Take these things out of here! (John 2:13-25)
John 2:13-25 (NRSV)
13 The Passover of the Jews was near, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. 14 In the temple he found people selling cattle, sheep, and doves, and the money changers seated at their tables. 15 Making a whip of cords, he drove all of them out of the temple, both the sheep and the cattle. He also poured out the coins of the money changers and overturned their tables. 16 He told those who were selling the doves, “Take these things out of here! Stop making my Father’s house a marketplace!” 17 His disciples remembered that it was written, “Zeal for your house will consume me.” 18 The Jews then said to him, “What sign can you show us for doing this?” 19 Jesus answered them, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.” 20 The Jews then said, “This temple has been under construction for forty-six years, and will you raise it up in three days?” 21 But he was speaking of the temple of his body. 22 After he was raised from the dead, his disciples remembered that he had said this; and they believed the scripture and the word that Jesus had spoken.
23 When he was in Jerusalem during the Passover festival, many believed in his name because they saw the signs that he was doing. 24 But Jesus on his part would not entrust himself to them, because he knew all people 25 and needed no one to testify about anyone; for he himself knew what was in everyone.
January 21, 2018 Sermon Notes
Today’s sermon included a life-size visual aide. The congregation walked into a sanctuary that had been completely dismantled. The communion table was upside down. The pulpit was on its side. Communion ware and offering plates had been dumped on the floor and money was scattered everywhere. Simply walking into the room with kind of devastation was enough to make the congregation immediately uncomfortable. This was not the way the church building was supposed to look. It got the reaction that it was supposed to generate and helped people get a better glimpse into the Scripture lesson.
The cleansing of the temple story is one of the stories that appear in all four gospels. The difference between John and the synoptic gospels is the fact that this event happens at the beginning of Jesus’ ministry. In the other three it occurs during Holy Week and is part of the religious leaders’ rationale for Jesus’ arrest and crucifixion. There are other subtle differences as well. In John, the story is less about economic injustice (the den of thieves), and more about the idolatry of the marketplace.
Why did Jesus cleanse the temple?
Part of what made Jesus’ actions so hard for the onlookers to understand is that Deuteronomy 14:24-26 seemed to make allowance for just this kind of buying and selling for pilgrims coming from far away. If the buying and selling was biblically mandated, what was it that upset Jesus? Dr. Gary Hansen describes the problem in his commentary on John 2 in Feasting on the Gospels:
Jesus was not objecting to religion, or to the particular religion they were trying to practice. They were buying the offering specified in God’s law for the ritual acts specified in God’s law. Jesus objected to the misidentification of the temple with a marketplace, a place people go to get conveniently what they want or need. That was not the purpose of the temple…
…The more subtle issue is the pervasive marketing mentality in today’s North American version of Christianity. When we move to a new town, or when we get fed up with our old church, we go “church shopping.” We want our needs met; so we shop around to see what the different outlets have to offer. Using the phrase, we make ourselves consumers aiming to buy bit of religion…
In short, the people of Jesus’ day were just like us. They had turned faith into a commodity. The temple was no longer a place to meet God. It was a place to buy the accouterments of faith. It was no longer a place to go and worship the creator of the universe. It a place to go in order to meet our human needs, wants, and desires. During the sermon we talked about the way that Jesus’ entry into our world inevitably upsets the way things have always been done. He forces us out of our complacency and causes us to look at our world in a new way. He declares that his body is the new place where we meet God.
Cleansing the temple was a sign that he has authority over all the world. Recognizing his authority will inevitably upset a few tables in our carefully ordered realities. Whether we are talking about our churches, our culture, or our individual lives of faith, we are all guilty of creating idols that distract us from Christ. Every good gift that we have been given can get between us and our relationship with God when approached in the wrong manner. We can even turn our churches into marketplaces to meet our needs, instead of letting them be Christ’s body at work in the world.
Faith is not about us
How do we overcome this temptation? Jesus tells us to “take these things out of here.” He is cracking the whip and flipping over the tables of our complacency. In short, the temple is not about us. It is about the worship of the God who made us. That is why the people of God built the temple. That is why Jesus cleansed it so forcefully. That is what we need to be doing in our lives today. Worship is not about us. Discipleship requires discipline. Today’s story is a reminder to stop pretending that we are in charge.
This is a hard process. It flies in the face of everything our culture tells us is true. Christians are not spiritual consumers looking for a new religious gimmick. Christians are called to be the body of Christ. Empowered by the Holy Spirit, we are his temple in the world today.
In short, we do not go to church. We are the church. This is why we gather for worship, to be the church together and to encourage each other in our lives of discipleship. This is why Dr. Hansen reminds us that “one good step in that direction is to leave behind our sense of what we are shopping for and direct our full attention to God’s presence as we gather every Lord’s Day.” (from Feasting on the Gospels)
