“No More Business as Usual”
Matthew 21:12-17
This is the first Sunday of Lent.
The word “Lent” comes from the old English word, “lencten," which means “spring.”
And one of the things that many of us do in the Spring is we “Spring Clean.”
We go through the house, look at the clutter, the stuff we no longer use or perhaps never used and either throw it away, give it away or have a yard sale.
We pull out the vacuum cleaner and suck up the dirt and dust.
We open the windows and allow the fresh air to flow in.
It’s a time of new beginnings.
It’s exciting.
It’s anticipatory.
It’s a time when death breaks into NEW LIFE!!!
This has been a long winter.
I’m ready for Spring; how about you?
In our Scripture Passage for this morning, Jesus does some MAJOR SPRING CLEANING!!!
It’s almost time for Passover which is the major Jewish Spring Festival which celebrates the liberation of the Israelites from Egyptian slavery.
And thousands upon thousands of Jews would make the pilgrimage to Jerusalem to celebrate at the Temple because the Temple was the beating heart of Judaism.
It was the center of worship and music, of politics and society.
It was also the place where you would find more animals—dead and alive—than anywhere else in the world.
But towering above all this,
it was the total focal point of the nation and the way of life for the people.
And like so many institutions that are run by human beings, it had gotten off track.
It had lost its way.
It had become corrupt.
The train was running off the tracks!
Once upon a time there was a king who wanted to give his country a new lease on life, so he decided to capture a city that none of his people had lived in before, and make it his capital.
The problem was that the city was up on a high and rocky cliff, and it was easy for the inhabitants of the city to ward off any invaders.
When the people living there saw that the king was coming with his army to invade their city, they were sure they would have no problem warding off the attackers.
They were so sure, as a matter of fact, that they replaced their regular guards with blind people and people with disabilities—people referred to as the lame.
They said, “We’re so sure that our city is so impenetrable that the blind and lame will be able to keep this king’s army out.”
But the king had a better trick.
He knew that the city he wanted to overtake, no matter how strongly it was built on this hill, needed one thing.
And that one thing was water!
So, he found out where the spring of water was that the city used, and decided that this was the way into the city.
So, he sent his army up the water shaft.
And up they went and they took the city.
And it indeed, became their capital!
But the king didn’t forget the blind and the lame people who were put in place to guard the normal way into the city—in order to keep him and his army out.
So, he made this rule: “No blind or lame people are welcome here!”
The king in the story was King David and the city was Jerusalem, and the place where the blind and lame were not welcome was the Temple!
The story is found in 2 Samuel 5:6-10 and 1 Chronicles 11:4-6.
So there was a group of folks who were not allowed in the Temple of God, and there is a list in Leviticus Chapter 21 of other people who were excluded—they were the disfigured and deformed, persons with crippling conditions, huchbacks, dwarfs, eunuchs, anyone with any kind of blemish, and others.
They were not allowed to offer sacrifices.
The religious leaders in Jesus’ day allowed them to enter the outer courtyard of the Temple, but they weren’t really very enthusiastic about this.
In truth, they didn’t want them around at all!
Their presence made the “so-called” normal and descent people uncomfortable.
Their deformities detracted from the scenery.
But Jesus did, with these Temple traditions, what He did with the money-changers’ tables: He turned them upside down!!!
If you have a Bible with you, open it up again to our Gospel Lesson from Matthew 21:12-17.
Let’s read it again.
[Read Matthew 21:12-17 again]
Notice what happens right after Jesus overturns the tables, Jesus quotes Jeremiah Chapter 7:11, “My house will be a house of prayer, but you are making it a den of thieves.”
And then, and then, the people who had been kept out of the Temple started pouring in: They are the blind and the lame.
They are the marginalized, the poor, the deranged, the deformed, the destitute, the widows the orphans—you name it!!!
And we are told that “when the chief priests and the teachers of the law saw the wonderful things [Jesus] did and the children shouting in the temple area…they were indignant.”
The people who had been kept out were now welcomed in.
The people who were scorned were now healed.
This sums up everything that Jesus’ ministry was about.
Remember Jesus’ mission statement where he quotes from Isaiah in Luke Chapter 4: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to release the oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”
And as Christ’ followers, Jesus’ mission statement is to be our mission statement as well!
And so, it is Lent—the time for Spring cleaning!!!
The time to take a look at ourselves and our church and ask: “What needs to go and what needs to stay.
Where is God leading us to change, so that new life can spring up and we can live into His will?”
It’s an exciting time, but it also can be a bit intimidating.
And that’s because change means that “business as usual” will no longer be the norm.
One of the things we will be working on in the coming weeks, months and years is establishing a Community Food Pantry that operates out of this building.
I have been involved in something like this before, and it is a miracle to behold.
It changes you, kind of like spending the night during Family Promise changes us a bit.
And the only reason it works is because it is what God wants us to do.
At the final judgment, in Matthew Chapter 25, we are told that the only thing that will separate the sheep from the goats is this: “Did you feed the hungry, give drink to the thirsty, invite and welcome the stranger, cloth the naked, look after the sick and visit the prisoner?”
For whatever we do for others—we do for Jesus.
Whatever we do not do for others—we do not do for Jesus.
On Sunday, March 24—in two weeks—following the 11 O’clock Worship Service we will have an informational meeting in the fellowship hall for those who are interested in being part of making the Red Bank Community Food Pantry happen.
I hope you will pray about it and feel the Spirit of the Lord leading you to take part in supporting it.
I pray we will all follow the Spirit’s leading.
Also, the Preschool Board met this past week and voted to expand our children’s ministry.
We will, in the future, offer an all-day, 5-day a week Preschool for children ages infant-through Pre-K.
In doing this we will be providing a need to our community that is not currently being met.
Think of the mother who is trying to raise young children on her own, she works double-shifts at McDonalds in order to try and survive.
Think of the young couple that have just moved to Red Bank.
They have little children, but both the mother and father work full-time jobs.
Who is here to help them?
Where can they turn?
Soon, they will be able to turn to Red Bank United Methodist Church!
Now, these are some big changes.
And they are going to require some sacrifice on all of our parts.
But we are Christians.
We have a Savior Who went to the Cross to save us from our sins.
Now that wasn’t convenient, but God did it because of LOVE.
We aren’t here to “play church”!
We are here to BE THE CHURCH—the Servants to this Community!!!
We are to receive the poor, the lame, the blind, the widows, the orphans, the sick, the homeless, the hungry, the lost, the hopeless, the broken.
And we are called to heal people just like Jesus did when He upended business as usual in the Temple 2,000 years ago.
We live in a time when the Church has lost its way.
We’ve gotten off track, somehow.
And I believe Jesus is calling on us to get back to doing God’s business.
Will some tables need to be overturned?
Will some folks get upset?
Perhaps.
Will miracles occur?
Will new life spring up?
Will empty Sunday school rooms become full again?
Will empty sanctuaries need more seating?
Will every last inch of this 47,000 square foot building be utilized every day of the week for the good of the Kingdom?
If we live-into God’s will, the answer is a resounding “Yes!”
The decision is ours.
God is offering it to us.
The answer is ours.
God will take care of the rest.
