Focus

Charlotte Collins Reed
Christ Church Episcopal
March 3, 2024

3 Lent B

          In seminary, I took a class entitled “Anglican Church History.”  I enjoy history and took a lot of history classes in college, so I was looking forward to the course.  In the first nano-second of the class, we figured out that our teacher, a graduate student from the University of Chicago, had never taught a class before.  Ever.  But we were kindhearted souls and tried to be patient with convoluted lectures and confusing assignments.  The last straw came when we were given a take home open-book test.  I took the test home, found and wrote all the answers, turned the test in, and was quite puzzled to receive the test back and have one of my answers marked as incorrect.  How can you get an answer wrong on a take home open-book test?  I was just as competitive as a student as I am as a parish priest, even if in a slightly different way, so I was not amused.  At the end of class, I went up to the teacher and inquired about my answer, which he insisted was wrong.  So, I politely got the textbook out showed him where I got my answer.  I got nowhere.  My patience was running thin at this point.  I left the room before I said something I would regret and headed home confused and furious. 

          I wonder if the people in the temple felt that same combination of confusion, frustration and fury when Jesus comes barging in with his whip of cords this morning.  The people in the temple were faithful people, trying hard to live according to God’s commandments.  Cattle, sheep, and doves were sold at the temple to help weary pilgrims procure the unblemished animals God required for the temple sacrifices.  Worshipers had walked for miles to get to Jerusalem for Passover.  They couldn’t bring cattle, sheep and doves with them.  Unless they could buy the animals at the temple, they could not make the sacrifices they had traveled so far to make.  The money changers were required to convert the Roman currency into temple currency, just like we convert currency when we travel to another country.  There is always a fee, and in the case of the temple, there were sales taxes to be paid to the Romans.  Everyone at the temple was trying to be faithful to the laws given by God in the book of Leviticus and the laws of the state as dictated by the Romans.

          So, what is Jesus so upset about this morning?  Which of the commandments are the people breaking?  Fortunately, we hear those commandments this morning in the reading from Exodus.   The people in the temple buying and selling animals for the sacrifice do not seem to be dishonoring their father or mother, murdering, committing adultery, stealing, bearing false witness, or coveting.  So, they are good on the last six commandments.  The problem must be in the first four commandments.  But the people don’t appear to have put another god before God, made an idol, made wrongful use of God’s name, or violated the Sabbath.  Quite frankly, they are doing all in their power to keep the law and honor God with the required sacrifices.  So what is Jesus’ problem?

The temple was thought to be the place where humans encountered God in a unique way, the place where the divine and the human meet.  The claim was not that the temple was the only place where the people encountered God.  The Hebrew people had experienced God in their Exodus from Egypt, during their time in the wilderness, in their exile in Babylon far from the promised land, and on and on.  The claim was also not that the Temple was bad.  There are many examples in the New Testament, particularly in the book of Acts, of followers of Jesus worshipping in the Temple.  But the experience of God in the temple was uniquely holy.  However, in John’s gospel, Jesus is the place where the human and the divine meet.  John’s gospel begins “In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God….and the Word became flesh and lived among us.”  In that sense, Jesus is the new temple.  When Jesus is asked “What sign can you show us for doing this,” Jesus replies “Destroy this temple and in three days I will raise it up.”  The resurrection will allow people in all times and places to experience the meeting of the human and the divine in Jesus. 

          The people in the temple are no doubt confused, frustrated, and angry when Jesus shows up this morning and interrupts their faithful activity.  Sometimes we are so busy and so focused on our faithful activity, trying so hard to do everything right, that we fail to see what new thing God is doing right in front of our faces and we get downright annoyed when interrupted.  In our faithful activity in this holy place, we encounter Jesus in the bread and wine of the Eucharist, in our music, in scripture, and in our relationships with each other.  But Jesus makes clear this morning that there are other places we encounter Jesus as well, sometimes in places where we least expect to have an encounter with the divine.  We encounter Jesus in conversation with those with whom we disagree or do not understand.  We encounter Jesus in a friendly greeting from a stranger or the opportunity to make a difference in the life of someone we don’t even know.  We encounter Jesus in the anger expressed against the injustices of the world.  Whatever else Jesus is up to this morning, Jesus challenges us not to let our focus on our faithful activity prevent us from seeing Jesus right before our very eyes.