Wauwatosa Presbyterian Church                                                                             Third Sunday in Lent

Getting the House in Order

Psalm 19 and John 2:13-22

Second Reading John 2:13-22

This morning’s second lectionary passage can be found in all four Gospels.   But, on this 3rd Sunday in Lent, we don’t traditionally hear the story of Jesus’ cleansing the temple….except…except if we’re in Year B, which we are.    We’re more accustomed to hearing this story in Holy Week, when as for Matthew, Mark and Luke tell us, Jesus’ cleansing of the temple, along with the parade of palms trigger the ire of the Temple authorities sufficiently so that they begin to plot against Jesus.  

But, scholars’ say, John’s placement of this wild story at the beginning of Jesus’ public ministry has credibility.  It comes right after Jesus’ “first sign” – when water was changed into wine at the wedding in Cana.  That story, John points out, is the first to reveal Jesus’ extra-ordinary power. The setting is a private, intimate one; with families and friends.  Immediately after that John places a “second sign”, today’s reading, in which Jesus comes into his own publically, in the geographic and spiritual center of the Jewish faith.    Like in the Synoptic versions of this story, Jesus acts in the tradition of prophets of old who spoke against those profaning God’s house, God’s law and who anticipated a messianic purification soon. This second sign points to who Jesus through word-plays, unique details - for example the moneychangers are not called “robbers” in John - and John’s favorite literary device: folks conversing on what they each think is a shared subject, but each understanding the other at different levels of meaning.   Listen now to hear God’s Word for you…..    

13        The Passover of the Jews was near, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. 14 In the temple he found people selling cattle, sheep, and doves, and the money changers seated at their tables. 15 Making a whip of cords, he drove all of them out of the temple, both the sheep and the cattle. He also poured out the coins of the money changers and overturned their tables. 16 He told those who were selling the doves, “Take these things out of here! Stop making my Father’s house a marketplace!” 17 His disciples remembered that it was written, “Zeal for your house will consume me.” 18 The Jews then said to him, “What sign can you show us for doing this?” 19 Jesus answered them, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.” 20 The Jews then said, “This temple has been under construction for forty-six years, and will you raise it up in three days?” 21 But he was speaking of the temple of his body. 22 After he was raised from the dead, his disciples remembered that he had said this; and they believed the scripture and the word that Jesus had spoken.  Here ends the reading. May its meaning for us …soar on the wings of the Spirit until it finds a home in our hearts.

Wauwatosa Presbyterian Church                                                                                        March 15, 2009

Getting the House in Order

Have you said aloud to someone, or ever thought to yourself …”I’ve got to get my house in order”?   Maybe those weren’t the exact words. Maybe you said, “Someday I have to get my life in order”, “Time to get my priorities in line, or “I’m not leaving until a little bit of the top of my desk showing.” However the prompt comes, I know, for me, that to ignore it invites potential distress. It’s a sort-of sign for me, which if denied or suppressed, is guaranteed to rise again when I’ve fallen… sick that is,  or forgotten something big, like a birthday,  or made an embarrassing or costly mistake.

Thanks to our readings today and recent sessions of  Wonderful Wednesdays, I want us to think about what “getting one’s house in order” has to do with our spiritual well-being as Christians. Could such a prompt be one way the Holy Spirit calls us back to our best selves? Is it a sort of  time-out so that we stop, look around,  and take stock of how well my beliefs find an echo in the words of my mouths, the actions I decide on, the meditations of my heart. 

Perhaps these are also natural pondering in Lent, this season tailor made for encouraging “getting one’s spiritual house in order.” This is a time when our daily practices or routines are subjects of our reflection with the Spirit.   Whatever the source, as Christians, because we want to act on our beliefs, occasionally it’s helpful to ask ourselves: “How have I invited God’s presence today in my meetings, phone calls, e-mails? Are my choices for spending time/resources reflective of what I believe God desires?”  “Does having my spiritual house in order make a difference? 

Truth is that’s as far as we usually get. We tend to put these sorts of questions aside at this point. Not being confident of where to begin the quest defeats us.  It’s just awfully hard to stand back far enough to see ourselves. Nevertheless the questions remain important. So, let’s not abandon them just yet… and try … to sense  some answers, using this bowl. (Sr. Sharon Ragland’s meditation per G. Schultz)…

 This bowl is  an old wooden offering plate that belongs to this congregation. It’s an offering plate and may initially have been a gift, but I don’t know. I do know that from its start it has  functioned to  hold gifts, to receive precious things….like a child new born, ready to receive all the gifts of life. 

Imaging that child … a self…(touch wood)  like this fine wood, brought before God and us in baptism. In that baptism, its parents and we as its faith community, promised to nurture in that child an openness, a space in that child’s life to receive the gifts and graces of God. The child was empty, waiting, yet full of life.

The child grew only a little before it had things that it wanted: it’s own way (fill with a couple of shelled nuts and keep adding more nuts until the bowl is overflowing), a toy, winning at a baby game, a test of wills with mom or dad. Things it wanted which were part of life, yet which were also a way of filling space. At first, thing were not out of balance.

When the child went to school, there were many new experiences. Maybe the child decided – or was told – it was better than some others: smarter, more agile, richer, a better color, a preferred sex. Confident, yes. Capable, yes. And also loved and loving. But not better…

So the prejudices and selfishnesses took over a little more space. But still there was room also for God: to move and create, but less room. 

As the child grew into a grown-up, there were hurts along the way: a grandparent’s death, a divorce, quarrels with friends, losing a state title in basketball. As the hurts and the fears and the guilts that came along… moved into the grown-up, they vied for space in its self, pushing and shoving with the God-space. Even the joys sometimes took up room, because God was not always invited in. 

And in time the person was mature. And the battle for many things waged on. For the grown-up wanted to be loveand successful and respected by everyone; and to always know the right thing…to do… or say.

And it wanted still to have more things, and it wanted to help morepeople, and it worried more about what people thought. It ignored the needs of some to gain favor from others. And it spent time doing.  Doing. Doing. Always moving quickly from one thing or one task to another. And there were so many hard choices to make: What was the right thing to say? To do? To value? And there were so many demands of home, family, church, work…life: that there was soon no room for God – almost no room at all - no space… to work.

In fact, ….the wood (the self) was beginning to get soft and to rot.

So gradually, over time, the mature grown-up felt at times lonely,  and sad, and angry and guilty…or maybe just plain frazzled or overwhelmed. 

And in this sadness or anxiousness, God found a tiny space for room to move in. 

By the working of God’s spirit and by its own choice – to get its house in order – the grown-up began to slowly rid itself of some of the have-to’s and should’s: “Maybe I don’t really have to do one more thing,” it thought. (take some nuts out and replace in container) It began to struggle with the need to have more things: “Maybe it’s not necessary to work so hard in order to have more or to be sure. Maybe I have enough…enough to share,” it thought. ~ ~ ~

It became re-acquainted with itself and to know its imperfections and its growing edges… and to make friends with them:  “Maybe I don’t always have to be perfect, “ it thought. And it began to know why it felt the way it did, to examine what was underlying its exterior. And when it did, it saw the value and hurts of other people, and it could minister to them deeply.

God worked and moved in the big space. The grown-up still had the important pieces of its self which made it unique. But it also had lots of room to grow. It became again like a precious child, [member of the household of God, a gift holding and sharing gifts for the sake of the world God has made.   (move back to the pulpit)

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Early in salvation history God gave God’s people the Law, the 10 commandments, as a gift for ordering human life aligned with God.. Keeping the law, the psalmist sings, transformed one by giving back life-as-a-gift.   A fruit borne of keeping God’s law was wisdom. Another, daily rejuvenation and enlightenment. Such well-being was not the result of cut-and-dry, legalistic adherence, but from slowly awakening to God’s favor and goodness personally experienced. With such knowing God’s people rejoiced in re-offering our lives, the words we speak, and the meditations of our heart to the glory of the Living God, our Rock and our Redeemer

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That day, centuries later, when Jesus entered the outer courtyard that day, it was like a teeming shopping mall. Everything pointed to humanity’s self-absorption. The commercial engine supporting cultic practices and rituals had conspired, once again, to overwhelm the Temple’s true purpose:  the worship of God. So, like earlier prophets, Jesus protested. You know the details. For a moment: imagine the noise, dust and chaos of …animals stampeding and braying, people shouting and running, coins  clattering,  goods, furniture crashing.  And then, in its wake, an eerie silence. Eventually, some curious people, the Jews” John called them,  approached Jesus, as he was catching his breath. And they asked a quite plausible question: “What credentials can you present to justify this?” 

He answered, “Tear down this Temple and in three days I’ll raise it. “ That prompted a further question from them, and we, John’s hearers, begin to sense Jesus and these Jews aren’t “on the same page.” It’s more noticeable in the Greek. The Greek verb Jesus used in saying he’ll raise it is egeiro“, a word which get used for raising up a building, arising, or for the resurrection of the body. In their next question the Jews ask, “How can you possibly raise up “oikodomo.”” That word only refers to buildings, to bricks and mortar”.  Oh-h…

Now remember, John’s understanding of Jesus is that Jesus is omniscient. Jesus, in John, knows he is God. So, he drives the animals from the temple because he, the Lamb, is all that is needed.  And in so doing, believing in Jesus as the Messiah begins to dawn on John’s hearers. They/we “get” that no longer will God’s presence reside in the gold and stone of a temple, but in the living, breathing human being, Jesus. Of course Jesus’ followers will not put all the pieces together until after his resurrection. But John’s Gospel was written after the resurrection

Later, Paul urges Christians, in I Corinthians, to remember that they are/we are - in our baptism, born anew to be temples of the Holy Spirit.  It’s not that your or my physical being is just some piece of property belonging to the spiritual part of us. It is that God owns the whole works! In Lent and every season, God promises to forgive our forgetting. God calls us to re-turn to God, “to do what we can to get our house in order”, so that we may receive from God the gifts we need to become the gifts others need.  To the glory of God…Amen