Saturday, March 14, 2009

Hope in three days

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Lent 3B, John 2;13-22 – FELC ‘Hope in three days’

Mr. Bernie Madoff pleaded guilty this week. By pleading to all 11 counts of fraud, he avoided having to name any one else who knew, worked with or benefited from the up to 50 billion dollars he swindled from investors. The Ponzi scheme wiped out people’s fortunes, ruined charities and foundations – many drawn through Jewish charitable connections - , and apparently pushed at least two investors to suicide. One investor said: “Prison’s too good for him. I’d stone him to death.” That’s biblical.

There is plenty to be angry about in this story. There is plenty to be angry about in our economy all over. All sorts of high-end economic issues – runaway profits, horrendously large bonus paid to executives of failing companies, the mortgage crisis – based on wanting more house than one can afford – end up with local and personal ramifications – lost jobs, declining housing values, rising prices, shrinking credit.

There is plenty to be angry about. But we usually don’t see these economic issues as spiritual issues. We may not see a connection between our money – personally or nationally – and our relationship to God. But Jesus did. He saw a fundamental connection between the world of commerce and the world of spirit.

We have this extraordinary story of Jesus entering the Temple courts and using a whip, forcing the sellers of cattle and other animals out, turning over the tables of money changers and scattering the doves. Quite a scene – very different from the serene Jesus, the gracious teacher, the wise man. This is Jesus with zeal upon him – passion is eating him up.

Observers, including his followers, are watching in amazement – this is not only an attack on the sellers and money changers present on that day, but this is an attack at the heart of what faith was thought to be about. In particular, they hear Jesus saying – You have made my Father’s house into a House of Commerce. (not a den of thieves) – a house of selling. And he is angry.

Now the commerce he sees is well accepted. It’s Passover – lots of people have come to do their religious duties – and have to purchase unblemished animals to do that duty. Or they want to give money and have to exchange their foreign currency (with idolatrous images on it) for Temple silver. It would be like violently attacking our Christmas commerce.

This on-going, accepted trading enrages Jesus. It drives him to his most public act – the one that gets him noticed and talked about – and not in a good way. Like the prophet it is said of him “Zeal for your house will consume me.”

Is it Zeal for the temple – or for his Father? Zeal for his Father’s House is more than just that building in Jerusalem – it is passionate love for the people of God. It is for the sake of the people of God and their relationship to the Father that Jesus is angry.

Jesus is angry for the sake of his children – for our sake. The transactions that stand between the people and God – the rules that hinder or confuse or discourage the human approach to God – those properties of merchandise that attach to faith – that is what drove Jesus to this fury.

Jesus’ anger over economic processes was anger about what kept people from encountering God directly and in life-changing ways. Could we find that same concern for ourselves and our loved ones? How does being consumers keep us from knowing and loving and serving God? Can we name the problem for what it is – Greed.

Can we realize – in a positive and not nasty way – that we are greedy in this country – we’ve built our lives on wanting more and we assume can have it without much penalty. (Think about the marketing of large screen tvs.) Can we see that the growth of the consumer mentality – this explosion of the sense of entitlement to the biggest, the best and the expensive– that the growth of that mentality has exactly paralleled the decline in offerings to churches and charitable organizations? We believe we should have the best, we spend our money on ourselves first and we leave God and our neighbor out of the equation.

Can we find constructive ways to be angry about greed:
– the kind of greed that drove Mr. Madoff, that afflicts our economy,
– that reaches down and infects you and me
– greed that encourages us to buy what we do not need, to go into debt and risk our deeper values of stewardship and care for others.

Back to Jesus – as a result of his tantrum Jesus is asked for ‘a sign’, some argument that his anger is right, that his criticism is justified. He answers with a riddle, but it that is not a riddle for us. “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.” We know the answer to that riddle – Jesus was not speaking about the Temple Building – but about his own Temple – his body, which will be the New Temple – the New HOPE.

This New HOPE will be the magnet for all people It will be the sign of God’s deep love and compassion and gracious forgiving for all people. It will be the promised sanctuary, the mountain of praise and singing and joy promised in the scriptures.

And it’s not a building – not that building, the Temple in Jerusalem, destroyed so many years before, and not this building – which will fall apart someday, despite our best efforts (thank you, property committee, for working on the roof). It is the hope that Greed and Things will not distract from the Real God, the Rea1 Christ, the Real Hope.

The New Temple is Jesus Christ – he is the Hope in Three Days – he is the cornerstone and the building, he is the wisdom and the stumbling block, the alpha and the omega, the A and the Z, the beginning and the end.


We must start with Him and his Holy Spirit, because when we do that – we discover that together we carry the Body of Christ in our midst. In John the Holy Spirit is breathed upon the church on the evening of Easter, and that gift is intended for the use of forgiving sins – as the temple worship system was – it is a replacement for that system!

Right there is the reason and the end of Jesus’ anger: He will rise again in three days.

His death and his resurrection, will be the act that brings the people of God
– all those who will believe God, who believe Jesus
to the NEW TEMPLE of HOPE – the NEW BODY
– the community of faith
– the community of continuing life through Baptism and Eucharist
– the community that struggles with putting an end to greed and other sins
– the community that understands, teaches and relearns forgiveness,
– the community that welcomes sinners like you and me.
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