Kendall's Notebook, Page 51
Sermon: Our Angry Jesus
Text: John 2:13-22
Date: March 19, 2006
Kendall Brown
This sermon was accompanied by a Power Point presentation. The image cues appear in the text in parenthesis.
(Abstract cathedral carving) One never wants to become too comfortable with the Scriptures. For just as you think you have got it put together and all straightened out, turn a page, find a different chapter and you are in for a surprise. Amazingly, in the spirit world consistency doesn’t seem to be a necessary companion with truth.
Our lesson this morning is a case in point. For the past couple weeks, our lessons have been some of the key Scriptures for delivering to us the good news - the gospel – the gospel of Jesus’ non-violent nature as a person and non-violent behavior in relationships. Today we come to the third week of Lent and what do we have: This highly photographic passage of Jesus cleansing the temple.
(Jesus Cleaning the Temple) Jesus cleansing the temple is one of the few stories that is found in all four Gospels. However in Matthew, Mark and Luke, often referred to as the Synoptic Gospels, the story is found at the end of the books. In the first three Gospels, the story is placed as a part of Jesus’ passion, celebrated during Holy Week and is located right after Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem - observed on Palm Sunday. In the Synoptic Gospels, the temple scene is a climatic ending, an exclamation mark placed at the end of Jesus’ ministry. In the first three Gospels, the story provides the final straw that breaks the camel’s back for the authorities who have been licking their chops, tearing at their hair and wringing their hands in their eagerness to finally find a legitimate reason to arrest Jesus and put him away.
But notice the chapter number for today’s reading from the fourth Gospel, John. Unlike the Synoptic writers, John places the story at the very beginning of Jesus’ ministry. For John, the story sets the stage for all of the rest of Jesus’ ministry to follow. Irregardless of the placement of the story in the timeline of the writer’s presentation, Jesus temple cleansing was an incident of high importance to all four writers.
What gives this story its value and importance is the scandal, which is found in it. Yes, there is a huge scandal in this story, whether you read the story at the end of Jesus’ ministry or at the beginning.
Many Christians reading this story today are scandalized by Jesus’ action. We have a picture of Jesus in our heads. For most of the Christian world in the United States, Jesus looks like (head of Christ) this when we think of him. This painting of Christ was done by Warner Sallman in 1940. In 1941, two gentlemen from Anderson, Indiana, Anthony Kriebel and Fred Bates, published the painting and sales immediately took off. The picture was carried by countless troops during the war. There is hardly a Protestant Church in America, where this particular rendition of Jesus cannot be found hanging in a hall, vestry or entryway. The Jesus in this picture is one that most folk would welcome in their pulpits, maybe even in their homes for he looks quite, strong, spiritual, peaceful, contemplative, respectful and reverent - perhaps even sweet.
We are scandalized by the thought of Jesus being angry. In fact my quick online search for an image of an angry Jesus to place here produced only this picture. (Angry Jesus) Even the legions of cyberspace, who seldom seem to be scandalized by much of anything, are apparently scandalized by the idea of an angry Jesus. I had to do some searching to find this print, which is a fifteenth century Russian icon.
For Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, the scandal in today’s story is not Jesus’ anger. For them, the scandal is given voice in John’s quoting the temple authorities who said, “(What sign can you show us for doing this?)” The NIV’s translation does
a better job of naming the issue of scandal: Authority. “What miraculous sign can you show us to prove your authority to do all this?” (NIV John 2: 18) For John and the other Gospel writers as well, Jesus anger was a given – a natural part of Jesus’ humanity. His being angry is no big deal for them. They are not scandalized by an angry Jesus. The temple authorities were scandalized by the fact that a common, angry, human being would take the temple yard by storm and challenge their authority. In fact Jesus went beyond challenging their authority to challenging their whole system.
(EL Greco – Temple Cleansing) For the temple authorities, the temple and its system was God given and if anything was going to challenge the temple authority, the challenge would only have credence, would have the right credentials, if it could be proven that the challenge came from God. Thus the question of the leaders: “What sign can you show us?” It is important when power is institutionalized to ground that power in the divine – to connect the human power structure with some heavenly foundation or source. Many systems of power and authority have done this. It seems that the more extensive the power held, the more critical to establish that this worldly power has other worldly credentials. Thus, Roman emperors were considered Gods, as were the heads of state in many ancient realms.
Such was the mindset of the temple leaders. They had a system. It worked at least for them. The authority of the system derived from the system’s origin in God’s activity. God had established the system. And if this Jesus fellow was going to mess around with the system, he had darn well better be able to prove that he also came from God. This mindset was at work in Jesus’ day. It is at work today. (10 Commandments in courthouse yard) An argument rumbles across the our country these days about the placement of the 10 commandments in courthouses or on government land in towns and cities. Behind the argument for the display of the commandments is the same mindset of the temple authorities and scandalized by Jesus’ activity in their courtyard. We display the commandments in the courts of law to make visible the invisible connection between human law and divine law and to solidly root and ground human law in the divine. By that connection, the law establishes its authority in the same way that the temple system established its authority in Jesus’ day. Both systems seek to have their authority grounded in God. If the law is so grounded, then Jesus himself had better not challenge it without being able to demonstrate equal authority.
So the (angry Pharisees) angry Pharisees demanded a sign from Jesus. Here is one of those places where John’s ability to tell the story of God working among us and how God accomplishes that work is so dazzling. The Pharisees asked for a sign. Jesus already has given the sign. The sign and the scandal are made one and the same thing in John. The sign and the scandal are in Jesus’ cleansing the temple.
(He who has ears….) As Matthew Mark and Luke all say, “whosoever has ears to hear,” and I like to add “whosoever has eyes to see.” The sign is there in the cleansing itself for those who will see it - for those who can see the invisible in the visible, with an inner eye and an inner ear at work as well as the outer ear. Next Sunday, the Scripture is about Nicodemus who comes to Jesus because he senses that Jesus hears and sees invisible realities, but can’t quite get it himself. But I am getting ahead.
Why would Jesus be so angry in the first place? (second angry Jesus) Here is a picture of an angry Jesus, one of the few that I could find. It comes from the Philippines in our own day. Jesus heart is on fire and he is supported by red hands, the red hands of an angry god. Jesus anger is God’s anger.
(Abraham Issac sacrifice) By tradition, the temple was the place where Abraham had offered his own son as a sacrifice. The moneychangers were a part of a system that had built up to offer a place where people could come and like Abraham make a sacrifice to God. People traveled for many miles to the temple and could not bring their own doves and sheep for the animal sacrifice, so such things could be purchased in the temple yard, once you got there. Sort of like today’s Walmart – take care of all your needs with just one stop! There was one problem with the purchase of the temple animals.
(Ancient coins) The coins that people used in their daily lives were either Greek or Roman. Such coins had on them the images of other Gods, and such coins could not be used in the temple. They had to be exchanged for temple coinage that could then be used to purchase the sacrifices.
Of course the system was ripe for much abuse. People could be easily over charged. The exchange rates were easily inflated. It goes on all the time. Last week Cheryl and I were in Indianapolis to make a hospital visit and for me to attend a meeting of the conference faith education committee on which I serve. We stayed overnight and paid about $30.00 more for a room than what we normally might because of the Big 10 Conference games that decided to be in town on the same day that we were. Price gouging happens all the time. Have you filled up with gas this week? With that in mind, just imagine the field day that the temple money changes had on holy days when thousands of visitors were in town to come to the temple.
But as bad as price gouging is that was not Jesus’ complaint. He had bigger fish to fry. He was after the whole system. For Jesus understood that the temple system and the ten commandments served the same purpose. Both were in place to bring people closer to God. The sacrifice was at the heart of this worship experience to be closer to God. Anthony F. M. Clavier, rector of Trinity Episcopal Church in Watertown, South Dakota writes: (slide with quote) “The word “sacrifice” originally meant, “to Approach.” One couldn’t just barge into god’s presence and say, “Hello, Here I am. Nice to meet you.” One brought a gift. The more unworthy one felt, the more significant the gift one brought. In Jesus’ day, representatives of the extended family, or the wider community went to the one Temple in Jerusalem. They went to “approach” God and to offer gifts which made them worthy to enter into “the courts of the Lord.”
The system had gotten into the way of its own purpose. It had become more and more difficult for people to draw close to God, to approach God through it. Thus Jesus said that God would bring down the system and offer a new approach through the sacrifice once and for all of Jesus on the cross.
(The Commandments) The ten commandments, like the sacrificial temple worship, were given to help people to approach God, to draw closer to God in our daily life. One is a system of worship. The other is a system of law or rules. The commandments are all about relationships, our relationship with God and our relationships with each other in community. They spell out the basic behavior required for us to live with each other and with God.
In short, the commandments establish the basic behavior that all must live out if we are to trust each other and to trust God. Community cannot exist without trust. We cannot be in relationship with either God or each other without trust. Trust is fundamental. Without trusting others and being trustworthy ourselves we are unapproachable. Who wants to have much to do with someone you can’t trust. There is the letter of the law and there is the spirit of the law. Jesus worked to make visible the spirit, the spirit of trust.
(Jeremiah quote) For our own society today, the healing we need will not come by propping up the ten commandments in public places and thereby thinking we have established some divine authority in our earthly place that will fix everything. The healing we need as a society and culture is in our trusting and being trustworthy. The new system of approach as taught and practiced by Jesus –and different from any system of law, divine or human, or any system of religion- sacrificial or otherwise - is based not on an outer authority but an inner reality – the reality of God’s love in our hearts.