Flipping Tables

3rd Sunday in Lent

Today's Gospel: John 2:13-22

Peace to you in the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit

This morning we heard a rather unsettling story about Jesus flipping tables and using a whip. John tells us that Jesus has traveled to Jerusalem for the festival of Passover, which celebrates the time God saved the Hebrew people from slavery in Egypt. Jesus and other Jews all across the countryside were coming to Jerusalem, to the Temple, to make the traditional sacrifice. Then Passover is celebrated with a traditional Seder meal (in fact this is the meal that Jesus shares with his disciples at the end of the gospels that we know call the Last Supper.) The Seder is spent around the table eating foods that represent parts of the story as Exodus is read aloud in its original Hebrew and over and over again, this phrase is repeated: “dayenu,” it would have been enough. Just saving God’s people from slavery would have been enough.. just splitting the Red Sea would have been enough.. Just providing manna to survive the wilderness would have been enough.. Just reaching the promised land of Israel would have been enough.. Just giving the Ten Commandments and the Torah would have been enough… Yet God just keeps showing up, keeps showing kindness, keeps providing, keeps liberating, keeps saving God’s people. This is the central theme.

One of the things mentioned and praised was God’s gift of the Temple. When Moses and the Hebrew people wondered through the desert, God instructed Moses to make a tabernacle. This tabernacle was said to be the place God dwelt; the tent of the Lord. The people were on the move and so was God, present among them every step of the way. Eventually when the 12 Tribes of Israel form one united monarchy, King Solomon is said to have built the first real Temple; a permanent dwelling place of the Lord. This was of course destroyed when the Babylonian Empire sieged Jerusalem and sent most of the Israelites into exile. The Temple in our gospel story is the second Temple, rebuilt after release from Babylon and at this time they had been working on it for nearly 50 years!

There was a lot of grief, blood, sweat and tears wrapped up in this Temple project and this man from Nazareth has the audacity to go in there, start flipping tables AND declare HE could rebuild it in THREE days!? How absurd! How RUDE! Yet, Jesus is literally and figuratively the one turning the tables on them… How absurd and rude of THEM to think that God can be contained within four walls or appeased by money or sacrifice! Jesus shouts, “Stop making my Father’s house a marketplace!” Jesus shows holy anger at the injustices he finds at the Temple.

Similarly to how shopping at Christmas time has spun out of control to the point of forgetting that Christmas is actually about GOD.. the Temple sellers had caused a craze at Passover, driving up prices and making sure everyone purchased an animal to sacrifice, lest the Lord forget or forsake them. This is similar too to the selling of indulgences that Martin Luther denied, therefore starting the Reformation. Jesus causes this scene to make two points: God’s presence reaches far beyond this Temple (Jesus is God among them); and you don’t have to buy, sell, or earn the Lord’s favor – it is already yours. How dare anyone try and persuade you that it’s not.

God’s love runs so deep that through Jesus God’s voice is raised and says no more! Jesus could have kept quiet.. he could have just turned around and went into the city healing and performing miracles as he did elsewhere. But Jesus knew the cost of his silence. Jesus knew the damage this was doing to the souls of his people and in keeping quiet he would be complicit in this harmful misunderstanding of who God is and how God loves. Jesus reveals to us that sometimes holy anger is necessary rather than sitting quietly and letting things work itself out.

Jesus, angry and disgusted at what he finds in the Temple, stands up for reform. He sees what his people have made of his ‘Father’s house’ and he challenges them.. I believe over all what he’s really pushing them to answer here is this: what really matters here? Is it the location? Is it the money? Is it who’s face is on the coin? Is the animal’s which are sacrificed? These are the things Jesus sees that they have made of their faith, of their relationship with God. They have idolized human things and convinced themselves that God can be confined to a specific place, in a specific building, at a specific price. Jesus, who is himself God, knows this is all wrong.

Jesus says, “destroy this temple and in three days I will raise it up!” Jesus of course is talking about himself; his own body, for HE is the literal dwelling place of God! He IS God among them! Emmanuel! Temples, church buildings, place of worship, yes they have a purpose, but they cannot contain our God who never leaves our side, whose breath fills our lungs, and who’s image we see reflecting back in the mirror. Dayenu. Lord it would have been enough to be created and loved by you. It would have been enough to be liberated from 400 years of slavery, it would have been enough to build your Temple, it would have been enough to see you face to face..

Yet the Lord’s mercies and steadfast love know no end. God keeps going the extra mile for us again and again and again; in the cross, in the descent into death, in the resurrection and ascension.. God will not stop. God will not stop pursuing humanity, no matter how many times we get it wrong, no matter how many tables need flipped, there is no stopping the love of God.

What a scene. What a scene of holy anger overflowing from the love God has for us and the passion God has for us to have lives of abundance centered on relationship NOT money or status or merit. Jesus says, move over you who are rich and powerful, make room for the God of Mercies, who has come to show you how its done; to show you how to feed the hungry, bring good news to the poor, heal the sick and let the oppressed go free! (Luke 4:18)

A new world has dawned. The Temple of God is on the move in Christ Jesus! The kingdom has come near and the world IS about to turn! Amen.