Cleaning out the Temple

This is another of my Lenten Sermons which I share with you all.

On the wall of our church, near the doorway to the hall, hangs a copy of ‘Light of the World, a painting by the pre-Raphaelite artist Holman Hunt. It is a picture of Jesus, patiently waiting outside a door to be let in. Its inspiration is the bible passage “Behold, I stand at the door and knock.” It was a painting that graced many a Victorian or Edwardian home. I first remember seeing it hanging outside my Sunday school room when I was five or six. It is a painting that is in stark contrast to our Gospel reading this morning.

When Jesus entered the temple he discovered people selling cattle, sheep and doves to the pilgrims who needed them to make their obligatory sacrifices. Those pilgrims also needed to change their Roman coinage into Jewish money in order to pay the temple tax. So Jesus comes fact to face with the money changers.

Was Jesus surprised that they were there? I don't think so. He had visited the Temple when he was twelve and had probably done so on a number of occasions since. He would have been quite aware of what was going on. This would not have been a spare of the moment act

Jesus deliberately plaits a whip out of the reeds on the ground, thrashed the animals from the temple, scattered the coffers of the money changers, and overturned their tables: "Take these things out of here! Stop making my Father's house a marketplace!" Later the Gospel writer remembered Psalm 69:9 and attached a sense of prophetic fulfillment to the event: "Zeal for your house will consume me."

The picture this scene paints of Jesus is one completely different from the one in Hunt's painting. However, the truth is if we really dig under the surface of the Gospels, we meet a quite different Jesus to the one we expect. Some of you may remember the last time I spoke and how revolutionary we saw Jesus’ visit to Levi and how it broke all the religious, moral and social codes of the day. I called Jesus a revolutionary. What could be more revolutionary than Jesus’ act that morning in the temple.

Reading various commentaries on this incident, most, not unnaturally, concentrate on Jesus’ motives for his outburst. Some see in his actions, justification for their own. Not unsurprisingly, the reformers use this incident to justify their own destruction of the statues, paintings, stained glass etc. of the pre Reformation church. However, when questioned, Jesus says nothing at all about his motives..

However, one commentary did strike my attention because it was so different from the others.

“ I read the cleansing of the temple as a stark warning against any and every false sense of security. Misplaced allegiances, religious presumption, pathetic excuses, smug self-satisfaction, spiritual complacency, nationalist zeal, political idolatry, and economic greed in the name of God are only some of the tables that Jesus would overturn in his own day and in ours.” (The Journey with Jesus: Notes to Myself, Daniel B. Clendenin, Journey with Jesus Foundation.)

For the Jews the temple was more than a place of worship – the place where God dwelt. The temple had become a symbol of national pride. They saw themselves as the one people who had access to God; what is more they had his presence right there in the temple. The Romans may think themselves special, but they knew they special – They had God. Nothing of the outside is allowed in, that is why the money has to be changed – God does not want anything inferior, and the Romans are inferior. The whole of their national identity was wrapped up in the Temple. We remember how the Americans reacted with the destruction of the Twin Towers in New York. Could you imagine the shock when Jesus mentions the destruction of the temple.

Of course the same attitude that was found in Israel can be found in all ages and amongst all races. At its worst it can be found in the Nazi movement and its ideas of the master race. But in its lesser form by groups who believe that their way is the only right way, or their church is the only true church.

If Jesus acts in the temple tell us anything it is this. God is not interested in our great buildings, however special they are. One day the great cathedrals of this land will fall. Look at the Monasteries!

God is not interested in our National Pride, our history and how great we see ourselves in the world. Nations come and nations go. All the great empires of the past are fallen. Even western culture will have its end.

What God is interested you and me. – We are the true temple

“Do you not know that you are God's Temple and that God's Spirit lives in you?” (1 Cor3:16)

“For we are the temple of the Living God” (2 Cor 6:16)

If then, we are the Temple of God, what goes on inside? This lententide we need to ask ourselves some hard questions

• Do we see ourselves as superior to those around?
• Do we have a false sense of security in our own powers?
• Do we presume we are always right?
• Have we allowed the World and all its values to invade our innermost quiet.
• Have we become greedy, not only for money but for our share of the earth's resources?

Jesus once told a parable.

Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee stood up and prayed about himself: ‘God I thank you that I am not like other men – robbers, evildoers, adulterers – or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week and give a tenth of all that I get.’

But the tax collector stood at a distance. He would not even look up to heaven, but beat his breast and said, ‘God have mercy on me a sinner I tell you that this man, rather than the other, went home justified before God. (Luke 18: 9-14)

It is no accident that the prayer of the Tax Collector is displayed on our back-cloth during lent.

Is that prayer our prayer?

Are we willing to cleanse the temple - or will Jesus have to come and do it?