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Monday, March 20, 2006
Getting Back to God's Basics
John 2:13-22
In this week's story Jesus literally turned the tables on the people running the Temple. Understandably angry, they asked just who he thought he was to do and say such nasty things. His answer opens up a wonderfully new way to think about where it is God wants to set up housekeeping.
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In the 1980s "Me Decade," physical fitness freaks talked a lot about the body as a temple. I doubt many of them knew the term came from the Bible (see 1 Corinthians 6:19-20 -- "Your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, which you have from God... therefore glorify God in your body.")
So instead of looking like Arnold Schwarzenegger or Jane Fonda in their prime, the original intention was for us to resemble Jesus more and more.
For he's the one who floated the idea years before St. Paul made ethical hay with it in his pastoral letter.
He'd come to the Temple in Jerusalem as a Passover pilgrim, one of countless thousands from all over the map. What he saw there made him so mad he created a public scene.
In the "court of the Gentiles," animals for sacrifice were on sale. Hired hands tended to the sheep and goats and birds. Official inspectors made sure each animal was kosher, no defects to pollute the altar. Their combined fees cost each worshiper two days' wages.
On top of that, all foreign coins had to be exchanged for kosher coins. And the exchange rate (plus a little skimming) raised the cost to three days' worth of pay. All of that before you could take one more step towards the holy altar. Talk about your sacrifices!
So Jesus, with fire in his eyes, grabs a whip and cracks it at the animal keepers, then turns over the money tables. People duck for cover in every direction, some of them chasing after the spilled coins in the bargain.
"Just who do you think you are," yells somebody in authority, "To do and say these things in God's Holy House?"
A missed point there? What's all that holy about buying and selling at poor people's expense?
By the way, I've known churches where selling Girl Scout cookies in the coffee hour is forbidden because of this story. To do that would be the first step onto a slippery slope of commercializing the house of God.
I don't buy it. Jesus was onto something bigger than that.
First of all, he calls his own body the true Temple of God. He warns that even if they got rid of him once and for all, he would come back to haunt them. "Destroy this Temple and in three days' time I'll raise it up again."
So don't mess with God's true Temple. Put that together with Paul's extension of the metaphor, to include all Christians who follow in Jesus' steps. You get the clear impression that real worship isn't about outward ceremonies but about loving and serving God from the heart.
You might also think twice about mistreating people who carry around inside themselves the Holy Spirit of God. Imagine -- that irksome neighbor, frustrating family member, stupid person you find it so hard to forgive... Look again and see them as God's true Temple, and think twice about desecrating holy ground.
Which one of us is wise enough to determine who is or isn't a Temple of the Spirit? Who can draw the definitive line between Chosen People and Gentiles? How truly wise we are to play it safe, and act as if every person we meet is already on God's invitation list.
A wonderful thing happens when you're treated that way. Maybe for the first time, you feel as if it could be true. And you lean into the possibility, you grow a little into the promise. In short, you become a bit more like Jesus -- a flesh and blood image of God in the world.
Imagine what the world would be like if we always remembered this profound and simple fact.
So... Remember it!
posted by Jack Buckley at
11:03 AM
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