On the Easter road (3)
Readings: Exodus 20:1-17, Psalm 19, II Cor. 1:18-25, John 2:13-22
Preached at Bridgehampton Presbyterian Church, NY, March 3, 2024
Observing the ups and downs in the financial world can be a scary business for folks who have significant investments. That old Dow Jones index can bounce like a beach ball. I have a friend back in the U.K, who when the market started to fluctuate in 2008, called his adviser. That financial adviser assured him it was just a “blip.” Took him many years to recover from the crash. He also acquired a new financial adviser.
Back in the time of Jesus there was a big business in Jerusalem that was about to experience a collapse. It was called the Temple. The place where the deals were taking place was the Gentiles Court. The temple complex was a lofty institution that covered some thirty acres. Its inner sanctuary was the Holy place where only the High Priest could enter on special occasions.
Beyond that were a number of courts to which access was granted according to status. The Temple court, then the Court of the Priests, then the Court of the Israelite's, then the Court of the Women and then finally, the largest area, the Court of the Gentiles.
Everybody was allowed to enter the Court of the Gentiles. It was designed to be a place of prayer and preparation for all people. A place where those denied access to other areas of the temple could seek and find God. A place where those who had the privilege of entering deeper into the temple could prepare their hearts for worship.
Important for worship in those days was paying the temple tax. The temple tax was equivalent to about two days wages and every Jew was expected to pay it. You couldn't pay your temple tax in any old currency. It had to be paid in Sanctuary Shekels. At Passover time Jews from all over the world, with Greek, Roman, Syrian, Egyptian, and Phoenician coins jangling in their pockets made their way to the Gentiles Court.
Before they could pay their taxes, money had to be exchanged. So, the money-changers set up their stalls in the Court. To change your coins into sanctuary shekels, a fee equivalent to half a days wages would be charged. If you didn't have the exact coinage, then you'd be charged another half a days wages. There were various other rates and schemes that all involved money flowing into the money-changers pockets. And this was before you'd paid a penny of your tax.
Along with temple taxes, worshipers would also bring an offering. This could be an ox, or a sheep or, if you were a poorer family, a dove. You could buy a dove down at the Jerusalem market quite cheaply. However, there was a law about temple sacrifices that said that a sacrificial victim had to be without blemish. In the Gentiles Court there were appointed temple inspectors to examine the offerings and see if they came up to the grade. The strange thing was none from the market ever did.
So, they advised worshipers to buy their sacrificial animals from the selection they had in the Gentiles court. The difference was that an animal purchased there could cost as much as twenty times more than one purchased down at the market.
That day when Jesus went to the temple to pray and prepare Himself for the difficult days that were ahead, did He find things as they should be… did He find a place of prayer for all nations? "No" he said, "It's a den of thieves." Far from being a place of spiritual richness it was nothing more than a marketplace. Financially it was doing fine. Spiritually it had collapsed.
The sellers were trying to exact as high a price as possible. The pilgrims would argue and defend themselves with an equal fierceness. The oxen would be mooing, the sheep bleating, the doves cooing, beggars begging, the children running wild.
And Jesus got mad. Real mad. The theologians use the words "Wrath" or "Righteousness indignation." He overturns the money-changers tables, scattering the coins all over the floor. He drives out the animals. He tells the ones selling the Doves, "Take these things out of here. Stop making my Father’s House a marketplace."
• Nobody lifts a finger to stop Him because everybody knew He was doing the right thing. The temple authorities knew what was going on, but it brought in a lot of much needed revenue, some of which paid their wages, so they turned a blind eye.
• The money-changers justified their practices because a lot of their earnings were being siphoned off by the people they had to pay for permission to put up a table in the court.
• The temple inspectors justified their refusal to allow offerings in the temple that hadn't been purchased there, by saying they were ensuring God got the best.
• The people went along with it because it was easier to put up with the way things were than dare challenge those who had the power to make their lives very uncomfortable. Everybody knew it was wrong, but no-one did a thing to make it right.
Except for Jesus!
He had the authority to put things right. This was His Father's business and His Father's house that they were fooling with. In the words of John’s gospel, He was ‘consumed with zeal’ for His Father’s House.
Jesus claimed the temple as His own. He uniquely identified Himself with the temple. He said to the Jews who questioned His authority, "Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up" using a figure of speech to point towards His own death and resurrection. He spoke of the temple as His own body. He claims our lives for His own. Paul tells us, in 1 Corinthians 3:16, "Do you not know that you are a temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwells in you?"
This passage about Jesus cleansing the temple invites us to us consider the temple of our own lives. Are there things about us that Jesus could justifiably be mad at? Are there things that we need to clear out of the way as we travel down the Easter road?
What really angered Jesus that day was the cold-heartedness. Here was something beautiful that had turned ugly, something sacred that had become profane. A place of prayer and peace had become a place of pandemonium.
Why shouldn’t God be angry when we take gifts God has given us and misuse them or waste them? The greatest gift of all God has given to us is the gift of life itself. Yet many go through life divorced from any sense of its mystery or its wonder or its sacredness. Life becomes cheap, people become numbers or objects to be manipulated for others ends and any sense of meaning or purpose goes out of the window.
As Christian people we have a particular responsibility. People look for us to model Christ-like living. "Judgment" Peter's first letter instructs us, "Begins with the house of the Lord." We are that house, we are that people. "You are a temple of God" says Paul.
But what sort of temple? The season of Lent is a time when we are called to examine our hearts in the light of God's love. And that takes time. It means taking “Time Out” of the normal routine to do so.
Did you know that one of the days when no trading takes place, one of the few weekdays that the New York Stock Exchange closes is Good Friday? If you go to the visitor’s center at the Stock Exchange and ask “Why?” they will tell you that since 1864 the Exchange has closed its doors on Good Friday for religious reasons.
If the guide is a Christian, they may even add they are closed on Good Friday because that was the day when a man, who once threw money changers out of a temple, was crucified. That impressed me. That in New York, at the financial core of the Big Apple, they take a ‘time out’ on Good Friday.
We know that the state of the money market affects the way we live our lives. When the market collapses it touches a lot of folk’s lives in a very negative way. We know that. What we forget is that life isn’t about wheeling and dealing and acquiring and selling. That on the last day, whether we have 2 cents in our pocket or 2 billion dollars in platinum reserves such can’t offer us a single ounce of hope for eternity.
‘Clear the Way!’ Anything in your life that we think that Jesus could justifiably be mad at is something we need to talk to God about and walk through with God. One of the works of the Holy Spirit in our lives is to bring conviction, to bring to our minds and consciences things that are getting in the way of our walk with God. As we realize that there are blockages there, we should pray to God to ‘Clear the Way!’
One of the biggest killers in medical terms is blockages. Blocked arteries starve the heart of blood, starve the lungs of oxygen, physically prevent us from functioning and if not dealt with what happens? We die! Physical blockages cause death. Spiritual blockages are equally perilous to our spiritual health.
The late Dr. Billy Graham, at the grand old age of 99, once told a group of young people. “I urge each of you to invest your lives, not just spend them. Each of us is given the exact same number of seconds, minutes, and hours per day as anyone else. The difference is how we redeem [them]. You cannot count your days, but you can make your days count.”
We must seek God to clear out from our lives all that is other than what God requires for us. To clear out from our lives all the junk, all the vain ideas, all the hopeless little schemes that may look good to our own eyes but in comparison to the work of God are laughable.
Allow Jesus to do some spring cleaning. Get rid of all that stuff that God could justifiably be mad at. All that is cheap. All that distorts. All that ends in dust and decay. Our lives are little temples… meant to be places of prayer, places where Christ is honored and God’s Word is known, places where others can find God, places that shine light into this world’s darkness.
‘Clear the Way!’ because our life, your spiritual journey is important to God. God has a plan. A plan to bless others through our lives. For that to happen we must subject our lives to the scrutiny and authority of God that we find in Jesus Christ. To the authority of God’s Word. To nurture ourselves in worship and through service.
As I read about Jesus clearing the Temple, I am challenged to seek God to “Clear the Way!” for God’s love to be shown in clearer ways in my own life. I pray that as you consider areas of your life that could justifiably attract God’s anger rather than God’s praise, you will likewise be challenged to “Clear the Way” for a deeper relationship with our only Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.
To His name be the glory.
Amen.
The Reverend Adrian J. Pratt B.D.
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