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...)
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