Overturned

Overturned

Mark 11:15-19

April 9, 2020 (Maundy Thursday) • Mount Pleasant UMC

Well, here we are, together virtually during this Holy Week. Thanks for joining me on this Maundy Thursday evening, even if we’re only together online. I never imagined when I began pastoral ministry nearly twenty-seven years ago that I would ever be doing Holy Week services like this. This will be the first Maundy Thursday I have ever celebrated without face-to-face communion and certainly the first one I’ve ever done from home. Of course, Maundy Thursday isn’t solely about communion. In fact, the traditional reading for this night, while taking place on the last night Jesus spent with his disciples doesn’t include the story of the first communion at all. The word “maundy” is a corruption of the Latin word “mandatum,” the first word in the usual reading for tonight. John 13 tells about Jesus washing the feet of his disciples, giving them what he says is an example for their future ministry, and then he tells them this: “A new command [mandatum, mandate] I give you: love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another” (John 13:34-35). He doesn’t say they will know if you break bread and drink Welch’s grape juice. He doesn’t say they will know if you go to a church building on a Thursday evening. He says they will know you follow him if you love others. The core of this night, the core of this faith is loving others the way God loves you.

I’ve grown up, and many of you have, too, knowing “God is love.” And it seems I have always been surrounded by pictures of the loving Jesus, holding a lamb in his arms or hugging a child on his lap, always with a soft glow around him. And we do get lots of images of Jesus loving others, but then you come to the story we read tonight, the story we have used images from in the intro video every week during this series. It’s the story of an angry Jesus overturning tables in the Temple, a story that always reminds me of a conversation that took place many years ago in my dorm room at Ball State. I was leading a small group Bible study and we were actually looking at this story that evening. I don’t remember the exact question I asked, but we were imagining how Jesus was angrily tossing the tables and cages around there in the Temple courts. And Brent, who was raised in the Quaker tradition and was pacifist by nature, was really struggling with the whole discussion. Finally, he said, “I just can’t see Jesus ever getting angry. There has to be something else going on here.” He knew the loving Jesus, the peaceful Jesus; he wasn’t sure about the angry Jesus. So, as we continue to think about those times when it seems Jesus is behaving badly, we have to ask: Is Jesus angry or loving? Is he busy overturning tables or is he washing feet?

I’m aware that there is a difference between the way John tells this story and the way the rest of the Gospels tell it. John says this happened early on in the ministry; he records in chapter 2 of his Gospel. John says Jesus made a whip of cords and used it to drive everyone out. The other Gospels—Matthew, Mark and Luke—are unified, as they usually are, in saying this happened during the last week of Jesus’ life, early on in the week. Mark, in fact, says it happened on Monday morning after Palm Sunday. Luke and Matthew aren’t all that clear about when it happened, but none of those three say anything about a whip of cords. They just say Jesus came into the Temple courts and turned over tables and ran out the moneychangers and those who were selling things. A whole lot of scholars think John just has it misplaced, that he’s put it in the wrong order, and I suppose that’s possible. But what if it happened twice? There are enough differences between the accounts that maybe Jesus came to the Temple early on in his ministry, saw what was going on and cleared it out. But then three years later, the religious leaders had started doing the same thing and he had to do it again (cf. Wessel, “Luke,” Expositor’s Bible Commentary, Vol. 8, pg. 727). It’s kind of like how you tell your kids not to do something and then a little while later, they’re doing it again and so what do you say? “What did I tell you?” That’s kind of the vibe I get from Jesus here. “What did I tell you?” Now, I won’t go to the mat for that interpretation, but it’s possible, and the bigger question anyway is why is Jesus so angry in this moment? What is it that causes him—either once or twice—to violently clear the Temple courts?

So, let’s use our imaginations tonight and picture ourselves coming down the side of the Mount of Olives—a steep climb, the same route Jesus had ridden down the day before, and he enters the city and the Temple complex through a wide double gate, which leads into a dark, shadowy staircase and that leads up to the main part of the Temple complex. This gate, by the way, is now sealed off. But when Jesus comes out of that staircase, he is in a wide open area, where anyone is allowed to be. He would then go through a fence or gate into a place called the Court of the Gentiles. This was the outermost part of the Temple, the place where those who were not Jews but wanted to worship their God could come and pray. It’s open, sort of a like a market, and not his day, when he comes in, it is a market. Jesus’ ears pick up the noise from the moneychangers and the salesmen, the clanging of coins and the haggling over cost. His nose is assaulted by the smell of the animals, a lot of them at this time of year packed into small spaces, hot and sweaty (cf. Wessel 727; Card, Mark: The Gospel of Passion, pg. 140). When he looks around, he sees vendors selling the animals to be used in the sacrifices. You had to offer an animal without blemish for sacrifice, and especially if you were traveling a long distance to Passover, it was just easier to buy an animal there than risk that one from home might get injured on the journey. And when you visited the Temple you had to pay the Temple tax; we know Jesus was asked about that one time as well (cf. Matthew 17:24). But you couldn’t pay it with the coins that rattled around in your pockets; that was Roman coinage, pagan money. That you used to do daily business, but you couldn’t spend it in the Temple courts. For there, you had to have a shekel, but not even just any shekel. You had to have the ones made in Tyre, which were made from the purest silver and were closest in value to the older Hebrew shekel. Now, some have said (and I’ve even preached) that Jesus’ anger came from these moneychangers ripping people off by charging high exchange fees, but the more I’ve read, the more I’ve realized that’s not true. (Sorry if you’ve heard that from me before!) The fees were actually pretty small (cf. Card 140), and so I think Jesus’ anger actually comes from a much deeper place and for a much higher reason.

I know when I was younger, I learned somewhere that this passage was about not selling stuff in church. I think that was mainly from the people at church who didn’t want to buy my fundraiser stuff from school. But I also had a gentleman in one of my churches who wouldn’t stay for church dinners if they were fundraisers because he believed this story prohibited selling anything in church, including chicken and noodles. But, as N. T. Wright says, “That’s a suspiciously modern attitude” (Wright, Mark for Everyone, pg. 151). Jesus is not trying to prohibit potlucks or missions auctions or fundraisers in the church building. He’s really not that concerned about the actual building, though he does stop people from taking short cuts through the Temple courts while they’re doing their errands (11:16). That’s disrespectful, using the Temple for your own convenience. But what Jesus is mainly concerned with is what the Temple represents. It’s supposed to be, as he says, a place of prayer for all people. Jesus is angry, but not with the moneychangers or those who were selling doves. He’s angry with what has happened to something that was supposed to be so good. He’s angry with what has happened to something that was supposed to be inclusive of everyone, welcoming to all nations. Jesus is angry with his own people and the ways they had corrupted what God intended the Temple to be. If this was the place where God dwelt, it was supposed to represent access to God for everyone. But “it had come to symbolize not God’s welcome to the nations but God’s exclusion of them” (Wright 152).

Now, here’s something I had never noticed until this Lent, and someone else actually pointed it out to me. If you remember, last Sunday I talked briefly about the time Jesus took his disciples up to Caesarea Philippi, the place with all the pagan temples. If you don’t remember, or you missed it, good news—the video is still there and you can go back and listen to it! But Jesus goes to Caesarea Philippi for a staff retreat of sorts and in the midst of all those pagan temples, those places of worship for false gods, he…talks to his disciples. In the midst of all that paganism, what he wants to do is clear up who they think he is. Here’s what I had never noticed before: Jesus tore up his own temple but not the pagan ones. He tore up the Temple dedicated to the true God and left the false temples alone. I honestly am not quite sure what to make of that, but it’s true. I think, though, it may have something to say to us about the way we treat those who are not yet following Jesus. Sometimes we think we have to overturn every unjust law or fight against everyone and everything that seems unChristian. I’m wondering if Jesus is more concerned about the way we live than the way we try to force others to live. Or, let me say it this way: those pagan temples were doing what they were designed to do, right or wrong, they were being true to their nature. Why do we expect people who don’t follow Jesus to live like him? They’re not going to. And why don’t we expect those who follow Jesus to live more like him than we do? Which Temple are we tearing up? And is that the one Jesus would tear up?

I’ve said several times during this season: Jesus argued with the religious leaders, those who thought they had it all together, and he tore up their Temple. But to those who were on the outside, those who were “sinners” and outcasts, he approached them with love. Is Jesus angry or loving? He is both, and he uses the appropriate reaction for each situation he found himself in. But there is only one of those reaction he told us to copy. On this night, the last night he spent with his closest friends, he doesn’t talk about the previous Monday, and he doesn’t speak about his betrayer with anger. No, when he wants them to copy him, he is washing feet—even the feet of Judas. He’s doing what no one else wanted to do. He’s serving, kneeling, caring, loving. He’s being the Messiah he came to be. And he calls you and me to do the same—to extend his service, kneeling, loving and caring into the world. It somehow seems easier (and sometimes it even seems more satisfying) to join Jesus in a project of tearing up Temples. But, friends, that’s not what he told us to do. That’s not the action he told us to copy. That’s not the way he expects us to carry on his mission. He wants us to wash feet.

To understand this story, we have to understand what it was that made Jesus angry. He’s not angry about a social issue. He’s not angry about someone misbehaving. He’s not angry that the streets are filled with partiers for the festival. He’s angry that his Father’s house is not what it should be; more to the point, he’s angry that it’s not a place where people can find God, where can find their way home. He’s angry that in the very place people come to find God, they are instead finding a shopping mall and a bank. So, two things come to mind out of that. First, are we angry about the things that make God angry? Or, to put it another way using the words of Richard Stearn, the former head of World Vision, “Break my heart with the things that break the heart of God.” I know I get angry about all sorts of things; I might have a little bit of road rage from time to time and don’t you dare get in the express line in front of me if you have more items than are specified! I get angry and often have to stop myself from saying things, and then the still, small voice of the Holy Spirit whispers to me: “Are you wasting your anger?” Break my heart with the things that break the heart of God, and those things don’t make God angry. People prevented from finding their way home—that makes God angry. Which leads me to the second observation: is there anything we do individually or, even more, anything we do as a church that keeps people from finding their way home? I believe with all that is in me that everything we do needs to be evaluated against that standard: does this in some way help people to follow Jesus? If not, we seriously need to re-evaluate why we even do it. Maybe it needs to be overturned. Is your heart broken by the things that break God’s heart, and do you help people find their way home to the Father?

This night, of all nights, the night before Jesus goes to the cross—this night is all about vital things, the most important things. Break my heart, O God, with the things that break your heart. Jesus, let us never stand in the way of someone finding their way to you. May that be our prayer tonight and always. Let’s pray.