2024 03 03 Sermon Street Theater in the Temple
Street Theater in the Temple
Lent 3 B
Exodus 20:1-17; Jeremiah 7:1-15; John 2:13-22
Rev. Karl-John N. Stone
There’s a humorous take you may have seen about Moses. In comedian Mel Brook’s movie, The History of the World, Part 1, Moses walks down from Mount Sinai balancing three large stone tablets in his hands as he announces to the Israelites: “Hear, O hear; all pay heed; the Lord has given unto you these Fifteen…” then one of the tablets falls from his hands onto the ground— and shatters into pieces. Moses looks down and pauses a moment, then continues “oy…Ten—Ten Commandments for all to obey!” The humor reveals the truth, that even such an esteemed person as Moses was not perfect. It wasn’t just the Israelites who turned away from their faith in the Lord, when they worshiped a golden calf. Moses himself couldn’t always live up to the Ten Commandments; sometimes even he turned away from the God who had redeemed him.
Well, even though Moses (and everyone who’s come after him, including us) has failed at times to live up to God’s teaching, we still regard the Ten Commandments as a gift of God’s grace; and they serve some important functions in the life of faith. 1) When we reflect on the 10 Commandments, we learn what it looks like to live a good life. 2) We can examine our lives according to the 10 Commandments, to see where we have fallen short, and for what things we need to ask forgiveness and change our ways. And 3) They show us that we can turn to God for help in our time of need—because God’s help is the whole premise upon which the 10 Commandments are built; notice that before God speaks any of the commandments, the first thing God reminds us of is that he is the redeemer and deliverer: “I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery”—in Jewish tradition that is considered the First Commandment.
Turning to God, who wants to help you, is the ultimate goal of the commandments, and it’s also a key focus of Lent—turn to God for help, so you may know God’s mercy, grace, and love in your life. We need to remember that. It can be easy to forget, when we’re caught up in the difficulties of life, that we can stop, take a breath, and turn to God for help—for God’s presence is always near.
The ancient Israelites had a physical reminder of God’s presence in their midst. It was the Tabernacle—kind of a tent, that housed the Ark of the Covenant, which contained the Ten Commandments—and the Tabernacle was a “traveling temple”. Wherever they wandered during their 40 years in the wilderness, they could carry this tent with them. It was a constant reminder that God’s presence was not limited to a certain place, like Mt. Sinai, where they had received the Commandments. God’s presence was everywhere they went!
After the Israelites had reached the Promised Land, and become established there, they built a Temple—a permanent structure, made of huge blocks of stone. It served the same purpose as the moveable Tabernacle—to be a symbol that God’s presence was always near. But as is the case with any institution built by human beings, the true purpose can be forgotten, or at least not lived up to. And when that happened with regard to the Temple, God would send prophets to warn the people and call them back to their true purpose.
For example, God sent the prophet Jeremiah (who lived about 400 or so years after the Temple was built) into the Temple Gate to preach a sermon of God’s judgement (this is in Jeremiah 7): “Change your ways and let me dwell with you in this place” says the Lord. “Do not trust in these deceptive words: ‘This is the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord.’” In other words, the people cared a lot about the building, and the glory and beauty of it, but did not care so much about the vulnerable people whom God had instructed them to care for.
Jeremiah continued his Temple Sermon, saying: “If you truly amend your ways and act justly one with another, if you do not oppress the alien, the orphan, and the widow or shed innocent blood in this place, and if you do not go after other gods to your own hurt, then I will dwell with you in this place… [Yet] Here you are, trusting deceptive words to no avail. Will you steal, murder, commit adultery, swear falsely, make offering to Baal, and go after other gods that you have not known, and then come and stand before me in this house…only to go on doing all these abominations? Has this house, which is called by my name, become a den of robbers?...” In his sermon, Jeremiah basically went through the Ten Commandments and how to live them out, calling the people to examine where they had fallen short—so they could turn to God for help and change their ways. Then they could regain the true purpose of the Temple, which was to be reminded of the presence of the God who redeemed them, and who wants to help them; and then to live accordingly.
When we fast-forward 600 more years to the time of Jesus, we come to today’s gospel in John 2, commonly known as “Jesus cleansing the Temple”, and you can really see the similarities with Jeremiah’s Temple Sermon. Jesus is basically acting out (like street theater) the message of Jeremiah, but for his own day. Like Jeremiah, Jesus is not saying that the Temple itself is bad, or that people shouldn’t worship there. After all, Jesus himself worshiped there! Jesus was there to protect and care for the Jewish people who had come worship—protect them from financial exploitation by the moneychangers. Jesus is not attacking the Temple, but attitude of those who were “making his Father’s house into a marketplace”—a den of robbers. They were more concerned with using the Temple system for their own benefit and profit than with pointing people to God’s help and presence, which is what the Temple symbolized.
In artistic portrayals of this story, we often see Jesus brandishing a heavy-duty whip used for punishment, and the people cowering in fear. This portrayal became popular around the year 400 AD and has remained so ‘til the present. It has been used over the centuries to justify everything from burning heretics at the stake, to attacking the Jews, to waging wars in the name of religion. Such a portrayal is completely at odds with the Prince of Peace whom Jesus reveals himself to be. A close study of the original Greek shows that the whip was a makeshift prop, fashioned out of whatever cords were at hand (like from the animal stable). Jesus never used it to hit anyone, only to get the “sheep and cattle” moving (as John 2 specifies), which was standard practice, not a violent action. Jesus actually saves the animals (at least temporarily) from being sacrificed as he symbolically puts himself in their place, becoming what John the Baptist had earlier said about him: “Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.” (John 1:29) [https://www.academia.edu/1563662/Violence_Nonviolence_and_the_Temple_Incident_in_John_2_13_15 ]
Even the money-changers had no violence directed at them. Sure they were upset, but that was from a protest directed at them—the disruption Jesus caused by pouring their coins out and turning their tables over. Pope Francis describes it in a sermon of his as a prophetic demonstration, “a typical action of the prophets who, in the name of God, often denounced abuses and excesses.” [https://zenit.org/2018/03/04/angelus-address-jesus-cleanses-the-temple-of-jerusalem/] Even Jeremiah did something similar; he fashioning an ox-yoke as a prop to wear (Jeremiah 27:2). Through Jesus’ prophetic demonstration with the whip, this street-theater, this performance-art protest, Jesus is sending the message that the true purpose of the Temple can now be found in him! He is the constant presence of God. And wherever Christ is present, that is where God’s Temple is. Through Christ, God continues his promise of grace and mercy, a promise that can never be bought or sold (as in a marketplace), but only given away for free—because God has already given us his love and redemption for free—and secured it for eternity through Jesus’ sacrificial death on the cross, and his resurrection to new life.
Therefore, you can follow Jesus in faith, knowing he is always near you. We can live by Jesus’ message to the money-changers in the Temple, and seek not our own advantage over against others, but examine our lives according to the Ten Commandments, and change our ways when we have failed by turning to Christ for help. And we can glorify the God who has redeemed us by caring for the vulnerable people among us. Amen.