A sermon preached at Kowloon Union Church on Sunday 7 March 2021. Third Sunday in Lent, by Rev Judy. The scripture readings that day were Psalm 19, I Cor 1:18-25, John 2:13-22
Opening Prayer: Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable to you, O Lord, my rock and my redeemer. Amen.
Many years ago, I was working in a Chinese-American church in Washington, DC. Every year on the first Saturday of October, the church opened its doors to the community in what we called the “Moon Festival”. As you can guess, it was a cultural celebration of the Mid-Autumn Festival. All the fellowship groups worked together to make Asian food to sell, we had free calligraphy and Chinese folk dance and Lion Dance by the young people. We also had what Americans call a “white elephant sale” or what you might call here a jumble sale. I thought this was a wonderful tradition for the church and everyone looked forward to it.
Then one Moon Festival, someone from the church came into the fellowship hall where most of the activities took place. He looked around and shook his head. What’s the matter? I asked. He said quietly, it just feels like we’ve turned God’s house into a marketplace. I was taken aback. Well, it’s not like we were having it in the sanctuary or on a Sunday. After all, the Moon Festival was a way to celebrate our Chinese heritage, to reach out to our neighbors. We were also raising money for mission. Actually, I don’t think the Chinese Church in DC was guilty of turning God’s house into a marketplace. Any more than the annual Michelmas Fair at St John’s Cathedral or even our beloved KUC auction.
But obviously the person who made the comment in the DC church was thinking of the story of Jesus cleansing the Temple. And in our Gospel lesson in John Chapter 2, granted, the Temple courtyard probably did look like a marketplace – traders, oxen, sheep, birds, cages, moneychangers, all crowded together at the high season of Passover, no doubt making a tidy profit. But, we have to ask, why were they there? Frankly, because the Temple couldn’t operate without them. The devout coming to worship had to offer an unblemished animal for sacrifice. How were they going to bring one all the way to Jerusalem? They also needed to pay the annual Temple tax to keep it running. But they couldn’t use Roman coins with the Emperor’s image. So where were they going to get the silver coins needed to make their donation? It was like moneychangers in the airport who give you local currency. For everyone there in the temple courtyard, then, there was nothing wrong with providing essential services at a convenient location to people who needed them. If anyone thought otherwise, then call it a ‘necessary evil’ for the sake of a higher purpose.
In this context, then, how should we understand Jesus’ anger and actions on that day?
I think the best way to understand the Cleansing of the Temple is to correct some common misunderstandings we have of this famous story. We’ve already said it’s not a critique of church bazaars and fundraisers. What else do we get wrong about this critical event in the life of Jesus? Today, I’m going to address three major misunderstandings we have of the Cleansing of the Temple. Because in order to understand what something is about, we also have to know what it’s not about. Does that make sense? I hope so. Here we go …
1. Misunderstanding #1: The Cleansing of the Temple was a spur of the moment act of passion. Jesus walked into the Temple Courtyard and was so disgusted by what he saw, he just exploded. That’s possible, of course, but does that really make sense? Think about it, this is the same Temple Jesus had loved and been going to all his life. It was where he was taken to be dedicated as a baby by Mary and Joseph. It was where his parents found him when he was only 12 years old talking with the elders. As part of a devout Jewish family, he would have come to the Temple every year. He knew what to expect.
So, rather than Jesus suddenly losing his temper on a bad day, scholars say that he must have planned all this ahead of time. This was a strategic move he knew would ‘rock the boat’. But he was determined to challenge the authorities and the status quo at this critical moment.
That means the Cleansing of the Temple was what we would call an act of civil disobedience. That’s right. Jesus was actively refusing to participate in a system that was unjust and unholy. And just what was wrong with the system? Well for one thing, the Temple during Jesus’ time was the one built by Herod, the Roman ruler over the Jews. Solomon’s Temple had long been destroyed, so this was the 2nd Temple. Herod allowed it to be rebuilt to keep the Jews quiet. But make no mistake. The Jews could have their Temple only as long as the Romans allowed it. And if there was any doubt about that, a statue of a golden eagle was prominently placed over the Temple entrance, the symbol of the mighty Roman Empire.
Then, the system for worship in the Temple itself was highly unequal. Males were segregated from females, priests were separated from laypeople, rich were distinguished from the poor, Jews had privileged access denied to Gentiles. The Temple was supposed to be the place that linked heaven and earth. Could this Temple truly be the place where all creation could proclaim ‘God is here’? No, it couldn’t.
So, in a dramatic show of divine prerogative, Jesus not only cleansed the Temple. . . he declared the whole sacrificial system null and void. That’s why he drove out the animals, overturned the moneychangers’ tables, ordered the doves out of his Father’s house. This marketplace was no longer needed. Because the place to find God would no longer be in a building in Jerusalem, but in the person of Jesus Christ. He is the place where God would dwell, the place where sins would be forgiven, the place where the separation between God and humanity would be overcome.
So, now we understand the Cleansing of the Temple wasn’t a spontaneous outburst on the part of Jesus. It was instead a profound prophetic act calling everyone to the true worship of God. And in so doing, Jesus also foreshadowed his own death and resurrection – the Temple that would be destroyed by man on Good Friday but raised up by God on Easter morn.
2. Ok, well and good. We got it. But that brings up the 2nd thing many people misunderstand. And that is Jesus used violence to cleanse the Temple. This bothers a lot of people and it should. If you look at some of the famous paintings of this story, they’re pretty terrifying. Jesus is lashing out at everyone and everything. People are cowering around him, some collapsed on the ground, women and children fleeing from the scene. What’s going on here? Didn’t Jesus preach loving your enemy and turning the other cheek? Why does the Prince of Peace resort to violence to make his point and in the House of God of all places? Doesn’t that make Jesus a hypocrite?
Even worse, there are Christians who applaud this tough guy image of the Savior. No Jesus meek and mild for them. In fact, the church for two millennia has used the Cleansing of the Temple to justify Christians using violence, to sanction Christian violence in the service of God. John 2:13-22 has been quoted to justify everything from the medieval Crusades to ‘just war’ theory to execution of heretics. Even recently, I read of a pastor in the US, who’s also a policeman, preaching about violence in the line of duty as “righteous release”.
Hypocrite? Righteous release? Let’s clear this up once and for all.
According to John, Jesus made a whip out of ropes that had been used to tie up the animals. He didn’t bring weapons into the premise. Then, he used the whip to drive the cattle and sheep out of the Temple. How else could he get them to move? With his hands? The Bible never says Jesus used the whip to injure animals or people. In fact, he saved the animals that day from being slaughtered. And if he had dared injure someone in the Temple, he would have been arrested on the spot. So, there’s no biblical evidence that Jesus ever hurt beast, birds or bodies in cleansing the Temple.
But, and listen carefully, Jesus did use force. Jesus did use force to make his point. And his point was to force the hand of the secular and religious leaders, thus setting the scene for the inevitable conclusion – the Crucifixion. As it says in Scripture, zeal for your house will consume me. So those paintings of the Cleansing of the Temple are partially accurate – Jesus was angry and he did take forceful action. But he didn’t compromise his principles, he didn’t harm a living creature, and he never condoned violence as ‘righteous release’. We have to get the whole picture right. Otherwise, we’re simply preaching “peace, peace where there is no peace.”
3. Which brings us to the 3rd and final misunderstanding. And that is what the Cleansing of the Temple means for us today. We tend to put the Cleansing of the Temple in the category of one-off events that happened 2000 years ago in Jerusalem. But for today’s Gospel story to really hit home, we need to understand how what happened that day still impacts us now. Because the Cross was not only meant to bridge the gap between the Temple in Jerusalem and the Temple of Jesus’ body. The Cross was meant to fling open the door of Christ’s Temple to you and me and everyone. You see, God’s ultimate plan was not just that Jesus would be the place where God dwells, but that your body and my body and this body (the church) could also be the place where God dwells – in other words – we are a Temple of the Living God. Do you see what this means then?
Jesus not only needed to cleanse the Temple in Bible times. He comes again and again to cleanse our Temple in our time, our lives, our church, our world. We are just as guilty of compromise with ‘necessary evils’ and the Powers that be. We are just as guilty of favoring the few over the many. We are just as guilty as anyone in the Temple that day except we understand…we understand what Jesus meant when He said, “Destroy this Temple and I will raise it up in three days.” And we believe. That’s why we are not just the objects of Jesus’ anger. We are also the subjects of His saving grace. Because the Cleansing of the Temple at heart is about the sacrifice of Christ on the Cross for your sins and mine – and thanks be to God that’s so, for “the message about the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.”
On this 3rd Sunday in Lent, let me close my message with powerful words from Malcolm Guite, an English poet and Anglican priest. Here he pleads for Christ to come once more to cleanse the Temple – our Temple – because we still need God’s saving grace more than ever in this year of our Lord 2021, don’t we? Let’s pray:
Come to your Temple here with liberation
And overturn these tables of exchange
Restore in me my lost imagination
Begin in me for good, the pure change.
Come as you came, an infant with your mother,
That innocence may cleanse and claim this ground
Come as you came, a boy who sought his father
With questions asked and certain answers found,
Come as you came this day, a man in anger
Unleash the lash that drives a pathway through
Face down for me the fear the shame the danger
Teach me again to whom my love is due.
Break down in me the barricades of death
And tear the veil in two with your last breath. AMEN.
# posted by Kowloon Union Church : Sunday, March 07, 2021
