Third Sunday of Lent B

Sermon

Third Sunday in Lent B

John 2:13-22 and Exodus 20:1-17

March 26, 2000

Rev. Valerie Ann Hart

St. Alban’s Episcopal Church, Brentwood, CA

What was it that got Jesus so riled up? Why did he do this action of driving the sheep and the cattle out of the temple and pouring out the coins of the money changers? Certainly he knew how dangerous this was. Certainly he knew how upset the authorities would be. Yet he performed this dramatic action, at the Temple in Jerusalem, right before Passover, guaranteeing that many people would be around to see it. What could have driven him to such outlandish action?

This action of driving the salespeople out of the temple is one of a fairly small number of actions of Jesus that appears almost identically in all four Gospels. It is clear that it made a powerful impression on those who witnessed it. Most of the time when people talk about this action, they relate that Jesus was angry when he drove the people and animals out, but none of the four Gospels indicate his mental state at the time. None of them say that he was angry, they just record his action. None of them explain why he did it.

Jesus was acting much like the prophets who had come before him had acted. Often they would engage in some type of dramatic action to make their point. For example, Jeremiah is told (Jeremiah 13:1 - 10)

Thus said the LORD to me, “Go and buy yourself a linen loincloth, and put it on your loins, but do not dip it in water.” So I bought a loincloth according to the word of the LORD and put it on my loins. And the word of the LORD came to me a second time, saying, “Take the loincloth that you bought and are wearing, and go now to the Euphrates, and hide it there in a cleft of the rock.” So I went, and hid it by the Euphrates, as the LORD commanded me. And after many days the LORD said to me, “Go now to the Euphrates, and take from there the loincloth that I commanded you to hide there.” Then I went to the Euphrates, and dug, and I took the loincloth from the place where I had hidden it. But now the loincloth was ruined; it was good for nothing.

Then the word of the LORD came to me: Thus says the LORD: Just so I will ruin the pride of Judah and the great pride of Jerusalem. This evil people, who refuse to hear my words, who stubbornly follow their own will and have gone after other gods to serve them and worship them, shall be like this loincloth, which is good for nothing.

Other prophets went through extended public fasts; one even married a whore in order to make a point. The prophets knew that actions, dramatic actions, get peoples attention and are remembered much better than simply words.

So Jesus’ intense and dramatic action against the establish religion as expressed through the temple was very much in that prophetic tradition. He didn’t just get up and preach that he didn’t like what was happening in the temple, he dramatically and memorably showed his displeasure.

But what was it that he was displeased about? What was wrong with selling animals and changing money in the temple? After all, to worship people needed to have the proper animal to be sacrificed, and it was a service to the pilgrims who came to have the animals right there to purchase. And people had to pay the temple tax with the local currency. Since people came to Jerusalem from all over the world, of course people needed to exchange their money. It was just providing a convenience for the traveler, sort of like putting in an ATM machine in the lobby.

What was it then that disturbed Jesus enough to make such a scene? What was the point he was dramatically making? The Bible does not explain why he did this, but we can get some idea by looking at Jesus’ statements in other parts of the Gospels and looking at the prophetic tradition that Jesus’ actions were a part of.

Jesus’ primary concern was that people could have a direct and personal relationship with God. Remember what he said to the woman at the well. (John 4:21-24)

Jesus said to her, “Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews. But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father seeks such as these to worship him. God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.”

Jesus wanted people to worship in spirit and in truth, to open their hearts in simplicity and faith and relate directly to God. What was happening in the temple was very different. There a person would come and buy an animal appropriate to the situation, take it to the priest to be killed, and then have completed the worship. It was more a business transaction in which the person paid God with an animal sacrifice in exchange for forgiveness, or to fulfill a duty, than a relationship of sincerity and truth. It was not just the sellers of the animals that were the concern of Jesus, but the whole method of worship that had developed over generations at the temple. In this he was following the prophets’ footsteps, who had consistently railed against the establishment of the temple. For example, Jeremiah says (Jeremiah 7:21 - 23)

Thus says the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel: Add your burnt offerings to your sacrifices, and eat the flesh. For in the day that I brought your ancestors out of the land of Egypt, I did not speak to them or command them concerning burnt offerings and sacrifices. But this command I gave them, “Obey my voice, and I will be your God, and you shall be my people; and walk only in the way that I command you, so that it may be well with you.”

The temple, God’s house, the place that should have been a tool for helping people remember and grow closer to God through prayer, had become a marketplace. The temple and its methods had become an obstacle to the relationship with God, rather than facilitating it.

Jesus was bothered by anything, ANYTHING, that got in the way of the intimate and loving relationship with God. Right relationship with God does not take animal sacrifices, but a calm and peaceful and loving heart. The psalmist beautifully expresses it, “Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in your sight, oh, Lord my strength and my redeemer.” Words and meditations that are acceptable to God. That is the true worship, not what was going on in the temple at Jesus’ time.

In order for people to directly approach God, they had to get rid of the old system of sacrifices. Jesus had to drive out those things that got in the way.

I would ask you now, what in your life gets in the way of your relationship with God? What are the animal sacrifices and money changers in your life that Jesus would want to drive out of you so that your words and meditations may be acceptable to God?

If you need some hints, take a look at the Old Testament reading from Exodus, the Ten Commandments. Here we have delineated that which separates us from a true, spirit filled and loving relationship with God.

1.     Have no other God before me. God comes first. If there is anything, ANYTHING, in your life more important than God, it is in the way of relating to God. Period.

2.     Don’t make idols. Don’t turn any thing into God. Don’t worship things. Is your car an idol? Or your boat? Are you more concerned with caring for them then caring for your soul? How much time you spend concerned with their upkeep verses your prayer life? Don’t turn anything into God.

3.     You shall not make wrongful use of the name of the Lord your God. In ancient times, the names of the gods were used as words of power. They were used for magic, to try to manipulate the world. To use God’s name as a magic spell, in an attempt to manipulate things, to try to be in control, is clearly getting in the way of a right relationship with God. Today we are more likely to be tempted to use prayer in an attempt to manipulate the world in a magical way. The name of Jesus is powerful; we must not use it thoughtlessly.

4.     Remember the Sabbath. Take some time off. How can you possibly be in right relationship with God if you never take any time for that relationship? Can you set aside a regular time to pray, and read, and study?

5.     Honor your father and your mother. If we don’t have peace in our hearts with our parents our minds cannot be quiet and truly loving. I know this from years of therapy, both on myself and as a psychologist. Until we are at peace with our parents we are in inner struggle. Honoring does not necessarily mean obeying everything they say, but it does mean letting go of old hurts and resentments and treating them with respect.

6.     You shall not murder. If you have no respect for the life of God’s greatest creation, how can you be in right relationship with God?

7.     You shall not commit adultery. It is impossible, absolutely impossible, to be in an intimate relationship with two people at the same time and have any level of peace in your meditations or truth in your heart. Adultery leads to noise and confusion in the mind along with lying and deception.

8.     You shall not steal. Much like above, stealing leads to fear and deception, not love and truth.

9.     You shall not bear false witness. Here we are lying again. God is Truth, so to be in right relationship with God one must be in right relations with the truth.

10. You shall not covet. Coveting is such an archaic but powerful word. To covet something is more than just to want it, but to crave it, to be obsessed by the desire for it. To have your desire fill your mind and heart. To covet anything gets in the way of being grateful to God for the abundance that we have and focuses our minds not on God but on that which we long for.

What is there in your life that needs to be driven out? Can you invite Jesus to come into your life during this time of lent and take his whip of cords and drive from you whatever in you is an obstacle to a right and true and loving relationship with God? It will probably hurt, you will probably be surprised by what you find to be obstacles, but how else can we make ourselves a worthy temple for God’s spirit? Remember, we are God’s temple. Let us worship God in spirit and in truth.