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March 15, 2009 ~ Lent 3
John 2:13-25 and Mark 11:12-24
“Keep back your servant also from the insolent” ~ Psalm 19:13

Sometimes our tables need turning over. What we’ve been doing in our temples needs to be stopped because of what we haven’t been doing in our communities. Some idols need to be driven out of our lives. Something’s gotta change!

The lectionary given for today is from the gospel of John, and it places Jesus’ temple actions at the very beginning of his ministry, just after the miracle of the water-to-wine at Cana. But the other gospels place it during the last week of Jesus’ life. I’d like to read it again from the gospel of Mark, which is our focus gospel for this year’s lectionary:

Mark 11:12-24




All too often the text read today is known as “the cleansing of the temple” and is interpreted as Jesus’ disgust with either:
-- animals used for sacrifice
-- the priesthood, or
-- the temple itself
Far to often each one of these has as an unhealthy undercurrent anti-Semitism, or at least a judgment against the Hebrew Scriptures, what we call the “Old Testament.”

Marcus Borg and John Dominic Crossan, in their brilliant book, “The Last Week: What The Gospels Really Teach Regarding Jesus’ Last Days In Jerusalem,” (1) provide a needed corrective to these interpretations. Thus, they allow those of us who take scripture faithfully and seriously to get “back on track” in our spiritual journeys and focus on what is important, not just what feels good.

They begin by pointing out what is true in Mark but absent from John’s reteling: this narrative is set in the midst of a “frame” of Jesus cursing a fig tree for failing to bear fruit. The theme of “failing to bear fruit” for the kingdom, or “kin-dom” of God, is central to many of Jesus’ diatribes against those in authority. Thus, this temple event is more of a symbolic “work stoppage” at the temple, and less a “cleansing.” It is less a spontaneous “fit” Jesus is having, and more of a carefully planned demonstration to make a longstanding theological point clear.

Borg and Crossan take issue with the traditional interpretations of this text which “have misinterpreted Jesus’ temple action as a statement against sacrifice or the priesthood or even the temple itself.” (2) Using a thoughtful process of historical criticism and interpreting the Bible using the Bible itself, they make crystal clear that:
-- blood sacrifice of animals was not only a comfortable practice for people of that day, but a perfectly acceptable way to thank God for all the good gifts God had given,
-- the high priesthood was not a simple institution and it is perfectly understandable that one could be firmly in opposition to the priesthood at that moment in Jewish history without having any problem with the Jewish priesthood in general; and
-- the temple was equally as complex, with much of it revered as the house of God on earth while at the same time being seen, because of the vast building projects the Romans had instituted, as a symbol of submission to Rome. (3)

So, if the action Jesus takes in the temple that day are not an indictment on blood sacrifices, the high priesthood, or the temple, then what was it exactly? Well, Crossan and Borg look to the Bible itself for an answer. In Jeremiah Chapter 7 there is another confrontation between a messenger of God and what was happening in the temple.

For if you truly amend your ways and your doings, if you truly act justly one with another, if you do not oppress the alien, the orphan, and the widow, or shed innocent blood in this place, and if you do not go after other gods to your own hurt, then I will dwell with you in this place, in the land that I gave of old to your ancestors for ever and ever.

Here you are, trusting in deceptive words to no avail. Will you steal, murder, commit adultery, swear falsely, make offerings to Baal, and go after other gods that you have not known, and then come and stand before me in this house, which is called by my name, and say, ‘We are safe!’—only to go on doing all these abominations? Has this house, which is called by my name, become a den of robbers in your sight? You know, I too am watching, says the Lord. (Jer. 7:5-11)

See? The phrase that Jesus uses, “den of robbers,” becomes clear and helps us to see what Jesus was doing. “The people’s everyday injustices makes them robbers, and they think the temple is their safe house, den, hideaway, or place of security. The temple is not the place where the robbery occurs, but the place robbers go for refuge.” (4)

Jeremiah, and I believe Jesus, was clearly part of a long and bold prophetic tradition that challenged the people… and this is where we need to listen in closely… to hear God’s insistence not simply on justice and worship, but on justice over worship, justice as a prerequisite to worship. God had repeatedly said, “I reject your worship because of your lack of justice,” but God never, ever says, “I reject your justice because of your lack of worship!” (5) It is far easier for us to worship, worship, worship and ignore the mandates of justice than it is for us to do the hard and meaningful work of justice and not worship! Worship flows naturally from our justice-making, but the reverse is not true. Worship is the easy action, and we gravitate to it readily. Like Peter on the mount of transfiguration, we like basking in God-In-Jesus’ glory! But worship without justice for our neighbor is an abomination!

And there is ample, abundant, and compelling biblical precedent!
Amos rants, “I hate, despise your festivals… take away from me the noise of your songs… but let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an everflowing stream.” (5:21-24)
Hosea convicts us with, “I desire love and not sacrifice, the knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings.” (6:6)
Micah challenges us, “With what shall I come before the Lord and bow myself before God on high? Shall I come before him with burnt offerings… with ten thousands of rivers of oil?... He has told you, O mortal, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?” (6:6-8)
Isaiah lays it out, “What to me is the multitude of your sacrifices? says the Lord;… Trample my courts no more;… I cannot endure solemn assemblies with iniquity;… even though you make many prayers, I will not listen;… Wash yourselves; make yourselves clean;… cease to do evil, learn to do good; seek justice, rescue the oppressed, defend the orphan, plead for the widow.” (1:11-17)
And so Jeremiah condemns the lack of justice lived out in the daily lives of the people, and prophesies that the temple will be destroyed because of our fascination with ritual and our apathy toward our neighbors. He infuriates the leaders and the people with this condemnation, and is almost executed. Eventually his life is spared because those in power finally realized “he has spoken to us in the name of the Lord our God.” Jesus did not get off so easily.
Borg and Crossan finally conclude that “Jesus’ action in the temple was a symbolic fulfillment of Jeremiah’s prophetic threat about its divine destruction if worship substituted for justice.” The words and actions of Jesus, especially for the gospel-writer Mark, show that Jesus clearly believed Jerusalem had to be retaken from both the Roman imperial power and the Jewish high-priestly collaboration with that power by a nonviolent messiah rather than by violent revolution. The temple ritual had to once again empower justice rather than excuse persons from it.
“What is involved for Jesus is an absolute criticism not only of violent domination, but of any religious collaboration with it… he also stands against those forms of Christianity that were uses throughout the centuries to support imperial violence and injustice.” (6)


Rather than Jesus’ actions and words being an indictment on Judaism, or the Temple, Borg and Crossan Maintain that it is a diatribe against all our tendencies, sacred folks and secular institutions alike, to subordinate our honoring God through ensuring justice for all God’s children and, instead, promote our own welfare and perpetuate the dominant standard of a consuming self-centered economy and a fear-driven militaristic government. We must work in our communities to help ensure that justice has been realized for our neighbors before coming to worship each Sunday, or our tables will be toppled, our sacrifices driven from the sanctuary, and our worship be done in vain.

Let us worship God in spirit and in truth by seeking the welfare of the city and justice for our neighbor.

Amen.


(1) Marcus Borg and John Dominic Crossan, “The Last Week: What The Gospels Really Teach Regarding Jesus’ Last Days In Jerusalem,” (HarperOne, New York, 2006); paperback 2007; 220 pages plus leader’s guide for discussion.

(2) Ibid, p. 36.

(3) Ibid, pp. 36-43.

(4) Ibid, p. 44.

(5) Ibid.

(6) Ibid, p. 53.

 

Rev. Allen V. Harris
Franklin Circle Christian Church
www.FranklinCircleChurch.org


 

Copyright 2009 -- The Rev. Allen V. Harris

Franklin Circle Christian Church (Disciples of Christ)

1688 Fulton Rd., Cleveland, OH 44113-3096