I Will Raise It Up

Sure, we’re in Lent, but it is hard not to be thrown by the way John orders his Gospel. It seems too early for Jesus to be running into the temple with destruction on his mind. Doesn’t it? It’s only chapter 2, for heaven’s sake. And there is so much we haven’t done yet. Of course, we know that while Mathew, Mark, and Luke gave us insight into Jesus’ Galilean ministry, John is in a hurry to get to Jerusalem. So, even though we aren’t ready for this, here we are, cleansing the temple before we get to the teaching or healing or storytelling that we love so much. It’s almost as if Jesus – according to John – has an agenda, and it begins with worship. No, wait, it begins with right worship. Not right in form or structure, not right in genre or setting, but right in intention. Right in presence. We spend a lot of time worrying about the songs we sing and the words we say when we design worship, and we should! These are important matters. But here in the second chapter of John, Jesus is concerned with our hearts when we come to worship.

We could spend a lot of time debating what made Jesus so upset that he would turn over the tables in the temple. Some would argue that it was the whole system that he was rebelling against. We don’t need animals to sacrifice anymore; that was what he was here to do and to be. Others want to point out the injustice of the exchange and that the poor were suffering to have an offering that was considered pure enough to give. Added to this was the graft of the moneychangers and the system that designated some of the animals as worthy and others as not. It was rampant greed and far removed from the purpose of making sacrifices in the temple.

All we really need to do is to look at the words that Jesus uses, according to John. “Take these things out of here! Stop making my Father’s house a marketplace” (John 2:16 NRSV). The Common English Bible says, “a place of business.” The New King James Version says, “a house of merchandise!” And Peterson’s Message writes about turning the temple into a shopping mall. So, was it greed or cheating of the poor, or was it simply the transactional nature of the business of the temple that got Jesus all worked up? We could say it doesn’t matter, except that it does. Would Jesus turn over the tables of the youth group selling tickets to the spaghetti supper on Valentine’s Day? Would the mission team be in trouble for offering Ten Thousand Villages’ items or handmade bags from Guatemala? Of course not. Would they? Would he turn over those tables? What constitutes a shopping mall in the church these days?

There doesn’t seem to be a clear dividing line. What seems like ministry – and the sustaining of ministry - to one, feels like a capitalist intrusion to another. So, how do we know? When Jesus was challenged over his actions, he had an interesting response. True, this might be John’s reconstruction and theologizing after the fact. But these are the words we have. The leaders of the Jewish people and temple (which is what “the Jews” means in the Gospel of John. He never meant to lump the whole people into one statement. We need to make that clear when we preach these texts.) came to Jesus and said, “What sign can you show us for doing this?” What an odd question, don’t you think? I would have been shouting at him, or pulling out my hair, or calling the police. But instead of all that, they approach Jesus and ask for his credentials. And not his government-issued ID either. They wanted to see his prophetic credentials, his divine spark, perhaps. “What sign,” they asked him, “says you can get away with such outrageous actions?”

“Destroy this temple, and I’ll raise it up in three days.” Oh, that one. Because this is the Gospel of John, they missed it. John’s Jesus talks in more layers than an onion (or an ogre), and whether it is Nicodemus or the woman at the well, or this pack of leaders wanting credentials, it is hard to discern what Jesus is talking about. Standing in the temple, he says, “Destroy this temple.” You can’t blame them for going literal. But John tells us readers that he was predicting his own death and Resurrection. He was moving from building to body, from structure to being, from that thing there to this person here.

Maybe that’s the key for us as well. Worship is about Resurrection. We are being raised up as we gather and sing and pray and commune together around word and sacrament. So, we are asking the question about what we do when we gather: "What will raise us up?” What honors God first and lifts the people into God’s presence when we come together as the body of Christ? What distracts and demeans ought to be avoided. What elevates and gathers in is where we need to be. We live in a world that can destroy the body and the soul. If we are to stand against that which tears down, we need to consider how we are building up.

We have to be alert to distractions from our true purpose of worshiping God and building up the body. It doesn’t always have to be as obvious or sinful as preying upon the people through money changing or greed. In fact, it usually isn’t obvious. Yet, we keep alert to those distractions, nonetheless. Here in the Lenten season, we are looking forward to Christ’s resurrection, but we can also look toward being raised with him.