Rooke Chapel Congregation
2/3/19
John 2:13-25
Two weeks ago,
we took up the story of the wedding at Cana.
In which Jesus walks into a 7 day party,
argues with his mother.
Loses,
and then turns a bunch of water,
meant for ritual purification,
into some really good wine.
The Gospel of John,
I think, is ever interested,
in showing us – rather than telling us –
what grace means.
And that was John’s first story.
part of what grace means,
is abundance,
overflowing abundance,
like casks and gallons of the good wine,
ever around the corner.
Even when we worry we’ve run dry.
And then Jesus goes right into the Temple,
to cause some trouble.
Because the other part of grace,
is that once we’ve been shown abundance,
we can’t help but jump into the fray.
This is one of the few stories that’s told in all four gospels.
But John tells it different.
In Matthew, Mark, and Luke –
often called the ‘synoptic gospels’ –
this is Jesus’ last public act.
He turns over the tables,
he gathers the last supper,
he’s arrested,
killed.
And (spoiler alert) resurrected.
the chasing off the money changers is the beginning of the end.
But in John,
it’s the beginning of the beginning.
This is his first public act – right after the wedding at Cana.
In Matthew, Mark, and Luke,
he calls the money changers, “a den of robbers.”
It’s a local conflict,
probably at least in part,
because they’re defrauding the poor.
In John, he calls the temple a ‘marketplace.’
To which most any God-fearing 1st century Jew
which Jesus, and John the Baptist – and most any of their followers were –
would have replied,
uh – Jesus. The temple has to be a marketplace.
This is the center of our economic and spiritual life.
We come from all over,
we can’t be lugging our sheep and cows all across the countryside.
we have to buy them here.
And we can’t use this Roman money,
which says that the Emperor is the Son of God,
in our temple.
So we need money changers.
This is where we meet God.
There’s a great story to be told here,
about standing against corruption and for the poor,
about advocacy even in the face of Empire.
But John’s Jesus is making a different point,
and it’s an important one:
God doesn’t live in the Temple.
And good thing,
because it was destroyed a long time ago.
God – says the Gospel of John –
isn’t contained in a box,
or a building, or a church.
But God is contained,
radically, strangely, absurdly,
in a body.
A real, human, walking, talking,
breathing, eating, pooping body.
Like yours and like mine.
And then that body dies,
and is raised,
and God is everywhere.
Always has been of course,
but we need reminding,
if you’re anything like me, pretty often.
God is not contained in a temple or church, in this Chapel.
coming together on Sunday morning for church,
isn’t the work
of being a follower of Christ.
This is where we’re fed,
and challenged.
This is where we make friends,
and fellow travelers,
This is where we discern,
and sing worlds that don’t yet exist together.
This is where we are reminded,
that we are beloved and created in the image of God
and deserving of a chance to thrive.
And this may be the one place where that’s true,
Not because we’re good,
or because of our GPA or our earning potential or are work ethic.
But because ‘loved’ is who we are,
and love is who God is.
But the work is out there
The other 167 hours and 15 minutes each week
[insert timing joke – I do really brisk services, in case you’ve never been]
in our classes and our jobs,
our families and our communities.
in our Sabbaths,
and our learning,
and the love we show to others,
the simple acts of kindness,
the friendships and families,
and our advocacy for a more just world for all.
And God’s is always already out there,
leading us to it.
Because, friends,
if we are beloved, created in the image of God, and deserving of a chance to thrive,
then so is everyone else.
And if God is really out there, everywhere,
that means actually every. one. else.
From the person next to you in class,
to the person who bags your groceries,
to the person who’s incarcerated right up the road.
Any CS Lewis fans out there?
At the end of The Voyage of the Dawn Treader,
which is his best work. Fight me.
Lucy – who’s the best character –
learns she’s never to return to Narnia.
Never to see Aslan again.
Aslan – spoiler alert – is Jesus. And also a Lion.
Aslan says, I brought you here,
so you can see me better out there,
in your world. The real world.
Where singing lion Jesuses aren’t just walking around.
Which is probably why God wanted a temple in the first place,
and why we build churches and chapels.
We come here, so we can see God better out there.
But it becomes so easy to lose sight of God,
for our God shaped boxes.
And Jesus says not today,
it’s time to get out there,
beyond the temple walls,
where God is beckoning us,
to respond to the gifts we’ve been given.
Allow me a brief aside, if you would.
Because it matters,
and it’s relevant here.
One of the original sins of the church –
and we’ve followed up with many more since –
is antiJudaism and antisemitism.
We have oft misinterpreted the Gospel of John,
as narrating a theological gulf today.
Forgetting that it was narrating an intra-Jewish conflict,
some 2 thousand years ago,
as everyone was making sense of life after the temple.
The Roman Empire had this sneaky habit
of tapping local political and religious leaders
to maintain the status quo,
and it was against these mixers of faith and empire
that Jesus argued so considerably.
We will meet it again, and more vigorously soon,
and when we do,
we do well to remember that 1. Jesus was deeply Jewish,
drinking deeply from the well of Amos and Micah and the prophetic tradition.
And 2. that our sacred text was written in a moment of historical conflict,
of which we are inheritors,
and with which our people have done terrible things.
And every time we read that conflict,
we have to pause, and breathe,
and remember our history.
End aside.
So, says Jesus, it’s time to get out there,
and respond to the gifts we’ve been given
And if we take that seriously,
it’s going to get us into some trouble.
But here’s the thing,
and it’s really easy to miss when we read this story.
I printed El Greco’s famous painting of our text today.
But there’s a bunch more out there,
of this muscley, masculine Jesus,
putting the literal fear of God into people.
Le Valentin’s is really nice too.
But my favorite of all time,
is Willem Dafoe in the Last Temptation of Christ.
Has anyone seen that movie?
It was controversial and culturally significant for a minute there,
but it’s largely passed on.
David Bowie – god love him – played Pontius Pilate.
At any rate,
I think that movie captures how most of us imagine this scene.
Jesus as this holy action hero.
with his whip of cords,
clearing out the entire temple.
And I must admit, I like that guy.
Angry, effective, and deeply human.
Overcome with passion,
but also gets the job done.
You can see why he posed a threat to the ruling authorities.
That Jesus who Utterly disrupted business as usual.
A holy Rambo, purging the temple of evil,
if only for the moment.
Jesus the divine super hero.
Come to deliver justice’s crushing blow.
But in real life,
the walls of the Temple
were roughly 500 meters by 300 meters long.
Making an internal space of about 150,000 sq meters.
Like 8 or so times the size of Bucknell’s main quad.
From the ELC down to St. George’s or so.
With at least 7 major points of entry.
And the moneychanging might have happened outside the walls.
This was a big area,
and Jesus was not a big man.
He couldn’t have disrupted the whole of business life
in such a large arena.
That isn’t the point.
He wasn’t actually an action hero,
clearing everyone out.
He was more like the old man,
holding up an entire lane at a grocery store,
because he brought coupons from another chain,
and really wants them to be honored.
A disturbance,
but people could go around.
They would have found another table, or another gate.
another money changer.
Business went on.
People made their sacrifices.
Longer lines, more grumbling,
more tired, weary travelers, just doing their faithful duty,
at the God-shaped box.
Maybe a couple of money changers went home with some bruises,
and a story to tell,
Hopefully a few went home with their eyes and hearts a little more open.
But mostly, the marketplace would have kept on going.
Because it was big, and important.
But here’s the thing: he did it anyway.
And it mattered.
Because we still tell that story,
2000 years later,
across seas and oceans,
in churches all over the world.
About the God that’s beckoning us,
away from the boxes,
toward relationship,
and justice.
The God who’s always already out there in the world,
who fills our cup to overflowing,
and just as we recognize how blessed we are,
asks us to get to work.
And there is a lot of work out there,
and there are a lot of God shaped boxes,
asking our devotion – success,
earning potential, comfort, popularity or notoriety.
But we carry with us a story,
of a small, angry man,
who said,
I don’t care how big the temple is,
or how much trouble I’m going to get in,
I’m going to tell people that God is bigger than that.
Because it matters.
And it was just the beginning.
May it be so for us too.
Amen.
Prayer note: Where’s somewhere you’ll be this week? Ordinary. Or worrisome. And we’ll pray for you that you meet God there.