Sermon by Rev. Bernadette Hartsough
March 7, 2021
Were you surprised by Jesus’s actions today in the gospel? This passage can be unsettling. We are used to seeing Jesus as a healer and as a teacher. In this scene Jesus is a prophet. He is resistant to the temple system. Jesus is shaking up the temple authorities. He sees what the temple has become and speaks the truth. Let’s look closer at the temple scene for two lessons from Jesus. Open up your reading from the gospel today.
All four gospels have this memory of Jesus in the temple. Where it occurs in the gospels helps us to understand its meaning. John places it in chapter 2, at the beginning of Jesus’s ministry. This prophetic temple scene starts Jesus’s ministry in John. It compels us the readers to read the rest of the gospel of John through this focus. In the gospels of Matthew Mark, and Luke, it is at the end of Jesus’s ministry. Putting it at the end, helps to explain why the temple authorities turned on Jesus and why he was crucified. Jesus is ushering in a new way that poses a threat to the existing temple system.
Picture the scene. It is the temple courtyard during the Passover festival. The courtyard would have been enclosed with gates and would have been a very large area. It was the place where pilgrims coming for the Passover could exchange their money to pay the temple tax and where pilgrims could buy animals to sacrifice. It was part of running the temple-the administrative work of the temple. The main characters in this scene are Jesus, his disciples, and the “Jews.” The word “Jews” in this scene stand for the temple authorities during Jesus’s lifetime.
Jesus walks into the temple courtyard and finds that it is like the marketplace. There are venders set up selling animals. Money is being exchanged. People are walking through the temple as if it were a street. The pilgrims arriving from far away for the Passover are buying supplies from the venders. They needed certain supplies to be able to celebrate Passover. So, the temple provided this service.
Jesus reacts. He expected to find the temple courtyard as a place of teaching and prayer. He expected the venders and cattle and money exchangers to be outside of the temple. The temple should be the house of God. Its focus should be prayer and worship not in buying and selling. God should be the focus. It would be like the Plymouth Farmers Market taking place right here in the church. It would feel sacrilegious because the purpose of this building is not to be a store or a marketplace. Its purpose by its architecture is to be a place of prayer and worship. A place where we are reminded of God’s presence.
in the midst of Jesus’s reaction, his disciples try to understand Jesus’s behavior. They quote Psalm 69:9, “Zeal for your house will consume me.” To understand this reaction, we need to remember the significance of the temple. The temple was the gathering point for the Jewish people. It was a place that they remembered their history. A place they atoned for sins. A place where they sang and rejoiced. It was the focal point of Judaism and God. Jewish people supported the temple with money and offerings.
The Jews, the temple authorities, try to interpret Jesus’s behavior and the disciples’ quote. They want to know where Jesus gets the authority to overturn the temple commerce system. They do not ask why Jesus is overturning tables and setting the cattle free. It’s as if they knew selling in the temple was wrong. It had the building and the architecture and was dedicated to the service of God, but it was not in alignment with God’s purposes. The purpose of the temple was being distorted.
Jesus is teaching us two lessons in this scene. The first lesson is a warning to the church today. As a church community keep our focus and our purpose clear. When a church or a new ministry is planted, it is easy to keep the mission of the church or ministry in alignment with God’s values. As time goes on churches and ministries grow and change out of necessity; new rules emerge, new boundaries are set. It becomes harder to see the original mission focus until something shakes it up. Covid19 has done that for a lot of us. It took us back to our core. It has helped us to be open to change and to see our church and our actions in a different way.
We see that although we may have the look of a church-the architecture-the symbolism we must act as though our focus is in alignment with God. As a church we are a prophetic witness. We speak up. We do not exist to be money changers, vendors, or rigid keepers of the law. We exist to provide a welcome place of prayer, teaching, and healing. We are a people that reexamine our focus and change to realign with God.
The second lesson from Jesus is part of his answer to the Jews. Jesus says that he-his body is the temple. Jesus answers with prophecy. He says that if the temple is destroyed, he would raise it in 3 days. Jesus’s prophecy can be referring to himself and the actual physical structure of the temple since the physical temple is destroyed in 70 C.E. Of course, the temple authorities in this scene are thinking of the physical temple in Jerusalem. They do not understand that the sign they are asking for is standing in front of them in the person of Jesus. The lesson is that God known in Jesus is the new focus.
As Christians, we compare our actions with the life and teachings of Jesus. Everything that we do in our lives is filtered through the death and resurrection of Jesus. When we lose our focus, we repent. When we study scripture, we interpret it through Jesus. When we pray and celebrate Eucharist, we are entering into the Holy of Holies-the inner sanctum of the temple, The body of jesus.
Jesus is our temple. Through his death and resurrection, he stands at the door of the temple open to God. He invites us to enter. His door is always open.