he has about Jesus to make the point that Jesus is the Son of God, and that salvation comes only through faith in Him.  John doesn't set out to give a chronological history of Jesus' life.   His is the last Gospel written, and John knew that Matthew, Mark, and Luke had already written a chronological history.  Instead, John speaks in sign, symbol, and metaphor.  He is more concerned about theological truth than historical accuracy.  To illustrate this, we should notice that John actually has Jesus enter Jerusalem three times (this is where the idea of a three-year public ministry comes from) compared to once for the other Gospel writers.  On each occasion, John demonstrates how God is doing a new thing in the history of His people through Jesus.  We have to interpret this morning's passage with that in mind.   Anyway, Jesus enters Jerusalem during Passover.  Lots of people would join Him in the Holy City.  It is estimated that the population of Jerusalem would swell from 50,000 to 180,000 at Passover.  Devout Jews would come from as far away as Persia, Syria, Egypt, Greece and Rome to fulfill their holy obligation to God according to the Law of Moses. That's a lot of hungry mouths to feed and a lot of weary travelers to put up for the night. Plus, they're coming to the Temple to make a sacrifice. They're going to need an unblemished animal for that, and you can't bring a bunch of cattle, sheep, and birds with you on such a long trip.  And since the foreign currency all the visitors were bringing was of Roman coinage, bearing the image of the Emperor, they had to be exchanged with coins that bore no image while on the Temple grounds, since any graven image was against the Jewish Law.  So you get the picture – a whole industry grew up to meet these two needs.  The animal-sellers and the money-changers were conducting business, but they were also offering a crucial service to the Passover pilgrims. The animals -- lambs for the wealthy and doves and pigeons for the poor -- were purchased by the temple visitors, presented to the priests, and offered up in accordance to the strict laws of Moses.  How else could the business of the Temple go on without these entrepreneurial venders?   Well, Jesus believed that that was the wrong question to ask, and that is why He went on this tirade.  Jesus was upset because all this buying and selling has intruded upon the sacred space for worship. As we just read, Jesus said, "Take these things out of here!  How dare you turn my Father's house into a market."  Jesus wants the whole enterprise shut down!  He was sick and tired of it!  He knew full well that pious pilgrims had no choice but to purchase cattle, sheep and doves when they arrived in Jerusalem. They couldn't be expected to bring their livestock over all the rugged miles from their distant homes.  They couldn't be expected to use Roman coins.  Attacking the sellers is in a very real sense attacking the symptom but not the disease.  It was the whole religious system that needed changing!  The faith community at that time was so wrapped up in rules and ritual that the fresh revelation of God through Jesus Christ could not get through.  The Spirit had been shut out of the Temple, and everything else had been let in.  This is what Jesus was ticked about.  This is why He made such a ruckus around all those many thousands of tourists.  And this is why He went head to head against the religious establishment, the Pharisees, the Sadducees, the Scribes, and the like.  They benefited from the status quo.  Why would they want to see it changed?    You see, Jesus was mad!  Mad at the temple being turned into a marketplace.  Mad at the money-changers who had turned a holy obligation into a lucrative profession.  Mad at the Passover pilgrims, who saw the temple as a place to transact a business deal, not to remember God's holy works and feel God's holy presence.   Mad at the priests, who had let their love of law and ritual take precedence over their love for God.   Mad at all the pointless sacrifices that caused the temple mount to swim with the innocent blood of dead animals instead of shine with the living Spirit of God.   Jesus was trying to bring the divine presence back into his Father's house. The Temple had become nothing more than a slaughterhouse, a trading-house and a party-house. Jesus had to clean house in order to once again make room for God's Spirit.  When Jesus entered the temple that day he found a faith that was stale and dirty. What Jesus did with His expression of anger was to challenge a smug, hypocritical religious system that desperately needed to change. Therefore, a little demolition was necessary, not to mention an all out assault to clean house.  In this story we get an image of Jesus as a one-man wrecking crew, swinging a sledgehammer. There is no way to make improvements in an old house without making a mess. The faith community needed a good housecleaning and Jesus took it upon himself to do just that with zeal and determination.   Well, you don't do all that without drawing the attention of the religious leaders.  They approached Him, demanding an explanation, and He gave them a testimony.  "Tear down this building, and I will build it up again in three days!"  It's obvious that the people who approached Jesus thought He was talking about the magnificent Temple in which they were standing, constructed by Herod the Great and started before Jesus was even born.  Today, we can stand beside the walls of that Temple if we visit Jerusalem.  It's called the Wailing Wall, and even today it is a site of pilgrimage and prayer.  But Jesus was talking about the Temple of His Body.  Crucified by the establishment leaders, God would raise Him up on the third day.  It is through Him and not through the Jerusalem Temple that we now worship God.  Faith in Christ places us in the very presence of God, and brings us eternal life.   C.  Based on what we have seen in this morning's passage of Scripture, I'd like to make two observations:   1.      There can come a time when the house of the religious establishment needs a major renovation.  Sometimes, like Jesus, we who trust the Scriptures as the word of God and who seek to lie a new and faithful life in Christ have to cause a ruckus, in order to let a fresh wind of the Spirit blow in.  Such times are not undertaken lightly, or frequently, but when it is obvious that God is no longer in charge of the religious establishment, faithful Christians have to take a stand.  For those of you who are new today, this is exactly what has happened with our Anglican Church.  And it's not just the Episcopalians who have in some quarters grown stale from the lack of the Spirit – it's also Methodists, Lutherans, Presbyterians, and other main line groups.  Sometimes we have to renovate the house of the religious establishment because heresy has crept in.  And the Church has fought this battle for as long as there has been a Church.  The Nicene Creed, which we will recite in a moment or two, is a document that came out of the clash between two parts of Christianity.  One part believed that Jesus is equal to God, and indeed is God.  The other believed that Jesus was somehow less than God.  Through prayer and study, the Church asserted that the latter was heresy.  Sometimes we have to battle heresy today by shaking things up.  It's not easy, but sometimes it is necessary.   In addition, sometimes the house of religion has to be renovated because it has forgotten its mission.  As Jesus said, "You can't put new wine into old wineskins."  If a Church becomes just another organization, if a congregation fails to see that the Church exists for others, if a Church believes that the primary mission is not the evangelization of the world, then the Spirit may have to blow strongly through the house, renovating from the bottom up.   There is a story about a man who visited a church. He parked his car and started toward the front entrance. Another car pulled up nearby, and the irritated driver said to him, "I always park there. You took my place!" The visitor went inside and found that Sunday School was about to begin. He found an adult class, went inside, and sat down. A class member approached him and said, "That's my seat! You took my place!" The visitor was somewhat distressed by this rude welcome, but said nothing. After Sunday school, the visitor went into the sanctuary and sat down in an empty pew. Within moments another member walked up to him and said, "That's where I always sit. You took my place!" The visitor was troubled, but said nothing. Later, as the congregation was praying for Christ to be present with them, the visitor stood, and his appearance began to change. Scars became visible on his hands and on his sandaled feet. Someone from the congregation noticed him and cried out, "What happened to you?" The visitor replied, "I took your place."   We must never forget who we serve.   2.      The second observation is that sometimes our faith must encounter and battle established culture head on.  Jesus tackled the culture of the establishment at the Temple that fateful day.  He did the right thing to do, because God always has something to say when the status quo hurts people or forces people out of relationship with God.  For Jesus, it cost Him His life.  In some parts of the world, being a Christian can also be a death sentence.  But we still have to stand up to culture and society and say 'No, this is not right'.  Famous religious leaders, going all the way back to Stephen, Peter, and Paul, have had to do this, oftentimes with great distress.  In more modern times, D. Bonhoeffer, one of the great German theologians of the 20th century, spoke up against Hitler and Nazi rule, going all the way back to Hitler's rule as chancellor in 1933.  Bonhoeffer helped form the Confessing Church, which was a resistance movement during WWII, and he helped smuggle Jews out of Germany.  For this, he was executed at the concentration camp at Buchenwald in the closing days of the war, at the age of 39.  Now we don't have to be a martyr.  But we do have to stand up for what is right when we are called to do so.  Again, prayer and study are required before this should begin.  But we never know who might be watching.  Maybe even our children.   Culture and faith can collide in another way.  Sometimes we have to speak the language of culture in order to communicate with people in the culture.  Now, in doing this, we always have to remember that the message must never change; only the way we deliver the message.  New technology, new Biblical translations (not inaccurate, just in modern language) and the like are very important in again getting the message across to the modern culture.  Music that touches the souls of a different generation is very helpful in this.  (MY FRIEND IN THE CAL. CHURCH).   During this season of Lent, we may have to allow Jesus to tear up a little in our hearts.  It might hurt, but this will allow the wind of the Spirit to blow.  Amen.   Keith Almond P.O. Box 4388 Leesburg, VA  20177 703-344-3569 almond_keith@yahoo.com