Clean it Up

Sermon
Mar. 15, 2009
Third Sunday in Lent – Year B
John 2:13-22

On the surface, the story read for us this morning is about Jesus chasing merchants and moneychangers out of the temple and, when questioned as to why he thought he could do this, makes a cloaked prediction of his death and resurrection, which his disciples did not catch until after the fact.
The merchants and moneychangers were trying to provide a legitimate service. It was the time before the Passover and animal sacrifices had to be offered. For many people, bringing their own animal along to sacrifice was too much trouble. So it was convenient to have priest-approved animals available for purchase. And the moneychangers had their job to do. All kinds of currency circulated through the empire, all of them stamped with the head of the emperor. This money would not be appropriate on the temple grounds, because of the graven image. That broke the first and second of the Ten Commandments. So, the money had to be changed into temple currency that would not have the head of the emperor stamped on it, for a small fee of course. So, this was all legitimate business, meeting specific religious needs of the people.
But this was holy ground, this temple. All of this activity could easily have been done at the market. The only reason it was going on at the temple was so that the priests could make sure they got their cut. For the priests, as well as for these merchants and moneychangers, Passover had become less about piety and more about profit. So Jesus had to send them out. He didn’t confiscate the money, or the animals, or set the birds free. The moneychangers were free to pick up the spilled money. The merchants could follow their animals to the market. Jesus told the merchants with the doves and pigeons to take them and go. Nothing wrong with the service they were providing. It’s just that it was taking place in an improper manner, and with the wrong spirit, an impure spirit.
However, we can go deeper into this story.
One way to go deeper is to remember who Jesus is. Remember, back at Christmas, we sing the song about Jesus being Emmanuel – God with us. Jesus is God. As Jesus says, “I and my Father are one.” And the Holy Spirit rests upon Jesus. So, just as the Temple is where the presence of God can be located for the Jews in Jesus’ day, so it is with Jesus. Where Jesus is, God is present. Jesus is the temple. He essentially says so himself when he tells his questioners, “Destroy this temple and I will raise it in three days.” Obviously he is not talking about the bricks and mortar temple. He is talking about his physical body. His body is the temple in which the presence of God can be found. The body of Jesus is a temple.
And we can go deeper still. We, as Christians, are members of the body of Christ. We are the body of Christ. When two or three gather in his name, Jesus is present, which means God is in our midst. We, the church, the body of Christ, are a temple.
Further, as Paul teaches, our individual bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit. When we are baptized, the Holy Spirit descends upon us and rests upon us. Jesus stands at the door and knocks. If we open the door, then he enters in and dwells in us, individually. Each of us, physically, are temples.
Holding on to this truth, that we are temples of the Holy Spirit, that Christ dwells within us, let’s recall what Passover is all about. The time in which the story read from scripture this morning takes place is a period of preparation before the Passover. Passover is when the Jews remember how God delivered them from slavery in Egypt. The angel of death went through the land to kill the first born of every family in Egypt. But when the angel came to the house of a Jewish family, and blood from a lamb was found smeared on the doorpost, the angel would pass over the house, and the family inside the house would be safe.
Now in the days leading up to the Passover, no yeast was to be used in bread, just as God had instructed Israel, when it was time for them to leave Egypt, not to take time for bread to rise but to make their bread hurriedly. It became the practice among the Jews to do a little spring cleaning of their homes. Specifically, they were to get all the leaven out of their house. To sweep their house clean of old leaven. It was an opportunity to purify their homes. To start a new batch of dough.
As Jesus entered his Father’s house, he took the opportunity to do a little spring cleaning himself, not with a broom, but with a handful of small cords. He swept out the old leaven that was the moneymaking taking place inside his Father’s house. It was in the spirit of Passover that Jesus took this action of purifying his house.
This also is our time of purification, as we prepare ourselves for the celebration of our Passover, our deliverance from slavery to sin and death, the great celebration of Easter. Now is our time to sweep out the old leaven and put our houses in order, to make something new out of our life.
Since we are trying to follow Christ’s example, we should also share in his same zeal for his Father’s house. Our temple is the church. And we should protect the church, purify it, make sure the church is in order. We should love, honor, and care for the church, which is the body of Christ. Jesus refers to his church as the bride of Christ. So we should care about the church. We are the church. We are the bride of Christ. We should look out for one another and make sure we are about the Father’s business, to make sure that this house is a house of prayer. It’s certainly not a moneymaking venture! Far from it. We’re not in the black around here! But that’s another sermon. I did hear someone say that God has given us all the money that is needed to pay our bills and provide for all the ministry God has for us to do. The problem is that the money is in our pockets. But that’s another sermon.
Our first priority is to deal with our own individual impurity. What housecleaning do we need to take care of in this season of Lent, this season of preparation? This is what that prayer I shared last week from St. Ephraim of Syria is pointing us toward. Let me repeat the prayer: O Lord and Master of my life, give me not a spirit of sloth, meddling, lust for power, and idle chatter. Rather, grant me a spirit of soberness, humility, patience, and love. O Lord and King, grant me to see my own faults and not to condemn my brother; for blessed are You to the ages of ages. Amen.
This is what Lent is about. It is about focusing on the log in our own eye rather than the speck in our neighbor’s. It is about purifying ourselves from vice; to get rid of laziness, especially laziness regarding our relationship with God. We need to get rid of our tendency to meddle in other people’s business, of being a busybody or always striving to be “in the know” or get sucked in to the gossip that passes for news and entertainment in the media. We need to get rid of the need to assert ourselves and be in control all the time. We need to get rid of chattiness, which opens ourselves up to spreading gossip and talking behind the backs of others. Like we find in James 3, “The tongue is itself set on fire by hell. With it we bless the Lord and Father, and with it we curse those who are made in the likeness of God.” Or like this other saint said, “You fast from meat, but you devour your brother!” Our tongues need to be tamed. We need to rid ourselves of all this, so that we become more pure: body, mind, and soul. We are made in the image and likeness of God. Our bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit. We need to purify our bodies.
But, let us not forget the story Jesus told of the man who had a demon cast out of him. He says in Matt. 12:
When the unclean spirit has gone out of a person, it wanders through waterless regions looking for a resting place, but if finds none. Then it says, ‘I will return to my house from which I came.’ When it comes, it finds it empty, swept, and put in order. Then it goes and brings along seven other spirits more evil than itself, and they enter and live there; and the last state of that person is worse than the first.

The man was free from the demon. But then he failed to fill that void with good works and scripture reading and prayer. There was a void in his life. And the demon came back with seven other demons. And they filled the void the man had failed to fill, leaving him much worse off than before. So, we have to rid ourselves of our vices, but we also have to fill ourselves with virtues. And that’s what the second half of this prayer is about. We need for God to give us a spirit of soberness, which means to take life seriously, and to take others seriously. We need for God to give us a spirit of humility, to not be prideful, demanding of our rights, or feeling entitled. We need for God to give us a spirit of patience, because we know that being a Christian is hard, and there are a lot of setbacks and we fail all the time. We need to be patient with ourselves. And, we need from God a spirit of love, for God is love. This is why we are Christians in the first place: because we have been loved, and we are to love God and love our neighbor as ourselves. So we need a spirit of love.
And that leads to the last line of the prayer: O Lord and King, grant me to see my own faults and not to condemn my brother and sister. Of course, we see the faults of others. That’s easy. This prayer does not ask God to prevent us from seeing the faults of others. That’s not realistic. In fact, it is necessary for us to be mindful of other’s faults. We have to look out for one another and hold each other accountable. No, we are to ask for God to help us not to condemn others. We can’t condemn others because we have faults of our own. And so, as Paul writes, “Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling.” When it comes to purifying the church, we all need to focus on our own troubles. It’s just like when scouts go camping, and you have to police the grounds. You know what that means? It means you line up and then walk across the campground, and whatever trash you see in front of you, you are responsible to pick up. And if everyone is diligent to pick up the trash in front of them, one walk across the campground and all the trash is picked up.
This is our task. We are preparing for Easter. It is time for us to look at our lives, what lies in front of us, and pick up our trash and dispose of it, and in the process leave behind a life that is clean and in good order. This is our challenge. And we all need a lot of trash bags, for we all have made a big mess of things. It will take more than one pass through the campground. In fact, the cleanup won’t end until we hear, “Well done, good and faithful servant.” So, let us keep working at it. God will help us all along the way.