Cleaning House
July 17, 2011 John 2:13-22
Intro:
For those of you who grew up going to Sunday school, how many of you remember the beloved flannelgraph?
For those of you who didn’t, the flannelgraph is old-school media in church… a simple board with a background picture, made out of flannel, to which you could attach pictures as you told a Bible story. It was movable, bright, easy, and generally included in whichever Sunday School curriculum you might be teaching from.
I’ve been thinking lately about our ideas of Jesus – who He is, how He looked, what kind of personality He had, what kind of attitude he had – where do those come from? Of course those ideas come from a variety of places, and I truly hope that at the very top of the list for all of us is the Bible’s description of Jesus’ life and ministry, His death and resurrection, and His ongoing ministry in our world and our lives. I really hope the Bible is the primary source for that. But I believe that for most people, other factors come into play as well, and those factors influence which stories from Scripture are most influential in our understanding of Jesus. Those factors include our expectations of what Jesus should have been like, our desires of what we want Jesus to be like, and our experiences and how they have been interpreted by us and others about what Jesus is like.
See, as much as we all want to claim our ideas of Jesus are based on the Bible, I don’t think most people today actually read their Bibles all that often. Perhaps that is true for you also? And when we do, we often tend to read quickly or even skip past parts that don’t reinforce our already-concieved notions of who Jesus is.
The result of these factors is that we end up with a Jesus suited more to our liking than the Jesus of Scripture, and often that is a Jesus who is distorted, tame, mild-mannered, who never gets upset, never frowns, never raises his voice, never has dirt on his clean white robes. We fashion a Jesus who never did anything wrong (and by wrong we understand that not just as that which Bible calls sin, but also all of our own cultural ideas about right and wrong such as always being polite, not being confrontational, and not making a big public scene).
We end up with a flannelgraph Jesus, always wearing clean white robes (that’s how you could tell which one of the characters was Jesus…), always smiling, arms open and welcoming, a Jesus we are comfortable with. Here’s a question: for those of you who remember flannelgraph, did you ever see a flannelgraph Jesus with a look of anger on His face? Or pointing a finger in a confrontational manner?? Or looking at His disciples with a deep disappointment drawn on His face? Those are portrayals of the Jesus in the Bible, but I don’t see them represented in the images of Jesus we create, we see, and we imagine today. Because those aren’t comfortable.
John 2:
Last Sunday we looked at one of those uncommon portrayals of Jesus, as the God who turned water into wine to keep a party going, in the first half of John 2. Today I want to look at the second half of John 2, another story that is familiar but that for most people remains on the periphery of our ideas about who Jesus is – it is the story of the cleansing of the temple. But before reading the passage, I need to spend some time creating the context so we understand the story in 1st century Jerusalem rather than 21st century Canada.
Temple Background:
It is hard for us to imagine how important the Jerusalem temple was in Jewish society of Jesus’ day. It was the center, the core, the symbol of a nation. It was the head of the people, the place of law, spirituality, art, history, commerce, and culture. In Canada, we might think of the parliament buildings, the supreme court, the Notre Dame cathedral, all the art galleries and theatres and museums, Bay street, all combined into one.
The temple played a huge roll in the coming of age of the Israelites – we know from the stories in the Old testament of King David, his military might leading the Jews to become the regional power, they were days of glory, which the Jews of Jesus’ day looked to as the great past. David had a deep desire to build a temple, and replace the tabernacle which had been the place of worship since Moses and the exodus with a beautiful, permanent home for the Ark of the Covenant, a fitting place to worship God. God didn’t let David build the temple, but David’s son, Solomon, did, in 957BC, and it was incredible.
But as other nations grew in strength and defeated the Israelites, the temple suffered looting, desecration, and eventually destruction by the Babylonians in 583BC. We see how important it is to the Israelites, however, in various prophecies, attempts, and limited successes at reconstruction. The second temple was dedicated by the priest Zerubbabel in 515BC, and while a huge disappointment to those who remembered the glory of Solomon’s temple, it still held the central place in the life of the Jews. This temple stood until Jesus’ day, and underwent a major renovation and restoration under Herod the Great, which we hear in the story has been going on for 46 years. It was eventually destroyed by the Romans in 70AD.
That’s a bit of history, which I hope demonstrates how important the temple was – for 1000 years, it has been the center of Jewish society. Now, we need a bit more background to really understand what is going on in the story about Jesus, first in the layout of the temple.
Our story in John 2 takes place in the outer courtyard, called the court of the Gentiles, and anyone was allowed into that outer court, in fact it was the only place that non-Israelites were allowed to come and worship the God of Israel. From there it progressed inward, with a court of the women, then a court of the Israelites, then a court of the priests, and finally the holy of holies.
Last piece of context, critically important. When the Israelites came to worship God, there were very strict rules about what they could bring as an offering. Only certain coins were acceptable, and if it was an animal sacrifice it had to be approved by a priest. It isn’t difficult to imagine a whole industry springing up around those two facts – Jews coming from out of town would need to exchange whatever currency they had for acceptable currency, and there had to be a system in place for the approval of animals for sacrifice – and that is exactly what had happened in Jesus day. Now, there is nothing inherently wrong in those systems, but we understand the human condition and we can see how it would be possible, and easy, for those systems to take over and become corrupt. How easy would it be for the money changers to charge a premium for approved coins? How easy would it be for merchants to offer to inspect your animals, and of course reject them so you had to trade yours and pay extra for one of their approved sacrifical animals; and then turn around and sell the animal you just traded in to the next worshipper as an approved sacrifice? Indeed, that is what I believe was happening.
Worse still, these merchants had set up shop in the place most convenient to them – remember the old adage location, location, location… They were set up as close as possible to the inner temple, in the court of the Gentiles. So by the time Jesus arrives on the scene, this outer court has become a marketplace – a middle-eastern bazaar – all existing for the legitimate purpose of providing acceptable sacrifices, but with the actual result being to rip off innocent worshippers and to destroy the one place Gentiles could come to worship the God of Israel.
John 2:13-25 (NLT):
With that as background and context, let’s read the story from John 2:
13 It was nearly time for the Jewish Passover celebration, so Jesus went to Jerusalem. 14 In the Temple area he saw merchants selling cattle, sheep, and doves for sacrifices; he also saw dealers at tables exchanging foreign money. 15 Jesus made a whip from some ropes and chased them all out of the Temple. He drove out the sheep and cattle, scattered the money changers’ coins over the floor, and turned over their tables. 16 Then, going over to the people who sold doves, he told them, Get these things out of here. Stop turning my Father’s house into a marketplace!
17 Then his disciples remembered this prophecy from the Scriptures: Passion for God’s house will consume me.
18 But the Jewish leaders demanded, What are you doing? If God gave you authority to do this, show us a miraculous sign to prove it.
19 All right, Jesus replied. Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.
20 What! they exclaimed. It has taken forty-six years to build this Temple, and you can rebuild it in three days? 21 But when Jesus said this temple, he meant his own body. 22 After he was raised from the dead, his disciples remembered he had said this, and they believed both the Scriptures and what Jesus had said.
23 Because of the miraculous signs Jesus did in Jerusalem at the Passover celebration, many began to trust in him. 24 But Jesus didn’t trust them, because he knew human nature. 25 No one needed to tell him what mankind is really like.
Does that look like your Jesus?
I don’t recall ever seeing this Jesus in the flannelgraphs. This Jesus is violent. This Jesus is dangerous. This Jesus is loud and confrontational. If you and I saw someone doing this kind of thing today, in Parliament or at the supreme court or in a museum or a church, we would use words like maniac, or we might say some guy was out of control, the media would probably call him a terrorist, or at the very least a radical; we would call the police to come and restrain this guy and he would likely end up charged with a crime.
How does that match your ideas about who Jesus is? According to the story, Jesus sees this injustice going on. Then he leaves, goes and finds some ropes, and makes a whip. This takes time, planning, intention. This is not a quick, spontaneous reaction; it is premeditated. Then Jesus goes back, and unleashes. Imagine the whip cracking, the merchants running for cover, trying to grab their money while Jesus is grabbing it and throwing it all over the floor, throwing open the doors to the cattle and sheep stalls and cracking the whip at them and driving them out, then racing around to all the stalls and flipping the tables upside down. According to the text, Jesus was consumed with passion. When you think of Jesus, do you think of Him like this?
What was it that made Jesus so angry? Was it that they were selling things in church? Was it a lack of reverence? I don’t think so, at least not at the heart of it. It’s pretty easy to assume that is the case and then make rules for today like no selling anything in the sanctuary (the foyer might be ok though…), or no baseball caps allowed because that isn’t reverent. But I think that misses the point, it barely scratches the surface. What made Jesus so angry was that this outer court was created for a purpose – to allow Gentiles to come and worship the God of Israel – and the presence of the marketplace destroyed the only place where Gentiles could come and worship. NT Wright puts it this way: A place that should have stood as a symbol for the freedom of access of all nations in prayer to God, had become a place associated with sordid pecuniary interests. (as quoted by Leon Morris, NICNT, p. 172). What made Jesus angry was that the system created barriers to people, especially those most marginalized in Jesus day, from drawing close to God. In the words of another commentator, Jesus attacked an institution that apparently contradicted the meaning of the temple and yet for the temple’s sake was necessary. (L. Goppelt, as quoted by Leon Morris, NICNT, p. 172).
Application to today:
So what does this have to say to us today? I see several places of application.
First, we need to ask if there are things that are necessary for us to function as the people of God that actually end up keeping others, especially those on the margins, from drawing close to God. This is a tough question – I am quite sure none of the priests of Jesus’ day would have recognized the merchants in the outer court as a huge problem, and likewise I don’t expect those of us on the inside to have quick and easy answers because we are in the middle of the system of church. Can you think of any? It probably starts with a clear idea of the meaning/purpose of being the people of God today, and there the most important place to start is probably Jesus’ great commission in Matt. 28:19-20 – go and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. 20 Teach these new disciples to obey all the commands I have given you. And be sure of this: I am with you always, even to the end of the age.
Second application: is the Jesus you follow and claim to want to be like the Jesus we read about in John 2? Is your Jesus consumed with passion, or have we tamed Him into someone mild and pleasant and non-threatening and comfortable?
Third application: do we get upset about injustice like Jesus did, and then do something about it like Jesus did? Jesus didn’t just shake His head and walk away sadly, wishing things were different. Jesus got angry and did something about it.
Conclusion:
The Jesus of the Bible is not a one-dimensional flannelgraph, nor is He tame and mild-mannered. Our Jesus gets fired up, He is angry at things that keep people from God, and He isn’t afraid to do something about it. And for us to carry the name of Jesus, to be His people, to desire to be Christlike, means we need to follow the Jesus of the Bible and not just our ideas about Him. I want to close with a prayer, asking Jesus for 2 things: first, that we might be able to truly see who Jesus is; and second that we might have opportunities to be like Him.
