“Discipleship: The New Exodus”
John 2:13-22
Allen Huff
Jonesborough Presbyterian Church
3/4/18
Estimates are
that in the early years of the first century, over 100,000 people traveled to
Jerusalem for Passover. That more than doubled the city’s population for at
least a week. Think of a whole week of Storytelling Festival with 10,000 people
in downtown Jonesborough, all day/every day. Then take away certain refinements
– like plumbing.
Pilgrims to
Jerusalem, many of whom traveled for days or even weeks, had a deep-seated hunger
and thirst for both the process and purpose of Passover. The story of the
Exodus defined the Jewish community. And the people kept the story alive through
this yearly ritual.
It’s a human thing to create
rituals and celebrations in both religious and secular life. And when those
rituals and celebrations are questioned, when our defining assumptions are
challenged, human beings tend to get defensive, even to the point of
persecuting those who dare to threaten some sacred status quo. We are loath to
admit to ourselves when something’s amiss with our comfortable, cultural
arrangements. If there’s something wrong with the way we live in the world,
there must be something wrong with us. There must be something incomplete about
us. And if that’s the case, who are we?
An example of the consequences of tolerance
for cultural inertia is to feel good about feeding the poor without questioning
and challenging the systemic causes of poverty itself. Conservative columnist
Scott Jennings challenged a cultural mindset last week when he asked, “Are we
trying to win gun battles in school hallways, or to prevent school shootings…in
the first place.”1 Even to try to begin working toward solutions for
the most serious problems requires the boldness of Moses to lead and the trust
of Israel to follow. And remember, in the desert, the Hebrews, wandering and
afraid, begin to crave the fleshpots of Egypt. They curse Moses for ripping
them away from security and normalcy.
Change never comes easily. And systemic
change doesn’t come just by passing new laws. Now, I’m not saying that laws are
unimportant, but lasting transformation comes through an experience of Exodus,
an experience of death and resurrection. The law given to Moses would have meant
very little apart from the experience of the Exodus. That says to me that the
work of prophets and prophetic communities is to lead God’s people into and
through transformational experiences for the sake of all Creation.
John 2:13-22
13The
Passover of the Jews was near, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. 14In
the temple he found people selling cattle, sheep, and doves, and the money
changers seated at their tables. 15Making a whip of cords, he drove
all of them out of the temple, both the sheep and the cattle. He also poured
out the coins of the money changers and overturned their tables.
16He
told those who were selling the doves, “Take these things out of here! Stop
making my Father’s house a marketplace!”
17His
disciples remembered that it was written, “Zeal for your house will consume
me.”
18The
Jews then said to him, “What sign can you show us for doing this?”
19Jesus
answered them, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.”
20The
Jews then said, “This temple has been under construction for forty-six years,
and will you raise it up in three days?”
21But
he was speaking of the temple of his body. 22After he was raised
from the dead, his disciples remembered that he had said this; and they
believed the scripture and the word that Jesus had spoken.
When Jesus storms the temple during
Passover and drives out the moneychangers and the sacrificial livestock, he
calls into question more than a thousand years of religious and cultural
heritage.
He challenges the legitimacy of generations
of biblical faith and practice.
He disrupts the systemic inequities
that benefit the wealthy and the powerful and that allow them to exploit the
poor, the hungry, the lonely, the sick, the very young, and the very old.
With a grace that is as disturbing
as it is amazing, Jesus declares that the very institution that purports to trust,
bear witness to, and celebrate God, are actually doing more to deny God and to withhold
holiness and joy from the world.
When Jesus clears the temple, he
inaugurates a new Exodus. He says loud and clear, “Let my people go!”
The rituals of our faith are meant
to invite people into God’s presence and grace, not to manipulate God’s people
through guilt and fear. Jesus incarnates the psalmist’s words, “For you have no
delight in sacrifice; if I were to give a burnt offering, you would not be
pleased. The sacrifice acceptable to God is a broken spirit; a broken and
contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.” (Psalm 51:16-17)
In
his Passover outburst, Jesus declares that the whole sacrificial system is not
only obsolete, but antithetical to who God is. This radical moment prepares us
to understand that the crucifixion of Jesus reveals our bloodlust, not God’s. And the resurrection strengthens us for
the Exodus of dying to self and rising to the new life revealed and offered to
us and to all Creation in Jesus.
I still hear many
Presbyterians call the area in the front of the sanctuary an “altar.” But in
reformed ecclesiology, we have no altars. We have no need for them. Because of
Easter, pastors stand in a chancel, a
place not of sacrifice to a God who must be appeased, but a place of
proclamation of the good news that in Jesus Christ, God’s own heart is being opened
to us and poured out for us.
In
just a few minutes we will celebrate the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper. And
the purpose of this 2000-year-old ritual is to connect us to the life of Jesus.
In the sacrament, we declare that as followers of Jesus, we are called to his
outpouring work of resurrection and renewal, not of sacrificing livestock. This
meal strengthens us for following Jesus through the wilderness and into the
ever-present household of God.
When we take the
bread and the cup, we remind ourselves, and we declare to each other and to the
world, that Jesus is cleansing the temples of our bodies and minds. He’s
cleansing us of everything that makes fearful, greedy, and vengeful. He’s
cleansing us of everything that can make us irrelevant in the world. We also acknowledge
that for him to purge us of those things can be as traumatic as purging the
temple was for the moneychangers and the Jewish leaders.
As Jesus-followers,
our lives are not our own. So, before any of us can belong authentically to our
families, our communities, or our nations, we belong to Jesus first. All else
must be rearranged so that our strength and our identity begin with Jesus, whose
authority comes from his fearless love for God and for all that God loves.
When you come to the
table this morning, may you taste and see the goodness of the Lord purging your
body, mind, and soul for living an entirely new life, a life in service to one
who does not need you to kill anything or anyone in order to prove your loyalty
and love.
Instead, you live in
service to God, who is eager to make alive all that is dead and to make new all
that is old.
As disciples of
Jesus, we live in a new Exodus. In this wilderness of blessing, God, through Jesus
Christ, in the power of the Holy Spirit, is redeeming us and restoring us to
the wholeness out of which we were created in the first place.
All thanks and praise
be to God.
Charge
(Prior
to Benediction):
The sacrificial system was far too easy:
Kill something, and appease an angry God.
We’re called to do the more difficult
thing.
We’re called to do the opposite.
We’re
called to die –
die to self and to rise to Christ,
through whom we are being made whole ourselves,
and signs of wholeness for the world.
You are being cleansed, renewed, and
called out.
May
your life be a journey –
an Exodus into God’s shalom.
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