4 March 2018

"Where Does God Live?" (sermon)


Chetwynd Shared Ministry
March 4, 2018 - 3rd Sunday in Lent
Reading:  John 2:13-22
 

I invite you to hold your hands out, and take a good look at them.  Take a really close look at your hands.  Aren’t they amazing?!  Have you ever noticed that no two hands are alike?  They are all unique.  Some of us have scars or birthmarks on our hands.  Some of us choose to decorate our hands with rings or nailpolish.  Our fingerprints are absolutely unique to ourselves.

What have your hands done in your life?  Are you an artist?  Maybe you have used these hands to make music.  Maybe you have used these hands to paint a picture or a wall.  Maybe you have used these hands to express yourself as you danced.  Maybe you are woodworker, and you have used these hands to build something new and creative.

Are you someone who talks with your hands, gesturing wildly, or do your keep your hands at your side when you speak?  I don’t know – can any of you speak sign language where your hands become the primary medium of communication?

What else have you done with your hands?  Who was the last person that you hugged with your hands?  Who was the last baby you held with your hands?  Have you ever held the hand of someone who was sick or dying?  Have you ever hit anyone with your hands?  Have your hands ever been the tools of violence?

Our hands can tell our stories, of who we are, and of what we have done.

I wonder about Jesus’ hands.  I wonder if, when he was born, did his mother play with his fingers, marvelling at their perfection and the tiny fingernails at the tip of each one?  When Jesus was a toddler, a young boy, did his parents hold his hands when they walked to the local synagogue?  Did Jesus use his hands to hold his baby brothers and sisters?

And then when Jesus grew up, we have some stories about how he used his hands.  He laid his hands over the eyes of a blind man, and sight was restored.  Peter was walking across the water towards Jesus when he started to sink, and Jesus stretched out his hand and saved him.  Jesus used his hands to lift up a loaf of bread and break it, as he said to his disciples, “This is my body, broken for you.”  And then, in the end, nails were hammered through Jesus’ hands as he was hung on a cross.

And then we have today’s story from John’s gospel.  In today’s story, Jesus first uses his hands to make a whip out of ropes.  Then his hands brandish this whip in order to drive a bunch of animals and possibly the people who were selling them out of the temple.  And then his hands took the baskets and buckets and cash boxes of the money changers and poured out the money all over the floor of the temple.  And finally his hands took the tables that were being used for business and flipped them over.

This story has been turned in to a meme that circulates on Facebook occasionally.  Along with a picture of this scene of chaos, the caption reads, “If anyone ever asks you, ‘What Would Jesus Do?” remind them that flipping over tables and chasing people with a whip is within the realm of possibilities.”

Jesus comes across as so very human in the first part of this story.  John’s gospel begins with God’s Word becoming flesh; and in this moment, we see the fleshy-ness, the human-ness of Jesus.  He sees something that isn’t right, something that maybe makes him angry, and he uses his flesh, his hands, to change it.  What should be the house of God, has become a house of trade.  Instead of worshipping God, people are worshipping the coins that Jesus dumps on to the floor.

But then in the last part of the reading, we come to the part that made my head spin so much that my page of rough notes as I was preparing this sermon is covered in circles.  John’s gospel is known for, maybe sometimes notorious for, double-talk.  Words and sentences and paragraphs that can be interpreted on multiple levels.

So when Jesus starts talking about the temple, on one level he is talking about the place where this story takes place.  They are in the temple in Jerusalem, the high holy place of the Jewish people, the place where God lived.  The temple was literally the home of the One whom Jesus called “Father.”  This was the second temple that had been built on this site – the first temple, the temple built by Solomon, had been destroyed when the city was conquered by the Babylonian empire; but it had been re-built when the people returned from exile.  This second temple was then destroyed by the Roman army thirty-some-odd years after Jesus died, but at the time of the gospel story, the temple was still the heart of the Jewish faith.  It was the home of God, and it was the place where people came to worship God and offer sacrifices to God.  It has never been re-built since it was destroyed in 70CE.  If you go to Jerusalem today, the only part that is left standing is the Western Wall, also known as the Wailing Wall, but it is still an important place where Jewish people go to pray, even today.

So this is the first layer of meaning when Jesus refers to destroying the temple – destruction of the physical building in which they were standing.  From the perspective of the author and the first audience of John’s gospel, the destruction of this physical temple had already happened.  John’s gospel was written 20-30 years after the temple had been destroyed.  But as Jesus was standing there, such a thing would have been almost unimaginable.

Now remember that double-talk.  There are more layers of meaning at play here.  The narrator gives us a pretty broad hint when we are told that Jesus was referring to the temple of his body.

The temple building was the home of God; but Jesus was also God-made-flesh.  The flesh and blood of Jesus was also the home of God.  Later on in John’s gospel, Jesus is going to say, “I am in the Father and the Father is in me.”  When we understand God to be Trinity, God is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.  Always three and always one.  So when Jesus is talking about the destruction of the temple, he is foreshadowing his own crucifixion – the time when the home of God in the flesh of Jesus would be destroyed.

But I also think that we can even take this one step further.  A couple of decades after Jesus died, the apostle Paul would write that we, the church, are the Body of Christ.  He wrote to the church in Corinth that our bodies are the temple, the home, of the Holy Spirit.  God lives in us too.

Can you see why my page of notes was covered in circles and spirals?  It makes my head spin just thinking of all of the layers of meaning!

But let’s spiral back to the start of the story – Jesus driving the animals out of the temple along with those who were selling them, then pouring out the coins and overturning the tables of the money changers.  Jesus saw that the house of God had been turned in to a house of trade or commerce.

Now if our bodies are the temple of the Holy Spirit, the home of God, is there anything going on in our lives that isn’t compatible with the house of God?  Lent is usually a time for self-examination, and for drawing closer to God.

And so I invite you to look at your hands again, as we spiral back to where we began.  We, together, are the Body of Christ, and your hands are part of this larger body.  Your hands are part of the dwelling place of God.

Is there anything that your hands have done, or are doing, that would make Jesus reach for his metaphorical whip?  Have your hands ever hurt another person?  Have your hands ever hurt yourself?  Have your hands ever exploited another person?  Have your hands ever closed a door, literally or metaphorically, that excluded someone?  Have your hands ever used cosmetics or cleaning products that destroy God’s creation?  Have your hands ever chosen a product off the shelf that exploits other people – that is made by people working in unsafe conditions, making less than a living wage?

Jesus taught that the two greatest commandments were to love God and to love our neighbour as ourselves.  That is how we are to live and that is how we are to serve God.  That is how we are called to use our hands.  These are the things that make ourselves, our bodies, a suitable home for God.

Jesus, while fully God, was also fully human, and he used his human body, his fleshy self, his hands and his feet and his eyes and his ears in ways that served God and made his human body a suitable home for God; and we are called to do the same.  May God give us the courage for self-examination; the wisdom to see where we are not living as the Body of Christ, and may God enable us to change our ways.  Amen.


(How I felt preparing the sermon...)

No comments:

Post a Comment