Third Sunday in Lent

March 15, 2009

Exodus 20:1-17

Psalm 19

I Corinthians 1:18-25

John 2:13-22

              Have you ever been angry?  I mean really angry.  So angry you had to take immediate action.  If you have ever been as angry as this, then you are in good company.  Because today, Jesus is angry and he is not afraid to show it.  With angry words he turns the tables of the money lenders and chases the merchants out of the temple.  Then he confronts onlookers with his reasons.  We have all spoken and acted in anger at one time or another in our life.  And we know how good it feels when our anger is justified and our expressions of anger are appropriate to the situation.  But if you are like me, that doesn’t happen very often.  If we are honest I think we would admit that the reason and level of our anger are not always justifiable, and neither is  the expression of anger always appropriate.  And there is good reason for that.    

              Unlike the anger Jesus shows us in our gospel lesson today, our anger is provoked by our own self-interest; things we take personal offense at because they directly or indirectly impact on us.  But Jesus’ anger is not provoked by a wrong which has been done to him.  In fact, he is well aware that the money changers and merchants are necessary to religious functions at the Temple during Passover.  Merchants must sell the animals and birds which be sacrificed by those who can afford to pay for them.  But Jews are not allowed to use Roman coins to purchase animals inside the temple, and so money changers are needed to exchange Roman coins for the temple coinage.

              So Jesus is not angry at money lenders, money changers and merchants for the purpose they serve. What makes him angry are their usurious practices which rob people of their money and their dignity.  Their deceitful practices make a mockery of God’s house by making God’s Temple more of a market place than a house of prayer.  Jesus makes it clear that the business practices of these merchants and money changers do not serve God’s purpose for his Temple. 

              So, do you think this story has anything to tell us about our own economic issues?  It seems to me these are the same issues we are facing in our own market place economy.  More than two-thousand years later, we are suffering the same abuses and indignities caused by usurious money lenders and deceitful merchants in our own time.  The only difference is that they threaten to strip us, not only of our dignity, but also the life we have been building and the future we have been saving for over a lifetime.  The deceitful practices of the moneylenders and merchants of the Temple seem tame compared with the Ponzi scam of a Bernie Madoff or the corporate greed of a Bill Thaine.

              But comparison is useful, I think.  Because if you look at how angry Jesus is, and compare that to how angry we have become over the deceitful practices of our own merchants and money changers, I think you can come to the conclusion that there is more to Jesus’ anger and our anger than financial deceitfulness and material loss.  What is at stake here dishonors God and it dishonors us.   It is a violation of our personal and collective moral responsibility and ethical decency which are essential to healthy and thriving human communities.   Communities which are built on a system of justice and fairness; communities which build relationships based on trust; communities which seek both a personal good and a common good for its members, communities who depend on laws and social mores which protect their members from the abuses of power and privilege; communities who can count on systems of oversight and intervention to monitor and regulate excess and gross inequities in the distribution of wealth and goods and services for all people.

              Does this description of healthy and vital community resonate with you?  I hope so, because it describes the principles upon which our own nation was founded; principles by which our elected officials are to guard and protect our personal and common good.  But we forget one thing.  We forget that the people who are supposed to be watching out for us are also money changers and merchants.  And the sad reality we come to in times like these is this:  no one was watching out for us; no one was minding the store.   So, while “we the people” have been entrusting our money to the market, entrusting our lives to the work place, and entrusting our children to the cause of war, no one has been guarding our trust.  Our secure investments are failing us, our jobs are leaving us, our health insurance is inadequate or non-existent, the life-style we worked so hard to achieve is diminishing rapidly, and our children continue to die in war or come back to us scarred for life with injuries to the body, mind and soul. 

              Taken together, or even one by one, these violations of trust have brought us to the sad truth that even governments with sound systems of laws for protecting us and social and economic systems established for the common good of its people can fail us.  And it is easy to blame the breakdown of a system or the lack of human oversight, and it is even easier to choose our scapegoats to give us the feeling that evil has been rooted out and trust can be restored.  But there is a deeper reality which provokes our anger and diminishes our trust, a reality that few people speak of when governments and their systems of oversight let us down.  The deeper reality is this:   It isn’t the breakdown of laws or systems of oversight, or rules of conduct or codes of social behavior which bring distress and hardship to human communities.  It is people.  It is the fact that we are human.  And for as good, and faithful, and trustworthy as we can be, we are also prone to sin.  The problem is that governments don’t see their faults and failures through the lens of sin.  It is our religious institutions who see the deeper reason for our anger and mistrust.  It is our communities of worship and prayer and study and service who understand why, in the end, governments and laws and political systems cannot protect us from ourselves.  It is because we humans are prone to sin, and given a blank check we will write it to ourselves for any amount we can get away with, regardless of who is watching over or shoulder—and especially when they are not. 

              Because of our human propensity to sin we are prone to think, and do, and say the selfish, self-centered and self-serving thing without regard for its impact on others, or its consequence for us.  It is only a strong moral compass which enables human beings to do the right and righteous thing.  It is only a deep regard for God and for the dignity of all persons in human community that can keep us from behaving in self-centered, self-serving ways.  And none of us sitting here today will be surprised to know that the best place to establish a moral compass and nurture ethical decency is in religious community.  Because this is where we learn the frailty and pitfalls of being human.  This is where we learn to care about more than ourselves.  This is where we learn to value the dignity of all people and the value of human community.  This is where we regularly acknowledge our propensity to sin, where we learn forgiveness, and where we can be restored to the life God gives us to live.  This is where we learn to hope.  This is where we can believe in change, the only change we can believe in—a change of heart.  Because in the end, no law of government, no code of ethics, no rule of society can make us do the right thing for our common good; it is only a change of heart and the oversight of a good and faithful God that can keep us centered in God’s good purpose for his creation.  

           So many of us are angry today.   So is Jesus.  And for the same reason.  Our human propensity to sin; our selfish, self-centered and self-serving ways damage us and our world, and they bring dishonor to God.  Not even the Ten Commandments we heard read to us, no less the 636 Laws of Torah, can keep us from sinning against God and our neighbor.  We shouldn’t be surprised, then, that recent disclosures of economic misconduct and abuse show us how easily people will break the rule of law and bypass codes of ethics and dismiss moral responsibility when no one is looking.   So we have a right to be angry that no one was looking out for us, because they should have been.  Jesus had a right to be angry, too, even though he knew that upsetting the tables of usurious money changers and chasing deceitful merchants from the Temple would not change anything.  Jesus expresses his anger appropriately in this situation.  He needed to make a point, even at his own peril. 

              Today Jesus gets the attention of those who witness his act of civil and religious disobedience.  And he makes his point.  Jesus tells us that by his own death, he will destroy this Temple made of bricks and mortar.  And by his resurrection he will become God’s temple.  God will dwell in him.  And he will dwell in us, forever.  And so from the dawn of resurrection to eternity those who carry God in their heart will carry him wherever they go.  God will no longer reside in the bricks and mortar of our churches and our temples.  We will bring God with us into those sacred spaces.  We share God with each other in worship and in ministry and when we leave we carry God with us back into the world.  And because God is with us wherever we are and wherever we go, God has the power to change our heart at any time and in any place, and he has the power to change our world one person at a time—sometimes at great peril to us, but always for his greater good.

              Today Jesus makes his point about God’s greater good at great peril to himself.  His powerful statement brings alarm and fear to those who question his angry words and actions.   Their reaction will ultimately lead Jesus to be charged with a capital crime against Rome, and he will die for it.  But we know the good news which comes out of the darkness of Jesus’ death.  We no longer have to live by the devices and desires of this world.  We may be subject to their abuses, but we need no longer be their victims.  Because when we live our life in Christ we are free to live in the abundance of his goodness, regardless of the bad things that come to us in this world.   We learn to live our life in gratitude with thanksgiving.

              I am not surprised, then, to be hearing stories of people who are living their life more abundantly in these difficult times.  People are staying home more; families are making meals and eating together.  People are reading more, going to the library and other free public venues; they are taking long walks talking long talks.  Family vacations are happening in the back yard and people are becoming more creative about the way they spend their free time.  A bad economy has brought some good change to many American families.  But I have been more surprised by another experience which has occurred often over these last few weeks. 

              For some reason over these past few weeks, several people I have talked with and some I have seen or read about in the media have made reference to their favorite holiday of the year.  That might not be so unusual, except that this is only March and I don’t think I have ever heard anyone talk about Thanksgiving in March.  But it is not what I hear in their words that tells me why they are thinking of Thanksgiving in these troubled times; it is what I hear in their hearts.  In a world where hearts have been made bitter and angry by circumstances which are beyond our control, I am hearing hearts which are speaking from a place of abundance and thanksgiving.  A place where people matter most.  A place where food and family and friendship are central to their life.  A place where joy and hope, promise fills them with good things.  And we all know what happens when God replaces the pain and bitterness in our heart with feelings of thanksgiving and well-being.  Anger, and all its reasons for being, no longer serves a useful purpose.  Jesus’ anger no longer serves a useful purpose as he journeys to the cross; his heart becomes full of compassion By the same token, when we find our hearts feeling a sense of gratitude and well-being in the midst of the troubling circumstances of our life and our world, our own anger can only be served by an eviction notice.