'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.'
--John 2: 13-22
What
would Jesus do? I used to see everybody
and his cousin wearing those WWJD writsbands or donning a bumper sticker on
their car. As Christians, that is a
question that should be at the heart of every decision we make: what would Jesus do? Would he listen? Would he show mercy and compassion? Would he make a whip of cords and turn over tables
in the church? The answer to all three of those questions is: yes!
Indeed.
The
Cleansing of the Temple is one of the most compelling stories in
Scripture. It shows up in all four
Gospels, which is rare, but here in the Fourth Gospel it is placed early in
Jesus’ ministry, right after he turns water
into wine, whereas the Synoptic Gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke place this
story during Holy Week—the action that finally makes the
scribes and Pharisees say “We’ve
had enough of this guy!”
Here we see a side of Jesus we don’t generally like
seeing. He’s angry, and we don’t
like him when he’s angry—Hulk Jesus, if you
will.
Alexander Smirnov's The Cleansing of the Temple
His
anger, though, is righteous, and it makes sense. He empties out the jars of coins from the
money-changers. Their practice was
perfectly legal, given that there were folks coming to Jerusalem from all over
the world for Passover and who needed to exchange their money like we would if we traveled abroad, but these guys were charging extra for the exchange and extorting their
customers. We see Jesus use a whip of cords to
drive away the livestock in the temple courtyard. Like the money-changers they had good, legal
reasons for being there because it was Passover and folks needed to buy an
animal to sacrifice. But the cost of one
of these animals was ridiculous when compared to a perfectly good ox or lamb
that could’ve been bought in the market
downtown. The reason was that these
animals were super special and extra holy because they were sold in the temple
court, which meant they were super extra expensive. It’s like going to a baseball game and buying a bottle of water for $10 inside when you could’ve
had the same bottle for $2 before you walked in. All of this corruption and extortion is what
drives Jesus into a frenzy. While it’s
jarring to see, we who read this story through the lens of time can’t
help but get kind of excited and even cheer Jesus on. Go get ‘em, Jesus! Cleanse that temple! Hulk-up and smash those bad guys! THAT is what Jesus would do!
Hulk Jesus SMASH!!
Still, I got to thinking: what would Jesus do were he to walk into a church nowadays? There is no temple anymore, after all, but
every church in the world considers itself God’s house,
right? So what would Jesus make of his
Father’s house if he showed up on a Sunday
morning? It’s
easy for us Christians to think that we don’t have anything in
common with those folks in the temple that Jesus drove out in his righteous
anger, but sometimes we do. We may not be extorting money like those folks, but we turn churches into dens of gossip,
or private social clubs. We keep people out or pay little attention to the visitor in our midst. We spend more time conversating about Gladys' new haircut and less time praying for her sick mother. What happened to “My house shall be called a house of
prayer,’ to borrow from Mark’s
version of this story? I’m guilty of it as much as anyone else.
Do you know how many times I neglect to welcome someone new to God's house on Sundays? Or how often I walk out of the office in the
evening and say to myself, “I didn’t
pray!”
We have four spaces on our grounds set apart for prayer and worship, and
too many times I walk in them to straighten up or refill pew cards, and I don’t
stop to pray because I figure it’s taking up time
that could be used for other, more productive things. I suspect if Jesus were to walk in he would turn over some tables and try to get me to wake up.
That’s
what the Cleansing of the Temple is: a
wake up call. It's unsettling and a bit annoying, but we need it. We’re
not meant to listen to this story and cheer Jesus on as he shows those bad guys who’s
boss. Instead, this story is our opportunity to ask what needs cleansing in our lives. Lent, after all, is the best possible time for this. Just like we don’t like to see Jesus get angry we also have a tendency not to like to be
challenged by him, yet here he is with whip in hand doing just that. Lent invites us to be challenged a bit more
and comforted a bit less, to be jarred loose of some of our old ways of
thinking and being, so that not only are our physical churches houses of prayer, but our
own souls—which Scripture reminds us are
themselves temples of the ever-living and indwelling God—may
also be cleansed of corruption, extortion, hatred, bitterness, and every other
kind of evil.
Remember
that we are the Body of Christ, and as such asking that question—What
would Jesus do?—is an important part of who we are,
for whatever the answer is to that question we must also be prepared to do it. Not only do we need Jesus to come in and
drive out those evil forces within us, but we must also be prepared ourselves
to stand against corruption, extortion, hatred, bitterness, and every other
kind of evil, to show the world a better way.
Occasionally, that does mean turning over a table or two, calling out
dysfunctional and harmful behaviors when we see them, and, like Jesus, calling
people away from their idols and pointing them toward God. In this season of preparation and
introspection may we all challenge ourselves and the world around us to move
from the status quo of those idols, to drive away harmful theologies and
practices that breed corruption and hatred, and to transform our souls into houses of prayer and our communities
into something that more closely resembles the Kingdom. That, I think, is what Jesus would do.
