Finding Faith ... in knowing that God has left the temple to live in the body

EDITOR'S NOTE: On Oct. 23, 2021, I was ordained as a minister of word and sacrament in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America and installed as pastor at Faith Lutheran Church in Wolverton, Minn. I also served the same church for four years from October 2017 to October 2021 a synodical authorized minister. The journey together these past seven years has been an amazing one, full of learning, growing and a deepening of my theological mind. This sermon took place on the Third Sunday of Lent, March 3, 2024.

This week's gospel: John 2:13-22

Jesus Cleanses the Temple

13 The Passover of the Jews was near, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. 14 In the temple he found people selling cattle, sheep, and doves and the money changers seated at their tables. 15 Making a whip of cords, he drove all of them out of the temple, with the sheep and the cattle. He also poured out the coins of the money changers and overturned their tables. 16 He told those who were selling the doves, “Take these things out of here! Stop making my Father’s house a marketplace!” 17 His disciples remembered that it was written, “Zeal for your house will consume me.” 18 The Jews then said to him, “What sign can you show us for doing this?” 19 Jesus answered them, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.” 20 The Jews then said, “This temple has been under construction for forty-six years, and will you raise it up in three days?” 21 But he was speaking of the temple of his body. 22 After 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.

The message:

All scripture is contextual, right?

Meaning that depending upon the context in which you are currently living … the circumstances surrounding you … the way you hear a scripture is going to hit you in the heart … differently.

Yes, context matters. … And so I wonder how today’s gospel text is hitting home for each of us in this Sanctuary today?

I know given our current circumstances at Faith Lutheran, the gospel was very revealing to me. … Because in a couple of Sundays from now -- on March 17 -- we will experience an important milestone in our congregation. 

Pastor Melissa, who has been guiding us through the Rural Revival study process will be back among us, preaching and reporting back on her findings in regards to what people are thinking about our past, present and future. 

Context, right? … On that day we will be talking about the central function of this church in our faith. … Just as in today’s gospel Jesus was talking about the specific place of the temple in the Jews’ faith in the first century.

Because at its heart … that is what today’s gospel is about. The temple, and the body. … More specifically Jesus’ body.

It’s easy to get distracted in this text by Jesus’ showy, angry outburst. After all, we don’t see many scenes in which our Lord loses his patience with his beloved children.

But this is a memorable one, isn’t it!

Jesus grabs a whip to usher the cattle and sheep out of the temple, and then rushes over to the money changers, flips over their tables, and finally orders those selling doves out of his “Father’s house.”

And the easy understanding of this passage is that Jesus is upset about the actual acts of commerce taking place inside the temple.

Even our bulletin tries to make this passage solely about the commerce taking place: “When Jesus throws the merchants out of the temple, he is defending the worship of God alone and rejecting the easy commerce and profit-making that can become our Gods.”

But if we make that our principle understanding of what’s taking place in this critical scene in Jesus’ ministry, then we are missing Jesus’ point altogether.

We could go down a very deep rabbit hole this morning discussing the place of the temple in first century Judaism. … But in the interests of time, please just know that it’s critical to understand this piece before we can move on. 

Jesus isn’t angry specifically about the animals being in the temple. You see the layout of temples 2,000 years ago would have meant that the animals and money changers would have been located in a courtyard area, per se.

Not specifically in the holy area of the temple. … They wouldn’t have been parked out there in the narthex in our 21 century church. … It would have been more like out there on our sidewalks.

And those selling the livestock and exchanging money served a very important purpose in first century Judaism. … Being that the Jewish faith was still very much a sacrifice-driven religion, the animals for sale would have been available to those living in Jerusalem, who no longer were connected to their rural roots.

And if you remember not that long ago when we were talking about denari, the principal monetary unit the Romans used? … And which wasn’t allowed in the temple?

Well, the money changers would have been in the temple courtyard to allow people with denaris to exchange them for shekels, coins they could take into the temple.

So, with that context, we can understand that Jesus wasn’t just angry that there were animals or bankers in the temple. …. What he was angry with is the fact that the Jewish religious leaders had made their faith all about their temple. 

Despite that scriptures were very specific about the fact God was a god of the people, living among them wherever they were, the Jewish religious leaders had developed a religion in which they had created barriers between the poorest and most marginalized people of the faith.

Oh, you want to come into the temple to see God? … Well you have to bring an offering first, and if you don’t have one, well lucky you, we have some right here in the temple courtyard. 

What’s that? … Oh you only have a few Roman denari. I’m sorry but you can’t enter the temple with those. … You’ll have to exchange them out here for shekels … and, oh, there’s a little exchange rate you have to pay. 

That was the commerce for which Jesus was upset in today’s scripture. The commerce that had built a wall between the haves and the have nots. … And that is why he loses his cool. … None of this outburst was solely about the sales taking place.

Rather … here is the most important turning point in this scripture today. … After Jesus has chased out the livestock, and upended the bankers’ tables, the religious leaders say: “What sign can you show us for doing this?” 

In other words: What gives you the right to cause this ruckus, you upstart, troublemaking rabbi? … This is a holy place, and we are following the scriptures to the letter of the law. So you’re the one making a mockery of it. … What gives, Jesus?

And this is the big reveal, Faith Family. … The moment in which history turns … or in this case, the moment in which the direction of Jesus’ followers turns.

Jesus looks back to the Jewish religious leaders and says … This temple … is nothing. … Tear down this stone temple … and I’ll rebuild it in three days. … In fact, in a short while, exactly that is going to happen. 

Because, you see, Faith Family … what Jesus is telling the religious leaders is that … God is no longer housed only here in this stone temple. That may have once been the case with the first temple in Jerusalem, but it’s not the case any longer. 

Jesus continues, telling the religious clerics that what they’re missing is that God is no longer only in the physical temple structure.

But rather, God now is in here … too. … God has now moved into the body. … Jesus tells them: My body, as I stand here. … I am now the temple, and there are no barriers to access for anyone. 

Remember the scripture line: “But he was speaking of the temple of his body.” 

Faith Family, from that moment forward, all of Judaism changes … and for that matter … all of Christianity changes. 

When God set foot on this planet in the form of Jesus, a mortal human who could love and cry and bleed and die … that is the moment that God stopped residing in only places of worship and moved out into the very world in which we all inhabit.

Humans will always be human. We can only understand what we can understand. … We have a finite capacity to know the world.

And so the religious leaders in that temple in Jesus’ day may not have been maliciously placing roadblocks in the way of their faithful. … It does not necessarily mean that they were being malicious. But they were missing God’s point.

Our God isn’t a standoffish god, who requires us to travel great distances to see him in the temple. Our God no longer requires sacrifices before we can obtain access to him.

Not any longer. … God loved us so much that he came to live among us … in flesh and blood. … A mortal man who would go to his death for our salvation.

And in doing so transferred God from living in the temple … to God living in the flesh.

God living in our bodies, wherever we take them. … To work, to school, to the grocery store, to the park, to the ball game. 

God is everywhere we go, no matter where it is. And it is very, very important that we remember … that was the very point of God becoming incarnate. … God taking on the form of Jesus. … To live among us, every day and wherever we go. 

Faith Family, we have some very important discussions coming up for us, don’t we? … We have been talking for months … even a couple of years … about what will become of us. … What is the future of Faith Lutheran Church?

What will church here look like in the future? Is there something we need to do differently to become as vibrant as we once were? What are we doing wrong? … And what are we doing right?

And I don’t know the answers to a lot of those questions. … But I do know this for certain, because Jesus reminds us of it in today’s scripture … remember, context is everything right?

“But he was speaking of the temple of his body.”

Faith Family, whatever decisions are made about the future of the four walls of this beautiful church are important. … I will not downplay that. 

But what I hope we keep in mind that is more important is that each of us … you sitting there in the pews and me standing here … are in ourselves the temple of God. … God resides in us wherever we go.

And so it is imperative that no matter what happens in the coming weeks, months and even years here at Faith Lutheran, the future of our church lies in here … in our hearts and minds and actions … in each of us. … Not in the four walls surrounding us.

And that is the Good News for this Third Sunday in Lent, March 3, 2024. Amen.