2018-03-04 – Rev. Dr. Ryan Sato
DISCIPLES RE-MEMBERED
John 2:13-22
In our Lenten journey of following the way of the cross, we take a break today, from the chronological route (via the gospel of Mark) and do some theological reflection and ruminating for the next few weeks in the gospel of John.
You’ve heard us preachers say this before, but it’s good to repeat…Mark whisks us along the way with Jesus…immediately, immediately, immediately, – – zip, zap, zoop!
John takes us on a meandering way…way more thoughtful…pondering…reflecting…going deep…being mysterious…think Sunday afternoon stroll alongside the river VS downward mountain-biking and breaking a trail through the thickets and the brush.
Mark is on the ground…feet rambling along the gritty, dusty path…
John is 10,000 feet in the air…he’s sometimes called the “cosmic john”, or John the Divine…and his historical Christian symbol is the eagle. He soars!
And on this day, the gospel story-teller is soaring above the Jerusalem temple. The temple court is buzzing with noise, smells and drama…imagine Churchill square packed with thousands of people streaming in and out…tables set up with cash boxes, the fresh smells of cattle and sheep dung abound, different sellers and money exchangers doing their job, but doing it loudly…pleading for you to come to their shop because the savings and quality are better and these sheep have been grain fed with no artificial additives!
It’s Passover weekend…and business is booming! Yahweh worshippers flocking to the big city, it’s a fantastic festival weekend, and the devoted religious folk are celebrating that great era in their history when they were set free from slavery and began their exodus from Egypt to the promised land.
Who would have thought…who would have known that a lowly carpenter’s son was going to “unplug the party” and rage against what he saw as a new enslavement…this time not under the greedy eye of Pharoah, but this time under the watchful (and profiteering) eyes and pocketbooks of the religious rulers.
No one’s quite sure where he got the 3 leather cords from, but he braided them together and lo and behold he was snapping and cracking his way through the temple courts.
Whack! Crack! The cattle were mooing…the doves flee their cage…
The whipping Lord Jesus…unleashes his rage!
Snap! Crack! Clash! Clang! Not only is he whipping the animals, but he’s also flipping tables and toppling the coin piles and the shekel boxes. Merchants running hither and yon trying to grab their coins as they scatter and roll across the temple court floors amidst beggars and children who are loving this free for all, chaotic moment.
Jesus hollers: “STOP!! Take these things out of here! STOP! You’re making my Father’s house a marketplace!”
YOUR father’s house? Who does he think he is? Is this not Joseph the carpenter’s son?
Does he think HE owns the place? He’s gone mad!
The religious leaders hail the temple guards and after a few minutes of tustling and struggling, Jesus is wrestled into submission.
A group of nicely-robed leaders get in front of Jesus’ face…
they are appalled by his behaviour.
They sneer and with a heavy dose of scorn and shame interrogate him:
“What sign can you show US that gives you the right to do these things?!”
Jesus replies: “Destroy this Temple, and in three days I will raise it RIGHT BACK UP again.”
The accountant of the religious posse shrugs: “Sure! This Temple has been in the building stages for 46 years and YOU are going to put it BACK UP in just 3 days?”
At this point in the story, the Johannine narrator whispers in our ear…
“He was speaking of the temple of his body!
…and 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.
* * * * * *
What do we marvel at in today’s story?
I’d like to suggest that we marvel and ponder what the narrator has whispered in our ear:
“He was speaking of the temple of his body!”
For those in the temple courts that day, this 3-day temple wrecking/raising statement soars way over their heads…as I would imagine it would have with us in that moment…right?
But the good news for us is this “temple of Jesus’ body” declaration that echoes forth…
The location of God is NOT in buildings, shrines, synagogues and sanctuaries.
The location of God is in Jesus!
And we need to hear this again and again…because we are prone to wander, yes we feel it, prone to leave the one we LOVE!
And though we love our buildings of worship, the forms of our worship, the liturgy, the tradition, the beauty, the music, the songs, the symbols, the richness of this worship drama that unfolds in this place and other places of worship week after week…
The location of God is in Jesus! [Jesus’ body is the location of God]
And lest we fall into a new form of slavery…by depending on places of bricks and mortar…or holding too tightly to our rituals of right prayers, right litanies and right notes,
We need to be reminded that…
The location of God is in Jesus.
The temple of God is not a place made by human hands. The temple of God is Jesus’ body.
That’s why John 1:14 is soooo mind-blowing…for 1st century hearers…and 21st century hearers.
The Word became flesh and lived among us, (moved into the neighbourhood of our lives) and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father’s only son, full of grace and truth.
The temple of God is Jesus’ body.
And if the very place of God is in Jesus…
We have the very place of God with us! [the location of God is in us!]
This is why the early church, encouraged by the apostle Paul, called themselves the “body of Christ.”
And thus we not only see the glory of the father…we can be [with] the glory of God…a people full of grace and truth because Jesus…who is the fullest measure of grace and truth… dwells with us.
>>>>>>>>> But… wait a minute….if that’s true…how come we’re not nicer?
CRACK. SNAP. POP!
That’s why we need the whip part of today’s story.
We live in a world where it’s so easy to find new enslavements.
Yes, we have the living Christ, dwelling with us, through the power and presence of the Holy Spirit…but we’re just so darn good at getting ourselves enslaved…to the ways of the world, to the ways of greed, power, subversive or not-so-subversive ways of control in a dog-eat-dog economy.
So the whip of Jesus wakes us up…and reminds us that place, monies, right rituals, won’t save us and satisfy.
And we’re urged by the Spirit to keep on coming back to Jesus, seeking forgiveness for the ways we find ourselves subdued by the schemes and empty promises of the world…
and we set our feet back on the paths of grace and truth.
AND…it’s a group effort. We shouldn’t do this alone.
I’m drawn to the twice-repeated phrase in today’s story: “his disciples remembered.”
And I’d like to take that in a couple of quick directions…
–firstoff, Jesus’ disciples remembered this in community. They were together when they remembered the zeal and the resurrection power of Jesus. They remembered that they would never be alone again…that because Jesus was raised…there was a new way, a new life that would be with them in their present moments…and forever more. That promise is true for us too!
–secondly, the disciples were re-membered. One of the Communion rituals that has informed by imagination over the past several years is one that puts a dash ( – ) in “re – member.” In Christ, and through Christ, we are re-connected…
and this can powerfully happen at the Table of our Lord.
By participating in Jesus’ exhortation to “do this in remembrance of me” we experience his promise that we will be drawn and woven together in a fellowship encounter that Jesus experiences in his own community of fellowship (community of God, Father, Son & Holy Spirit).
And so…this double remembrance…is a life-giving, spiritually-forming part of coming to the table month after month.
We remember that Christ is with us…that we are the temple of God, that we have the very place of God with us (and even “within us” as we take in the bread/body of Christ and are filled in a tangible way!).
We re-member ourselves as the body of Christ. We are re-connected at this table…locally and globally as the church. We can’t do this “put the Christ life on display” in our own strength. This was not meant to be a solo venture. As we eat and drink at the table today, in the midst of all our differences, we seek to live out the promise and proclamation that we more powerfully put the life of Christ on display as a people VS as a person.
O Come, O Come Emmanuel.
Ransom us, save us anew, and empower us to walk as a people full of grace and truth, because the life of Christ has found a welcome home with all of us…
WE ARE THE BODY OF CHRIST.
Re-member!