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?

Revolutionary Christianity

The following are notes from a sermon preached by me on Sunday 19th February 2006. Dave

Readings: 2 Corinthians. 3:1b-6 Mark 2:13-22

Text: who has made us competent to be ministers of a new covenant, not of letter but of spirit; for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life. (2 Cor. 2:6)

Introduction:

Jesus was a revolutionary. Not that he took up arms against the established authorities, but in the sense that he challenged the accepted way of thinking. It was a challenge so strong that those in power sought to get rid of him. When they could not ridicule him in from of the people with their questioning, they set him up and had him put to death by the Roman Authorities.

Jesus

Our Gospel reading from Mark gives us an early glimpse into Jesus ministry and a hint of things to come.

It is said that there are two things in life that are certain – death and taxes. No one it seems likes the tax man. But what if that tax man was collecting money for an occupying force. How would we feel if the Germans had won the last war and one of our number was collecting our money to support the Reich? That’s exactly the position in which Levi found himself, he was doing very nicely collecting taxes for the Romans and, most likely, keeping some of it for himself. Jesus could well be eating a meal paid for by extortion. No wonder the religious leaders of the day did not like it. To make matters worse, it was not just Levi who was there, but a whole group of other tax collectors and people considered ‘not acceptable.’

Perhaps the Pharisees could cope with one renegade preacher, but to make matters worse he was starting to collect a group of people around him and these did not come from the ‘better’ part of society. Soon they were to include people like Levi himself (Matthew) Simon who, if not a terrorist himself, certainly supported them and Judas, who we are told was a bit ‘light fingered.’

Finally, these people seem to confirm all that the Pharisees think about them by not fasting when they are supposed to. I can hear the ‘I told you so’ now.

The Early Church

At the start, the church also lived the revolutionary life – revolutionary in that it was different from those people around them. Some chose to sell up and give their money to the poor. Others opened their homes for public worship. Rich people and slaves could be found worshiping together. (quite revolutionary in its day when all public worship was done in the temples and synagogues.) In the end Christian’s refusal to worship the Emperor as a God, brought them into conflict with the ruling powers and many paid with their life

The Church in History

All through history there have been people in the Church who have challenged the accepted order. For me, Francis is one such person, but there have been many others who have challenged the society in which they lived and made a radical difference.

Our Church

Let me ask a question. Knowing Jesus’ style of revolutionary ministry, how does it make me feel? But more to the point – If the church were to adopt the same style of ministry today where would I stand – with Jesus or with the Pharisees?

I think they are hard questions. I have to admit that my first reaction is to lean towards the Pharisees. In a way they represent respectability, comfort and a sense that I am part of a historic tradition. Yet there is another reaction deep within myself that say that is wrong.

Recently I read these words in a book call ‘A Condition of Complete Simplicity’ by Rowan Clare William It’s a book mainly for Franciscans, but I believe its words apply to everyone who follows Christ. In that sense I have changed the words Francis and Franciscan for Christ and Christian. Of present world conflicts she said:

Christians are called to live an incarnational presence in the world. Anyone who walks in the footsteps of Christ is lead into the middle of all the mess caused by evil and suffering. He refused to shy away from painful confrontations with reality, but insisted that God’s voice can and must be heard in every situation.

Perhaps the costliest part of a Christian vocation is to recognise that it is not only the victims but also the perpetrators of violence and terror who are our brothers and sisters

All very revolutionary. – could you, could I sit down and eat with the terrorist? In a very real way that is what Jesus did.

Conclusion

This brings me back to our text. – who has made us competent to be ministers of a new covenant.

Although Paul wrote these words in support of the ministry of the apostles they apply to all of us. Each and every one of us has a duty to minister Christ to those around us. We are called to minister the New Covenant that there is acceptance for all, saint and sinner. We are all called to be revolutionaries.

Challenge

Today I attended the funeral of Bert. I first met him for the first time about fourteen years ago when Gill and I moved to our present church. At that time Bert had retired from full time ministry and was helping out preaching and taking occasional services. He was a quiet, pleasant man who had seen service in the army and at one time been in Kenya. However, Bert never talked much about himself so there is a lot about him I didn’t know. Some things I only learned for the first time at the funeral.

I met Bert at a time of crisis. We never talked about it but something about him seemed to help me through. This got me thinking about those people who, for one reason or another, have helped me along on my pilgrimage journey. Some, like Bert, have said little, others have said much, but in each case they have had a profound effect on who I am today.

I’ve no doubt all of us can relate to that experience in some way - there are some people who seem to stand out above the others. This got me thinking – how do people see us? Perhaps there will be many people who we will meet in life who will change simply by meeting with us. Most likely it won’t be a conscious thing on our part. It may be because of what we say, it may be because of what we do, most likely it will be because of what we are. One thing is certain; none of us will leave this world without changing it in some way. I find that quite a challenge.

Walsingham

On Saturday, we finally made it to Walsingham after promising ourselves a visit for more years than we care to remember. In many ways it proved interesting but at the same time disappointing. It was interesting because of what we saw and learned, but disappointing because neither of us felt anything particularly special about the place Some would say that such places are not about feeling, but for me it is important. Iona, Lindisfarne and a whole host less well known sites around the UK and abroad have proved to be places where I have felt particularly near to the Divine but I could not say that about Walsingham, even though I know it is special to the thousands of pilgrims that visit each year.

A few years ago, Chris Peck, who was director of Lay Training here in Liverpool, set out on a journey around Britain to seek out sacred places. In his mind was a series of questions, for example: did some places have a natural sacredness of their own, which was recognized by our forbears, or where places made sacred, by acts of worship over the centuries? Chris came to the conclusion that both seem to be true. Some places, like the island of Iona, seem to have a holiness of their own whilst I think places like Walsingham have more to do with the centuries of prayer and devotion by the pilgrims.

At the start I mentioned Iona. Gill and I visited the island some eight years ago, staying at the Abbey. It was a difficult time for us both, made more difficult by the fact that I did not get on at all well with the rest of the guests. The services in Iona Abbey where not to my liking and the whole thing could have been a disaster. However, releasing myself from the guests and the abbey I spent quite some time sitting outside on a rock, said to be the place where St. Columba had his cell. Here I communed with God, and it was as if heaven and earth were the same place. It was a sacred place. I would gladly return to Iona simply for that quality.

Although St. Francis set up many hermitages, he was always drawn to St. Mary of the Angels, down in the valley from Assisi. It was to this place he came when he knew death was near. Again, I have had the privilege of visiting the church and, despite the crowds of pilgrims and tourists, I could sense something of the sacredness of the place.

So what it is about sacred places, do we have to 'feel' something, or do they posses properties that can be sensed by some people and not by others? Would some people who find Walsingham special not find anything for them at Iona?

That's what we like about God - the way he meets different people, with different needs, in different places and in different ways. Humans like to standardize while God likes to diversify. We constantly need to take care that we don't try to force people into seeing God through our eyes and our own experience. Perhaps one of the hardest lessons for Gill and I to learn is that we don't have all the truth and that other people's experiences are just as valid as our own.