Elder Marty Albershardt          

Preached at Bradley Hills Presbyterian Church

March 11, 2007

 

"Holy Change"

 

What do we make of this angry Jesus? This doesn't seem like the same peaceful, radiant Jesus in the picture on the wall in my Sunday School, with children leaning on his lap, with not a hair out of place and his robe perfectly draped, an example of welcoming spiritual oneness and peace! But this is the same Jesus. And during Lent we lean towards this person, to see him more fully - his front, his back, his sides: the tears on his face, thin threads of blood from thorns, his eyes, his hands - holding bread, mud, washing feet, his side - pierced and weeping, his back - as he embraces the sinful... and we see another side today: pure emotion, giving free reign, daring disorder, breaking rules. It's a full - fledged drama! But this is not a 'rebel without a cause,' this rebel is laying it on the line, and breaking all the rules for the ultimate cause, our salvation. And I want to suggest that we see it as drama, a symbolic acting-out, a preview, a rarified glimpse into the passion that will come, is coming, and is here with us, even now.

 

Imagine you are there... you have climbed up the steep, dusty hill to the temple in Jerusalem along with the noisy, smelly crowds, because it is the festival of Passover, and this is the national place to go, something we can relate to here in the Washington, DC area. Jesus had been on this pilgrimage before, as a boy - remember when he got lost in the crowd and his parents couldn't find him?   This festival commemorates the Jews' liberation from Egypt in the Exodus story. In the feast one of the elements is the sacrificial lamb, symbolizing deliverance by God. And Passover also commemorates the laws given by God to Moses at Mt. Sinai, God's covenant with the people, and laws for worshipping. You remember this as you walk along, but you also know that as you come to the temple, according to those laws, you must present animal offerings. In Leviticus it says you must bring unblemished animals, hard to do on a long journey on foot, so local vendors provide these animals, which you would purchase in the outer courtyards of the temple. You would first need to see the moneychangers to exchange your Roman currency into Temple currency and also to pay your required Temple tax. And these moneychangers and animal vendors charged a percentage! So, here in the outer courtyards is a well-oiled system, a business. But is this the business of Jesus' father? Where does that money go? Does it go into the pockets of the poor, the widowed, the orphaned, the homeless, those without water or food, the marginal, the oppressed, those devastated by storms, political violence or war? NO! We heard the words of the prophet Jeremiah this morning: "Has this house, which is called by my name, become a den of robbers?" That's what Jesus is angry about. He quotes from Zechariah: "take these things away! Stop making my Father's house a marketplace!" OK, right there, did you hear him? He's saying that he's the Son of God, which was a heresy, enough to throw him in jail. Jesus was in their face. It's only in John that Jesus picks up a rope to shoo the animals out. And it reminds us of what will come. Jesus will himself be whipped, before his death.

 

On another ominous note, Jesus levels a zero-tolerance command: "Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up." This really pushed a button with the authorities, because rebuilding the temple was a repeatedly huge issue in their history, and also keeping the house of God holy, the holy place where God dwells. What Jesus said to them seemed obtuse, impossible. But he spoke prophetically, and they did not understand. How many times have we gone through Lent? Heard the story of Jesus leading up to his death. Do we, like the disciples, yet understand and believe these words?

 

This story is included in all four of the Gospels, but it comes early in the book of John. In the Synoptic Gospels, Matthew, Mark, and Luke, it comes later, as part of the dramatic build-up right before Jesus' arrest. Biblical scholar Gail O'Day suggests that this different arrangement in John "provides a striking contrast with the Cana miracle."[i] In John, Cana is where Jesus performs his first act of ministry, changing the water into wine at the wedding feast. Jesus' mother, Mary, nudges the fledgling Jesus into doing it even though he says, "it's not my time yet." But he does it, and it seems to uncork the passion of a man who knows he is God and what will come and that he has to somehow convey this to the people. He is facing living out every loving, teaching and healing, timeless moment; and every confrontational, daring, excruciating moment, timeless, and yet an eternity to this man. The temple demonstration is not traditionally considered a sign, the Greek semion, like his turning that water into wine at Cana (or later: the healings, providing ample food, walking on water, making the blind man see, raising Lazarus), but, I would suggest that this temple incident is a sign. This is an important sign, one that he wanted everyone looking for the Messiah at that time to see. As Gail O'Day says, it is "the prophetic inauguration of his ministry," seen by the people as a sign of hope and belief. "After a sign of abundance and grace [at Cana], Jesus now performs a sign reminiscent of the acts of Israel's prophets, in which the authority of the dominant religious authorities are questioned."[ii] The conflict about who is in power in the temple, in the government, is so complex, full of factions - it can remind us of our own church and societal struggles today.

 

Jesus is also standing in the Hebrew tradition of Wisdom, from Proverbs, seen as the Logos, here, in John. Wisdom stands on the street corners and she cries out to her community. As my teacher, and scholar, Sharon Ringe writes, Jesus "echoes and reinforces Moses...but he then goes a step further by giving his own life as the new story of God's grace, power, and justice."[iii]

 

I saw a painting of the temple scene, in which people, as well as animals are trying to find a way out of the crowded courtyard, the tables are turned over, the boxes of coins are spilling this way and that, much of the money is on the stone floor. The whole scene is swirling with action. But if you look carefully down in the corner, under one of the overturned tables, there is a little boy carefully picking up coins. This made me think of how Jesus' action is really about justice, about shaking up the economic system, and redistributing the wealth. That's how the messianic age will look. That's the feast we really want to be having and commemorating!

 

But that takes signs of radical change. And in the case of Jesus, it is 'holy change', God's doing on earth. Changing those sacrifices into a once - and - for - all - time - Jesus, changing the profit into giving, changing need into abundance. What Jesus wanted in the temple was "holy change." The Passover lamb would be replaced by the Lamb of God, Jesus Christ, who would, in one, single, dramatic act of justice on the cross, deliver us from sin. "Holy change" comes to us from God, through the Holy Spirit's insistence to find us and change us and never let us go no matter what kind of upheaval is necessary...   This is what Lent is about... you thought this waiting would be easy... but its not... Inside there can be great transformation... and we will see "greater things" than these... even greater than all the signs and miracles and healing.

 

A dangerous act is such a thin line away from "holy change." Many believe that now is the time for a "Jesus protest," for the women to stand on the street corner as witnesses to the injustices in Darfur.

 

The lines from Ecclesiastes 3 tell us: "For everything there is a season...

A time to break down, and a time to build up...." Jesus breaks down barriers, but because of the compassion, out of the love that lives forever! As sinful and stubborn to change as we are, all that he really asks us, in order for us to receive that love, is to believe. 

 

AMEN.

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