Jesus Transformed People and Institutions
Sunday, April 28, 2002
TEXT: Mark 11: 15-17
Last week we completed a series on Celebrating Jesus. As I looked over the whole series and pondered the things that really drew people to Jesus, there is one that I think was missing on the list. I find it very common in conservative publications that they leave one particular aspect of Jesus’ ministry out, and I understand why but it is mentioned 294 times in scripture. In the latter half of all the epistles, there is application to this issue. Fourteen books of the Bible were written on this issue itself. The issue is justice–Jesus’ justice.
Conservative churches aren’t sure how to deal with this because you tend to get a knee-jerk reaction to it. What we hear in our denominational publications are things you would expect to hear on NBC, CBS, CNN, ABC, Newsweek, Time, the U.S. News and World Report. Shouldn’t the church’s voice sound different than the world’s voice? We want to get back to the gospel and back to salvation. In some churches, the entire Bible is reduced to politics and social action. Sometimes we can throw the baby out with the bathwater. Conservative churches tend to re-emphasize the gospel and the Bible, and yet justice is a Biblical issue. Jesus deals with justice during his life, and some of the most beautiful passages in scripture deal with justice:
Amos 5: 24: “Let justice roll like water and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.”
Micah 6: 8: “What does the Lord require of you but to justice, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God.”
Justice by definition is synonymous with righteousness. They are inter-changeable terms. It simply means to do the right thing. Spike Lee made a movie called, “Do The Right Thing.” That’s what it’s all about. It is the basis by which God judges leaders in the world. It is the purpose for good government. The image of justice in the Bible is the balanced scales, and there is integrity and honesty in those scales. Oddly enough, that’s the symbol for Lady Justice in the United States–a blindfolded statue holding balanced scales. This means that justice is fairness for all, honesty for all, equity for all. And Jesus deals with this.
Now, we are frustrated with how Jesus deals with justice because he does not take on the Roman cast system which was terribly inequitable towards the poor. Jesus does not abolish slavery, Jesus did not overthrow a very corrupt government in Herod’s regime. Jesus had a very unique mission. His purpose was justice, but he knew in order to create a just system, one has to create just people. The only way he could create a just people was to take God’s goodness and righteousness and change the human heart with them. When a person is changed on the inside, they become just on the inside. Then when those people become just on the inside, they can display justice on the outside and become part of a system that is just itself.
Jesus plants the seeds for justice in his ministry. We see an example of his taking on a justice issue in Matthew 11: 15-19. This is the cleansing of the temple, and in this passage Jesus seeks to reform what is going on in the temple in Jerusalem. There are two problems and a lot of surprises.
TEXT
What was the problem with the money and the animals? Was it the money-changers? So often people use this text to illustrate why there shouldn’t be fund-raising efforts in the church. It’s why little boys and girls shouldn’t run around during church or after church selling pizzas and cookies and stuff. Is this a correct application of this scripture? Is the issue money in the church? If so, we should probably stop taking up a collection. The finance committee wouldn’t like that at all and I am not advocating that at all.
Then what is the issue? Was it the animals in the church? Well, actually no. Both of these things were necessary to the ministry that they were taking on at that time. Imagine if it was required of you to bring an animal sacrifice to the temple–sometimes a bull, sometimes a lamb, sometimes a dove. Imagine that some of you would walk for hundreds of miles to get there and what would happen if your dove flew out of the cage, or the bull was lost, or the lamb became defective? You’ve traveled hundreds of miles and now you have to turn around, go back home and get another sacrificial animal. How inconvenient that would have been.
Therefore, the people decided that it was easier to carry money with them to purchase an animal. It was lighter, and they didn’t have to carry all that feed. They didn’t have to worry about the animal. They just purchased one when they arrived. It was so much more convenient. Likewise, moneychangers were a convenience. Imagine that you traveled so far to make your sacrifice and when you arrived you had to find a bank and determine the real rate and value for your money. You had to shop around to find the best deal. Again, how inconvenient, so they decided to put everything right on location so that when people arrived at the temple it would be so easy to change your money and get your animal and make your sacrifice. Plus, it only took place three times a year. This market only existed three times during the entire year. It really was on par with large-print bulletins or handicapped accessibility or visitor’s parking spaces or having a nursery or kids bulletins. This was just a way for the temple priests to help people in their lives to make worship more convenient for them.
What was Jesus so upset about then? Well, there were certain things that were unnecessary. It was the location of the market, the number of the vendors, and the noise that it created. Imagine yourself trying to worship. There were hundreds of vendors and animals making noise and people trying to do business right within the temple. Imaging trying to pray and hardly being able to think. It contradicted the very purpose of the temple, and Jesus mentions this in his message: “My house will be called a house of prayer.”
The second problem was that the market was located right in the court of the gentiles. It made it impossible for the gentiles to know and to worship God which was against the very heart and soul of Jesus’ mission. Jesus came to save everyone–“Whosoever believes in me shall have eternal life.”
The very purpose of Abraham was that all nations would be blessed, and this was contradicting the very purpose of the temple and Jesus’ ministry and mission there.
Caiaphas wanted the market located in the temple and he wanted to undercut the Mount Olive markets. He couldn’t stand to see Roman and Greek people coming to worship and experience the same vital connection with God that the Jews had. These were their oppressors, and Caiaphas just couldn’t stand it anymore. So he moved the moneychangers and the animals into the gentile court and exclude them from worship.
The surprising thing in this text is that this mild-mannered Jesus who never harmed anyone turns into someone they had never experienced before. He makes a rope whip, tosses the benches over and drives the animals out. He used the whip, not on people, but to drive the animals out of the temple. It was very surprising to see Jesus become so upset because they were excluding people from God.
There is a word today that we use called “inclusiveness.” People have used it to justify including not only the sinner but also their sins. It is a Biblical word and inclusive means simply extending salvation to all who desire it. It is embodied in our constitution and it is written well:
The church is called to new openness to the presence of God in the church and in the world, to a more fundamental obedience and to a more joyous celebration in worship and work, to a new openness to our own membership by affirming itself as a community of diversity, becoming in fact as well as in faith a community of men and women of all ages and races and conditions, and by providing for inclusiveness as a visible sign of a new humanity, to a new openness to the possibilities and perils of its institutional forms in order to ensure the faith-fulness and usefulness of these forms of God’s activity in the world, to a new openness to God’s continuing reformation of the church that it might be a more effective instrument of mission in the world. Thus the fellowship of Christians as they gather for worship and order their corporate life will display a rich variety of form, practice, language, programs, nurture, service to see the culture and the need.”
As Presbyterians, it is our calling to have a new openness, to do anything it takes to communicate the Christian faith in such a way that it draws as many people as possible into God’s church and into that faith. It that our heart, is that our desire? To be that mission agency of God, to reach as many as possible, to do whatever it takes. Or will we be like these religious leaders who liked it just the way it was because it favored them. It took care of things that they wanted.
One church was arguing about handicapped accessibility because they didn’t have any handicapped people. Some churches say they don’t need a nursery because they don’t have children. Which comes first? There’s a reason that you don’t have handicapped people if you’re not accessible. There’s a reason that you don’t have children if you don’t try to reach out to the parents. Which comes first?
There is another surprise in this passage and that’s the anger level of these religious leaders when Jesus attempted to reform their worship. Mark notes that this is the breaking point. This is the straw that broke the camel’s back. They sought to kill him. For what reason? Because he drew more people into the church, or because he did those things which reached people? How could that be? Can you imagine that? Thinking from the Pharisees’ perspective, at least the offering plates were more full. That wasn’t Jesus’ motive at all. He had a zeal for the house of God. Do we have that same zeal, that burning passion to do what it takes to reach all people?
One of the reasons that I left the church where I was to come here was because, in spite of ten years of ministry, in spite of doubling worship and tripling Sunday School , in spite of having moved from a budget that was in debt $28,000 to being in the black by $6,000 on an annual basis, people in the congregation were miserable, angry, hostile. Why? Because the church was more effective? How could that be? Is that our heart, is that our attitude as well? Do we have the heart of Jesus, the heart that breaks because people are being excluded and they need to be reached with this gospel.
The second problem that existed in the Jerusalem church had to do with the corruption that was permitted in that temple. People were willing to look the other way. The vendors practiced price-gouging and charged people exorbitant prices for the animal sacrifices because it was the only market in town. They had a monopoly. They charged more because of convenience. It’s like going to a base-ball game. You pay a lot to get there, you pay to park there, and then you pay $4 for a 25-cent hot dog. You go to the movie theater and get 50-cents worth of pop-corn and pay $4 for it. You expect this in secular life, but you don’t expect this in the church, the temple itself.
The moneychangers were cheating people with dishonest scales. If the exchange rate was 10 to 1, they were giving people 7 to 1. If you brought in an outside animal, they would find a defect on it, pull it aside, make you buy theirs, and then re-sell the same defective lamb to someone else. There were all forms of dishonesty, and this contradicted the very nature of the temple. In the temple, people heard God’s word which taught them to be honest, to be equitable, and then they would experience inequity, corruption, cheating, lying and stealing in the temple, and this happened right under the noses of the religious leaders. That’s hard to believe.
Jesus couldn’t sneeze without one of them being there, knowing that he sneezed. They knew exactly what he taught every time. They knew when he didn’t wash his hands before he ate. They were waiting to catch him with a slip of any word. How could they not know about the problems happening right in their temple if they knew everything about Jesus. Well, they did know about it but they looked the other way. They didn’t want to upset Caiaphas. He was a popular priest, and this was all his idea.
This is the very thinking that is rocking the Roman Catholic church today. People are denying the elephant in the room, looking the other way, even though it is wrong. What are we giving a pass to? What sin or corruption are we excusing even though it is wrong? What are you excusing in your personal life? What problems exist in our society that we would like to change but are not sure we have the energy to deal with the challenge it presents.
My generation was very hostile towards those people in the 50’s. We asked our grandparents how they could not see the racism of their day. We asked how they could accept hatred of black people. We asked how that could possibly exist in the church, and we condemned them. Yet, we do the same thing today. The issues change, but the problems are the same. The issue may be another sin which is to easy to overlook, which is popular and everyone agrees with it. Things like pornography, abortion, mercy-killing–we even give it a nice name. Things like dissecting the unborn for a good purpose, and we believe it’s good. That’s the problem. For 2,000 years the church has stood against these things. How can it be that we don’t say anything against these practices today?
The surprise in the passage is how angry people became when Jesus exposed the sin in the room. The injustice was obvious. They should have applauded him. He was more consistent with Rabbinical teaching than the rabbis themselves. Instead, they fumed. As a result, Jesus knew how hot their anger was. They refused to sleep in Jerusalem at night. The only day he slept in Jerusalem was the day they arrested and killed him. The atmosphere was that hostile and he knew it.
What was the result of the fact that Jesus put his life on the line and sacrificed for what was right? There wasn’t enough room in the temple to accommodate the crowds who came to hear God’s word through Jesus. As a result of his standing for what was right, the church remained open to the gentile world. Had Jesus not fought for the remaining opening of the church or the temple to the gentiles, the gospel would never have gone into the world and we wouldn’t be sitting here. The church would be all Jewish today. As a result of Jesus standing up for injustice, people were amazed at his teaching. They called it “new” but it wasn’t new, it was Biblical. It is amazed how people come alive when they actually hear something that’s Biblical. It’s not new at all, it has always been there. It’s a sad day when we hear that people leave their churches because they never once heard the gospel. That happens in our churches.
As a result of Jesus standing for what was right, people discovered God’s word and their lives were changed. It changed the world, and billions have celebrated Jesus’ life. However, there was a negative aspect to all of this because it cost Jesus his life. It resulted in his crucifixion. Yet, God was able to take that very bad thing and turn it into the salvation of the world. If a person or the church stands up for what it right, it will always cost something. You always lose something, but you gain so much more when you are faithful to God. God promises to be with us and to use us in a powerful way just as He used Jesus.
One of my favorite movies is “The Untouchables.” It is a story of how Elliott Ness brought down the mob. The mob existed in Chicago for years and everyone knew it. Elliott Ness tried to find a way to deal with it, and he talked with an Irish Catholic cop who was content to walk his beat. This cop knew exactly what was going on and didn’t want anything to do with it. He just wanted to keep quiet and not pay the price of what it would take to rid Chicago of this corruption. He finally asks Elliott Ness, “What are you willing to do about it? Don’t go half-way. What are you willing to do about it?” All through the movie, he challenges Ness. Ultimately, this person was shot multiple times and was dying. In his dying, he had a listing of the train that the bookkeeper would be leaving town on. When his friends found him near death, he points to the schedule, grabs Ness and asks, “What are you willing to do about it?” And then he dies.
Our Lord and Savior did the same thing. As he was bleeding and dying on the cross to save all humanity, he looks at us and asks what are we willing to do about it? What are we willing to do to reach other people with that same news? Are we willing to take a stand for good and for God. What are we willing to do about it? He was willing to put everything on the line. How about us?
Let’s pray.
