Jesus the Social Revolutionary – Portraits of Christ series
Matt. 21:12-17 – Steve Simala Grant, Mar. 16/17
Intro:
As I was doing some research for this week’s sermon on Jesus cleansing the temple, I kept coming across sermons with titles like “spring cleaning.” Here is one person’s introduction: “Ahhh…spring – that wonderful time of year, the snow is gone, the cold weather is gone; birds sing in abundance; grass starts growing…” And I thought, boy, it sure would be nice to be able to say that here in Edmonton… Is that ever going to happen???
Context:
Easter is coming very quickly. Unlike Christmas, where our TVs and radios are constantly announcing how many “shopping days” are left, Easter can sometimes sneak up on us, and catch us unprepared. One of the ways we have been preparing for this season as a church is through a series of sermons focused on Christ, looking at a variety of different portraits of Jesus. The goal is for us to know Him better, love Him deeper, and serve Him greater.
This week begins our focus on the last week of Jesus’ life. We are a little out of order, because the first event is Jesus’ triumphal entry, which we will celebrate next Sunday, Palm Sunday. Today I want to look at the second event that week, the cleansing of the temple by Jesus in Matt. 21:12-17. The parallel passage in Mark makes it clear that this happens on Monday, the day after the triumphal entry.
(read Sat; summarize Sun.)
Background:
In order for us to really understand the significance of Jesus’ actions, we need to understand how important the Temple was in Jesus’ day. Quite simply, it was the center: religiously, politically, culturally, even economically. It was even the center for the Israelites’ salvation – we know from Jeremiah that there was an attitude that they could live however they pleased, do whatever they liked, and because they had the temple God would overlook all their sin.
(overhead – Jerusalem in the time of Jesus)
(overhead – Herod’s temple). Contrast God’s prescription in the tabernacle and in Solomon’s temple. What should it be like – Ezekiel’s temple (no walls). Note the ever-growing number of walls erected, the ever pushing back of people from God, the growing distance. Why? Good motive – arose out of extension of purity laws. Even Ezekiel reminds us “This is the law of the temple: All the surrounding area on top of the mountain will be most holy. Such is the law of the temple.” (Ezek. 43:12). But God’s holiness was never intended to push people away, but rather to draw us to Him for forgiveness and salvation.
All this background for what purpose? Back to Jesus: what was His concern? “My house will be called a house of prayer” (Mt. 21:13). As always, Jesus brought people back to the significant, the important, instead of the periphery. He got to the heart of it. Even in the construction of the temple, it seems the point is being missed. The point is to worship God. But as we see from the evolution of the architecture, there was a growing pushing away, a growing “professionalization” of worship that was contrary to God’s design.
The source of Jesus’ quote in vs. 13 is significant: it is from Is. 56:7. Jesus didn’t finish the quote – He didn’t need to as those in earshot (the leaders) knew the last 3 words: “for all nations.” The temple was to be a place of prayer “for all nations.” God’s desire was that all people would be drawn to Him, that they would all have opportunity, even under the Jewish sacrificial system, to respond to God. Contrast that with the inscription archeologists discovered on the inner wall: “No foreigner is to enter the barriers surrounding the sanctuary. He who is caught will have himself to blame for his death which will follow.” Jesus doesn’t challenge the architecture here (though He did earlier talk about the temple being destroyed), but He definitely displays indignation that this place, designed to allow people (and I think it is significant that it is in the court of the gentiles) to worship God, has become a marketplace instead.
Notice that the text says Jesus drove out all who were “buying and selling” (vs. 12). It wasn’t just the merchants Jesus reacts against, but those buying as well. This is good evidence that Jesus is rejecting the whole system, the entire “business” that had evolved around worship. There was an entire enterprise here – buyers and sellers and money changers, with priests overseeing the whole thing. Jesus’ indictment is against this whole system that has sidetracked the main purpose: God’s temple being a house of prayer and worship for all people.
What portrait does this paint of Christ?
So we have this story – Jesus comes to Jerusalem (knowing full well, by the way, that He would likely face death for doing so…), enters the most public place in the city, makes a huge scene in a most public way, and visibly rejects the entire social, cultural, and religious order. Then He performs a number of healing miracles there on a group of people that were forbidden from entering the temple at all. So much for “gentle Jesus, meek and mild”!!
This story enacts in a highly visible way what so much of Jesus’ ministry was about. Jesus came for sinners, He associated with the poor and the sick and the outcasts. He went to places where there were needs, great needs, and He met them. He rejected all the pursuits that normally characterize the lives of men on earth – pursuits of wealth and safety and high status.
I see this as far more than a portrait just of the earthly Jesus – I see this as a portrait of God Himself. Reading the OT with open eyes we see that again and again, God rescues the weak and the helpless, He reaches out to them in compassion and He delivers them. We see this on a spiritual level with every one of us – God reaches out to us in our helplessness and rescues us. But it is not merely on a physical level – it is on a very physical level also. Jesus talked about separating the metaphorical “sheep” from the “goats” in Matt. 25:31-46 – and the bottom line is that the “sheep” are those who reached out to the poor and the sick and the prisoners. We read this same thing in the OT again and again – God comes to set us free, not just in a spiritual sense but also from the sin that plagues entire societies and keeps human beings in situations where they are treated worse than animals.
So the portrait I see of Christ is the portrait of the social revolutionary. I want to share a picture with you that had an impression on me: (Christ of the Breadlines). It brought to mind a quotation from Mother Teresa of Calcutta which I have never forgotten: “The dying, the cripple, the mental, the unwanted, the unloved they are Jesus in disguise.”
It is a picture of Jesus the radical – the one willing to go into the temple and throw tables around. It’s the portrait of one who would call people to radical discipleship: complete, sold-out, hold-nothing-back discipleship. He demonstrates His determination, His willingness to upset things (in a very literal way) that are wrong. Things that miss the point, that have lost the purpose for their existence. I don’t know how you react to that portrait, but I’ll tell you it makes me more than a little uncomfortable. It is unpredictable, uncontrollable, unmanageable. Confrontational even. I guess I find it threatening because I like my comfortable life, I like most things the way they are. And I’m worried Jesus might come and cleanse my temple…
Look at verse 15. This is really amazing – the chief priests and teachers of the law see Jesus doing “wonderful things” – healing sick people – they hear children shouting praises – and they are “indignant.” They are mad. There own ideas about how things are supposed to happen so get in the way that they see Jesus doing wonderful things and they reject all the good that is going on. It upsets them to see people healed. It upsets them to hear children shouting praise.
So what does this mean for us?
A soap manufacturer and a pastor were walking together down a street in a large city. The soap manufacturer casually said, "The gospel you preach hasn’t done much good, has it? Just observe. There is still a lot of wickedness in the world, and a lot of wicked people, too!" The pastor made no reply until they passed a dirty little child making mud pies in the gutter. Seizing the opportunity, the pastor said, "I see that soap hasn’t done much good in the world; for there is much dirt, and many dirty people around." The soap manufacturer replied, "Oh, well, soap is only useful when it is applied." And the pastor said, "Exactly, so it is with the gospel."
I want to apply this passage in two different ways. First, what Jesus being a social revolutionary means to us, and second to ask in what ways our temples need Jesus to come and cleanse.
1. You and I as “social revolutionaries”:
On a global scale, there is no denying that we are the “rich”. Yet the problems in our world are so huge, so complex, that we are often paralyzed into inaction. I talked last week about the church being a hospital, and I really believe that. I apply that most to a vision of evangelism in our own situation. But there is also a dimension in which the “church” as an institution needs to be part of a larger solution – a global solution.
And it is happening. In an article in Time Magazine on global poverty, specifically on the efforts of rock star Bono of the group U2, March 4, 2002:
The model for a new approach is Jubilee 2000, which campaigned with great success to reduce developing world debt. Jubilee 2000 was based in Europe, not the U.S., and its foot soldiers were not liberal activists but churchgoers. I remember covering a huge demonstration at the G-8 summit in Cologne, Germany, that was led not by black-clad anarchists but by nuns singing hymns. Bono’s support for the campaign was critical; he gave a patina of glamour to a people who would otherwise have been dismissed as nice but deeply unfashionable…
…issues of global health care, education and poverty are being discussed – at church coffees and student discussion groups – with a new urgency… the battle for development is going to be won at the backyard barbeque, not at the Council on Foreign Relations.
The world is changing, Biblical values are getting a hearing and action is resulting from them that is changing the face of poverty. And the window of opportunity is opening for us, in “church coffees and backyard barbecues,” to see real change.
I’m excited that we are a part of that through the organizations we are affiliated with – with other Baptists world-wide. And I’m also excited about the way individuals in our church are a part of this also, by sponsoring a child through World Vision, by volunteering at the Mustard Seed Street Church, by supporting other organizations working on behalf of the weak and helpless. Let us never be paralyzed by inaction: maybe God never calls us to change the world, as Mother Teresa did – and then again maybe He will call you to that – but I believe He does call us all to something. It can start small – stopping to read the poster that is on the inside of our front door, which describes our Sunday School project to help street kids in Brazil through our mission partners Lawrence and Kathy Cheveldayoff.
The Apostle Paul wrote these words to Timothy, which I believe are for us: 1 Tim. 6:17-19 (read). He doesn’t command us to solve all the world’s problems, but to “not be arrogant or put our hope in wealth,” and to be “rich in good deeds… and generous.” Respond to the situations God places you in with those principles, and we will be “social revolutionaries” in our circles. And we’ll see where God takes it.
2. You and I and getting our temple’s cleansed:
I know this is making a quick shift in direction, but the second way I want to apply this passage is to ask where we need Jesus to come and cleanse our temples. To ask this question I want to go back to the picture of the ever-increasing walls around the place of God.
(Sat. lead as reflective exercise; Sun. walk through verbally)
What walls are there in your life? What things keep you from getting closer to God? Can you identify some? Write them down on your sermon notes page, or fix them in your mind. It doesn’t matter at the moment where they came from or why they are there, just first identify them. What keeps you from getting closer to God?
Can I list a few possibilities? Sins we entertain, we enjoy, we welcome. How about fear? “What will God do to me? What will He ask of me?” How about past hurts? “I’m not sure I can trust Him, I’ve been hurt so bad.”
Whatever they may be for you, identify the walls that separate you from God.
Now hear God’s invitation: “come.” Pass through those walls, step over the barriers, walk up the stairs – into the Holy Place, even into the Holy of Holies. Come, meet with God: listen to Him, talk with Him, weep or rejoice or laugh. Jesus cleared the barriers in the Temple in His day, so that God’s house could be a place of prayer for all nations. He wants to do the same with you, right now. I know I’m asking for a lot, I recognize this is difficult and uncomfortable and risky. Maybe you need His help; He’ll come to you on your side of the barrier if you ask Him. He’ll take your hand and lead you and guide you and give you strength. Ephesians 2:13-16 says “in Christ Jesus you who once were far away have been brought near through the blood of Christ… (He) has destroyed the dividing wall of hostility… and reconciled us to God.”
Once you get there, listen first. Let God do the talking.
(Sat. debrief).
I’m going to ask you to do one more thing. Go through the same process of seeking God in prayer, but this time ask what barriers we as individuals and as a church put up that keep other people from approaching God. What walls do we place that other people have to break through in order to come to a place of responding to God’s call and worshiping Him? Would you commit to that as part of our time of transition as a church, as part of our seeking His desire for our future? And then pass that along to one of the pastors or elders.
Conclusion:
Last summer one of the things on my job list was to make my 70 year-old garage into usable space for my tools. It was in pretty sorry shape – the roof was about to collapse, junk and garbage that you wouldn’t believe was tucked up in this little attic space which was insulated with wood chips and 70 yrs worth of dust and dirt and mouse droppings. At first I thought this might be kind of fun – I like ripping things apart. But after about 15 minutes of all this garbage falling on my head, in the heat and in all of my awkward protective gear, it quickly just became work. Hard work. But it needed to be cleaned out, and now I have a nice, usable space for storage and wood working.
We need to let Jesus come and do the same thing for us as individuals and as a church. We need Him to come and tear down any of the barriers that keep us from intimacy with Him, any barriers that keep others from coming to know Him. We need Him to come and cleanse us, make us whole, and then fill us with power. Then we will be able to respond as the little children in Matt. 21:15 – “Hosanna to the Son of David!”
