Sermon for the Cleansing of the Temple – John 2:13-22

We all know what frustration and anger feel like. We’ve all got people who just keep pushing our buttons, who work our nerves until they’re raw. Kids, coworkers, friends, congregations. Who’s your favorite target? It’s not just about when they deliberately try to set us off. They don’t even have to go that far. They just have to break our unwritten rules, and we all have certain rules. Maybe as innocuous as toilet seats and toothpaste caps when you live with someone. But then there’s every time we get talked over or ignored. Every time we don’t get invited. Every time we feel disrespected. How about every time we call tech support or get behind the wheel? So many stories. We get fed up and say something, and maybe it works for a while, but does anything really change? We get wise. We can’t change them but we can change ourselves. Learn to own our feelings? Recite a serenity prayer? It’s easy to distract ourselves and think we’re letting things go, but they still stick somewhere deep down. Our hearts have memories like steel traps. All these little things add up like interest, and there’s always a tipping point. And then, everyone’s shocked by us, like we’ve lost our minds. Like we’re monsters. Can we ever truthfully say they’re wrong?

Still, let’s be honest – Jesus is doing exactly what we’ve all fantasized doing at some point. Most of us probably haven’t gone as far as he does, but I bet some of us have, and we shouldn’t be surprised. After all, Jesus is the epitome of self-control. If he can lose it, we can lose it, and he totally loses it.

He bursts into the temple, and what he sees are all these moneychangers selling animals for required sacrifices. To be clear, these are rogue priests. They buy up choice, unblemished animals from local farmers, and mark up for a high profit. Hint – be a farmer near Jerusalem. Because they’re priests, they’re the only ones who can get away with setting up shop around the perimeter of the temple. We’ve seen this before. Think indulgences. But whatever you call it, it’s extortion. So Jesus has a meltdown. Matthew and Mark have him throwing tables and chairs around, John has him driving moneychangers and animals out of the temple with a whip. They run for their lives because Jesus is utterly violent. They’re shocked. We’re shocked too, like Jesus has lost his mind. Like he’s a monster. We want to explain this all away, because we can’t bear to see Jesus act just like us. We’re desperate to think that maybe Jesus was doing this all to be a change agent. But no, his violence only accomplishes one thing. The marketplace is closed for today. But tomorrow it will reopen. They’ll bring back their tables and chairs and cattle because the chief priests and authorities will absolutely make sure this doesn’t happen again. They’re smart and capable. You can be sure they’ll tighten security. They’ll make sure nothing changes the system.

And who’s missing from the story? All the faithful Jews who managed to make it to temple today. Your whole life, you’ve been taught God’s commandments about making sacrifice for sin, to atone. Not an option. But the temple in Jerusalem is the ONLY place you can do it. You can’t do this in your local synagogue. So you make a pilgrimage, like for Passover, which this is, and from Nazareth it’s maybe 120 miles of walking one way. If there even was transportation, you wouldn’t be able to afford it, because Roman and Jewish taxation. It’s hard, but you still go, because you’re faithful and obedient. You probably can’t afford to sacrifice one of your animals, but even if you did, it’s probably not unblemished, and even if it was pure you wouldn’t really be able to take it with you, let alone keep it unblemished. Now, you know the moneychangers are extortionists, but you need them, to take the coins you scraped together by the mercy of God to buy an animal to give to the priests to sacrifice. Maybe not a sheep or a goat. Maybe only a dove. So you finally get to the temple and find all this chaos, and what do you do? What do you think? What do you feel? What Jesus has done isn’t just between him and the temple priests. Everyone is involved, including you, and this angry Jesus has just blocked you from doing what God clearly commands you to do, so what’s God going to think if you fail? Except, even if you did what was required, you still wouldn’t know what God thinks, because atonement never promises forgiveness. But you’re used to it. After all, look at the way things are. Nothing ever changes. God couldn’t possibly forgive any of this.

So, what’s the point? We leave, and miss overhearing the angry priests confrontating Jesus, demanding a sign for doing this. The Gospel of John is all about signs, just like the Old Testament. How else do we know anything comes from God? But Jesus doesn’t give them a sign. He gives them a word. Destroy this temple, and in 3 days I will raise it up. They don’t understand any of this commotion, let alone any of this nonsense Jesus is saying, especially because it’s a command. He’s not saying IF you destroy this temple, he’s saying DESTROY this temple. Do it. And the only thing they, or any of us could say, is you’re crazy. This temple has been under construction for 46 years and you’ll raise it in 3 days? How dare you defy God’s clear commandment. Of course, this isn’t the last of Jesus’ commotions. He leaves Jerusalem but he’ll be back, and they’ll be waiting for him with whips and nails and a cross, because they know how to make sure nothing changes. They’ll make sure Jesus will die like us and every other misunderstood, angry rebel. They won’t remember what Jesus said, but the bitter irony is that it’s the only command they actually followed.

But friends, our good news is that Jesus wasn’t talking about buildings. Buildings come and go, but Jesus was talking about himself, the temple of his body. Jesus IS the temple everlasting, because death could never hold him. After 3 days he rises, and he will never perish. Heaven and earth will pass away, but his word will never pass away, and Jesus is the one living word, for us. He shows up and shows out for us every time and everywhere his free, unconditional word of forgiveness is uttered, and THIS is when you know you have found the holy ground of the true temple of God. The temple is not what we see. It never was. And thank God for that because we’re blind. The temple is what we hear and eat and drink in Jesus’ name, all wrapped in his forgiveness. And we don’t even have to search for it, because Jesus always seeks us out first, especially when we weren’t looking for him in the first place. Everything has changed.

The point is that there is absolutely nothing in us that Jesus doesn’t intimately understand, even our anger and violence. The Spirit has repented us to see this today in full display. But Jesus never meets us with the same. Instead, he only meets us in the weak force of gracious love, because only this love has actual power to change the human heart. Nothing else can do this. Not our grand cathedrals or our strength or persuasion or even our best intentions. Deep down, by faith we know this is true. It’s the secret that the world has never learned. But through us together as Jesus’ living body, God will surely bring such love into fullness in spite of everything. In spite of our brokenness and impatience. It’s the only way that you can tell the difference between human power and God’s power. And everything will change in the world, because God always gets what God wants.

After all, it’s no accident that we do show grace to others. It’s not because we got caught on a good day. It’s not because we meditated or ate a good breakfast or did our Lenten disciplines. It’s not for atonement, because atonement ended at the cross, and it doesn’t mean anything to anyone else anyway. No, it’s because the Spirit has invaded our hearts and pulled out of us what we never knew we had within. It never goes according to plan. Which isn’t to say we don’t still plot our good works, God help us. But if this is the God who creates everything out of nothing by a word, God can surely take our imperfect actions to give our neighbors what they truly need. It’s not like we have anything to prove to anyone anyway, and especially not God. God never needed our good works in the first place, but by God our neighbors will have them. Everything will change. Thanks be to God.