Broadway Christian Church · Columbia, Missouri

Morning Worship · March 15, 2009

Third Sunday in Lent

Prayer of the Day

God of love, source of all order and meaning; we gather to give praise and thanksgiving to you for your love. We experience, in Jesus, a love perfectly revealed to all humankind. Lord, we need your presence to be complete. We need your living word to direct us in the paths of righteousness. We trust in your mercy as we are born anew to a living hope.  Amen.

Scripture

John 2:13-22

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

Message

Cleansing the Temple

Larry Gallamore

Today’s Scriptural story is earth shattering.  Jesus is acting very human.  His strong, passionate feeling about the temple and what should happen inside are coming through.  No matter what faith one may possess, a temple is a sacred place. It’s a place where people come to make contact with God and experience grace and love.

Today we see Jesus angry.  Although it’s not a pretty sight, it is necessary.  The temple merchants are in for a surprise.  Selling, marketing, and merchandising are not what temples are constructed for.  They are for worship.

Some folks have expressed to me, over the years, their delight in seeing Jesus angry.  They were so used to seeing Jesus as gentle and meek.  Seeing him angry makes it easier for us to identify with him.  We Christians know about anger.  We, too, are angry when we see a temple being used for making money instead of making disciples.  Temples are not in the buying and selling business.  The temple represents the presence of God, one who can never be bought or sold, not even for thirty pieces of silver as Judas sadly discovered.

Temples represent God’s presence, God’s availability to all who seek God. They represent God’s love for all who seek it.

When Jesus walked into the temple that day, he soon realized something had happened to the place.  He took one look and immediately realized the temple had become the marketplace.  It had become, perhaps, the first Super Wal-Mart.  It was a full-service place including many changers, check-out aisles, the whole nine yards.

A few years ago, there was a church in Texas that offered a drive-through worship service.  You simply drove up to the window; put in your offering; and were handed a bulletin, sermon, a printed hymn, and prepackaged communion.  Thank God the novelty soon wore off.  It didn’t last long.  I suspect God didn’t show up.  No doubt it was too impersonal.  God doesn’t like impersonal things.

These people, no doubt, had good intentions, but so did the people in the temple in Jesus’ day.  Something that started out as a good thing became an evil thing.  Jesus was not pleased.

During this wonderful season of self-examination, we must ask, “Do we do things that are displeasing to God?”  There are some things that need to be driven out of our lives, out of our churches, and out of our communities.

The temple merchants are easy to see. They misrepresent our faith and steer people down the wrong road.  Harder to see is the desecration of the temple of God through false teachings and false example.  If they see us living like those who don’t know God, criticizing and condemning others, selfishly thinking only of ourselves, and leading others down the wrong pathway of life, others have no way of knowing we are Christians.  

A favorite hymn of many people is “They’ll Know We Are Christians by Our Love.”  The Spirit of God can do for us only what it can do through us.  We are governed by our goodness.  Unless humanity is governed by the Spirit of goodness, its acts become more dangerous as its knowledge expands.  We are to be peacemakers.  Peacemakers are called the children of God.  We never associate warriors with the Divine Kingdom.  Struggle and strife are outside the Kingdom.  They cannot enter in because of their confusion.

We are to love our enemies, do good to them that do us evil, for this is to manifest the Spirit of love which is God.  Divine love encompasses everything in arms which are all-inclusive.  We are to be examples.

We are to stay with the truth.  The teachings of Jesus will guide us into all truth.  Jesus knew that the issues of life are from within.  If a person is clean in the mind, he or she is clean in the heart.  If one thinks evil, his or her acts will be evil.  The principle here is “as within, so without.”  We cannot help but act on what we continuously think about all day long.  Notice when people get angry.  Many work themselves into a frenzy.  The anger inside is coming out.  “As within, so without.”

Years ago, as a teenager, I was sitting in church, and I remembered an old-fashioned preacher who said, “Be sure your sins will find you out.”  I didn’t know then, but I know now what he meant.  Our sins will always expose us.  What’s inside will come out.  You can only hide evil actions for a period of time.  Jesus is suggesting in this text that we cleanse our hearts, minds, and souls from all evil.

The same principle is true for gossip.  If you gossip, sooner or later you are going to have to face the music.  Then you are exposed.  

There is an ancient story of a woman who came to a holy man confessing she had been a terrible gossip.  She asked what she might do to be redeemed.  The holy man said, “Go out and gather 12 baskets full of feathers.”  

The woman worked several days to gather 12 baskets of feathers and then returned to the holy man.  He took the woman and the 12 baskets up a high mountain road.  When they reached the top of the mountain, the holy man proceeded to empty all 12 baskets of feathers, and the wind blew them all over the earth.  He said to her, “Now go find all those feathers and bring them back to me.”

The woman cried, “That’s impossible.”

The holy man replied, “Indeed, it is, and it is impossible to take back all the bad things you say about another.”  

We must cleanse our hearts of all gossip.

In our world today, we find many cases of people who have gotten themselves into all kinds of evil because they were not thinking straight.  Bernie Madoff is a good example.  People trusted him with their life savings, and he betrayed them through greed.  Be sure your sins will find you out.

We’ve all watched parents in bitter divorces, who destroyed their children because they put them right in the middle of everything that was happening.  When their children reacted badly later in life, it was too late to change their tune.

The Bible is clear.  If you have something against your brother or sister, God knows it.  God sees in secret.  God says go work it out with them.  The indwelling Spirit that lives in the secret places of our lives is ever with us.  God wants peace.  God wants everyone to live in peace.  

According to the Bible, forgiveness is available for all of us.  In fact, the Lord’s Prayer says we will be forgiven as we forgive.  That’s why we need to forgive others.  What a load is dropped from our shoulders when we realize that all our sins are forgiven.  All of us have fallen short of the glory of God.  We all understand the frailties of human nature and learn to overlook much.

As God has forgiven, we forgive.  As God has loved, we love.  In fact, the two greatest commandments are, “Love God and love others.  On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.”  

Love is a complete unity with life, and we cannot enter this state unless we are in unity with all that lives.  To love God alone is not sufficient.  It’s not enough, but to love God and to love others is to live the teachings of Jesus.

Some will ask, “Does this mean we are to accept what is not good?”  Of course not!  It is not necessary for one to be a doormat to prove that God is love.  

We should be wise in the ways of the world as well as imbued with Divine Wisdom.  We are not to mistake a counterfeit for the real nor accept any evil doctrine.  

The truth is positive but not combative.  It is sure of itself but not argumentative.  It deserts dishonesty and receives honesty, loves sincerity and abhors deceit.  Above all else, the truth is wise.  It represents the all-seeing eyes from which nothing is hidden.  

May God lead us into all truth during this wonderful Lenten season.

So be it. Amen.

Benediction

Living Water, we come before you as vessels who have been designed and shaped by your loving hand. We come to the fountain of life and holiness to be filled with the cleansing waters of your Spirit and Truth. Thank you for your restorative powers. Take us, mold us, use us, and fill us. Then tip us over and pour us out. Amen.