Title: “Jesus' Soapbox”
Scripture: Exodus 20:1-17; John 2:13-22
3/19/06 Third Sunday in Lent Yr. B
Rev. Joy R. Haertig
Though Jesus could preach from the top of a hill and feel a sense of God's presence as he prayed in the wilderness, we can see from his actions in today's scripture that the temple was a very sacred place for him. A place set apart for prayer and the study of scripture.
What he saw as he entered the temple gates was anything but holy.
Jesus saw the temple being misused - it was being taken over by the greed of corrupt religious leaders and anxious merchants.
The grace of God was being turned into a commodity that could be bought and sold.
This was never the original intention of the temple, it had happened over time as some of the leaders lost their spiritual compass.
The first scripture we heard this morning was from Exodus, the giving of the Ten Commandments. The Hebrew people had been slaves in Egypt and were now living as a free people, God gave them the Ten Commandments as a spiritual compass to guide them in that freedom. All of us need a compass to help us remain free in our freedom and you will find that all religions give similar ones to their people, so they are fairly universal.
The Ten Commandments can be divided into two main parts. The first part is focused on our relationship with God beginning with “Thou shall have no other gods before me.” The second part has to do with how to live in community.
We are told in the Gospels that Jesus summed up the Ten Commandments in this way: “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your mind and with all your soul”, and the second is to “love your neighbor as you love yourself.”
At the core of the commandments is the awe of being a partner with God and the humility of being in solidarity with our neighbors - whether we like them or not. This was Jesus' core belief and his purpose was to live it and teach it wherever he went.
When Jesus entered the temple just before the Passover and found it full of merchants and moneychangers he was angry, because they were breaking that first and most central commandment - the Love of God before any other gods.
One scholar put it this way, “When Jesus turned over the tables in the temple he was turning over the tables of misplaced allegiances, economic greed, spiritual complacency and smug self-satisfaction.”
“Is this the gentle Jesus whose healing touch is balm?” A poet writes. Yes this is the same man, but gentleness is not what God always calls for.
There is question as to the meaning of Jesus next comment in today's reading: “Destroy this temple and in three days I will raise it up.” As I studied it this time and considered Jesus' rage at what was happening in the temple I could not help but wonder if perhaps what he was saying was not some mysterious prediction about his death but a proclamation. “You are destroying the purpose of this place - give me three days and I will return it to its original purpose as a house of prayer.” For Jesus, prayer was the path towards the fulfillment of the first commandment. Prayer was the path towards humility and purpose for every child of God.
Gentleness would not have returned the temple to being a house of prayer.
Jesus used his anger to resist corruption of the temple's purpose.
In today's story he did what was necessary to get people's attention - to wake them up to the seriousness of what was happening.
Imagine coming to church on a Sunday morning and finding a little strip mall in our upper parking lot and the only way into the front door was to walk through every store.
Now if you had a lot of money maybe you'd like to do a little shopping on your way into church, but if you were on a limited income - something tells me that you just might quit coming to this house of prayer, right?
If this happened in our parking lot - this would be corruption. We would be putting capitalism/materialism before God, don't you think? Now of course this is not exactly what it was like at the temple - but it can give us a sense of part of what Jesus was fighting against.
The people in churches, just like the people in temples, can lose our way.
We are not God-driven robots. In our freedom, we need a spiritual compass.
I will admit that I can not always remember each of the Ten Commandments, but I sure do remember Jesus' summation of them. “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul and mind and love your neighbor as you love yourself” is called “The Shemah” in Hebrew. The Shemah can be the centerpiece that guides us in our actions and commitments.
But there is another commandment that is important to remember in order to keep “The Shemah” central to our lives. We need to honor the Sabbath and keep it holy.
Part of Jesus' deep love for the temple was that it was a place of prayer. It was not the only place of course, but the passion behind his actions in today's story tells us how important prayer is, not just for Jesus, but for every child of God.
There was a day when even in this country we took the commandment about the Sabbath quite literally. The stores were closed; the bars and taverns were too. The streets were pretty quiet and you did not have a traffic jam on the freeway. Families slowed down, dad's stayed home from work. Sabbath was kind of built in to our surroundings.
We know that this is not true any more.
We have to make a personal commitment to build Sabbath into our lives.
We need to find ways to build a little bit of Sabbath into every day of our lives. How else can we Love the Lord our God with our whole heart, mind and soul and love our neighbor as we love ourselves if we do not take Sabbath time?
A Jewish man named Jacob told a friend that when he was married his grandparents gave he and his wife a new washer and dryer for a gift. When the grandfather presented it to the couple he told them that it was a Jewish washer and dryer. “What makes them Jewish?” the man asked. The grandfather responded with a twinkle in his eye - they won't work on the Sabbath.
For many of us - work is our compass - our schedule is our compass - our busyness - our children - our bills.
We are a driven people - we are constantly on the go.
Ultimately this does not lead to centeredness or blessing - it leads to burn out, exhaustion, short fuses, impatience and a general lack of kindness.
I am taking care of some cats this weekend in this neighborhood. Yesterday as I was trying to pull out of a driveway I did not see a small sports car coming up on my left. When I started to pull out I spotted him and put on the brakes in time - but as he drove by he flipped me off.
This sounds funny today, but yesterday when it happened I was stunned by how his immediate response was to be rude.
Any of us could have been that man - any of us could have been me.
I believe that our fast-paced lives often lead to that kind of rudeness.
If we want our external activities to be less scattered and we desire to practice general kindness with our neighbor, we will pause for Sabbath time.
How can we do that?
We begin resisting the temptation of always doing something - taking care of someone - accomplishing something, always thinking something, always worrying about something.
We learn how to rest. We learn to let go- rest and play.
One translation of the Biblical phrase “to pray” is “to come to rest”.
We allow things to settle - and in settling, things often become clearer. And in that clearing we can foster our spiritual compass.
Wayne Mueller writes in his book on the Sabbath: “Sabbath can only begin if we close the factory, turn out the lights, turn off the computer, (the cell phone) and withdraw from the concerns of the marketplace.”
Jesus was angry that day for many varied reasons - but I am certain that one of them was because he wanted the people to reclaim the temple as a house of prayer. He wanted them to withdraw from the marketplace not bring it into the temple. The temple was one of the places of rest in their busy world, it was one of the places they could go to find Sabbath and reestablish their spiritual compass for the benefit of all.
My friends - May you Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul and mind, and love your neighbor as you love yourself. And may you make it a priority in your life to honor the Sabbath in some way that brings peace and clarity to your daily lives.
It will make the world a better place.