It is almost ironic that in our Gospel lesson for today we have been given a story about
Jesus committing what is often perceived of as "an act of aggression" for what is later interpreted to
be "for a greater good." It stands in strong contrast to the Psalm and the Old Testament lesson which
present us with a very ordered concept of God, where all the rules are spelled out and all the expectations are
immediately clear and unwavering. The Epistle is the subtle hinge, which explains that the wisdom of God, though
unchanging, often defies human logic and understanding, as in the use of the dreaded cross as a means of salvation.
The bottom line question thus becomes: "How are we supposed to function in a world that God intended to be
orderly, when life actually seems so illogical?
Again this was the issue for all the Gospel writers as they tried to explain the events of Jesus' life in a way
that would make sense of previously held expectations, while at the same time offering assurance for the hope of
a certain future which still seemed to be largely unseen and in the making.
John's answer is to look for "signs" and we find them dropped like clues throughout his Gospel; signs
about who Jesus is and more importantly, what he means to the world. There are signs that show his glory revealed
right in the prologue, signs that were visible from the beginning of the creation of the world.
By the time we get to chapter two we have new wine at a wedding, even before Jesus' time has come. This marvelous
trick is meant to point out that something truly new is among us, better than anything seen before, saved till
the last but abundant from the beginning, always present, always possible.
In John's gospel, in strong contrast to the other three we go next to this present incident at the temple, which
Matthew, Mark, and Luke all place during the final week of Jesus' earthly life, in the days following the Palm
Sunday entrance. I want you to remember that difference,--cleansing the Temple at the beginning of Jesus' public
ministry for John as opposed to at the end in the other three, because it is very important that the sequence be
told in this way for John to support his understanding of God's logically unfolding plan, as we will discuss later.
In the next chapter John will tell the story of spiritual rebirth in the conversation between Jesus and Nicodemus
- another sign of the natural confusion that accompanies the upset of previously held understandings.
The temple cleansing is deeper in meaning than just the chasing out of some misguided, profit-making people. "Money
changing" contrary to popular opinion had its roots in the sincere desire to keep secular images out of sacred
worship space. Coins with images, particularly those of an emperor who had also declared himself to be god were
unacceptable. Unfortunately, like so many practices that start out with pure intentions, money changers found along
the way that they could also turn a profit, and so what was once done purely out of devotion for God had now taken
on a seemier life of its own.
Even the space allotted to their practice was fraught with controversy. Under Herod the Great's new design the
Temple included a public area open to all people, known as the Court of the Gentiles. It was actually a platform,
three times larger than the Temple itself, and as the new agora, or marketplace it made it seem as though it was
the real attraction, and that the Temple just happened to be located in the same area.
Furthermore, Josephus records that a dispute between Caiaphas the High Priest, and the Sanhedrin, the Jewish law
court, had resulted in the court's meeting area being spitefully relocated near the place where the sacrificial
animals were now bought and sold. Thus forcing them to argue their cases over the braying of animals, amidst the
smells and dust of the stables and pens, adding insult to injury as to the value of justice in the house of the
Lord.
Jesus' actions therefore are about reclaiming an old truth, even though they were seen then as proclaiming a new
one. In all four gospels there is evidence based on the way the Romans previously handled even the slightest public
demonstrations of protest, especially at the Temple, to believe that this event is a symbolic interpretation of
what Jesus accomplished, more than an actual record of an angry messiah driving out corrupt forces from the Temple
mount. Jesus stood for justice and overturned all misconceptions that there were alternative ways to treat it!
In John, most scenes have two levels of meaning - one immediate and one much deeper, and far more eternal. When
Jesus says "destroy the temple and in three days I will build it up" - he means replace the concept of
pleasing God with seasonal acts of piety as the center of your religion with a new, spiritual center that controls
the focus of your entire life. Such thinking was revolutionary but not new, it was as old as Eden, but people struggled
with that challenge to their thinking just as they do now.
All the gospels as well as modern commentators like Crossan agree that it was this attack on the Temple that determined
the events leading up to Jesus' execution. John reminds us that in Psalm 69, verse 10 we are told that "Zeal
for your house will consume me." For him it is a prophetic description of Jesus understanding of the importance
of self-sacrifice in standing firm against injustice.
As the leader of a community of people who by the time this gospel was written were not only excluded from Jewish
worship, but being actively pursued and persecuted by the ancestors of their faith, John is really saying:
"God's Temple, as it now stands is no longer viable for us as the dwelling place of God. Jesus will be the
one in whom we find signs of God's presence with us still."
In fact John's gospel is the one that is so bold as to suggest that it is only through Jesus that we can find these
signs, and have that relationship.
And that for John is God's justice complete!
Clearly the desire of the Johannine community was to become a fellowship based on relationships free from exploitation,
and certainly John had a consuming zeal for his message. In later years, the Church he helped to establish seems
to have developed a more particular habit of being against things - I mean the list is almost endless. In early
times it was dancing, card playing, frivolous clothing, intimacy before marriage, unwed mothers, raffles and contraception.
In more recent times it has been abortion, drugs, the death penalty, invitro fertilization, same sex unions, stem
cell research and euthanasia.
When is the Church going to be noted for being FOR something? Jesus was stating quite forcefully that he was for
the right of ordinary people to have free access to be in the presence of God. For this is what "Zeal for
your house" means.
Tear this Temple down and rebuild it in three days? What was he thinking? First, they thought he meant the building,
later that he was referring to his own mortal flesh. But what if he actually meant all of us…going through some
physical transformation that begins with the realization that our old way of trying to get to God wasn't working…and
all that in just three days?
Try to think what it would be like to be 46 years old. Most of us here will have no trouble remembering that. You
would have been living for the same amount of time the Temple had been under construction at the time this event
was taking place. Since Paul later tells us we can be the Temple where God resides, the place where Christ indwells,
we should think about what it would mean to undo our first forty-six years of learning in just three days. Is it
possible that Jesus can remake me in so short a time?
He can -- if those three days are Good Friday, Black Saturday, and Easter morning! Understanding the personal significance
of the integrity of his life, the absoluteness of his sacrifice and death, and the victory of his resurrection
are three days that can rebuild anyone's life!
Today is the 23rd anniversary of the death of Oscar Romero, the Archbishop of El Salvador who was gunned down at
the altar while raising the chalice of Holy Communion. Being transformed by God in one's zeal for justice is a
great threat.
From the beginning the mission of Jesus was very quickly opposed by those who had something to loose, and was quietly
accepted by those who had nothing to loose. Even the demons and the evil spirits we're told, recognized who Jesus
was immediately - and like the religious authorities - they were afraid and wanted to do away with him. "Power
over other people" is never something to use for one's own personal gain. That is always the work of evil…no
matter how sincere one may think they are!
By the time we get to chapter four in John, Jesus meets the Samaritan woman at the well and he tells her, "the
hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshipers will worship God in spirit and truth, for such God seeks to
worship him." Interestingly, it is this woman who first speaks of Jesus as possibly being the Messiah.
For me, in this time of war, Jesus' anger and Jesus' sadness must also be our own. Was not Jesus' righteous anger
at the Temple because of its misuse of power? Here, the Temple, is an instrument ordained by God to bring blessing
and peace to God's people, and instead, it was turned to serve the idols of power and economic greed. Is there
not a parallel to what we are seeing perpetrated today?
Have we lost our "zeal for God's house"? Is it now become nothing more than self-serving projects and
feel good faith? Is the commitment to serving God and serving others a thing of the past?
The first casualty of any war is the ability of the people of the Church to discuss it. We have been conditioned
to believe that we should keep our religion and our politics separate, but our President has invoked God and God's
liberty (which mean's God shares the responsibility for blood shed). He has also said that "those who are
not for us are against us," a not so subtle perversion of what Jesus actually said.
We all stand under the severe judgment of the cross and we all stand in need of the depth of mercy the cross alone
can give. How one defines that cross however makes all the difference…and appearances can be deceiving! I want
to close with this illustration from another unfortunate war that cost so many, so much for what now seems so little.
The Rev. Charles Cook of Fayetteville, North Carolina served with the US Army. He tells the story of the day he
arrived on a Boeing 707 in Vietnam. He writes "I noticed off the end of the runway a thousand little three-foot-
wide depressions that I assumed to be craters caused by shelling. From a thousand feet up it looked as though the
earth had small pox.
"Is that a minefield?" I asked. "No, they are graves.", said the senior NCO, "the Vietnamese
Buddhists break the legs of their dead so that they can bury them sitting upright in the lotus position. Their
graves are round."
Hearing the mechanical scrape as the landing gear deployed, I looked down upon my new home. "There's your
minefield, over to the left", said the NCO. It was not what I expected. What I saw looked like a beautiful
soccer field. All around our compound were the flattest and most verdant fields I had ever seen. They were as green
and flat as the top of a billiard table.... a rich, moist greenness that begged to be massaged by bare toes, to
be played on, to be marked off for a game of football. The only problem was that they were deadly fields…inviting
fields but killing fields.
We are building the future of our faith. It is under construction. What will the end result be?
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