THIRD SUNDAY IN LENT
Prayer of the Day: Holy God, through your Son you have called us to live faithfully and act courageously. Keep us steadfast in your covenant of grace, and teach us the wisdom that comes only through Jesus Christ, our Savior and Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever.
“Take these things out of here! Stop making my Father’s house a market-place!” John 2:16.
Jack was one of the most faithful people I have ever known. He had a zeal for Jesus that was unmatched. I will never forget the day he came down to the church on the day of our rummage sale and expressed his outrage. “Junk for Jesus!” he nearly shouted. “If Jesus were here, he’d knock over these tables the way he cleared the temple.” Jack was not simply being a killjoy. He felt very strongly that the church should be supported by committed giving, not by hawking everyone’s cast off junk. He believed that sales of the kind we were holding discredited the church and compromised its witness.
I tend to agree with Jack in principle. If a congregation is going to hold bake sales, rummage sales or raffles, the proceeds should go toward some community service such as the local food bank or to some larger church ministry beyond the congregation. The congregation’s operating costs and ministries should be supported by congregational stewardship. Yes, membership is shrinking in our churches and placing a greater burden on fewer people. Still, in a middle class congregation of twenty-five members, a congregation can still be viable if each of its members value their church and its ministry as much as they do a cruise or a trip to Disney World with the grandkids.
All that being said, I don’t think that is the issue for Jesus in our gospel lesson for this Sunday. In order to appreciate what is happening, we need some context. The temple in Jerusalem would surely be one of the world’s architectural wonders if it were still standing. Jesus’ disciples, who were perhaps seeing the temple for the first time after following him to Jerusalem, could not help but admire it. But the relationship of First Century Jews to their temple was complex. The temple was built by none other than Herod the Great of Holy Innocents fame. Herod was installed by the occupying Romans as “the King of the Jews,” though he didn’t have a drop of Jewish blood in his veins. For this and other reasons, he was not greatly loved and that is putting it mildly. The temple was as much a monument to Herod’s outsized ego as anything else. Still, the temple was the successor to that built by Solomon in the Eighth Century B.C and rebuilt following the return of the Jews from exile in Babylon in the Fifth Century B.C. As such, it had a claim to legitimacy, regardless whose power and money built it. Moreover, the arrangement with Herod made it possible for the Jews enjoy a minimal degree of autonomy in comparison with other colonized peoples and freedom to practice their religion without having to deify the emperor.
Of course, Rome did not grant these privileges free of charge. It retained the right to appoint and depose the high priests of the Sadducean party who oversaw the temple’s operations. That left the priesthood little choice other than to collaborate with its Roman overlords. Naturally, Rome took a substantial cut from taxes levied by the Sadducees in support of the temple and profits made by the “money changers” who sold animals for sacrifice to pilgrims coming to worship in the holy city. The temple was therefore a valuable cash cow for both Rome and the priestly families though which the empire exercised its control. Whatever else the Temple might have been, it had become under the operation of the Sadducees an instrument of imperial exploitation. Thus, Jesus’ cleansing of the Temple was a stark political protest, a frontal attack upon the ruthless and oppressive regime crushing his people.
It is far too easy to vilify the Sadducees and their supporters for their collaboration with Rome and for being complicit in Jesus’ crucifixion under Pilate. Yet however much we might criticize them, the Sadducees found a way to navigate the demands of an occupying power while preserving their religion, culture and the most precious symbol of their faith. In so doing, they were forced to make compromises that I am sure they found distasteful. They were compelled to meet Rome’s demands for revenue which resulted in their “devouring widows’ houses,” but our capitalistic economy has done much the same on a far greater scale and for less noble reasons than preserving faith and culture.
Most of us have lived our lives in a culture that is highly protective of religion in general and Christianity in particular. The church in the United States enjoys substantial tax benefits and immunity from laws against discrimination governing all other entities. It seems to me, therefore, that our complicity in our nation’s sordid history of enslaving Africans, exterminating indigenous peoples and discriminating against people of color is all the more egregious. For generations, those of us serving as clergy have been called upon at civic events to sanctify a false and sanitized version of American history and give our blessing to its wars. We benefit from and are slow to take meaningful action against systemic injustice keeping millions in poverty. I think that Jesus probably has plenty of tables to overturn in our sanctuaries. Living as we do in a glass house, we ought to be careful about casting stones at the Sadducees.
Jesus does not give us what we want and expect from this gospel. But he gives us exactly what we need. We need for our comfortable existence to be shaken up, for the furniture to be rearranged, for the tables to be turned over and our comfortable coexistence with systemic injustice disrupted. This isn’t the “tender Jesus meek and mild” who simply loves us as we are. Yes, Jesus comes to meet us exactly where we are and accepts us in any condition. But he loves us too much to leave us there.
Here is a poem by Phil Ochs reflecting, I believe, the shocking and disturbing side of Jesus and the reaction he frequently elicits.
The Crucifixion
And the night comes again to the circle studded sky.
The stars settle slowly, in loneliness they lie
‘Til the universe explodes as a falling star is raised.
Planets are paralyzed; the mountains are amazed
But they all glow brighter from the brilliance of the blaze
With the speed of insanity, then he dies.
In the green fields a-turning, a baby is born.
His cries crease the wind and mingle with the morn.
An assault upon the order, the changing of the guard.
Chosen for a challenge that is hopelessly hard.
And the only single sighing is the sighing of the stars
But to the silence of distance they are sworn
So dance dance dance
Teach us to be true.
Come dance dance dance
Cause we love you.
Images of innocence charge him to go on
But the decadence of destiny is looking for a pawn.
To a nightmare of knowledge he opens up the gate
A blinding revelation is laid upon his plate
That beneath the greatest love there is a hurricane of hate
And God help the critic of the dawn.
So he stands on the sea and he shouts to the shore
But the louder that he screams the longer he’s ignored.
For the wine of oblivion is drunk to the dregs;
The merchants of the masses almost have to be begged
‘Til the giant is aware that someone’s pulling at his leg
And someone is tapping at the door.
To dance dance dance
Teach us to be true.
Come dance dance dance
Cause we love you.
Then his message gathers meaning and it spreads across the land;
The rewarding of the fame is the falling of the man.
For ignorance is everywhere and people have their way.
Success is an enemy to the losers of the day.
In the shadows of the churches, who knows what they pray
And blood is the language of the band.
The Spanish bulls are beaten; the crowd is soon beguiled.
The matador is beautiful, a symphony of style.
The excitement is ecstatic, passion places bets;
Gracefully he bows to the ovations that he gets.
But the hands that are applauding him are slippery with sweat
And saliva is falling from their smiles.
So dance dance dance
Teach us to be true.
Come dance dance dance
Cause we love you.
Then this overflow of life is crushed into a lie;
The gentle soul is ripped apart and tossed into the fire.
It’s the death of beauty, the victory of night;
Truth becomes a tragedy limping from the light.
All the heavens are horrified, they stagger at the sight,
And the cross is trembling with desire.
They say they can’t believe it, it’s a sacrilegious shame.
Now, who would want to hurt such a hero of the game?
But you know I predicted it; I knew he had to fall.
How did it happen? I hope his suffering was small.
Tell me every detail, I’ve got to know it all
And do you have a picture of the pain?
So dance dance dance
Teach us to be true.
Come dance dance dance
Cause we love you.
Time takes a toll and the memory fades,
But his glory is growing in the magic that he made.
Reality is ruined; there’s nothing more to fear;
The drama is distorted into what they want to hear.
Swimming in their sorrow, in the twisting of a tear
As they wait for the new thrill parade.
The eyes of the rebel have been branded by the blind.
To the safety of sterility the threat has been refined.
The child was created; to the slaughterhouse he’s led;
So good to be alive when the eulogy is read.
The climax of emotion, the worship of the dead
As the cycle of sacrifice unwinds.
So dance dance dance
Teach us to be true.
Come dance dance dance
Cause we love you.
And the night comes again to the circle studded sky.
The stars settle slowly, in loneliness they lie;
‘Til the universe expodes as a falling star is raised.
Planets are paralyzed, mountains are amazed.
But they all glow brighter from the brilliance of the blaze
With the speed of insanity, then he dies
Phil Ochs (1940-1976) was born in El Paso, Texas. He was a folk singer/songwriter and contemporary of Bob Dylan, Pete Seeger and Arlo Guthrie. He wrote hundreds of songs in the 1960s and 1970s and released eight albums. He performed at numerous anti-Vietnam War, civil rights and organized labor rallies. Ochs’s mental health deteriorated in the 1970s owing to what is now known as bipolar disorder and alcoholism. Tragically, he took his own life in 1976. You can find out more about Phil Ochs and his music at this website. If you would like to listen to the above song as performed by Phil Ochs, click here.
Peter's Outer Cape Portico 