Forgive me as I have not yet figured out how to post the audio for this sermon, but I'll leave the details of inflection to your imagination for now.
John 2:13-22
13 When it was almost time for the Jewish Passover, Jesus went up to Jerusalem. 14 In the temple courts he found people selling cattle, sheep and doves, and others sitting at tables exchanging money. 15 So he made a whip out of cords, and drove all from the temple courts, both sheep and cattle; he scattered the coins of the money changers and overturned their tables. 16 To those who sold doves he said, “Get these out of here! Stop turning my Father’s house into a market!” 17 His disciples remembered that it is written: “Zeal for your house will consume me.”[a] 18 The Jews then responded to him, “What sign can you show us to prove your authority to do all this?” 19 Jesus answered them, “Destroy this temple, and I will raise it again in three days.” 20 They replied, “It has taken forty-six years to build this temple, and you are going to raise it in three days?” 21 But the temple he had spoken of was his body. 22 After he was raised from the dead, his disciples recalled what he had said. Then they believed the scripture and the words that Jesus had spoken.
Think for a minute about the artistic representations of Jesus you’ve seen throughout your lifetime. Can you remember the pictures that hung on your Sunday School classroom walls growing up? Or maybe you’ve been a part of an email chain letter with pictures of Jesus and an inspiring message? I would imagine you’re now thinking of something in watercolor or Thomas Kinkaid. Maybe that one of Jesus meandering across the luscious green pastures with a soft snow-white lamb snuggled around his shoulders. Something deserving of a hallmark card or a precious moments figurine. I have never seen a picture of Jesus running around spinning a whip over his head, screaming, and throwing furniture. Why do you think that is?
Help me imagine this picture. The people are preparing for a big holiday, the Passover. They’ll need to make sure they are ready – they’ve gotten all the groceries, their bags are packed and they aren’t forgetting their phone charger. As for their temple sacrifice, that’s one less thing to haul, they’ll just pick one up in front of the temple when they get there. Could you imagine trying to keep track of the kids, the bird cage, and a cow on a leash when the streets are packed elbow to elbow and the dust is so thick you can hardly breathe? This week is the South by Southwest Festival, so anyone who’d like to try their hand at it can just head downtown this afternoon and don’t forget to bring the livestock. In the text, this is exactly what Jewish families are doing. So it makes absolute sense to put the supermarket, complete with ATM’s, right out front of the temple and the merchants know it. The merchants know the Jews have to have these things, and so turn a time for worship into a time for financial gain. But why would anyone want to mess with this system? We’re getting smarter, more efficient, and more profitable. And surely, this isn’t the first year it has been this way. So why, this one day, does Jesus flip out? Perhaps it was daylight savings time and he got one less hour of sleep, was cranky, and just having an off day. We can understand. I’m sure there was a perfectly reasonable explanation, so let’s just ask. Jesus, what what what are you doing? We’re all willing to put this behind us, if you’ll just show us a sign.
This is a perfectly reasonable question. Signs are requested and given throughout the bible – the Rainbow is given to Noah, Moses gets the burning bush and then performs signs for Pharaoh. Remember, this Passover celebration about to happen is all about signs. Exodus 12:13 talks about the lamb’s blood on the doorposts of Jewish homes and says “the blood will be a sign on the houses where you are, when I see the blood I will pass over you.” In the Gospel of Luke, shepherds are told that they will find a baby in manger and this will be a sign to them. We talk about signs every Sunday. Sometimes when we gather our offering, we say that “these gifts are signs of God’s gracious love.” In communion, we talk about bread and wine becoming “signs of the new covenant in my blood.” Signs are important. They function as markers, way posts, directing, pointing to God.
However, the sign Jesus offers was not exactly what the people had in mind. “Destroy the temple, and I will raise it again in three days.” Come again, Jesus. The temple? This one? Oh, You mean the one that we finally got back centuries after the Babylonioans turned the first one to rubble? The one we just got a new sound system in, the one we’ve finally paid the mortgage on? That temple? Well, yes and no.
Of course it seems silly to tear down a building, only to put up the same thing in its place. It’s silly and wasteful, but that’s not quite what he’s talking about. Our second reading from Corinthians reads that “the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.” At first glance the gospel seems ridiculous, but if we dig into it we start to uncover a new way of thinking of the same old things….like the temple…or church. I remember one of the first songs we learned in Sunday School, complete with hand motions: The church is not a building, the church is not a steeple, the church is not a resting place, the church is the people. The church is an important physical place. There is something special here, but not because of the new carpet. The church as building comes alive because of who it serves. Sheetrock can be helpful, but not without people to give it meaning. The temple that Jesus talks about isn’t the four walls, but himself. The sign he offers isn’t the greatest general contracting boast of all time, but his life and his love.
If this is the case, then we can follow John to say that signs aren’t one-time miraculous events. They can be that, but here signs aren’t things that happen, it’s who we are. This, too, is a definition of signs that we see examples of in biblical history. Ezekiel is told that he is a sign to the Israelites, the Psalmist declares “I have become a sign for many, and Luke 11:30 says “For as Jonah was a sign to the Ninevites, so also will the Son of Man be to this generation.”
Ok, so we have a role to play in this. Our entire being is a sign of God’s love, we are a living temple. But what does that even mean? Is Jesus saying then, that we should destroy ourselves? Look back at his statement, “destroy the temple and in three days I will raise it up.” The main point isn’t destruction but rebuilding. We’ve been talking about how Lent isn’t a time for deprivation, a time to cause ourselves the pain of caffeine withdrawals, but a time for renewal. Here, it’s not ultimately about destruction, it’s about putting things in the right order. Jesus is pointing out that things have gotten way out of order and we need to take notice. He doesn’t say that all marketplaces are evil and never go there. He says we have to put things in the right order, and God is on top. It’s the very first commandment.
Now, does renaming destruction as renewal really make it any easier or painless9? Not really, not necessarily. Make no mistake, Jesus is still flipping over tables and smashing stuff up. This place will never be as it used to, we cannot remain the same. In Christ, we are a not a refurbished creation, we are a new creation. With the Gospel, that message isn’t a threat nor should it leave us in despair, it is a gift. Becoming a living breathing sign of God’s love means that things will change. Not just some things, every thing. It is a change so profound, so deep, so complete that somehow in the midst of that dusty marketplace we stand up, look around and realize, “I suddenly want to help Jesus whip this place into shape too.” Look at the disciples – “they remembered,” “they recalled.” The disciples and everyone else had no clue what was going on until…they did. Not that there was a flash of lightning, but they looked back and saw the contrast in themselves.
It’s not something we intellectually assent to or choose, as if we could pull ourselves up by our spiritual bootstraps and manually wrench ourselves around. In fact, it’s much gentler than that. Becoming a living temple is not about trying to hold on to Jesus tighter, but relaxing our muscles and releasing him. We release God from our ideas of containment of “how things are supposed to be,” from what’s appropriate in polite society. We release ourselves to join in. The zeal for God’s house consumes us too. God is loose, running wild through the streets, and it’s so exciting! Can you imagine it? That which has been bubbling under the surface, tucked away, repressed, even sealed off? And then something turns and it is allowed to step out, stretch out its cramped legs, and run. Maybe you can just faintly remember the feeling, the rush, the exhilaration! It’s the feeling of a great release, terrifying and triumphant. This is the moment some will say is when they finally feel alive. Maybe you are still waiting to feel this way, but oh you can imagine it. You can imagine imagining it.
With this rising, swelling within you, remember that this isn’t Lord of the Flies, Jesus isn’t some 1970’s punk screaming “Anarchy in the UK!” It is the demonstration of God’s love that is so important, so radical, that Jesus literally dies trying. This passion that bursts out of Jesus is the desire to put God first. To honor God with our whole lives. To put things in right order. Such overwhelming passion can result in rich beautiful discussion and insightful reflection as we’ve seen in the parables and in our bible studies, but it’s just not satisfied to stay there. It can’t be contained in word form. Inevitably, it shows up in how you live. God’s love breaks loose into the world. What that looks like for each of us is different. For Jesus, here, blurring the line between God and money is clearly not an option. What are the things that get your heart pounding, your blood flowing? The things that make your heart leap? The things you cannot keep silent or still? What, even this very moment, stokes the fires of God’s justice inside you? Where is God inviting you to be a part of the passion of Christ? Don’t go out looking for a new cause to adopt, or a facebook page to ‘like.’ Just stop, look around you, notice where things seem out of order, notice where God has given you gifts to care and let loose.
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