Sermon 3/19/06
Business as Usual - John 2:13-22
(view lectionary notes for this text)
What does Jesus look like? In the past few years, different news programs have carried stories about what Jesus may have looked like. Using different computer programs, we can guess what his complexion might have been, what his facial features might have been, what he might have looked like, what any man of his age living in the Middle East might have looked like. The images these programs come up with aren’t probably the images of Jesus we usually have in our minds. If you think of the most traditional image of Jesus, you might think of a blond-haired man with blue eyes and a fair complexion. Walter Sallman’s painting The Head of Christ is one of the most popular images of Jesus, with possibly more than 500 million reproductions in existence, the face of Jesus, staring peacefully and serenely into the distance. (1)
Such an image of Jesus is a familiar and comforting image. I can think of an image of Jesus praying in the Garden of Gethsemane that hung always over the couch in my grandparents’ living room. In familiar images we find a sense of closeness – we know who that Jesus is. But it is hard to envision this Jesus – gentle Jesus – being the same Jesus we read of in our gospel text today. Jesus enters the temple and witnesses the sellers and money changers, and, making a whip of cords, he drives them and the animals out of the temple. He pours out the coins of the money changers and knocks over their tables, yelling, “Get out of here – stop making my Father’s house a market place!” Suddenly Jesus is not looking so serene, not acting so safe, not sitting still enough to be captured in a painting that we’d hang in our living rooms.
And that, I think, is exactly what today’s text is about: the gap, the sometimes large and increasing gap between the real thing and how we present it to ourselves and others in the life of the church. We read in the very first chapter of the Bible that we have been created in God’s image, a precious gift of love. But from chapter two onward, we read story after story of idolatry – the human act of trying to make God in our image instead of the other way around. So let’s look again at our text, and see exactly what it is that makes Jesus so upset – what is it that drives him to cause such a scene?
When Jesus enters the temple, he sees what would have been a familiar scene: He sees people selling animals – sheep and cattle and doves. He sees money changers exchanging currency. These people – the sellers and the money changers – were all filling necessary roles. The Laws of Moses were very clear about what kinds of sacrifices people needed to offer on the various occasions in their lives. If you’re familiar with the first five books of the Bible, you’ll know that sacrifices were required for almost every event in a typical life for a faithful Jew. But there was only one temple, one place where sacrifices were made: in Jerusalem. So pilgrims coming to sacrifice would either have to travel with their animals, which would be difficult, or buy animals on site from the sellers. Likewise, the only currency that could be used in the temple was Jewish currency, again, according to the law of Moses. But currency used for transactions in regular society were from the Roman Empire. So Jews would have to exchange their money at the temple of the acceptable Jewish coinage. Everything that Jesus saw going on in the temple was part of what was necessary for Jews to be faithful to the Law of Moses that they’d been taught to uphold. How can Jesus be upset, then, by what he sees? How can he disrupt the scene he finds, and criticize the people who are selling and exchanging so that people can make their sacrifices to God?
“Take these things out of here!” Jesus shouts, “Stop making my Father’s house a marketplace!” Obviously, Jesus saw something going that he felt crossed a line. Instead of seeing people doing what was a part of the ritual of faith, Jesus sees a temple shopping-mall, and it makes him very, very angry to see what is most Holy turned into something most trivial, something used for personal gain, something that is all about the people and not about the worship of God. We don’t know specifically what makes Jesus so mad, or how he could see that people were abusing their roles, but we can guess that the vendors and moneychangers were using their positions more for their own benefit than for helping others to make right sacrifices.
Today, we may not have moneychangers and cattle available in the narthex, but I don’t think that gets us off the hook. I’m not talking about bake sales that we hold to raise money for United Methodist Women. I’m talking about a more pervasive systems that affect us. The Church as Marketplace has become not only more prevalent, but actually encouraged in many arenas. First comes to my mind the way that others market to the church. Last year, when Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ was released, the rest of the world suddenly seemed to wake up to the fact that people of faith represented somewhat of an untapped market for consumer culture. But when people went to the movie in droves, people in business paid attention. When The Passion was released, I received countless advertisements urging me to set up group trips to see the movie, or offering supplemental study guides to help in our appreciation of the movie. The same thing happened with this December’s release of The Chronicles of Narnia. Most recently, the success of the movie Madea’s Family Reunion has been attributed to aggressive marketing to churchgoers. The Church, it seems, is an untapped marketplace for big business.
But this type of meeting of church and market is less troublesome, I think, than when the marketplace-mindset comes from within the church, not from without. In seminary and since starting at St. Paul’s, I’ve read a lot of books about church leadership – how can a pastor effectively lead a congregation? More and more, authors would urge pastors to lead churches like a business – the “pastor as CEO” is one popular model. Some suggestions are certainly practical, but I still have a hard time picturing Jesus being called an effective CEO instead of the good shepherd. The problems go even deeper: other countless books focus on how to get the elusive potential churchgoer through the doors of your building, and how to keep them there after that. I can attend workshops on these topics, and seminars, and take classes, and find websites that are all devoted to marketing your congregation effectively. This is church marketing at its most tempting and alluring form. Don’t we want to encourage people to come here to St. Paul’s? Don’t we want people to attend more regularly and become more active? I certainly do. And if there are some things that I can do to make people feel more welcome, I want to do them. If there are ways our evangelism committee can reach out to those who are looking for something, I want us to find out how. If our worship services aren’t making people feel involved and connected, if they aren’t meeting the spiritual needs of our hearts, I want to know, to try something new. So I am happy to take help from resources who have fresh perspectives.
But I think there is a line that can be crossed. I recently read a story on the internet about a young man, a self-declared atheist, who posted his soul as “for sale” on Ebay. (2) People could bid on him and his soul, and the highest bidder got to take the man to church and try to wow them with their presentation of the gospel message. The young man’s reflections on his experience were intriguing. He visited a mega-church, one of the churches with thousands of members. He said he’s never seen a church with escalators before. He thought the preacher was charismatic. He found the music and the swaying to the music less pervasive. He enjoyed his experience, but I don’t think they won him as a convert yet. Apparently, he will continue to go to other worship services and give critiques of what he finds there. This, all for the bargain price of just over $500.
Good intentions? Maybe. I think the person who “bought the soul” of the atheist man probably thought this would give good insight on how to get people to church, how to reach them with the gospel message. But in the end, the gospel message is the gospel message. We can dress it up any way we want, but at heart, it is our message that matters. Our purpose isn’t to draw people in to get our attendance figures up. Our goal is not to draw people in so we can get more money in the collection plate. Our goal isn’t to have more people around to help out even with Sunday School or Mission projects. Our goal is to share the message of good news. If people aren’t drawn in by the message, we shouldn’t try magic tricks, or try putting on shows just to get people here. The gospel of grace is what we have to offer – that’s what we want people to come and see. The mission of the church is to make disciples of Jesus Christ. We can’t forget our mission, in the midst of trying to make discipleship sound better or different than what it is. Jesus was convinced that his message was good enough to stand on its own. No frills, no exaggerations, no special packaging. God’s love, and God’s call to discipleship. That’s it.
When Jesus walked into the temple and saw the moneychangers and the vendors, I think he saw something that had crossed the line. I think he saw people taking something Holy and making it something completely different – people trying to repackage God’s Holiness into a sellable product. But we can’t sell God – God has already offered grace as a gift, free of charge, to be given away. What we can do is ask ourselves how we can help to share the message, share the gift. So instead of trying to sell ourselves, let’s try to share ourselves, give ourselves as God has given God’s grace to us.
Amen.
(1) Idea for introduction from “Subtle as a Sledge Hammer,” by Dan Clendenin.
http://www.journeywithjesus.net/Essays/20060313JJ.shtml
(2) http://www.mmiblog.com/monday_morning_insight_we/2006/03/ebay_athiest_vi.html