Spring Cleaning

By

Reverend Litton Logan

March 19, 2006

John 2:13-22 (NRSV)

¹³The Passover of the Jews was near, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. ¹⁴In the temple he found people selling cattle, sheep, and doves, and the money changers seated at their tables. ¹⁵Making a whip of cords, he drove all of them out of the temple, both the sheep and the cattle. He also poured out the coins of the money changers and overturned their tables. ¹⁶He told those who were selling the doves, “Take these things out of here! Stop making my Father’s house a marketplace!” ¹⁷His disciples remembered that it was written, “Zeal for your house will consume me.” ¹⁸The Jews then said to him, “What sign can you show us for doing this?” ¹⁹Jesus answered them, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.” ²⁰The Jews then said, “This temple has been under construction for forty-six years, and will you raise it up in three days?” ²¹But he was speaking of the temple of his body. ²²After he was raised from the dead, his disciples remembered that he had said this; and they believed the scripture and the word that Jesus had spoken.

We can not let Saint Patrick’s day go by without a joke about the Irish:

On Saint Patrick's Day, an Irishman who had a little to much to drink was driving home and his car was weaving violently all over the road. A cop pulled him over. "So," said the cop to the driver, "Where have you been?" "Why, I've been to the pub of course," slurs the drunk.

"Well," says the cop, "it looks like you've had quite a few to drink this evening." "I did all right," the drunk says with a smile.

"Did you know," says the cop, standing straight and folding his arms across his chest, "You took that turn at the last intersection so fast that your wife fell out of your car?" "Oh, thank heavens," sighs the drunk. "For a minute there, I thought I'd gone deaf."

Sermon:

            Out of the conflict between the American colonies and Britain there emerged a man who would not be king of a new nation but instead became a great leader in one of the noblest of human endeavors.

          Out of the oppression of British Imperialism emerged a man who would conquer oppression and injustice through civil disobedience and non-violence.

          Out of the socio-economic and racial oppression of this nation emerged a man, who would call a nation to remember and reinterpret its founding principles to include all people.

          Each of these people chose a radical departure from the norms of their time to deal with systemic injustice as well as moral and spiritual error.

          Why did they make these choices?  Simple.  The old ways of their time for dealing with injustice and oppression were not working, had not ever worked, to bring about the best of life for all concerned—oppressed or oppressor alike.

          Across the annuals of human history there emerge at crucial junctures in events people imbued with a calm spirit of defiance, who introduce a new way of seeing things and doing things that directs humanity in a better and more hopeful direction.  Sometimes these emergent-people claim divine inspiration for their insights and at other times they claim self-evident truths as their impetus for stepping forward and proposing a departure from the old, the not working, and the hopeless.

          History either validates these people and their visions or sends their memory and their visions on to the trash heap of infamy and fools.

          In our scripture reading this morning from the Gospel of John, we are actually getting a peek into the historical processes of validating a radical and new way of doing things in the life and ministry of Jesus of Nazareth.

          The opening verses of John’s Gospel set forth John’s purpose in writing his Gospel along with introducing us to the motivation for one of those rare people to which I referred. Jesus comes on the historical scene imbued with the authority of a new way of doing things because the old ways are not working and appear to be hopeless.

          In the opening eighteen verses of chapter 1 of John’s Gospel, referred to as the Prologue, John tells us that the very essence, the divine reason, or divine purposes of God, which lay behind all creation, came on the human scene in Jesus of Nazareth.  God is in Jesus as the one who comes to proclaim and to lead humankind into a new and better way to be human and to be in relationship with God.  These opening verses of John set the stage for the conflicts in Jesus’ life, which will eventually lead to his death and glorification.  The good news of John’s Gospel is in the revelation of God in Jesus.  Please remember that John’s Gospel is about God primarily and only secondarily about Jesus as God incarnate.  In short, what Jesus teaches and reveals about himself he reveals about God.

          It is in the context of John’s understanding of the incarnation that we see Jesus’ earthly ministry opening at a wedding.  Jesus does his first miracle at a special occasion in the ordinariness of human community.  He then moves on to confront the very heart of Judaism—the Temple Cult in Jerusalem.  In John’s account of the Cleansing of the Temple in Jerusalem, we see God, the divine self, in Jesus clashing with the embedded temple cult and challenging the authority of those who say they represent God to prove it by being open to a new revelation of God’s will.

Later in Jesus’ encounter with Nicodemus, we shall see the challenge of God leveled at the teachings of the Pharisees.

          Too frequently, we look at this story of Jesus’ cleansing the temple as an example of Jesus’ humanity.  Jesus, like us, in these scriptures suffers from righteous indignation, routs the moneychangers, and concessionaires of sacrificial animals.  Many have used this inappropriate understanding of these scriptures to justify physical violence in service of righteousness. 

These moneychangers and concessionaires of kosher animals for sacrificing in the Great Temple were providing a very valuable and practical service.  Rather than people dragging animals from long distances to be sacrificed, the concessionaires set up a business inside the Temple complex to sell animals for convenience.  In addition, Greek, Roman, and other coinage with images of people on them could not be used to buy animals for sacrifice, so people exchanged various coinages for the Jewish shekel with which to purchase the appropriate sacrifice. 

Nowhere in John’s Gospel does Jesus say that these sellers of sacrificial animals or moneychangers were themselves corrupt or doing anything illegal, immoral, or necessarily unethical.  We must not let the stories of Jesus cleansing the Temple in the Synoptic Gospels influence our understanding of John’s story.  In John’s Gospel, Jesus simply says that God’s house is not to be turned in to a noisy, stinking marketplace.  God house is primarily a place of prayer and worship.

          Jesus, a complete outsider, dramatically upsets and challenges the power structure of the Temple in Jerusalem.  His actions throw a monkey wrench into the economics and practical aspects of temple worship during one of the most significant feast of the year.  After Jesus ran all the animals, the concessionaires, and the moneychangers out of the Temple, everything had to shut down for the day—big loss of revenue. 

          Jesus, as did Amos and Jeremiah, challenges a staid religious institution that is so engrossed in its own rules and practices that it cannot be open to a fresh and relevant revelation from God.  A fresh revelation is sorely needed because God sees that the old way of law and sacrifice has not caused the kind of changes in the hearts and behaviors of God’s people or their leadership that God had hoped for or wanted.  In John’s Gospel, God is in Jesus during a critical historical juncture—between the old ways and their benefits for a few and the new way with its benefits for all life.

          Please remember, each of our Gospels as well as the other books of the New Testament are written to the insiders of faith and address issues and problems among the insiders and their relationships to established religion, to one another, and to God.  This is especially true of the Gospels.

          With this in mind, this story of Jesus cleansing the temple forces us to ask whether the status quo of our religious practices and institutions have reached the same point as the religious institution and practices of Jesus’ day.  Are we so convinced that our way is the right way that we are unwilling to be open to the possibility of a new revelation and renewal?

          No, I am not talking about being open to novelty for novelty sake, nor change for change sake.  Some of the criteria with which to test divine revelation or a new vision is very simple and very practical—does it have at its heart the best for all concerned—majority and minority; creature and creation.  Does it have a compelling component that seeks time-honored tenets of the good and wholesome for all life?  Does it resonate with the good as recognized everywhere at all times?

          John’s gives us another criteria for validating revelation.  Does the new revelation have at its heart the compelling love for others that mirrors God’s self-sacrificing love? 

John 3:16 (NRSV)
¹⁶“For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.

Notice that in John 3:16 the writer speaks of the greatest good for all people for all times and everywhere.

Micah 6:6 through Micah 6:8 (NRSV)
⁶“With what shall I come before the LORD,

            and bow myself before God on high?

            Shall I come before him with burnt offerings,

            with calves a year old?

⁷          Will the LORD be pleased with thousands of rams,

            with ten thousands of rivers of oil?

            Shall I give my firstborn for my transgression,

            the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?”

⁸          He has told you, O mortal, what is good;

            and what does the LORD require of you

            but to do justice, and to love kindness,

            and to walk humbly with your God?

Notice again the instructions that are directed to all mortals, everywhere, for all time.

It is not religious institutions, it is not sacrifices, it is not rites or rituals, but rather a heart truly oriented in love, in justice, in kindness, and a humble relationship with God that are the ways and means of salvation and the greater good for all, at all times.  The salvation I speak of is found in the divine ways of life as taught by Jesus that saves us from the worst of our selves and others while trusting in the goodness of a life in God, now and forever more.

That day in the Temple Jesus cleans house.  He sends a message to the people to clean out their old staid and ineffectual ways of religion that have become comfortable ends unto themselves.  Today, these scriptures tell us to throw out that which is not working and to be open to the new thing that God can do in our lives and the life of this community of faith. Jesus, in effect, tells those of old and of today that the sacrifices they offer in the inner Temple’s of their souls to God are what are most important.

Its springtime and it is Lent, should we be thinking about spring cleaning our spiritual houses and being open to a new vision of God for our lives?  If you answer yes, let the winds of the Holy move in you now as we look forward to the future of this church and our relationships to friends and strangers alike.