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Sermon for March 7, 2021

Third Sunday in Lent, John 2:13-22

The holy gospel according to John. Glory to you, O Lord.

13The Passover of the Jewish people was near, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. 14In the temple he found people selling cattle, sheep, and doves, and the money changers seated at their tables. 15Making 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. 16He told those who were selling the doves, “Take these things out of here! Stop making my Father’s house a marketplace!” 17His disciples remembered that it was written, “Zeal for your house will consume me.” 18The Judeans then said to him, “What sign can you show us for doing this?” 19Jesus answered them, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.” 20The Judeans then said, “This temple has been under construction for forty-six years, and will you raise it up in three days?” 21But Jesus was speaking of the temple of his body. 22After 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.

The gospel of the Lord. Praise to you, O Christ.

Jesus turning over the money changers’ tables in the temple in Jerusalem is certainly a dramatic moment, and perhaps quite unexpected from one whom we call Prince of Peace.

John records these words of Jesus: “Stop making my Father’s house a marketplace!”

John further reports that the disciples remembered this saying in connection with Jesus, “Zeal for your house will consume me.” Why was Jesus so passionate about what was going on in the temple with those selling animals and with the money changers?

In Jesus’ view, according to John, the temple was not to be a marketplace. It may well have been the case that Jesus was not against marketplaces per se, but that the place of the market was not the temple. Marketplaces had their place, just not in the holy temple set aside for the worship of God.

Buying and selling and changing money may have had the quality of idolatry – of giving over to things of lesser importance a greater prominence than they deserved.

Making the temple of God into a marketplace reveals a disorientation, a disordered quality that Jesus in John could not abide.

Jesus as an observant Jewish person would have been steeped and grounded in the Ten Commandments which are the focus of today’s first reading. These commandments set the record straight about what is most important. The first table of the law focuses on our relationship with God and the second, our relationship with each other.

With the Ten Commandments, if they are kept, all is well and in the proper and good order. Again, making the temple into a marketplace may have broken the letter and spirit of some of the Commandments, particularly concerning idolatry.

But there is also more going on in the gospel reading for today. A lot more.

The religious authorities queried Jesus about his dramatic overture in the temple: “What sign can you show us for doing this?” they asked.

That’s when Jesus reveals a reorientation that is going on amidst his own ministry and mission. John reports Jesus as having said, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.”

John reports that Jesus is talking here about the temple of his own body. This is a passion prediction in John’s gospel, a pointing to his death and resurrection.

With Jesus being lifted up on the tree of the cross, his body would be broken, destroyed, but also raised up again in the new temple of his resurrected body after three days.

This is the fundamental reality reported by John that reorients everything.

Indeed, at the time when John’s Gospel was written, the temple in Jerusalem had been destroyed by the imperial Roman occupying army in the year 70 CE. This would be for Judaism a reorientation of that whole faith tradition from the focus on the temple in Jerusalem to a centering in the local synagogue.

Likewise, during this ancient period, Christianity would emerge as its own faith tradition in its own right.

Indeed, the focus for Christians became Jesus and his body, Jesus, the word of God made flesh according to the first verses of John’s Gospel.

In Jesus, for us, is the fulfillment of the Law, which we cannot accomplish on our own – a fulfillment made possible by Jesus’ broken and raised body.

The emergent church came to be understood as Christ’s body.

We are baptized into Christ and Christ’s body, the church.

In the sacrament of Holy Communion, we receive the body of Christ, along with the blood of a new covenant.

It’s a fundamental reordering: Christ’s body, broken and raised, dead and alive again, is our temple.

The wisdom of this reorientation is contrary to human logic and understanding, which Paul makes very clear in today’s second reading from 1 Corinthians:

18The message about the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. 19For it is written,
    “I will destroy the wisdom of the wise,
        and the discernment of the discerning I will thwart.”
20Where is the one who is wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? 21For since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, God decided, through the foolishness of our proclamation, to save those who believe. 22For Judeans demand signs and Greeks desire wisdom, 23but we proclaim Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Judeans and foolishness to Gentiles, 24but to those who are the called, both Judeans and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. 25For God’s foolishness is wiser than human wisdom, and God’s weakness is stronger than human strength.” (1 Corinthians 1:18-25)

During Lent, may we be reoriented from our own frail human tendencies to turn holy places into profane marketplaces. May the Spirit of Jesus turn the tables of our lives, awakening in us a renewed focus on Christ as the center of all things.

May this reorientation give renewed order to our lives which continue to be upended by the pandemic and other crises.

And may our renewed reorienting which grounds our mission and ministry be for the healing of the nations. Amen.

And now for your reflection and holy conversation at home:

  • In what ways have we profaned the holy, making temples into marketplaces of one kind or another?
  • What metaphorical tables in our lives need to be overturned in order for us to be returned to Christ?
More in this category: « Sermon for February 28, 2021 Sermon for March 14, 2021 »
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