Lent 3 B

I am always tickled by those Gospel lessons that seem like maybe they’re from a different Bible than the one we were given in Sunday School. You know, those Gospel lessons which, after finishing, we respond to by saying, “The Gospel of the Lord, Praise to you, O Christ???”

Today’s Gospel text from John is one of those, I think. In this section of the Good News that we just heard, Jesus — you know, loveable, peaceful Jesus — fashions himself a whip and then violently chases people and animals out of the temple. Does that seem right? Doesn’t something seem wrong about this? All you have to do is to look at the front cover of your bulletin today where the words say Lutheran Church of the Good Shepherd but the image shows that shepherd violently threatening a poor and defenseless lamb. Am I in the right place?

It is startling to encounter this more aggressive version of Jesus. But this story of Jesus ‘cleansing the temple’ as it is euphemistically called is included in all four Gospels: Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. The Christmas story doesn’t even show up in all four Gospels! This bold action of Jesus in the temple just can’t be ignored.

It also reminds us to rethink some of our images of Jesus as extremely nice and gentle. In fact, throughout the Gospels, Jesus is found pushing the envelope, causing a commotion, and angering a lot of people. Just because his job was to proclaim Good News, doesn’t mean that everyone liked him.

Have you ever noticed, though, that the people and things that get the fiercest opposition from Jesus are not the things you’d expect?

If I didn’t know any better, I would think that the people that the Messiah would point out would be those who didn’t follow the rules.

After all, the rules are important. God established the Ten Commandments that we read today with the people of Israel in a dramatic fashion. The Jews regarded the Ten Commandments as the central point of their relationship with God. They are, besides a list of ‘thou shalt not’s,’ actually a covenant, a promise through relationship, that God makes with God’s people. They are not just a list of pet peeves that God has, but a way of living that God promises for his people — a way of living a full life.

Even the words of the 10 Commandments themselves were considered holy for this reason. In the time of Jesus, observant Jews would not even say the words of the Ten Commandments much like they would not utter the holy name of God. They were not just rules, but a holy relationship between God and humans.

So you’d think, that the people that any decent Son of God would go after, would be the ones who had obviously broken the words of this holy agreement.

But … the worst kind of people — by our usual standards — the people that have blatantly failed to keep the commandments of their religion or even people that do not even share the commandments and religion of Jesus — these people get a pass. In fact, these people seem to be favorites of Jesus.

But the people (and animals in Today’s Gospel) that really catch it; the people that really draw the anger of Jesus are those that seem to be doing well with regard to the Commandments. The Pharisees and other religious experts are constantly at odds with Jesus. And today, these money changers and vendors that Jesus throws out of the temple were techinically there because of religious rules. Jewish law required people to offer these animals as sacrifice. Many of these people coming to the temple would have traveled great distances from tiny little towns and would not be able to bring their offerings — they’d have to buy them. But, there was another issue — the money they would have brought would have been Roman currency, and because of Jewish religious rules and the Emperor’s big old face right on the coins, these people would need to exchange their Roman money for legal Jewish money in order to follow the rules. That’s right…these vendors and moneychangers that Jesus violently removed from the temple were just … following the rules.

In this symbolic action of chasing out these vendors and moneychangers Jesus is challenging established worship and religious practice. He’s not saying, let’s go back to the way it was… he’s saying something new. He’s saying that official, scripturally allowed ways of relating to God needed to change.

Jesus raised a lot of eyebrows. What is it with Jesus that gives him the right, the authority, the chutzpah to challenge things that any religious expert could look up and find in the scriptures, yet, at the same time, offer forgiveness to those who completely missed the mark?

The religious leaders that were skeptical of Jesus then said to him, “What sign can you show us for doing this?” Jesus answered them, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.” But they answered, “This temple has been under construction for forty-six years, and will you raise it up in three days?” But see, it’s clear that Jesus and the established religious leaders were speaking in different languages.

Jesus was not abolishing nor rewriting the rules — the holy commandments that established a covenant between God and humans. The Good News of Jesus — the message that is sometimes comforting, sometimes startling — that Good News is not so much about the rules and commandments themselves, but about our relationship with them.

You see, our greatest temptation is not breaking the rules, it’s believing that following them will save us. This is why Jesus brings comfort to those who have fallen short of the rules — and righteous anger towards those who think they’ve mastered them. The rules cannot save you. Only God can save you. Our covenant is not with the rules, our covenant is with God.

What this means for us today is that as a church, we need to examine everything that we do together and ask ourselves… does this help us trust in God, or does it help us trust in ourselves? Even good things that we do have to be re-examined. Just as the moneychangers were surely surprised when Jesus threw them out of the temple (what could possibly be bad about helping people fulfill their legal obligations?) so too might we be surprised that some of the habits and practices that we have, in the name of being good or nice or following the rules, actually need to be driven out.

And don’t be surprised if God draws nearer to us in those times when we have failed. In things that we can admit have not lived up to God’s promise for our lives together. Things we have done and things we have left undone. And don’t be surprised if God’s plan for Good Shepherd involves people that know they’ve messed up — because that’s when we know we need God even more than we need the rules.

Because finally, the most important relationship in our lives is not with the rules, it’s with God and with our neighbors. That’s why Jesus can say that all the commandments come down to those things: love God and love your neighbor. Trust God; work for your neighbor’s well being. Anything else we do — even when it’s technically following the rules — is moving away from God and towards trusting our own works.

From time to time all of us need to be chased out of the temple, away from our attempts to trust in ourselves. And as a congregation, we have to be willing to confront and change anything — even good things — so that we can trust the one thing that saves us: a loving God who forgives our mistakes and turns us away from ourselves and towards our neighbors.