The Cleansing of the Temple
The Third Sunday in Lent
March 4, 2018
Do you think Jesus was having a bad day? Do you think that something just hit Jesus the wrong way and that was it – he started turning over the tables of the temple? Some people have argued that Jesus never did turn over the tables because Jesus was always in control of his feelings and would never have done something as violent as this. Where was the Jesus meek and mild?
But this is an important story in the gospels for a number of reasons.
Above all else it is an illustration of Jesus’ profound concern for worship. Although he accepted that there was a business side to temple worship – that money had to be exchanged from the secular money of the Roman Empire to that of temple currency and that animals needed to bought for sacrifice – Jesus had a problem with the fact that this kind of business was being conducted in the temple itself – crowding out the Court of the Gentiles which was the outer court, which was as far as Gentiles – or Godfearers – could go because they were too unclean to come closer to the holy of holies. It seems that what also upset Jesus is that these business people were not there to worship God but to make money – and because they were crowding out the Gentiles –neither were able to worship God.
And Jesus had had enough – and makes a scene. No Jesus meek and mild that day. His patience would return at another time.
What this story reminded me of is something I read, but I just can’t remember where unfortunately, is that we are often tempted to think that we are only ourselves when we are our best selves. So what that means is that I am only myself when I have got it together, when I am patient, loving and kind. And we are not ourselves when that other part of ourselves comes to the fore when we are stressed, tired, and overextended. And if you think of some of our common expressions which also illustrate this like “Geez, I don’t know what happened – I wasn’t myself that day”, or “I’m really sorry, I wasn’t in my right mind” or maybe “When I did that, I don’t know what I was thinking?” or we say ‘ I can’t believe he did that, it is so unlike him.”
But what this gospel seems to suggest is that God calls our best and so called worst selves into relationship with God and into action. And hopefully most of time we act from a good place, but sometimes our fed up selves, or our vulnerable and weepy selves, despondent selves, fearful, or inarticulate selves, can do the work of God as much as our more dignified and patient self.
I am not suggesting of course we bring our worst selves to play and to wreak havoc on everyone around us (you can refer to the 10 Commandment list we just heard this morning – those behaviors that we are meant to avoid no matter how we feel) – but pay attention to your whole self. I think we can think of some examples where our fed up selves made more progress than our quiet anything goes selves could have made. Think of the Boston Tea Party – those angry, fed up Colonists accomplished a lot. As it says in Ephesians, “be angry but do not sin in your anger.”
I recently read a book called The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas. I started reading it because someone told me “YOU HAVE TO READ THIS BOOK!” And then she also mentioned it will only be a matter of time before it becomes required reading for High School students. The main character Starr is a black teenager who lives in a dangerous neighborhood but attends a prestigious high school as does her half-brother in a part of the city that is 45 minutes away from her home. After leaving a party in her neighborhood with a childhood friend Khalil, they get in a car, Khalil driving, and they are pulled over by the police. Khalil who is unarmed is shot and killed. And the story revolves around the investigation of that shooting and the impact on Starr, her family, neighborhood and school. But what the book is also about is our fragmented selves. The main character Starr thinks, and she is probably at some level correct, that she has to be a particular way when she is in her neighborhood and then another way with her predominately white and very wealthy classmates. It is self-preservation above all else. None of her selves are particularly false – just fragmented. And the moral of the story, without giving anything away, is that for her to move forward she needs to bring these selves together into a more integrated identity. She also has to learn to use the voice of anger and pain to help heal her community.
During this season of Lent we are asked to spend time in self-examination. I invite you to examine the self you are not so fond of – or maybe your family is not so fond of. And it is for these reasons:
First of all, God loves all of you – fed up you, bad day you, fearful you, vulnerable you – and if you think about Jesus – we see these characteristics in him – the fallible Jesus when he tells off the Canaanite woman who wants her daughter healed –but in the end the woman makes Jesus realize that he can save both the Jews and the Gentiles, or Jesus who weeps at the death of his friend Lazarus, or when he gets angry with the hardness of heart of Pharisees, or when he is deeply moved by the two blind men that want to have their sight restored. If Jesus gets to be fully human, we do too.
Secondly, maybe the part of ourselves we want to keep under wraps is actually a side God wants you to use in the service of God’s kingdom. Many things have been accomplished for the kingdom when good Christian people got fed up.
Amen.
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