Lent 3 - Not so gentle Jesus (Non lectionary sermon)

JOHN 2: 13-22

I think the first prayer that I learnt came from Charles Wesley. It began;

“Gentle Jesus, meek and mild,
Look upon a little child;
Pity my simplicity,
Suffer me to come to Thee.”

If that wasn’t bad enough, I attended a church where proudly displayed was what I now know to be Warner Salmon’s painting “The Head of Christ.” It’s the picture that most of you will have seen (500 million copies have been produced) in which Jesus has flowing blonde hair, blue eyes and makes the late John Inman look like The Terminator. In short it is a picture that has always made me want to protest;

“What a wimp!”

In both prayer and painting I think we have got Jesus very badly wrong and I for one have had to do a bit of unlearning. Which is just as well because today’s reading portrays Jesus in a manner that is hardly “meek and mild.” So let the real Jesus be unleashed!

And that Jesus is certainly blazing with anger in John’s Gospel. Now John puts the clearing of the Temple at the beginning of the ministry of Jesus whereas the other Gospel writers put it as the follow up to the triumphal entry on Palm Sunday. Some would argue that there could have been two such events but given the importance attached to the Temple as a centre of religious and economic life in Jerusalem, it is surely inconceivable that Jesus would have been allowed two such outrages. After all the American scholar EP Sanders argues that this is the event that was the trigger for the execution of Jesus. So I am inclined to think that this episode occurred at the timing suggested by the first three Gospels whilst John being more concerned with significance than chronology has found it suitable for his purposes to tell this story at the beginning of his Gospel.

So let’s for a moment look to the temple itself. The Temple at the time of Jesus was the third Temple ( or a major development of the second Temple depending on your point of view) to be built on that site. Building had begun under Herod the Great at about 20 BCE. It would not be totally completed until about 63 CE under Herod Agrippa. It was a thoroughly magnificent building made of white marble that gleamed in the daylight. Hugely impressive, it conveyed a message about the greatness of Israel’s God and it was the centre of Israel’s religious and economic life. So to confront the Temple establishment was a bold and audacious move by Jesus.

So to what exactly did Jesus object? It wasn’t simply that there was a market place. This was normal in any temple cult. Currency need to be changed from that of Rome to Jewish money in order for the necessary payment to be made. Appropriate livestock had to be sold in order for sacrifices to be made and that which was brought in needed to be inspected. And yet, protesting that God’s house has been turned into a “market” Jesus unleashes his full fury upon the traders - making a whip of cords to drive the animals out of the Temple, scattering the coins of the money changers and overturning their tables.

Wow! This is no meek and mild Jesus. This is a Jesus who is furious, a Jesus who is not going hang around to observe social etiquette. But why? In part it is because the Temple traders are using religion as a means to carry out extortionate practices at the expense of poor worshippers. After all, Jesus is here in line with the prophetic tradition in rejecting the exploitation of the poor. And he knows only too well that much of this commerce is in fact controlled by high priestly families such as that of Annas (Jospehus refers to the “bazaars of Annas“) which included his son in law Caiaphas who figures in the trial of Jesus. No way is Jesus prepared to sit back and see an elite carrying out sharp practice to the detriment of worshipers, many of who would have been impoverished. Instead, we witness a courageous stand against the dominant powers.

Another cause of the anger of Jesus may well have been that the activities about which he protested were going on in the Court of the Gentiles. This Court was as far as gentiles could go. And yet, they were hardly experiencing worship in the midst of a bazaar. Jews could go further especially if they were men but this was as good as it got for gentiles. Now whilst most of what Jesus has been doing has been with his fellow Jews, he has hinted that God is for all peoples in for example his conversation with the Samaritan Woman at the Well and in the parable he told of a good Samaritan. Here, he can no longer abide a system which has been abused in such a way as to keep people from a full experience of God’s love. It has to end! I just wonder to what extent our proclamation and attitudes today keep people who are other than us, away from a full experience of God’s love today.

So there we are. Jesus, far from being meek and mild, is eyes ablaze with anger. His actions are the actions of fury. So perhaps we need not be afraid of anger. Indeed, I would suggest that there are times when we should embrace anger even when that anger is directed towards the places where many would not wish it to be placed. I certainly feel anger at the production of instruments that could carry out mass killing including when they are done by my own country. I certainly feel anger at the opening of casinos and bookies that exploit human weakness. I certainly feel anger at the toleration of homelessness and inadequate housing in a country where such need is often but a few yards from ostentatious wealth whose desires seem to be much more listened to in high places than the cries of the needy. So let there be no mistake - at times anger and the action that goes with it is a Christian duty! Be gone meek and mild church! Arise a church of militancy for the dispossessed, the voiceless and the victims!

But still this is not the point at which to stop. As Jesus is challenged, to give a sign for what he is doing, his answer is;

“Destroy this Temple, and I will raise it again in three days.”

How do we interpret this? Well certainly one possibility is to see it in terms of a prophesy of the imminent destruction of the Temple. John’s readers will know that this has happened in 70 CE.

But I guess that most Christians will see it as pointing to his own body. For ultimately the risen Christ will be all that the Temple should have been as the place to meet with God. As we travel through Lent on the way to the events of Good Friday and Easter, we see in Jesus the all sufficient means through which we may approach God and experience the fullness of God’s love. A day of anger in Jerusalem has shown the temporary nature of the Temple as a means to God. Instead we can see in the passionate courage and love of Jesus that in him all our hopes and dreams can be wisely invested.

A world without the Temple seemed an impossibility. Today, we still put our hopes in wrong places be they nation, leaders or even British values. These things are not necessarily wrong in themselves but when we depend on them, they become a form of idolatry. The only place that I can encourage you to invest your allegiance and hopes in in Jesus Christ who is God made flesh. He is thoroughly reliable.


ALVERDISCOTT METHODIST CHURCH February 24th 2008