Exodus 20:1-17
God spoke all these words: I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery; you shall have no other gods before me.You shall not make for yourself an idol, whether in the form of anything that is in heaven above, or that is on the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I the Lord your God am a jealous God, punishing children for the iniquity of parents, to the third and the fourth generation of those who reject me, but showing steadfast love to the thousandth generation of those who love me and keep my commandments. You shall not make wrongful use of the name of the Lord your God, for the Lord will not acquit anyone who misuses his name. Remember the sabbath day, and keep it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work. But the seventh day is a sabbath to the Lord your God; you shall not do any work—you, your son or your daughter, your male or female slave, your livestock, or the alien resident in your towns. For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but rested the seventh day; therefore the Lord blessed the sabbath day and consecrated it. Honor your father and your mother, so that your days may be long in the land that the Lord your God is giving you. You shall not murder. You shall not commit adultery. You shall not steal. You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor. You shall not covet your neighbor’s house; you shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, or male or female slave, or ox, or donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbor.
John 2:13-22
The Passover of the Jews was near, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. In the temple he found people selling cattle, sheep, and doves, and the money changers seated at their tables. 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. He told those who were selling the doves, “Take these things out of here! Stop making my Father’s house a marketplace!” His disciples remembered that it was written, “Zeal for your house will consume me.” The Jews then said to him, “What sign can you show us for doing this?” Jesus answered them, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.” The Jews then said, “This temple has been under construction for forty-six years, and will you raise it up in three days?” But he was speaking of the temple of his body. 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.
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Carving pumpkins has always been one of my favorite Halloween activities. I remember as a kid, covering the kitchen table with newspaper, and watching my Dad cut a lid off of the tops of the pumpkins that my sisters and I had picked out on school field trips to the pumpkin patch at Sonny Acres farm. I hated scooping out pumpkin guts, but I loved drawing all sorts of eyes and noses on the newspaper tablecloth before deciding which face to carve into my pumpkin. I remember the pride with which we placed our pumpkins on the front steps on Halloween evening, lighting their candles when it started to get dark.
I also remember the first time our pumpkins were smashed by mischief-making neighborhood kids. They were probably just being silly, but they had no idea that their prank would absolutely crush me. I was young enough that a smashed pumpkin felt like a violation and an injustice. I was sad. I was afraid. I couldn’t believe that someone would go out of their way to destroy something I had created.
You might have a similar story. Maybe about a smashed pumpkin, or a kid who knocked down your block tower just because he wanted to hear the crash, or somebody on the beach who stomped all over your sand castle.
This is the sort of memory that I can still feel viscerally, even all these years later. And it is the same sort of feeling that I get when I read this account of Jesus clearing out the temple courtyard.
The qualities that we usually associate with Jesus – peace, compassion, forgiveness, humility – all fly out the window as we watch him turn over tables and scatter money, tipping over animal cages and shouting at people while swinging a whip.
Instead of calm, collected “love your neighbor” Jesus, we get angry Jesus on an impassioned march through the temple courtyard. His whip is flying, and furniture is being tossed about. Crowds are running in panic, shoving each other, bruising and bumping and jostling each other. Frightened animals scatter in unpredictable motion. People rush away in fear of being trampled.
I do not like today’s gospel. I do not like seeing anger get the best of Jesus. This is not the Jesus that I want to hang out with. This is not Jesus at his very best. This is, of course, Jesus making a point, and Jesus going to extreme lengths to do so.
This account of Jesus turning over tables in the courtyard shows up in all of our gospels. In three of the gospel accounts – Matthew, Mark, and Luke – this incident in the courtyard happens near the end of Jesus’ ministry, after he has entered Jerusalem heralded by palms and waving crowds.
But John, in his gospel, puts this table-turning incident near the beginning of Jesus’ public ministry. And so in John’s gospel, Jesus doesn’t clear the temple courtyard because of corrupt merchants or dishonest business practices. It’s not a matter of what should or shouldn’t be happening in the temple courtyard, or about the right and wrong way to sell people animals for their temple sacrifices.
In John’s gospel, which is all about Jesus as the living presence of God in our midst, Jesus clears out the temple courtyard as a way of resisting the very temple system itself. Jesus turns over tables to make the explicit point that he is the new temple, the new center of worship and reconciliation with the God who had both given them the law and had promised them salvation. John puts this event at the beginning of his story to make the theological point that Jesus is the heart of God’s grace and salvation, and that no temple of human construct can compare to the uninhibited love and power of Jesus Christ, the Word-made-flesh, the Son of God. God is not bound to a building or a tent. The presence of God is with the people, and so very with the people that it has taken on flesh and blood and hair and breath.
It is theologically profound, that God would choose to liberate God’s Spirit from walls of human construction in order to roam about creation freely in order to bind up and redeem every piece of our mortal existence. This is grace for us, that we have free access to God and God’s mercy, without a temple or sacrifices to mediate that access. God’s covenant with us does not depend upon walls of human construction.
I can see the aftermath there in the courtyard - a few brave bystanders carrying tables away while the last coins roll across the ground and the last doves flutter away. Shock and quiet begin to replace the chaos. The religious leaders murmur amongst themselves about who will be the one to question Jesus about what on earth just took place. The dust settles around Jesus, who stands in the midst of the litter and the rubble, his shoulders relaxing and his whip of cords dropping to the ground. To talk of the destruction of the temple and the temple of his body, Jesus has himself crafted a dusty picture of destruction right there in the courtyard.
In just a few short weeks, we will be standing together, staring at a different picture of violence and destruction. The one yielding the whip in the temple courtyard will soon be the one yielding his back to the whip in the courtyard of Pilate’s headquarters. The one hurling himself around violently outside the temple will take all violence unto himself and bear it in his body. The one throwing tables to the ground will be lifted up onto a cross. The one consumed by zeal for his Father’s house will soon be consumed by brokenness and death itself.
It is important that we hold together these two violent incidents - the temple courtyard and the cross - lest we be temped to think that a life of faith and discipleship is, for us, a free pass to act and to speak violently in the world in the name of Jesus.
The truth is that I have no idea what Jesus was thinking there in the temple courtyard, and even though I love Jesus, I don’t have to like him when he’s swinging a whip around. And even though Jesus asks us to follow him as disciples, I do not think this means that Jesus intends everything he does to be imitated. Because let’s be honest. We know how to be angry and violent all on our own accord.
Spend even five minutes listening to the latest round of gun control debates following the Parkland shooting, and you will know plenty well that humans are capable of doing great violence not only with weapons, not only with our bodies, but also with our words and our attitudes toward one another when we are convinced that we are the ones who have been called to turn over the tables at any cost.
By all means, my friends, speak out in the face of injustice. Seek liberation for all people. Devote yourselves to justice for our creation. Stand with grieving teenagers. Listen fervently to the voices that say #metoo. Resist the corrupting power of greed. Welcome immigrants and refugees. Fly your rainbow flag in the face of vandals who would tear it down. Love this world with reckless abandon. Throw around forgiveness like it is your job.
But do not think that you can do any of this well or faithfully by swinging your weapons in crowded places, or flipping angry words toward defenseless neighbors, or doing violence by what you say behind one another’s backs.
God makes it clear from the very beginnings of his covenants with us that everything we do is grounded in God’s concern for our liberation and for our relationships with the divine and with one another.
The God of the covenant has freed us from Pharaoh, which, as Walter Brueggemann describes it, is the name for “every brutalizing concentration of wealth and power that acts in violence against vulnerable people.” God mounts our own exodus from the world’s tools of intimidation, oppression, and violence, and in doing so, binds us to our neighbors. It isn’t just that we turn from violence, but also that God turns our hearts toward liberation and love for all whom he has given us. God’s covenant love drives us not to throw tables at our adversaries, but to seek justice through goodness and mercy and transformation.
The ten commandments, which we read earlier, are actually ten out of several hundred commandments. And each of these commandments was given by God as a way to preserve the health, safety, and sanctity of the community. Jesus embraces and echos this gift of the law, charging us with the tasks of loving God and loving neighbor as the very hallmarks of our faith.
Jesus might flip over tables, but he also spends the rest of his ministry urging us toward forgiveness, reconciliation, humility, and compassion. Jesus transforms people through acts of love, and he shapes his disciples - then and now! - by accompanying them in loving, patient relationship.
It is Jesus’s ministry, and not ours, that is bookended by violence, because only Jesus has the power to redeem such brokenness. And because of that redemption, we are set free to do the work of holy resistance and transformation apart from the world’s tools of might and destruction. The gift of our faith is that we are called to do the work of love to restore life, and not to destroy it. To be a force that draws people closer to God instead of getting in the way. To be a voice for holy peace instead of a contributor to chaos.
This world needs to turn over, my friends. This world needs to know that grace and forgiveness and compassion flow freely from the heart of God, uncontained and unconstrained. The world needs to know that when temples crumble, hope still stands. The world needs to know that everything will be made right and new, and that life will spring forth even from death.
Shine your lights, my friends. Share the good news. Work for justice and peace. Transform this world, as God is calling you and equipping you to do. And in all things, do this work in love and in grace, giving your heart to God and neighbor alike. This is your holiest rebellion: to change the world not by might, but by love.
God bless you and empower you to carry out this holy work.
Amen.
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