The readings on which this sermon is
based can be found at: http://frsparky.net/a/r100.htm
s100g12 The Third Sunday in Lent 11/3/2012
'Zeal for your house will consume me.' John 2.17
John recalls the so-called cleansing of the Temple happening right
at the beginning of Jesus’ ministry, here in chapter 2.
The other evangelists remember it happening in the week before Jesus
was crucified. They see it as the final straw which
galvanises the opposition to Jesus into action, culminating in them
having Jesus killed. This reminds us again that it was
the devout and the orthodox who opposed Jesus. They were
precisely the ones who kept the commandments - most conspicuously
the Pharisees, and those for whom the Temple was so sacred - most
conspicuously the Sadducees, who hated Jesus. As I said
last week, Herod and Pilate were only bit players who had no
interest whatsoever in what was a religious conflict - unless it
degenerated into civil unrest. The people selling
cattle, sheep and doves and the money changers were all there to
impress – impress the Temple hierarchy and to overawe the common man
and woman. These all indicated how important and
influential the orthodox and the devout were. This was
THEIR temple and they too were zealous for their house, enough to
consume them. The suggestion that their Temple would
somehow not last was blasphemous in the extreme. They
believed that it was everyone else's mission to perpetuate that
which belonged to them alone. Any ministry anyone else
had was entirely inconsequential. The perpetuation of
their monument was paramount. John’s placement of this
confrontation right at the beginning of Jesus’ ministry serves to
show us that in John’s view, Jesus mission was always religious and
even right from the outset was going to be opposed by the orthodox
and the devout.
Both Jesus and those who hated him were zealous for the Temple –
what was the difference? For those who hated Jesus, the
Temple was theirs. For Jesus, the Temple belonged to
others, his Father, yes, but precisely because of this, to others,
all others.
The point cannot be made too strongly, it was those who kept the
commandments, worshipped God and claimed to love God with all their
heart and mind and strength who had Jesus killed. This
is the religious conflict which is as relevant today as it was
then. So our keeping the commandments, our worship and
our love of God can just as equally result in us siding with those
who had Jesus killed. And it all revolves around whose
Temple it is – ours or everyone’s. As I said
last week, the church's paranoia about the advance of secularism
betrays the conception that the church is always the possession of
the orthodox and the devout, and secularism ever threatens the
perpetuity of that memorial to themselves.
Recently I saw a cartoon on the internet at:
http://www.fundamentallyreformed.com/2011/10/10/monday-morning-humor/
of a membership class with a graphic of ‘Churches & Christian
movements Throughout History’ from 1 AD to now. The
teacher is pointing to a little twig on the family tree of all the
denominations, saying ‘So this is where our movement came along and
finally got the Bible right.’ One of the students
responds ‘Jesus is so lucky to have us’.
Statements like ‘the Lord is my shepherd’, ‘Jesus is a friend of
mine’, ‘St Peter’s (or whatever) is my church’ need to be
re-interpreted. The Lord is everyone’s shepherd, Jesus
is a friend of all, and St Peter’s is for all. Otherwise
we are siding with those who had Jesus killed. Jesus
didn’t say ‘No one comes to the Father but by us’ as the church has
been wont to say for centuries.
So by extension ‘christianity’ is never ‘ours’. Our
interpretation of the faith can never be the 'kosher'
one. The faith always includes others, others who think,
worship and live life differently to
ourselves.
And it comes to me (again) that Jesus opposed both the Pharisees and
the Sadducees, he didn't bother to suggest that they love one
another - that would be an exercise in futility! Jesus
wasn't the least bit interested in the unity of the ancient people
of God and so is not interested in the unity of the various factions
within the Anglican Communion. Indeed the various
factions within the Anglican Church are not in the least interested
in loving anyone other than those who live in the manner to which
they approve and/or worship in the manner to which they are
accustomed, thereby perpetuating their particular take on the
faith. Jesus called both the Pharisees and the Sadducees
to look beyond themselves - to those quite outside their field of
view - the tax collectors, the prostitutes and the other
miscellaneous sinners. So too we are called not to work
for the unity of the Anglican Communion, but to look beyond
ourselves, to those considered 'beyond the pale'.
Neither our zeal for keeping the commandments, our zeal in adherence
to a particular ritual, or our zealous love for God ever sets us
apart from others. Of course the whole point of keeping
the commandments is to bring us closer to others. The
whole point of our ritual is communion with others (otherwise we
would do it by ourselves). The whole point of our love
for Jesus is to feed others, as Peter was well reminded three times.
Jesus came to change things, and the change was to do away with
religious hierarchy, superiority and divisions. Jesus'
prodigal love understands the younger son's need to break the
parental bonds and the chagrin of the older son who has always done
the right thing. The prodigal Father anxiously waits for
the younger to return to the family and then pleads with the older
not to absent himself from the celebration. The first
murder was committed because the older son perceived, rightly or
wrongly, that his younger brother's offering was preferred over his
own. But then the church has spent her life proclaiming
the superiority of her offering over everyone else's.
So if our zeal is to parallel Jesus' it will be about the
acceptability of other people's offerings, along with our
own. This is the sort of house God is building, this is
the sort of celebration God is hosting. And, for me, it is
only this sort of life that is worth being zealous for, for it
promises a more humane society for all rather than an endless
continuation of the divisions and hostilities of the past.
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