Zeal for the House

Exodus 20:1-17; 1 Corinthians 1:22-25; John 2:13-22

Our gospel lesson for today is none other than the one wherein Jesus goes to the Temple in Jerusalem, the most holy place in the world, as far as the Jews were concerned. There, Jesus takes a whip and drives the money changers and those who were selling animals for sacrifices out of the Temple.

Even today, many of us do not fully understand the meaning of what Jesus did. Certainly we have heard many sermons preached about this: Some of those sermons are about righteous anger: and explain that if it was all right for Jesus to get angry, then it is permissible, under the proper circumstances, for us to get angry. But, this interpretation of John 2 would only be very incomplete if we left the story at that. Nevertheless, John 2 gives us some very keen insights into righteous anger.

And we have heard sermons on John 2 that have talked about what things are proper and improper for us to do in the church. After all, Jesus drove the money changers and the people selling animals for sacrifice out of the Temple. So, many a preacher has assumed that Jesus was flatly against the buying and selling of anything within the church. And, as a result of this particular interpretation of John 2, many congregations do not allow bazaars, dinners, the selling of girl scout cookies, or boy scout popcorn, or anything else that involves the sale of anything in their church. And, yet, I don't think that this is really what Jesus was talking about when he went with his whip through the Temple that day.

In fact, there was something far deeper on Jesus' mind when he went into the Temple in Jerusalem. For he was concerned with the lack of love and commitment for God that he was seeing around him. Jesus was struck and angered by the lack of religious intensity among God's people that he was experiencing at that moment. He was deeply concerned that worship of God in the Temple in his day was something completely different from what God had intended worship to be before the Temple had been built. Worship of God had changed over the years. It had become corrupted. And Jesus saw that if his ministry was truly the dawning of the Kingdom of God, then this would have to be corrected as quickly as possible.

Of course, religion does change over the years. In fact, if we were able to get into a time machine and go back almost 2,000 years to the church of the first century, there would be many things that we would not recognize. First of all, and most significantly, we wouldn't recognize the language. For the language of the church of the first century isn't even spoken anymore. And, second, we wouldn't recognize the hymns that were sung in the ancient church. Ironically, as we heard those very ancient hymns being sung if we were able to sit in the worship service of the early Church, many of us would begin to clamor for some of those old-time religion songs, written in the early 20th century, which are hardly old at all.

But, what would also be very interesting and surprising for us, if we were to get into our time machine and visit a first century church, is that even in the midst of a patriarchal society, the minister in any of those ancient churches would very likely be a woman, as well as a man. It was only much later, as the church's hierarchy became more established, and as the almost frantic urgency of spreading the gospel and building the Body of Christ diminished that the role of men and women in the church was defined. It was only after special houses of worship were built, and after the church became an enterprise with worldly undertakings, that the leadership of women, as priests and presbyters, was pushed aside.

Indeed, it is when God's people have suddenly focused more of their concern upon taking care of buildings than spreading the gospel, of managing the status quo more than being open to the growing and changing Spirit of God, that the need for Jesus to come along with his whip has been urgently needed in the church. Certainly, having a pleasant place for worship is important. But, if the ministry and teachings of the Body of Christ ever begin to suffer as a result, then it is that we need Jesus to come along with his whip.

My Dad used to have some horses. And I remember how we used to train those horses when they were young. We'd put them on to a long lead, perhaps 15 feet long, and we'd make them run in a circle around us. The purpose of this was to teach them the difference between walking, trotting, cantering, and galloping. It was also done to get them to know who was the boss.

And I remember standing with a long buggy whip with this young horse running in a circle around me. To get the horse to speed up you'd say, "trot!" or "canter!" or "gallop!" And if the horse didn't begin doing what you told him you'd touch him lightly on the rump with the buggy whip and he'd speed up his gait. He'd immediately respond! And you could get him to slow down the same way, only you would touch him on his chest with the whip. After a while it wasn't necessary to touch him with the buggy whip, anymore. He'd simply listen to your voice and do what you said. But, all the while you could tell he was keeping his eye on the whip, because he didn't like it. But, after a while, as the horse matured, we put the whip away, for it wasn't needed, anymore. But, if the horse ever started to think that he didn't need to listen to your voice, you only had to put him on the lead and run him around in a circle for a while, holding the whip in your hand, to remind him who was boss.

I know it's a crude example. But sometimes our life as God's people is very much like this. How has God taught us to listen to his voice? Our Old Testament lesson for today is the story of God's giving the Ten Commandments to the people at Mount Sinai. How did God get those people to finally hear his commandments? It took years of slavery in Egypt. It took leaving their homes and being threatened by the armies of the Pharoah. It took a miraculous crossing through the waters of the sea. It took days of hunger and thirst and loud flashes of lightning and thunder upon a mountain. It took all of this to get God's people to listen and obey. And, then, it took another forty years of hardship and testing for all of it to sink in.

Sometimes we find ourselves in the wilderness with God, as well. And the wilderness is there to help us, to remind us, to teach us to listen to the voice of God. Certainly, the season of Lent, with its emphasis on self-denial, is one of these wilderness experiences put upon us by the wisdom of the Church through the ages so that we might begin to listen, again, more completely, to the voice of God, to reexamine those things that God wants us to do for the sake of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

And sometimes harsh experiences that we may have in our lives, the loss of a loved one, the loss of a job, financial problems, some kind of a hardship, or sickness may bring on a season wherein we may feel God is trying to tell us something. Do we resent those times? Or do we learn from those times? Do we get closer to God during those times, trusting him to lead us to a better place?

If Jesus was physically present in the world today, certainly we would want to know him for his love and his healing and his wisdom. But where would he take his whip? In his own day, the money changers and the people who were selling the animals for the sacrifice were there simply as a convenience to those who came to the Temple to worship. In the very early days of Temple worship, before the money changers and all of that came into the Temple, a person had to make arrangements well ahead of time to present his or her offering or sacrifice to the Lord. Persons had to plan several days in advance, going through the inconvenience of getting their money changed before they went to the Temple, to make the offering. And it wasn't convenient to have to bring that animal sacrifice all the way from home or try to find someone who would sell you an animal and then have to carry or lead that sometimes struggling animal all the way to the Temple. It wasn't convenient at all to do all of that planning and physical work just to worship God! And yet, what they didn't realize is that even that inconvenience was an important part of the worship of God. The money changers in the Temple, the sellers of animals for sacrifice were there in the Temple as a short-cut to make worship more convenient. And, just between you and me, I believe that this is what angered Jesus the most.

Over the years, as a pastor, I have had dozens of persons suggest ways to me of making worship more convenient, everything from having services on Saturday night, instead of on Sunday morning, to singing only the hymns they know; from keeping the worship service under fifty-five minutes to having the minister do everything in the service so that all the congregation has to do is sit and listen. But, how convenient does Jesus want our worship to be? Does God really want our worship to be like going to a fast food restaurant or like paying a visit to K-Mart? Indeed, I truly believe that the sacrifice of time, the preparations that we may have to make, and the effort we may have to put out before, during, and after worship may be as important to God and to us, as as much a part of worship, as the worship, itself.

Following the Ten Commandments is not always a very convenient thing to do in this world, especially as we look at the one about keeping the Sabbath holy, and the one about not bowing down to other gods. In this world with so many other things to do, so many other things to be involved with, truly loving God as members of the Body of Christ may be very inconvenient, indeed.

But, that may be what worship is all about. Amen.