“Cleaning House”
3 Lent B –
John 2:13-23
Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, my strength and my redeemer.
Brothers and sisters in Christ, Grace and Peace to you from our Triune God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
In the gospel today, John tells us that as Jesus drives the merchants out of the temple, the disciples remembered these words from Psalm 69: “Zeal for your house will consume me.”
You can’t blame the disciples for thinking of those words. They have just witnessed Jesus acting very differently from the son of Mary who had miraculously changed water into wine a few verses earlier. Here is Jesus wielding a whip of cords, lashing out at the money-changers. Jesus driving the sheep and cattle from the outer courts of the temple – what happened to the good shepherd? Jesus pouring out the coins and turning over tables. No more Mr. Nice Guy
“Zeal for your house will consume me.” The disciples were right. This is a zealous Jesus. Especially if your definition of zeal is like the dictionary’s definition: “An ardent feeling or fervor talking the form of love, wrath, jealousy or righteous indignation.”
It’s the same sense we have when we use the phrase: “clean house,” as in getting rid of the bad guys, rooting out corruption, eliminating opponents. But when I see those images of Jesus in the temple, I also think of Mrs. Anderson. You want the living epitome of zeal for your house? She was it. Normally, she was nice and mild-mannered as any Mom on the block. But when it came to cleaning house, Mrs. A was zeal incarnate.
Instead of a whip of cords, her weapon of choice was an old broom. I do believe she could have driven cattle and sheep the way she wielded that thing. Not just on the dirt, but mainly on her kids and husband.
“Keep moving” was her cleaning cry especially when the Saturday for spring cleaning arrived. Everyone in the
Every so often her normally calm voice would suddenly become a drill sergeant’s bellow. And a moment later one of the boys would shoot out the door with a look of terror on his face and as armload of stuff for the garbage cans next to the garage.
When Mrs. Anderson was cleaning house you knew better than to even go to the door to see if the boys could come out to play. If you did, you could find yourself on the business end of that broom. “The sooner they get done, the sooner they can play.” I could image her kids saying with the disciples: “Zeal for your house will consume me.”
But is that what Jesus was up to? Is his righteous anger, his desire to clean house in the temple, the point of this story? Or perhaps something deeper is going on.
One clue to that something deeper is found in Psalm the disciples quote. Psalm 69 begins, “Save me O God for the waters have come up to my neck, I sink in deep mire where there is no foothold; I have come into deep waters and the flood sweeps over me.” Psalm 69 is one of the deepest, most heartfelt laments in the scriptures. It is sometimes called “The Psalm of the Righteous Sufferer”. The verse the disciples remember is the reason the psalmist gives for why he is suffering, surrounded, mocked and attacked by enemies.
The psalmist suffers because of his zeal for the place, the temple, where God is present. He is faithful, trusting, and repentant. He strives to obey the God who dwells in the temple. And for this his enemies persecute, and try to consume him, to eat him alive. When he fasts, he is insulted. When he repents and grieves, he is a mocked and ignored. He is the object of vicious gossip. Drunkards make songs about him. All because he trusts in the salvation promised by his God.
Jesus’s reacts to the commercialism in the temple in righteous anger. He is obedient to the Father. He gives the temple a much-needed house cleaning. But the disciples and the Jews both fail to see that Jesus is not simply demonstrating or protesting against commercialism of religion. In this story he is giving notice in actions those future events that he and only he must undergo to “clean house”.
Does any of this begin to ring any bells? How about if I told you that in Matthew, Mark, and Luke this story comes near the end of the gospel, just before the passion story? Or John chapter 19, verse 1: “Then Pilate took Jesus and had him flogged.” No doubt with a whip of cords, but this time with nails on the ends.
If we listen closely to this story today, we hear that this Jesus is proclaiming that this house cleaning will not be like an annual cleaning. It will not make things better for a few months, only to have them get dirty again. It will not be something that you or I can accomplish. It will be something completely new.
In the cleansing of the temple, Jesus points directly to the once and for all cleansing through his passion and crucifixion, through his sacrifice. Jesus drives the sacrificial animals out of the temple because he is taking their place. He drives the moneychangers out, because through his passion he, not us, will pay the price of our salvation.
We gathered here today and all believers gathered in worship everywhere in all times and all places -- are the results of that house cleaning. Through Jesus suffering and death, you are forgiven. By his precious blood you are cleansed to become the new temple – the holy catholic church as we confess in the Apostles’ Creed.
One of the great temptations of being the church is that we begin to act more like temple than the church. Too often we view our financial or other support of the Church as “fee for services,” a transaction like any other in our life. That is why, as we begin a time reflection and renewal of stewardship in the coming weeks, we need to take this house cleaning in the temple very seriously.
Martin Luther confronted temptation head-on. Preaching on this very text, he said, and here I’m going to paraphrase: When things come to such a pass as described John’s gospel, as when the sacraments in the church are bartered for oxen and sheep because the priests demand that “You must sacrifice!, then the church is in a sorry plight. If your criteria for giving is: Am I getting my money’s worth out of my membership in the congregation, then you are in a sorry plight. My dear people, there is no compulsion, no deal to be struck when it comes to the church. It rests entirely with you if you wish to contribute something time, talent, treasure. Luther says as a Pastor I will absolve you without price of all your sins as often as you desire. I will not sell any of this to you. Indeed, I cannot. On the other hand, for the sake of the ministry of this body of Christ, you must help and supply whatever is needed for the good of the gospel. Luther knew that because of what Jesus did in the temple and on the cross, we are free to give for no other reason than our need to give.
Today, Jesus enacted in the temple a sneak preview of what he would undergo in suffering and death. He gives us glimpse of why he made this mysterious and terrible sacrifice: his obedient love for the Father and for his children.
This church rises or falls with your response – not of sacrifice, for Christ has done that once, and for you, -- but of thanks and praise. Today Jesus shows us there is nothing to be bought or sold. But there is a very real challenge: What kind of church we shall be in light of all that Jesus does for us? Shall we be zealous stewards for the gospel of Christ and the joy he brings?
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