Lent 3: Purifying

Rev. Dr. Seth Thomas

St James Presbyterian Church

Lent: Resurrection Rules • Sermon • Submitted 3 months ago • Presented 3 months ago

Psalm 19

John 2:13–22

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Jesus purifies the Temple

John 2:13-22 — Jesus Cleanses the Temple

(Mt 21:12–17; Mk 11:15–19; Lk 19:45–48)

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.

Passover

This story needs context. We know about the big picture ideas — the temple, Jesus’ tirade and expulsion of the money changers, etc. But we need to consider why this is important.

The Gospel of John, unlike the other three Synoptic Gospels, tells this story on the front end of Jesus’ ministry. Matthew, Mark, and Luke, whose texts each draw from a shared source, tell this story as a part of Jesus’ entrance into Jerusalem during Holy Week. John, instead, tells this story on the front end, just after Jesus’ first miracle of turning water to wine at the wedding of Cana. Why?

While the Synoptic Gospels lead us into Jesus’ ministry through his journeys out and around the countryside, John sets us up right away to see Jesus’ work as a challenge to the religious establishment, right at the heart of temple worship. In John’s Gospel, Jesus gets very clear, right away, about how he feels about the way the people have corrupted worship in the Temple, his father’s house.

So John wants us to have this in our minds as we go through the rest of his contemplative, reflective, even mystical Gospel. God’s work in Christ is spiritual, forming our hearts and minds. But that spiritual formation comes from great disruption and clarity around what is in our way. What is sinful. What needs purifying and cleansing. There is no denying it — the way the people are practicing their religion is out of balance and needs restoring.

We also hear that it is the time of Passover. This is key, as well. Passover is a time of pilgrimage and spiritual reflection. It is a time to gather in Jerusalem, at the Temple, to remember God’s faithfulness and to offer sacrifices in the same spirit of the Hebrew people coming out of Egyptian slavery. It is a time of celebration, penitence, and renewal.

Now, people would gather from all around Palestine to come worship at the temple. And, according to Jewish law, there are specific ways to approach sacrifices at the temple, bearing into account a person or family’s financial situation and needs. Old Testament law required the sacrifice of a pure lamb, in many cases. But also, bulls or birds could be sacrificed, depending on the size of the family and their financial means.

If you’re traveling a long distance, on foot or perhaps with a small caravan, but not packing much, there is a degree of convenience in getting your sacrificial “stuff” when you arrive. If you’re bringing along your kids, your partner, your mother-in-law, and your third cousin from Galilee, perhaps you don’t have room to carry along an unspotted calf or pull a bull with you (unless they’re pulling your cart, in which case, you’re gonna want their help on the way home, too, right?)

So the exchange at the temple makes sense. Come, get what you need, do your sacrifices, and head home. Quick and easy and done, right?

Let’s also, then, consider the matter of exchanging money. Passover would also be a time of great exchange. Perhaps you had goods to sell in order to purchase your sacrificial lamb…great, we’ve got services for that. Bring your wheat or your honey, your garments or your bread — things you can exchange for what you need. And of course, doing this all in a central location makes sense. It’s efficient, right?

On the surface, there is really not much we can criticize about this practice. We like convenience. We like to get things done efficiently. So why is this a problem?

To understand this, we have to understand the purpose of the temple and the nature of sacrifice. Is that what this place is for…for the exchange of goods?

No.

First, the Temple was constructed (and currently being constructed, as we hear from the story) in order to be a house of worship. It is a holy place. Holy places are set apart, defined as locations for devotion and prayer and communion with God. Therefore, they should be without distraction, without commercial enterprise, without the trappings of society that we might otherwise find at the marketplace or on the streets.

Second, this story has to bring echoes of one of the earliest narratives in the Scriptures to mind, that of Cain and Abel.

For a quick refresher, let’s hear Genesis 4:1-7

Genesis 4:1–7 NRSV

1 Now the man knew his wife Eve, and she conceived and bore Cain, saying, “I have produced a man with the help of the Lord.” 2 Next she bore his brother Abel. Now Abel was a keeper of sheep, and Cain a tiller of the ground. 3 In the course of time Cain brought to the Lord an offering of the fruit of the ground, 4 and Abel for his part brought of the firstlings of his flock, their fat portions. And the Lord had regard for Abel and his offering, 5 but for Cain and his offering he had no regard. So Cain was very angry, and his countenance fell. 6 The Lord said to Cain, “Why are you angry, and why has your countenance fallen? 7 If you do well, will you not be accepted? And if you do not do well, sin is lurking at the door; its desire is for you, but you must master it.”

This division between Cain and Abel and how God receives their offerings can be confusing. Why did it matter? Why weren’t the fruits Cain brought acceptable?

Well, in the Jewish sacrificial system, in order to properly offer a gift to God in repentence and worship, it needed to be a sacrifice of blood. This sounds gruesome in our context now, but if we consider these nomadic communities, what the requirement really focuses us on is something that is of great worth and cost and…something that has the breath of life in it. Judaism has never been about human sacrifice, a practice that has always been shunned and taught against. But the sacrifice of an animal has great value in that system, in that it is a blood representative for us, our blood. It is costly and needs to feel that way.

So Cain’s sacrifice, while it is part of his yield and a gift from what he has…it is not proper to what God requires.

What is Cain to do? What are the pilgrims who come to Jerusalem to do?

Well, as I read it and as I’ve studied these things for years, I don’t think the issue Jesus takes is so much with the reality of exchange necessary to get what one needs for a proper sacrifice. There are stipulations in the Jewish Law where whole families and even communities, could “go in” together on a bull or lamb if they didn’t have their own. Cain could have exchanged with his brother in order to have the right sacrifice.

But what is at work here, what the challenge here is, is that the people have found a way to short change that exchange between God and man. They’ve made the process simple (which we modern people like) but in doing so, they’ve made it cheap. They’ve turned the house of prayer, where we must come to worship and worship God alone, into a bank, a marketplace. In our terms, they have created an unholy marriage of religious devotion and capitalistic pursuits.

And Jesus is having none of this. Not only does he say that this is not right to turn God’s house into a marketplace…but he goes so far as to undermine the establishment of the temple altogether. The temple, which is actually his body, is meant to be dismantled and rebuilt. It is meant to fall away, be destroyed, and he is there to set about this work. He is there to purify and restore religious devotion to its rightful order — our best, given to God, without qualification or strings.

We hear that during this time of the Passover, many came to believe and follow Jesus.

There were clearly people who saw this spectacle, Jesus with a whip and coins spilling on the ground, they saw this and it caused them to believe and follow him. Perhaps they’d felt that nagging discontent with how the religious system was working, but hadn’t been able to pin it down. But with Jesus’ escapades in the temple, it becomes clear — this is not as it should be!

Jesus knows our hearts. He knows what needs to be purified and cleansed in us. In this account, we witness him doing it to the holiest place, the temple. Could we venture to believe that he would do this in us, too? Would we invite that? Or would we be afraid of what that purification might mean?

In this season of Lent, we must ask ourselves what has grown up in us that needs to be purified. Perhaps it is from good intentions or necessity. Maybe we have grown accustomed to a particular way of relating to God or a way we connect with other people that has, over time, grown stunted and malformed. Perhaps, to use another metaphor Jesus employed in his teachings, we have weeds growing up in and around the tender parts of ourselves, that we wish, somehow, we could pull up and discard. There are parts of us that have been choked off, held back, or pushed down, replaced by coping mechanisms and habits and addictions that help us get by.

Remember, the practice of bringing a sacrifice to the temple and honoring God with our money — that is a strong practice that the people of God entrusted would bring them back into right relationship with God. But it had been twisted, overrun, by commerce and greed and distraction. Potentially a good thing, when it began, this thing has now become a crack in the foundation, a tear in the garment, a sign pointing us in the wrong direction.

Here and now, we are called to examine ourselves and our community. We don’t have money changers in the church, per se, but we are not immune from this kind of distraction. Of what must we be purified? Maybe it’s attitudes — we are prone to let our frustration with the way things are or the way someone behaves or the way someone speaks — we are prone to hold a bias about this and are quick to cast judgement upon what we do not agree. Perhaps we have held a long grudge against another person…doesn’t that distract us from true, right, whole-hearted worship?

I can wonder at the people who set up this marketplace and this exchange in the temple — I can get why it would be helpful, as we’ve seen. But what was intended to be a helpful aid in the process of worship is quickly degraded into a space for greed and profit. It must be purified, cleansed, and restored to right order.

Is there a part of you that you know needs to be made pure again? Here this: While Jesus radically, maniacally, cleanses the temple, making a scene…while he does this…he also sets about the slow, careful work in us to do the same. It may be painful, at times, as Jesus calls our sins out of us, makes us aware of our broken patterns. But Jesus’ mercy is tender, loving, as well. Jesus meets us in that broken place and offers healing. As he has been raised, so we are raised in him. As Cain was banished, so Cain is restored in Christ. As the temple would be destroyed, so Jesus builds it back up in us.

I was struck by the final lines of our text: “Jesus on his part would not entrust himself to them, because he knew all people and needed no one to testify about anyone; for he himself knew what was in everyone.”

Jesus knows us. Jesus does not need to make all the plans clear and plain, at least right now. But what he does do is he knows us, deeply, loves us as we are, and calls us to be purified, washed clean, letting go of all that gets in our way. Jesus rebuilds us.

Will you let yourself be dismantled, deconstructed, pulled apart, so that those places in you may be made pure, as clean and clear as fresh snow? Will we trust ourselves to this process, where God forms us through Jesus’ work in us?

I pray that as you come to the table of our Lord today, you will feel this call to lay down your burdens, your distractions, your cheaply purchased sacrifices, and, instead, bring your whole self to be renewed, nourished, and restored.