Mountain, Temple, Cross

Sunday, March 3, 2024 – John 2:13-22 Also Exodus 20:1-17, Psalm 19, 1 Corinthians 1:18-25

God’s Power on the Mountain

On the third new moon after the Israelites had left Egypt, they entered the wilderness of Sinai. And God calls Moses up onto the mountain and tells him the words that he is to speak to the people. But God also wants to be sure that the people trust Moses, and so God asks Moses to gather the people on the mountain so that they can hear God speak to Moses directly and then trust him.

To prepare them to meet God, Moses is told to take the men through various rituals of preparation. They must wash their clothes and not touch any women or the mountain itself for two days. It says that “On the morning of the third day there was thunder and lightning, as well as a thick cloud on the mountain, and a blast of a trumpet so loud that all the people who were in the camp trembled.” Then Moses takes the people to the foot of the mountain and the Lord descends upon it in fire and smoke, while the blast of the trumpet is getting louder and louder and the mountain begins to shake. They’re told not to look directly at the mountain or they’ll die.

Then God speaks the words of the commandments.

After all that drama, it’s no wonder that the people are left afraid and trembling. They even tell Moses they’d rather not hear directly from God any more, thank you very much. From then on, Moses will be their go-between.

Carl Jung famously wrote that “One of the main functions of organized religion is to protect people against a direct experience of God.” Direct encounters with the God of the universe can be disorienting, to say the least, and so we’d generally rather not have them because we’re afraid.

My question for this sermon is: Where does God try to meet us and what obstacles get in the way of that sacred encounter? In this story at Mt. Sinai, God wants to meet the people on the mountain, but fear becomes an obstacle to that encounter. Fear gets in the way, and the people ask for something to keep them safe from that experience.

God’s Grandeur in the Temple

Our gospel reading takes place in the temple in Jerusalem. This was Herod’s temple built to replace the first temple that was built by Solomon in 1000 BCE but destroyed in the Babylonian conquest of Jerusalem in 586 BCE. The temple was the center of Jewish life. Even if the second temple didn’t hold a candle to the first, it was still a site of God’s grandeur. It was the place to meet God.

But when Jesus enters, he sees money changers and animals and he drives them all out. Why does he do that? What is actually happening here? In this gospel, our translation uses the word “marketplace.” But believe me, it’s not about the ladies having a rummage sale or a flea market.

In Jesus’ time, the Temple was not just a place of worship. It was an economic and political hub with elaborate systems in place that were essential to the entire operation. But those systems took advantage of the poor. People in those days were required to come to the Temple during the Passover to make sacrifices to God. But they couldn’t bring their own animals all the way from home, and so they were forced to buy them at the temple.

Not only that, but they couldn’t even use their own currency to buy them, they had to use the temple money. Of course, the moneychangers charged fees for every exchange of currency, and we might imagine also that the animal sellers took advantage of the people as well.

In fact, we can see that this story is really about the abuse of the poor because of the way Jesus calls out the selling of doves as a problem. The doves would have been the cheapest animals available, and the only ones that the poor could afford.

What was the purpose of the Temple? Did God intend it to be a political and economic system that puts its boot on the necks of the poor? Is it meant to just be an impressive building of grand architecture? No. The temple was meant to be the place where the living God dwells.

What had become the obstacle to meeting God in the Temple? The religious and economic system itself had become the obstacle. It was now standing between the people and God, just as Moses did, but with even worse results.

Christ Becomes the Temple

According to Karoline Lewis in a blog for “The Working Preacher,” the whole oppressive system had become necessary for the survival of the Temple. This also means it kept the coffers of the religious leaders full. For those in power, the Temple system was necessary. But Jesus calls for the dismantling of the entire system. And then he says that the temple itself is no longer necessary.

The temple authorities ask Jesus by what authority he is doing what he does. When he says, “Destroy this temple and in three days I will raise it up,” they interpret what he says literally, as if he’s referring to the temple building rather than his body. But Lewis reminds us that “Jesus himself is the presence of God,” not the physical temple structure.

Think about it. When God was on the mountain, human fear kept us from experiencing God. When God was in the Temple, the religious system kept us from experiencing God. So Jesus says, I am now the temple where you meet God. And Jesus is neither frightening nor oppressive. We remember that he called the little children to him. We remember that he said “come unto me, all that are heavy laden with burdens.” Encountering God on the mountain may have been frightening. But encountering God in Jesus is welcoming, loving, and compassionate.

Jesus shows us there are no obstacles between us and God and we don’t need to buy our way into God’s favor with sacrifices. In Jesus we meet a God who is here as Love itself.

God’s Foolishness in the Cross

And Jesus is willing to go all the way to the cross to show us how much God loves us. It’s all about love. Another one of my favorite quotes from Carl Jung is this: “Where love reigns, there is no will to power; and where the will to power is paramount, love is lacking.”

Jesus doesn’t conquer the world through the will to power. He transforms it through vulnerable love, and this is in stark opposition to the ways of the world and its leaders. Jesus’ death on the cross is utter foolishness. As one of my professors in Chicago said, it’s “scandalous.” The cross isn’t about the wisdom of the world, it’s about God’s wisdom. God’s wisdom – of transforming the world through what is small, through what is weak, and compassionate – is foolishness to human minds but it’s the way that God works. God renews and restores through love, human and divine. As Michael Card writes in this song, Jesus is God’s Own Fool.