John 2:13-22

In 2002, our congregation played host to two officials from our partners in Kenya. They were Francis Kahiko, the Coordinating Director of the Presbyterian Church of East Africa and Elias Mukindia, the Treasurer of Imenti Presbytery.

Delight and I traveled to the Stronghold Camp and Conference Center to pick them both up and, as we were getting acquainted, we had a very unusual conversation with Elias. When we asked him what he did for a living, he replied that he was a farmer, to which we asked, “Oh? What do you raise?” The answer was, “Mongoose.”

That clearly was not what I was expecting to hear, so I immediately imagined a scene out of the Old West. It was a dusty mongoose drive to market in which the mongoose farmers rode zebras alongside the herd, aided by a pack of well-trained hyenas, who were laughing all the way, of course. That might have been kind of fun.

Then I asked Elias what he did with the mongoose. He answered, “We might cut them up and put them on salads or just eat them raw.” Instantly, that started to sound a whole lot less fun. So I said, “Really? Mongoose?” He replied, “Yes, mongoose.”

It was at that point that reality suddenly clicked in — somehow — and I realized that he was saying the accented word “mangoes,” not “mongoose.” And that threw a whole different light on the preceding conversation. Have you ever had a conversation like that? It doesn’t even require someone speaking his second language to get the fun started.

My wife and I are very good at that. She’ll ask me something and I’ll answer it to the best of my ability. The only problem is that, even though we are both speaking the same language — English — we aren’t really speaking the same language at all.

I’ll think she’s asking about something over here, when she’s actually talking about something over there. And as I reply to what I think she wants, I go down this road, which leads me even further away from her real concern way over there. And so, even with the best of intentions on both of our parts, it gets frustrating pretty quickly. Not that any of you would know anything about that type of situation personally. If men really are from Mars and women are from Venus, it would seem that, even though their two languages may sound alike, they are actually radically different. Then again, maybe it’s just Delight and me who are like that.

In any case, that same sort of radical misunderstanding lies at the heart of our gospel lesson today, the story known as the cleansing the Temple. Even that traditional name misses the point. Part of the problem is that all these centuries later, we have a mistaken idea of what the Temple was all about.

One of the most deeply-moving worship services I ever experienced was held when I was a teenager attending a Presbyterian church camp. The service took place at night on a beach at Lake Okoboji. There was something about seeing the canopy of stars overhead and hearing the soft crackling of the camp fire and the gentle lapping of the waves that helped us all really feel the presence of the Creator.

Oftentimes we think that a special place which offers contemplative peace helps us to enter into a worshipful mood more easily. Perhaps the best example of that I know is the Church of All Nations in Jerusalem, which is located in the Garden of Gethsemane.

Because that was the place where Jesus prayed during the night of his arrest, that church always has the lights dimmed, while the ceiling is painted with stars and everyone speaks in low whispers or keeps a respectful silence. That’s how we imagine a place of worship should be.

And so we assume that when Jesus frees the sacrificial animals and overturns the moneychangers’ tables that he’s upset the merchants are taking up space in the sacred precincts with a raucous form of commerce that interferes with the ability of people to worship. But that’s not what the Temple in Jerusalem was like.

People didn’t go there for quiet, contemplative prayer or even for calm, theological study. They could do those things anywhere. The Temple existed for just one thing — animal sacrifices, pure and simple. That means that the lowing of bulls and the bleating of goats wasn’t out of place there at all. In fact, that was a necessary part of worship in the Temple. That was how the system was intended to work.

Even the moneychangers were Temple employees, hired by the High Priest to perform that function. Modern people think the money-changers’ job was to keep money with images of idols from entering the Temple in violation of the second commandment. But that’s not true, at least not in Jesus’ time. Instead, the role of the money-changers was to turn whatever currency people had into silver coins from Tyre, a city located in what is now modern Lebanon.

Why those coins in particular? Was it because they didn’t feature any images and so satisfied the second commandment? No. In fact, the silver coins of Tyre were all stamped with an image of Tyre’s idol, Heracles-Melqart. The real reason was that Tyrian shekels contained the greatest purity of silver of any coin available. So the issue was one of giving the Temple the greatest possible financial bang for their buck.

So why did Jesus drive the animal sellers and money-changers away? Was it because the system was corrupt and people were being cheated? Well, that’s partially true. The Temple authorities had a monopoly and, like any other monopoly, the authorities in charge eventually took advantage of their power. Overcharges were common; perfectly fine animals were rejected as unfit in order to sell others in their place.

Clearly those aren’t practices Jesus would have approved of. However, he didn’t come to cleanse the Temple. Instead, his actions in our gospel lesson are a symbolic way of predicting the overthrow of the Temple system altogether. As an explanation of his actions, Jesus says, “Destroy this temple and I’ll raise it up in three days.” And the people around him — even his disciples — simply didn’t understand what he was talking about.

It was like one of Delight’s and my “Who’s on first” sort of conversations. The kind that throws you into deep confusion at the time, but which makes perfect sense in retrospect. His cryptic remark means, very simply, that he is offering himself as the replacement for the Temple. The Temple system will soon be utterly dead and gone. But true worship will be resurrected through the life of Jesus.

No longer would people have to offer animal sacrifices, no longer would they have to travel to the Temple to meet God. They could meet him in Jesus, and they could become like him by living a life in which they would “do justice, love kindness, and walk humbly with God,” to paraphrase the prophet Micah. Heaven and earth can now meet in the lives of ordinary people.

As my friend Paul Kabo puts it, “When Jesus cleansed the Temple and declared that he would destroy the Temple and in three days rebuild it, he did not mean that things sacred are to be abolished. Rather, Jesus […] advocates that God has decided to move from residency in the Temple of Zion to another place. What is that other place?

“The place that is more sacred than the Temple is you. You are the very sacred place of God. […] You are so sacred that God sent his only begotten son so that no one should perish but have everlasting life. People are so sacred that all people transform into neighbors. People are so sacred that you are even to love your enemies who also happen to be sacred to God. You are so sacred that 1 Cor. 3:16-17 says:

Surely you know that you are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit lives in you! For God’s temple is holy, and you yourselves are God’s temple.

“[…] By overturning the tables in the Temple, Jesus attacks all the sacred places which people wish to build. In their place Jesus puts the little child, the man with the withered arm, the hungry, the diminutive tax-collector who climbed up the sycamore tree, the woman who washed feet, and the leper who cried for help. In place of the Temple on the mountain, Jesus places you. You embody God’s residence.

“[…] And if you are sacred to Jesus, then what you do, what you think and what you believe becomes eternally important. Therefore, love God with all you heart, mind, strength and soul. If you are sacred to God then your body needs cared for as the Temple was cared for. If you are sacred to God then your mind needs cared for as the Temple received care. If you are sacred to God then your spirit needs cared for as the Temple received care. Jesus believed that people are the temple of God so he healed the sick, fed the hungry, taught the learned, and called the religious to repent and be baptized.

“Because Jesus holds people sacred, Christians worry about hunger, health, and housing for the homeless. A person’s body houses the divine, therefore, that body needs to be kept clean, kept healthy, kept fed, kept healed, kept whole.”

It’s ironic really. Good Christian people often have an easier time seeing the reflection of Christ in another person’s eyes than they do in their own. That’s because we’re all abundantly clear about our own sinful nature and our sometimes half-hearted worship.

And yet, just as Christ’s death and resurrection frees us from our sins, it also inspires our generosity, empowers our compassion, quickens our imaginations and strengthens our determination to create a world in which justice “flows down like waters.”

And yet we dream such small things. We live in the richest nation on earth — yes, even in the midst of our economic woes — and we see that as somehow being our right rather than our obligation. God us given us both the opportunity and the tools to make significant changes in the world, if we would only believe that.

We can offer help for those who are suffering or grieving one by one, but we can also remake the world in God’s image in such a way that oppressive people and systems no longer have the power to inflict massive damage.

But we can’t do it with bullets and bombs. We can’t do it with wishful thinking. And we certainly can’t do it if we never even dare to try. We need to overturn the tables of our timidity. We need to embrace the Christ within us.

We need to dress ourselves in Christ’s holiness so that we may become effective partners with him in bringing hope to our neighbors and peace to our enemies. Then we will finally be speaking the language of God. Let that be our Lenten vow. Amen.

(Comments to Jim at jmccrea@galenalink.com.)