Lent 3 Year B

Gracious God, we pray for your holy Church. . . where it is corrupt, purify it; where it is in error, direct it; where in anything it is amiss, reform it. . .

John 2:13-22

What happened this week to the all-inclusive, all accepting, Jesus you’ve heard me passionately describe in meditation after meditation?  What happened to the Jesus who eats with tax collectors and prostitutes, and who associates with ragamuffins and Romans alike?  

What is an overzealous, self-proclaimed, progressive preacher like me supposed to do with this week’s Gospel where Jesus wields a homemade whip in a crowded Temple court?

Well, I’m glad you asked all three of those questions, because if you hadn’t, I was going to bring them up!

Perhaps you’ve heard of the Via Negativa (literally the way of negation).  This is the theology of the mystics that prepares us for the truth by telling us what God is NOT, rather than what God is. Well, I’ve decided that I’m going to begin by using the very mystical Via Negativa approach to preaching by telling you what I’m NOT going to do with this week’s Gospel in the hopes that we can prepare ourselves to discover the truth in the story.

Firstly, I am NOT going to try to rescue this Gospel because I don’t believe it needs rescuing.  It stands quite well on its own.

Second, I am NOT going to tell you that Jesus was engaged in righteous anger as if to imply that his forming a whip and rearranging the furniture in the Temple courts was somehow a loftier, or a holier, kind of anger than most of us are accustomed to displaying.  

I’m especially NOT going to tell you that this was divine anger rather than human anger.

Anger is NOT the demonic emotion we’ve tended to make it out to be ever since Ward and June Cleaver demonstrated so aptly, in living black and white all those years ago, that it’s truly possible to NEVER get angry about anything.

Now for those of you who aren’t feeling particularly mystical and would prefer to read fewer nots and nevers in a meditation, I will now move on to the Via Affirmativa part of this reflection.

I believe what I learned in Psychology 1A, namely that anger suppressed is not always healthful.  I believe that Lent is a time to unleash, if you will, the wilderness inside each of us.  So, I’m here to tell you that Jesus was plenty angry in this week’s Gospel.  To put it bluntly, he was genuinely ticked off, and we would do well for this Third Sunday in Lent to ask ourselves why?

Well, we all know why. . . right?  It was those money changers and those people selling sheep for the sacrifices.  We all know that Jesus just wanted some time for prayer, and instead he was confronted by those noisy, money-grubbing merchants right there in the Temple courts.

Now, in most churches, we do occasionally sell dinner tickets and hold pancake suppers to raise money, but it’s all for a good cause, and it’s never as out of place as those money changers.  Therefore, we could conceivably conclude that this Gospel has little to do with us, especially since animal sacrifices have not been part of our worship for over 2,000 years.

Such a conclusion would be a mistake!

We would do well to remember that nothing was going on at the Temple that Passover that was any different than any other year.  Money changing and the selling of animals for the sacrifices were necessary practices for people to fulfill their religious obligations. Those with more money could buy unblemished sheep, and those with less money could, at least, purchase a dove for their humble sacrifice.

Here’s the part I believe we need to remember: What Jesus saw in the Temple that day were accepted and long-established religious practices.  These were practices that Jesus had seen many times before. Most likely it was more than those merchants that made Jesus angry.  I think this anger had been building in Jesus for some time.

I truly believe that Jesus, being a good Jew, loved the Temple with all his heart, but in his ministry among the people, he had come to see how the beloved institution of his religion had become a burden on those same people. Those money changers and those sheep salesmen were, on that fateful day, symbols of all the divisive and exclusionary practices that had crept into the religion of Jesus; all the purity regulations that labeled some clean and others unclean; all the stratified social structures that suggested that God  favored some people over others; all the ways in which the religious elites would pronounce God’s judgment upon everyone but themselves.

What causes me to really stop and think here, what I find most disconcerting, is that Jesus made a whip and expressed his raging anger at conventional religion.

What that means is this isn’t a Gospel about First Century money changers and livestock merchants. . . It’s a Gospel about us! It calls each of us who live out our religion each week doing the ordinary, established and accepted practices to re-examine the institution and some of our institutional presuppositions. . . to admit that divisive, exclusionary and burdensome beliefs and practices still exist. . . to flesh out the Purity Code that is still alive and well in the church, and not only in all those other churches, but in our own beloved churches as well.

Our Gospel is assigned in the middle of Lent for a reason.  Lent is a time of evaluation and examination.  This Gospel is truly about cleaning house. Perhaps it was this Gospel that inspired the prayer For the Church in the Book of Common Prayer:

Gracious God, we pray for your holy Church. . . where it is corrupt, purify it; where it is in error, direct it, where in anything it is amiss, reform it. . .

Or the prayer For the Unity of the Church, also in the Book of Common Prayer:

O God the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, our only Savior, the Prince of Peace: Give us grace seriously to lay to heart the great dangers we are in by our unhappy divisions; take away all hatred and prejudice, and whatever else may hinder us from godly union and concord. . .

My dear friends in Christ, let’s face it.  We’d rather have Jesus angry at the Money Changers than angry at us, but the fact is that the only way to be sure that we are taking this Gospel seriously is to take it personally. By doing so, we will perhaps hear an uncomfortable, if not painful, reprimand, but when we allow Jesus to knock over a few tables of discrimination, and scatter a few coins of judgmentalism in our lives, it can be blessing as well.

A small boy was sent to bed by his father for doing something bad.  Five minutes later the little boy called out, Dad.

What? answered his father.

I’m thirsty.  Can you bring me a drink of water?

No, you had your chance, now go to sleep.

Five minutes later: Dad?

WHAT?

I’m really thirsty. . . can I have a drink of water?

The dad answered, I told you NO!  And if you ask me again, I’ll come in there and spank you!

Five minutes later: Dad?

WHAT?

When you come in to spank me, can you bring me a drink of water?

Now perhaps this is a slightly crude illustration because I do not believe God ever desires violence in any form, but I do believe that with Jesus’ anger comes a blessing. With Jesus’ harsh critique of our cherished and long-held belief systems comes a refreshing drink of water, and I’m reminded of these words of Jesus, also from the Gospel of John:  

Whoever drinks the water I give, will never be thirsty again.

One possible response to this Gospel is to say, I knew it. . . I knew it. . . God is an old ogre after all.

OR. . . We could respond by saying, Jesus loves me so much. . . Jesus cares for me so passionately that he’s willing to make a scene in my life.

Lent is the perfect time to allow Jesus to re-arrange your furniture. Some time ago, I saw an interview of a president of a prominent seminary interviewed on one of the cable news channels. He was justifying the proposition that all non-Christians are demonic.  I was both embarrassed and appalled. You see, I would like to blame all the divisiveness in the church on Christian extremists like that seminary president, but that is just too easy.  We all need a good housecleaning.   We all need to walk in the wilderness of our own lives and examine our own motives and beliefs. There’s a lot of us old mainliners who love to build fences and cling onto our long-held divisions as well. . . albeit more subtly.

Someone once said, one who cannot be angry, cannot be merciful.  I must admit, I’m still thinking about that one, but I think it might have some merit. If I can’t get angry at the things that thwart God’s purposes and God’s universal love, then perhaps I’m living too far away from people to really love them myself.

Jesus’ blood pressure hit the boiling point in our Gospel today because the people were going about the business of their religion but forgetting about each other.

Tony Campolo, one of my very favorite evangelicals, has stated that he never does an ordinary altar call any more.  He no longer says, if you accept Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior, then come forward.  No, that’s too easy. Instead, he tells them what’s expected of them as Christians who believe in a God of love.  If they are ready to give up condemning and judging others; if they see social justice as part of their calling in God’s kingdom; if they are ready to accept all sorts and conditions of people as their brothers and sisters; if they sing, Just as I Am, and they really mean, Just as I Am!

If you can do all of that then by all means come forward and give your life to Christ.

Let me close with a prayer . . .

Gracious God, we pray for your holy Church. . . where it is corrupt, purify it; where it is in error, direct it; where in anything it is amiss, reform it. Give us grace seriously to lay to heart the great dangers we are in by our unhappy divisions; take away all hatred and prejudice, and whatever else may hinder us from godly union and concord. 

For it is only in this way that we may truly glorify you, through Jesus Christ our Lord.  AMEN.