“Making a whip of cords, he drove all of them out of the temple, both the sheep and the cattle.” (John 2:15) In today’s sermon for the third Sunday in Lent, I look at what made Jesus so angry in the temple, and wonder what might anger Jesus today – and what should anger us.
The texts for this week are 1 Corinthians 1:18-25 and John 2:13-22.
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen
My son Micah has an appointment this week with an eye doctor, and with pandemic restrictions, only one parent is allowed in with him. Christin’s going to be the one taking him, which is good, because I don’t do well at doctor’s offices. Not because of needles or body parts or anything like that—although looking at eyes grosses me out—but because of all the forms to fill out at every appointment.
One of my pet peeves is poorly designed forms. I get irrationally angry when I’m told to answer irrelevant questions.
Like the first time we took Micah to an eye doctor, they handed us an iPad with a huge list of questions, and I get some of them. Is he allergic to anything, does he have any particular pains.
But so many of them were completely pointless for a 6-month old. I answered yes, he does have trouble sleeping for 8 hours straight. No, his vision is not what’s impairing his driving. And it just kept going on and on with these totally useless questions.
Or at the doctors office, one question on a development assessment—I think it was for six months—was does your child reach for cheerios in a clear bottle. I don’t know; why would we put cheerios into a bottle? Maybe we could have tried it if we knew ahead of time, but no, I have no idea if he’d reach for cheerios in a bottle!
It might be a family thing: My dad once got into a lengthy argument with a pharmacist at Wal-Mart over her insistence that to help him, she needed the patient’s birthdate. Sounds reasonable, except the prescription was for a stray barn cat, and yes, I get that the system wanted a birth date. That’s the point.
I think we all have things we get upset at, pet peeves like useless paperwork. Usually they’re not worth the time and energy we spend getting worked up. It’s much better to remain calm, to not sweat the small stuff.
In fact, when Paul writes in Galatians 5 about the fruits of the Spirit, the qualities that develop when we live a life of faith following Jesus, he lists things like patience, kindness, gentleness, and self-control.
And yet, anger is not always bad. Sometimes anger is necessary, even holy. If we take our faith seriously, we’ll find things in life we ought to be angry about. And part of how we know it’s ok for Christians to get angry, is that in today’s Gospel reading, Jesus gets angry. He makes a public scene, commits civil disobedience, interrupts people while they’re working. I usually imagine Jesus talking in a warm, friendly teacher voice, but in this story, he’s yelling at people.
So what stirs up Jesus’ holy anger? What gets Jesus so upset that he makes a whip and flips over tables and drives people out of the temple?
It seems to be because the people in the temple have lost sight of what worship is about. They’ve turned the temple from being a place to encounter God, to a place for exploiting the faith of others in order to make a profit.
This is always a tricky story for me, because I think some of what’s going on in the temple makes sense. The temple marketplace is there for a reason.
You see, the law of Moses requires people to offer an animal in perfect condition as a sacrifice at the temple. But if you live on the other side of the country and you’re traveling a hundred miles to the temple, it’s hard to bring a sheep or some cattle with you and keep them in perfect shape on the way. Just traveling with our dog takes some effort and planning – I can’t imagine bringing a sheep with me!
So, the system developed where you can just buy your animal for the sacrifice on your way into the temple. It’s much more convenient, and it still meets the requirements of the law.
Of course, there are many people who can’t afford a whole cow or sheep, so there’s a lower-cost option too – the law says they can sacrifice a dove. Hence, there are dove-sellers there in the temple courtyard too.
And the money changers – having a bank in the temple seems odd, but there’s a good reason for that too. Remember, the Roman Empire is in charge, so the normal currency is Roman coins, which have the emperor’s image on them.
But, the very first of the ten commandments (which we just heard) is to not make any idols. No graven images, some translations say. So, the money changers are there to convert Roman denarii into Jewish shekels so people can fulfill their obligations under the law.
So, what’s Jesus so upset about?
Well, even though this system makes sense, it has some pretty big flaws. There’s a fine line between facilitating people’s worship and exploiting them, and the exchange rates and prices in the temple had a reputation for being much more on the exploitative side of that line. Think theme park meal prices, but for something that’s a religious obligation.
Did you notice that the people who witness this don’t ask Jesus why he’s angry? Instead, they ask him what sign he can show them, where his authority comes from.
Basically, who gave you the right to interfere? They seem to know they’ve been caught with their hand in the cookie jar, but they want to know who caught them.
John also makes it clear that this story is about more than just commerce in the temple. It’s about looking for God in a physical place, in a system, rather than where God is to be found. They’ve become so focused on the system for how to encounter God that they’ve lost sight of God’s actual presence.
They don’t see what God is doing right there among them, in the person of Jesus, standing up for the poor and proclaiming forgiveness and grace.
Jesus tells them, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.” But, John tells us, he was speaking of the temple of his body. God is not confined to a building, or a tradition. God is found among us, incarnate, in the person of Jesus Christ, and that only makes sense after Easter.
I wonder, if this story were today, what might Jesus get upset about now, in our world? What is the wisdom of this world, as Paul puts it, to which the crucified and risen Christ is a stumbling block?
I can’t imagine God is happy when faith is commodified, made into something to be sold. I am confident Jesus gets angry today when people are taken advantage of in the name of faith, when people use religion as an excuse for exploiting others.
Again, this is a challenging story for me, because I think the church today is guilty of some of the same sins as the temple in Jesus’ day. It’s easy for me to point at megachurches and rich televangelists, or to look at the hurt caused by clergy abuse scandals (and those are worth getting upset about) but I’m far from perfect too.
You know the junior high kids are doing an Easter egg fundraiser, right? Just this week, we ordered a bunch of little rubber bracelets with cute religious sayings on them to include in the eggs.
You can give the church money in exchange for some pieces of plastic with candy and cute religious sayings. And I hope you will, because I think it’s a great fundraising idea and the money will be used for good ministry and building faith, but I also think I haven’t done enough to care about the people who work in the factories in China making little rubber Christian bracelets. I wonder what they think of Christians who spend their money on disposable “Happy Easter” rubber stampers?
What else might Jesus be upset at today? Perhaps a world of inequality, where your access to vaccines and medicine is determined by how much money you have and what country or even zip code you live in?
Perhaps a world where there is more than enough food to feed everyone, yet 9 million people die every year from hunger and hunger related diseases? (source)
Or a society that denies hundreds of thousands of unborn children the chance to grow up? A nation that separates refugee children from their families?
People like us who are willing to look the other way about human rights issues, religious freedom, and political oppression, as long as we can get our electronics and pieces of plastic for a low price, or rather, a price that seems low to us in our wealth?
There are things we ought to be upset about, places we ought to be working to build God’s kingdom. We could use some of that zeal. And of course, those systems don’t like being challenged. The justice found in God’s kingdom doesn’t line up with any of our political parties.
John puts this story in chapter two, right at the beginning of his Gospel as a way of framing all of Jesus’ ministry, but Matthew, Mark, and Luke, Jesus cleanses the temple on Monday of holy week, the week that ends with him being arrested and executed. This incident in the temple is the last straw for the religious and political leaders. This is where Jesus goes too far, and the result is the cross.
May this season of Lent call you to focus on the things of God, and even stir up some holy anger in you to make a difference in this world, so that it may be blessed in Jesus’ name.
Amen